First off let me say, I am not an Apple fanperson. Never have been, never will be. The iPod touch is my first iPod device ever. I cannot say that I am in love with it, but I will definitely say that it is has proven nifty in more ways than one since I got it.

Ok, let’s get this out of the way: Video and Music. Videos are clear and smooth. You can use the built-in Wi-Fi on your home or office network to browse the web and YouTube directly. That itself is pretty smooth. You can also purchase music directly from the iTunes store over Wi-Fi and load them directly to the phone. Overall I’d say this is pretty similar to the experience I have on my Palm Pre.

One thing the iPod Touch has over my Pre, however, is the huge amount of applications available for it. I’ve been able to download apps for many things: Math Quizzes for my children, Duke Nukem 3D for my husband, oh, and also for toting around and viewing work related documents.

Another feature of the iPod Touch is that you can use iTunes to sync with your calendar. The iPod will already check your e-mail automatically for you whenever it detects an available Wi-Fi network. The ability to sync your calendar can be pretty useful, but I still prefer the automatic sync that my Palm Pre offers.

Over all I rate this device as 4 stars. If it was billed as only a game, music, and video device I’d probably have given it 5 stars. But with all the hype I was really hoping for something more useful for business use.

Tweet This Post

All of my kids are close in age (3, 2 and the baby), so the infant stage was still pretty fresh in my mind. But, it still took us some time to get used to the tracking and transfer of knowledge that comes with having more than one person taking care of him.

For example, I have to make notes so I can keep my husband in the loop about when the baby ate, slept, and had his diaper changed. Plus, because of some special needs, we need to closely track other things like when he took his meds, how often he spits up, contact with allergens (he’s allergic to latex) and any unusual behaviors.

I did pen and paper, and tried emailing the notes from my BlackBerry, but it’s just annoying and time consuming to keep track like this. Not to mention on the days we’ve had the grandparents help out…I swear, I had to write pages of notes to make sure they knew everything they needed to know.

So I found this site — Baby-connect.com — which seems to have solved my problems. It’s a free site that lets you track and share vital information about your baby. Here are some features of the site from their website:

• Easily track feedings, diapers, sleep, activities, mood, temperature
• Easy to use! Log entries with just a click
• Easily view entries from current and prior days
• Email reports to spouses, doctors and nannies/sitters
• Upload photos
• Enter free-form notes
• Indicate and modify the time of an entry
• Upload child photo, indicate birthday, blood type and allergies
• Bottle size Unit: oz or ml, Time Format: am/pm or 24
• Track as many babies as you like
• Setup as many parents and caregivers as you like
• Send entries to twitter
• 60 built-in activities descriptions
• Display real time log of activities during the day

And here’s a screenshot:

I signed up and have been playing around…I’m really impressed with the functionality. I’m especially intrigued with the iPhone app since I may be making the move from BlackBerry to iPhone soon. But more on that in my next post.

Anyway, pass this site on to new parents or even those who have multiple caregivers for their older children. It’s a time and sanity saver!

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

So, if you’re like millions of people around the world you resolved as the new year came in to get healthier.  And, if you’re trying to get moving and watch what you eat what better way to help you with that then some apps for your BlackBerry to help you along.

Most weight loss experts will tell you (and most people who have successfully taken off weight will agree) that keeping a food journal is a great help in watching your food intake.  Being the geek that I am I have a few requirements for my food journal:  1.  It needs to be “techy cool” 2.  It needs to have a web and blackberry sync 3.  It needs to be easy to use.  I’ve tried some computer based applications, I’ve tried BlackBerry only applications but I want something with both options.  Well, I found one and it’s FREE:  Calorie Counter by FatSecret.  FatSecret has an iGoogle add-on or you can use the website.  It also has apps for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and iPod Touch.  I love this app (and website) for helping me track my food.  Calorie Counter is available for free at the BlackBerry App World.

FatSecret also keeps track of your exercise and calories burned but to help me track my walking, cycling, and running I use Bones in Motion.  It has a website to track your cumulative mileage, etc.  But, the BlackBerry app (also free) uses the GPS capabilities to track your average speed, distance, time spent walking, and the amount of calories it estimates you’ve burned.  It can also give you audible warnings at certain mile markers if you desire.  One cool feature (if you like to go on long excursions) is a tracker online that you can give your family.  It’s password protected so it’s not like anyone can see where you are but if you have the app running your family can track where you are on your walk/run/ride (I will admit that I haven’t used this because I haven’t had a need to have someone know where I am — but it is a cool feature — I wouldn’t mind if my friends who do the Ironman triathlon had this so we could figure out where they are).   Bones in Motion is free and available at BlackBerry App World as BiM Active.

So, here’s to a healthier, happier, and thinner 2010!

Tweet This Post

Resources:
Flip Video Camera: http://www.theflip.com
Jamie’s Blog: http://www.blogjamieblog.com
Zoobuh Kids Email: http://www.zoobuh.com

Tweet This Post

So, how can you keep your BlackBerry happy?  QuickPull.  One quirky thing about the BlackBerry is that it needs a soft reset every once in a while to keep it running at it’s best.  To do a soft reset you have to do a battery pull which isn’t fun when that means peeling off your cool case and pulling the battery out.  Well, there’s a super cool free option — QuickPull.  You can schedule a soft reset when ever you want it (mine is scheduled daily at 3AM).  QuickPull is available at BlackBerry App World (which if you don’t have that on your BlackBerry get it NOW).

So, what is BlackBerry App World?  It’s the official store for BlackBerry Apps.   There are 100s, heck maybe 1,000s of apps for your BlackBerry on here.  You can download it to your phone to browse at your leasure.  Some apps are free some have a fee.  The nice thing is that most have reviews written by other users so you can see what people are saying before you try it out.  You definitely want it on your phone, though.  Nothing like being on a long car ride and needing a new game for your nephew (or yourself) and being able to click-click your phone and provide some quick entertainment.

Tweet This Post

About Spreeder

Spreeder is an online speed reading utility to help train you to read faster. It does this by flashing words at a rapid rate, which helps in three ways:

1. Reduce subvocalization
2. Increase chunk comprehension
3. Eliminate backreading

You can read more about it and access a tutorial here.

How to Use Spreeder

The Spreeder website is super simple and at first glance, it may not be clear exactly what you should be doing, so here’s a really easy rundown:

• Go to www.spreeder.com.
• Paste any text that you want to use for your practice in the box on the screen and click spreed!

Once you get the hang of how it works, you can play around with the settings:

From the settings menu, you can change things like how many words per minute are flashed, the chunk size (number of words flashed at a given time), and background color.

The background color was a biggie for me — for some reason, I thought the black text on white was brutal. I changed my settings so the text was a dark gray and the background a lighter gray. Much easier on my eyes!

There is also an advanced settings option that lets you change things like speed variability, pauses, skipping “stopwords,” etc.

It’s a really cool tool for anyone who wants to learn how to read faster (and become more productive in the process). Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? Give it a try!

Tweet This Post

Of course you can use the screenshot functionality included in your operating system (Apple Grab on a Mac, and the print screen function or Snipping Tool on Windows), but if you want a little more functionality, here are some really cool (and free) tools to check out.

Screenshot Tools for Windows

Cropper: A simple screenshot tool that lets you take screen grabs and crop out sections you don’t need.

MWSnap: An installation-free screenshot tool that can capture your entire desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen.

Snippy:  An installation-free tool for Windows XP that allows you to take screenshots of a page, even if you have a dual monitor setup.

Webshot: A tool that allows you to take screenshots in Internet Explorer and save them in JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP formats.

Screenshot Tools for Macs

Paparazzi!: A small utility for Mac OS X that takes screenshots of web pages.

Skitch: Take screenshots, do some light modifications, and annotate with text, graphics and more.

SnapNDrag: A tool that lets you take a screenshot by just clicking a button and dragging the window. Supports PNG, TIFF and JPEG.

Cross-Platform Screenshot Tools

Jing: A powerful program that not only lets you take screenshots, but record screencasts and audio. From TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia.

Screengrab: A Firefox add-on that captures a full window, the entire page, just a selection, or a particular frame and lets you save the images either to a file, or to the clipboard.

Tiny Grab: A tool that instantly uploads your screenshots to easily share online. Free version is limited to 10 uploads per day.

What’s your favorite tools for capturing screenshots?

Tweet This Post

I always get a kick out of watching those YouTube videos that my friends forward to me. Well, someone’s taken this concept and created a more practical application to show and sell homes. Your clients don’t have to be a professional videographer to shoot video of a house, rental property, yacht, mobile home – whatever you can live in!  Simply shoot a video and upload it to ViewThisHome.com.

Show before you go!  This is a mantra for the ViewThisHome.com folks.

Join the video revolution to let potential renters or buyers view properties online and make a more informed decision to either eliminate them from consideration or go check it out in person.  It’s convenient and you can promote it as a “Green Solution” – less driving around, less wasted paper, etc.

Use of the site is free for everyone – just start an account, upload videos and you can begin promoting your properties immediately.

Obviously, this is a great idea for real estate professionals to enhance their brand awareness, interact with clients and gives them the ability to embed the videos into their online marketing materials.

Share this with your real estate clients!  Go to ViewThisHome.com today and see how you can become the “star” of a network of property videos.

Tweet This Post

Then last year, I decided to become a bi-platform professional. I kept my Dell XPS desktop and got a MacBook Pro as my portable machine. It was one of the best moves I could have made for my business, and I have found that I am most productive and efficient when I use both computers in tandem.

One immediate benefit of the dual systems is that the setup lets me avoid file format issues with clients who are on Windows platforms. I don’t have to worry about saving in a compatible mode or testing conversion of my files before sending work off to my clients.

Of course, my Mac gives me the best-of-the-best when I’m designing. Plus, it’s just more visually appealing to me when I work on my Mac. While I tend to favor my Mac for these reasons, I have found having constant access to a both computers lets me take advantage of software that works in only one of the platforms. There isn’t really any software out there that I can’t use in my business.

On a logistics level, having two machines available to me at all times means I can double the number of apps I can have open at a time without overloading either machine. And I do! Plus, I can use my PC for running things I don’t want to check all the time – like HootSuite for keeping up on Twitter – so I know it’s there, but it’s not getting in the way of my other work.

One thing that makes me most productive is the backup system I have in place. My files on both computers are automatically synced as I work, so if I need to bounce around from computer to computer, I don’t have to worry about wasting time transferring files. I think I would be slower and less efficient without my current setup…but what do you think?

Do you or would you ever consider using both platforms in your business?

Tweet This Post