DigitalFanGirl

I ran across itookthisonmyphone.com; an application for BlackBerry Curve and Pearl users. With itookthisonmyphone, there is no longer any need to manually transfer and post photos taken on your BlackBerry. You simply install the itookthisonmyphone software on your BlackBerry Curve or Pearl and start taking pictures. So, this sounds like a pretty good tool to have on your Curve or Pearl. They say all you need to do is take a photo and it will automatically post to your itookthisonmyphone.com account.

Here’s where I think they are missing the mark. The fact that you can have your photos uploaded automatically is wonderful, however, I don’t want my photos being uploaded to a photo gallery within itookthisonmyphone.com. I want the ability to have my photos automatically posted to my flickr, tumblr, twitter, facebook account and/or one of my blogs; like Twitxr allows users to do. If my photos are uploaded to this photo gallery on itookthisonmyphone.com I still have an extra step(s) in that I now have to transfer those pictures to where I wanted them to be posted in the first place.

I’ll have to keep my eye on them to see if they add these automatic integration options for flickr, tumblr, twitter, facebook account and blogs. Until then, I’m gonna have to pass.

For those who don’t know what Ning is; it is an online service that allows you to create, manage and join social networks for free. I think Ning is a great service, especially since it’s free and you can basically set up your own social network in 5 minutes. That’s pretty impressive. Ning also offers a ton of features within the social networks; video and photo sharing, the ability to post mp3 files and create and join groups within the social network. Many of the features are much like those of Facebook (without all the 3rd party games), but Ning offers greater flexibility, including the option to have your social network page branded (I believe there is a fee for branding).

Here’s the one thing that I really hate about Ning because it’s so darn annoying. Each time you join a social network, you are given a new profile page. So, I belong to four social networks and for each one a new profile page was created for me. This is a total pain in the butt. It’s a total duplication of effort. You’re essentially regurgitating the same information on each profile page.

It would be so much easier (from a page management standpoint) if I had one profile with my associated groups and networks within it. Aside from that one totally annoying factor,I think Ning is great service.

I ran across a site today called Six Groups that looks like it may be some competition for Ning. Ning allows you to create and manage your own social network and join other networks. It’s pretty flexible and gives you the option to upload photos, images, audio and video. Surprisingly, the video on Ning pages play immediately and have pretty good quality.

Looking at Six Groups, it appears to be a Ning clone (I don’t mean that in a bad way). Six Groups also allows you to create and manage your own social networks as well as join other social networks. I have not signed up for this service, so I am not sure if it is as flexible as Ning. For instance, Ning lets you brand your page and choose to make your social network public or private. Not sure if Six Groups gives you all those options, but at first glance, it looks like a Ning-type site.

The one thing I don’t like about Ning is that when you join other social networks on Ning, you always have to create a new profile page. It would be so much easier if it allowed you to have a main profile page that was used across all social networks you joined on Ning. It’s kind of a pain recreating your page everytime you join a social network.

So, we’ll see how Six Groups measures to Ning. I’ll be keeping an eye out.

Thumb drives are great devices that allow you to carry around a ton of files, photos, music and video in a very small sized device. So small in fact, any clever thief could grab your thumb drive, copy all of your data and return it without you even knowing. Well, that would suck BIG TIME. Ironkey may be the solution to that problem. The Ironkey thumb drive holds up to 4 Gigabytes of data, but includes a hardware encryption chip that scrambles the data so as to be completely unreadable without a password. Passwords cannot be hacked on the Ironkey;

10 incorrect password attempts, and the encryption chip self-destructs, making the contents of the flash drive totally unreadable. The contents of the drive are filled with epoxy, so if a hacker tries to physically access the chips, he’d more likely damage them instead. Even if he did get access to the memory chips, they’d be worthless without the encryption chip. Electron-shielded, even a scanning electron microscope can’t get inside.

This Ironkey sounds so awesome, I plan on buying one and giving it a whirl myself.

Check out the Ironkey demo.