Friday, December 21, 2007
Dashwire Finally Invited Me!
Posted by Jon Westfall in "SOFTWARE" @ 06:02 AM
Way, way, way back in October (Well, I guess it wasn't too long ago, but it seems like it), Jason posted on Dashwire, a service that promised everything and the kitchen sink for Phone users. I signed up for an invitation and promptly forgot about the service, until today when I got my invite.
Dashwire offers this blurb on their homepage:
"Some things are just easier to do on your computer - Dashwire automatically mirrors the content on your phone to the web, helping you access and share your mobile experiences–no cables required - Send and receive text messages from your computer • Automatically upload photos and videos from your phone Back-up your contacts • Single click phone set-up • Share mobile experiences with your friends"
And from the looks of my service so far (I'm uploading my data now), it's pretty sweet. Obviously I'll have more info in the coming days, but I figured I'd publish my impressions now and if you're interested, you can email and ask how the service really works.
Read On for More
So my first impression of the service is "Gee this is slow!", of course it is uploading basically everything to the internet. Call logs, contact pictures, SMS messages, the who shebang. The client on my Smartphone is very minimal - it actually resembles Activesync's monotone progress bar and cryptic messages like "Looking for changes".
Now the client on the phone shouldn't give you the impression that the service is minimal. When I logged into the desktop interface at dashwire.com, I was greated with a very comprehensive dashboard, listing my recent text messages, call logs, pictures and videos from my phone, and more. Where Dashwire really impressed me was the little things I could do with the interface. I could drag the boxes around to fit my tastes. I could hover over a contact and, if it were a cell number, send a text message. I could even open my pictures and rotate them if necessary.
Dashwire also supports creating a "sharing" page so that you can easily share your content with your friends. This isn't a big deal for me - I can easily email my photos straight to my websites and such from my phone, but for a traditional phone - this could be a godsend. Lastly, Dashwire obviously is of best use when you have an unlimited data plan, and I can see where using it with a rated data plan would quickly run up charges - after all, it basically mirrors your phone to its servers.
Overall the service looks very promising for mobile users, even power users like myself who can backup phone contents easily and automatically sync my contacts and such to an exchange server. In the future, I'd love if Dashwire introduced a desktop client that would sync the information on their servers to my PC so I can easily have an automatic backup of my phone's pictures and such, without having to use the Windows Mobile Device Center to import them.
If you've got general questions about the service, their FAQ is quite helpful. Feel free to post specific questions below, and I'll try to answer them.
Dashwire offers this blurb on their homepage:
"Some things are just easier to do on your computer - Dashwire automatically mirrors the content on your phone to the web, helping you access and share your mobile experiences–no cables required - Send and receive text messages from your computer • Automatically upload photos and videos from your phone Back-up your contacts • Single click phone set-up • Share mobile experiences with your friends"
And from the looks of my service so far (I'm uploading my data now), it's pretty sweet. Obviously I'll have more info in the coming days, but I figured I'd publish my impressions now and if you're interested, you can email and ask how the service really works.
Read On for More
So my first impression of the service is "Gee this is slow!", of course it is uploading basically everything to the internet. Call logs, contact pictures, SMS messages, the who shebang. The client on my Smartphone is very minimal - it actually resembles Activesync's monotone progress bar and cryptic messages like "Looking for changes".
Now the client on the phone shouldn't give you the impression that the service is minimal. When I logged into the desktop interface at dashwire.com, I was greated with a very comprehensive dashboard, listing my recent text messages, call logs, pictures and videos from my phone, and more. Where Dashwire really impressed me was the little things I could do with the interface. I could drag the boxes around to fit my tastes. I could hover over a contact and, if it were a cell number, send a text message. I could even open my pictures and rotate them if necessary.
Dashwire also supports creating a "sharing" page so that you can easily share your content with your friends. This isn't a big deal for me - I can easily email my photos straight to my websites and such from my phone, but for a traditional phone - this could be a godsend. Lastly, Dashwire obviously is of best use when you have an unlimited data plan, and I can see where using it with a rated data plan would quickly run up charges - after all, it basically mirrors your phone to its servers.
Overall the service looks very promising for mobile users, even power users like myself who can backup phone contents easily and automatically sync my contacts and such to an exchange server. In the future, I'd love if Dashwire introduced a desktop client that would sync the information on their servers to my PC so I can easily have an automatic backup of my phone's pictures and such, without having to use the Windows Mobile Device Center to import them.
If you've got general questions about the service, their FAQ is quite helpful. Feel free to post specific questions below, and I'll try to answer them.
