SMS Marketing: SendHub Lauches Mobile App – Puts Mass Text Messaging at Fingertips

SendHub App for iPhoneForget emails, IM’s, DM’s or other social media inboxes, sending text messages is still the quickest way to deliver a message en masse that just about guarantees the message will be received (and viewed) by anybody with a cell phone.

Small businesses who want to keep their customers informed on the latest news, and deals should seriously consider adopting a SMS marketing strategy, in addition to adopting new ways like social media to reach out to current and potential customers.

SendHub is a service that lets users create up to 1,000 sms messages/month for free. Simply create an account, select a phone number and “opt-in” keyword, and start sending out your messages. Recipients reply with the opt-in keyword for further messages.  Read More

Eventbrite Adds “At The Door” Credit Card Ticket Sales Devices

Eventbrite transaction screen on iPad

Obviously, mobile credit card processing is where it’s at. Case in point, the online event promotions and ticket sales giant (for the rest of us) Eventbrite has announced their mobile “At The Door” devices that let users buy tickets to events, well, at the door.

Eventbrite is a quick, easy, and less expensive way than its more popular competitors *Cough Ticketmaster Cough* to promote and sell tickets to your event online. You can set up an event in minutes, promote your event across social media networks, and track sales numbers and other analytics. At any event, there are people who will ignore all your attempts to get them buy tickets in advance, and will walk up to the door the day of the event and ask “can I still buy tickets?”.  Read More

Video: Dual Monitors On The Go With AirDisplay

AirDisplay

Speaking from personal experience, it is true that you’re more productive with multiple monitors. Now my setup at home is pretty dope, but there are times when I’m out an about and sure could use multiple screens to get things done, sans all the window switching.

An app that lets you use multiple mobile gadgets at the same time to be more productive is AirDisplay. Simply put, you can use your mobile device (iOS or Android) as a second screen for your desktop/laptop. (Mac or PC). Read More

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion Launched – Multiple Platform Mobile Device Management

BB Bold and PlayBook

The term BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) can be a nightmare for your companies’ IT guy who has to ensure that sensitive information being passed around via employee-owned mobile devices stays secure. On the flip-side, allowing employees to use their own gadgets for business keeps hardware and voice/data plan costs down while keeping employee morale high as they get to use the device they want.

Now that RIM has announced plans to “focus on its strengths” (a.k.a. the enterprise), look for RIM to offer more options to aid large corporations and small businesses alike with their mobile device solutions. Case in point, BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – A mobile device management solution built on renowned BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology that allows IT departments to manage company & employee-owned BlackBerry, Android, and iOS devices under a unified web-based console.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server is one of RIM’s crown jewels, so companies interested in deploying BB Mobile Fusion can do so knowing that their data is protected under the same BES 256-bit AES encrypted technology, as well as easy over-the-air app and installation capabilities for BlackBerry devices. Read More

Square Register is the best Point of Sale for iPad

Point of sale software on the iPad is nothing new, but it’s definitely worth a second look now that Square has released Square Register, their app for accepting both card and cash payments via your iPad.

The new Square Register should be ideal for a small business owner. Once you sign up for Square, you get a Square “Card Reader”, a little dongle that allows you to swipe credit cards. As long as you have a place to stash your cash, you can also take cash payments with just a tap of your touch screen. Read More

Box Cloud Storage for iOS adds App Compatibility Menu

Box One Cloud for iPad

Nowadays, picking a cloud storage service so your mobile devices can have access to the same documents as your desktop/laptop can very well depend on how many other mobile apps are compatible. The major cloud storage services recognize this and have made sure that the majority of the apps you already use to “get things done” play nice with their offerings.

Box just made it easier for users to discover compatible 3rd Party apps by releasing an update to their iOS apps that includes the OneCloud menu that lists and allows users to download all compatible apps. Read More

What’s Good? Mobile Device Management Tools with Military-Grade Security

In case you’ve been under a rock, modern mobilty is all about being productive everywhere.  As we also know, one of the greatest concerns in any business is security.  It’s obvious that these two forces work against each other in some ways.  Empowering your staff to be productive while on the go means the increased potential of exposing your company secrets.

For a long time, RIM’s Blackberry had a stranglehold on this market segment.  If you wanted secure email on the go, Blackberry was the answer.  However, the Canadian mobile maker has lagged behind the tech curve, and it looks like the market is finally catching up with them.  Increasingly, employees want to use their personal device for mobile productivity, but using personal devices for work presents a security risk for the business.  So, how can employees stay secure without having to carry a bunch of devices around with them, doing tasks based on which device can get the job done?

Enter Good for Enterprise.  Good for Enterprise is a suite of mobile device management tools with military-grade security for data loss prevention. Their collaboration features for iOS, Android, and Windows phone enable productivity without keeping your IT team up at night. Read More

The iPhone 4, still the device of my life

There are tons of great new devices out there, and there are even more rumors of greater devices to come.  Despite the revolutionary form and function of the iPad 2 and the siren-like draw of Siri’s voice, something about the “all in the palm of my hand” functionality of my iPhone 4 and the dreams of greater things to come has kept me using the same device for over a year and kept my upgrade money, so far, in my wallet.

Although I think that it is totally fun to tell Siri that you love her, or to ask her silly questions and  laugh at the answers, I don’t actually see a lot of utility in talking to my phone as an interface, especially since I don’t do much driving.  Outside of Siri, I feel like my iPhone 4 can do everything that the 4S can do, and for that matter everything that I need a mobile device to do.  I get my business and personal email all in one place, while the handy grouping of apps puts all of my social media into one small corner of my screen.  I can read all types of documents, handle all my faxing business, and can even hop on the command line of a web server.  And if you don’t have one yet, I believe you can get one for a lot less cash then the S model. Read More

Box Cloud Storage Teams Up with HTC & Offers 50Gigs Free for Android Users

box 50gb free space for android I’m still riding the Dropbox train, but all the waves that the folks over at Box are making in the cloud storage space is making it real hard to argue the pros of my little 8 gigs of free space with DropBox when Box is “closing deals” like partnerships with the new HTC devices being announced as I type this at Mobile World Congress, and dishing out 50GB of free space for all Android users.

Instead of trying to create its own cloud storage service like other competitors (namely Apple’s iCloud), HTC has announced that it has teamed up with Box to offer users of its new HTC One flagship smartphone 25GB of free storage free for 2 years. This also helps out Box gain momentum to go head-to-head with the likes of Dropbox, its widely popular competitor. If Box can successfully align itself with partners like HTC (like it’s done int the past with LG and iOS) by offering “can’t beat it with a stick” storage deals, Box might just stand a chance against the Dropbox Juggernaut. Read More

Launchrock helps your start-up make a website in minutes

As a developer, I always have a few web start-up ideas incubating.  And as the technology arm of a new venture, it’s up to me to get something put together quickly so that we can start building an audience and a name for ourselves.  At the same time, I have to balance that with quality and stability.  If you throw something up too fast, the technology (and sometimes the entire concept) may not be fully fleshed out, with embarrassing results.

Thankfully, I’ve found launchrock, a great new site that lets you toss up clean-looking ‘launching soon’ pages really quickly.   Read More