Some folks have asked what my most-used apps are, so here ya go. They’re in order, with the iPad first:
Category: Tech
Room planning, in a browser!
Gruber on new AT&T data plan
http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/good_and_bad_regarding_att_data_plans
Apropos of the iPad vs. Mifi discussion I’m having with a lot of people. Tethering on the iPhone or iPad could solve a lot of headache, including one’s landline Internet being down. We’re gonna pay for it, but it should be worth it. I’m quite hoping tethering is not a contractual subscription. Month-to-month I can swallow.
L5 Remote – Turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a Universal Remote
http://www.l5remote.com/
I can’t wait to install one of these!
Grabbing DVD and Flash video
RT wrote:
“We would like to integrate more forms of media (DVD, Youtube etc.) into our keynote presentations.”
Out of curiosity, have you yet familiarized yourself with tools such as Handbrake and the various YouTube video downloaders?
http://handbrake.fr/
TubeTV is an example of a downloader. Of course I recommend to starr with freeware:
http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/ Haven’t tested this one, but it’s the basis of apps like that:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070420014456930
http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/ Haven’t tested this one, but it’s the basis of apps like that:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070420014456930
Found the right remote-support solution
I’ve been using GoToAssist for a couple of weeks. It’s the only remote-support service I’ve found that has a reasonable price and doesn’t require the client to download anything. Just a couple of clicks and I’m in! Way better than VPN or LogMeIn or iChat or anything!
Cash for your gadgets
http://www.gazelle.com/
Enter your gadget model (e.g. “iphone 3gs 16gb”), tell ’em what condition it’s in and whether you have the original cables (e.g. “good, makes calls, no to A/C & cables”), and they’ll tell you what they’re gonna pay you ($190 in the previous case). You say “Great!”, they send you a box, you send them the gadget, they send you a check.
If you’re a non-profit organization, Gazelle will give you a page through which donors can send their gadgets, and Gazelle will give the money to the non-profit.
Stellar.
Frost Mobile Expanded to Include Text Messaging
Yet another reason I love banking at Frost:
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We are excited to introduce the addition of text messaging to Frost Mobile, our mobile |
I just tried it. If I have a payee named, say, Bob Brown, I can give him the nickname “bob,” and text “pay bob $200.” Done! I love that. Boffo, Frost!
Rackspace’s newer, more affordable services + backup calculations
For the longest time, I had the perception that using the top-shelf service of San Antonio’s own Rackspace came solely at a top-shelf price. But their non-Exchange Rackspace Apps email service, at $2/user/year for 10GB email accounts, is the price level I’ve been seeking for non-free (read: non-Google Apps) hosted email. It’s a number my clients can quickly figure.
I have not yet tried the apps myself, but I wanna get these bookmarks up now, cos I think I’m going to be referring to them a lot:
http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email/
http://www.rackspace.com/apps/backup_and_collaboration/online_file_storage/ Now, the data backup service — http://www.rackspace.com/apps/backup_and_collaboration/data_backup_software/ — is through Amazon S3, currently the go-to host for unlimited online storage. S3 exact pricing is found at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing but we can sum it up as $0.15/GB (gigabyte)/month storage, and $0.10/GB transfer each way. So… Say you have 50GB of data on to backup. It will cost 0.15×50 = $7.5/month storage, and 0.1×50 = $5 to get all your data backed up the first time. Now, let’s suppose you change 200MB (megabyte) of your data each day. That’s 0.2×0.1 = $0.02/day, or 0.02×30 = $0.6/month. And after 5 months, you’re paying another $0.15/month for storage. OK, that’s an easily affordable fee for most healthy businesses to afford. But what if you have more? Say, 400GB: 0.15×400 = $60/month storage, and 0.1×400 = $40/first transfer
0.1×1 = $0.10/day for backing up 1GB/day, which after an average month is an extra $3. 60×12 = $720/year, growing by $36/year, is going to be totally fine for some, but it’s enough to give many business owners pause. Nevertheless, it’s among the cheapest cloud storage out there, excepting services such as Carbonite. I’ve been recommending and installing Carbonite $5/month “unlimited” service, but I was disappointed to run recently into their 200GB ceiling, above which they throttle upload to 1GB/day. So maybe we use Rackspace for the bigger data stores. OK, enough numbers. I just needed to get those up here. Point being, Rackspace has some good stuff to look at, and I’m going to see how it goes with them. A couple of clients have already signed up. And, BTW, apropos of a previous post, I like Rackspace’s “What is…?” page, too:
http://www.rackspacecloud.com/what_is_cloud_computing
http://www.rackspace.com/apps/backup_and_collaboration/online_file_storage/ Now, the data backup service — http://www.rackspace.com/apps/backup_and_collaboration/data_backup_software/ — is through Amazon S3, currently the go-to host for unlimited online storage. S3 exact pricing is found at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing but we can sum it up as $0.15/GB (gigabyte)/month storage, and $0.10/GB transfer each way. So… Say you have 50GB of data on to backup. It will cost 0.15×50 = $7.5/month storage, and 0.1×50 = $5 to get all your data backed up the first time. Now, let’s suppose you change 200MB (megabyte) of your data each day. That’s 0.2×0.1 = $0.02/day, or 0.02×30 = $0.6/month. And after 5 months, you’re paying another $0.15/month for storage. OK, that’s an easily affordable fee for most healthy businesses to afford. But what if you have more? Say, 400GB: 0.15×400 = $60/month storage, and 0.1×400 = $40/first transfer
0.1×1 = $0.10/day for backing up 1GB/day, which after an average month is an extra $3. 60×12 = $720/year, growing by $36/year, is going to be totally fine for some, but it’s enough to give many business owners pause. Nevertheless, it’s among the cheapest cloud storage out there, excepting services such as Carbonite. I’ve been recommending and installing Carbonite $5/month “unlimited” service, but I was disappointed to run recently into their 200GB ceiling, above which they throttle upload to 1GB/day. So maybe we use Rackspace for the bigger data stores. OK, enough numbers. I just needed to get those up here. Point being, Rackspace has some good stuff to look at, and I’m going to see how it goes with them. A couple of clients have already signed up. And, BTW, apropos of a previous post, I like Rackspace’s “What is…?” page, too:
http://www.rackspacecloud.com/what_is_cloud_computing
Article: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash – Charlie’s Diary
The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash – Charlie’s Diary
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/why-steve-jobs-hates-flash.html
(via Instapaper, which is soooo cool. Just bought Instapaper Pro [iTunes link] for the iPad. Makes reading the web fun and practical.)
I’ve about had it with on-site servers, especially the over-spec’ed variety. IT people think they have users over a barrel, and it’s only a matter of time before people wise up and discover how much they’ve been robbed, by technicians who don’t advise people about the most cost- and time-efficient uses of technology. I reserve judgment on whether the consultants don’t keep themselves educated out of laziness or selfishness.
I just spent two days bailing a business out of a wrongly configured server (it’s always DNS) — and that server was hosting their mail. I set ’em up with Google Apps, just because I needed them to have email while I was retooling their server. I’ve asked them to hang onto it for a while and see how they like it. At the very least, it’s still going to be the best method for calendar syncing. Meanwhile, I am anxious to work with them on finding alternatives for those time-worn, ubiquitous, and bothersome legal-practice apps such as Timeslips and Pro Docs. (A search for something like “legal” in Google Apps Marketplace is always fun.)
jjmarcus tech solutions 
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