You know that guy that sits next to you on the airplane that still makes cell phone calls even though all the flight attendants told him to stow his belongings?  Yeah, that guy.  Well, if you’re flying on Air France, you can’t be mad at that guy anymore.  Bummer.

That’s right, Air France is going through a trial phase of allowing in-flight cell phone use for sending and receiving short messages or checking their email…in 3 months time, voice calls are going to be lumped into the experiment, assuming of course it doesn’t interfere with the comfort or well-being of other passengers.  Newsflash, it already is.

Actually, I shouldn’t be so harsh, as a member of the mobile generation I can fully appreciate the need to speak to someone when you want, where you want, and no mobile warrior is complete without that capability.  This will help in that regard but the true question remains…at what cost?  According to the article, to avoid navigation/plane operation issues here’s how it goes down:

“A small cellular base station inside the plane routs onboard calls and messages. Messages are sent to a satellite and then to the ground and the phone’s network. The service is supplied by OnAir, a company partially owned by airplane maker Airbus.” 

Groovy, but does that mean I want to hear about your meatloaf, your business deal, your schmoopy woopy or your love bug?  No.  It doesn’t, and No, it won’t.

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With more and more of us going online from a SmartPhone or a PDA, there’s a need to simplify the experience. There’s nothing that can plug up your productivity than finding that you spend more time organizing and navigating than actually working and learning.

And the truth is, doing some general housekeeping a couple of times a year is a necessary part of maintaining our online lives.

Here’s 4 things I recently did as a Spring (in the midst of summer) Cleaning exersize:

1) Started using the Subject Line of my emails more efficiently. Instead of replying to someone who wants my phone number with the number in the text of the email - I put it in the Subject Line. I got the idea from Jeff and Calvin over at Tech Republic and I can tell you - people getting their emails off a Treo or Blackberry really appreciate when you can put as much beef in the subject line as possible, and often respond in the same manner - my email ‘conversations’ have become much more clear and simple.  (Read their article for some more great email tips.)

2) Created a useful homepage. It was recently pointed out to me that I was spending too much time going to each site and blog that I regularly read for information. So I sat back and looked at my start page (I default to Yahoo, don’t shoot!) and decided to do it smarter. Using the MyYahoo feature, I was able to build a homepage that includes the RSS feeds of the last 3 posts from the 6 blogs I MUST read daily, plus ticklers for news topics I regularly track (’Bluetooth’, ‘IT Security’, etc.). I was able to keep the things I already liked - like top news from BBC and Reuters and stock quotes.

3) Cleaned out my ‘links’ folder. I did it by hand, but there was an easier way: With the help of software like AM Deadlink (get it here free), you can comb out the old links in your ‘favorites’ folder and keep just the ones that matter. I gave myself bonus points for organizing everything into a few reasonable subfolders.

4) Dumped the Instant Message clients I wasn’t using. While it is well and good to be available to your assoicates, clients, and management - these chat clients suck bandwidth and can even create security holes. It was time to weigh the reality of what I used and didn’t. An interoffice client like Sametime or Reuters plus one more should be enough. If it isn’t, look into combining on a platform like Trillian.

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