Category: Small Biz Applications

BlackBerry PlayBook App: Track Shipments with The Big Package

by BrothaTech

Looks like we have another mobile device to write about. So we might as well get cracking on the BlackBerry Playbook tablet and find some cool and useful apps that you and your business can benefit from if you decide to spring for the gadget.

The Big Package app goes out to all of those “e-tailers”, ecommerce folks, and mom-and-pop shops who routinely ship packages to customers. The Big Package will track all of your UPS, FedEx and USPS packages in the same place. No need to go to each vendor website and type in the tracking number every time you want to see the latest update.

The main features of The Big Package are that you can save multiple tracking numbers; and add custom names to tracking numbers for quick retrieval every time you open the app. Unlike your average tracking sites that just spit out text results, The Big Package shows your shipment en route via Google Maps in addition to a details page that offers specific notes about your shipment. In other words, The Big Package doesn’t just tell you where you package is, it also shows you too!

Even if you’re not a business that ships products and just obsess over where your package is the second after you have purchased it, The Big Package is a free app to download to the BlackBerry PlayBook. So click this link to download the app and rest assured that you know exactly where your packages are.

Improving Apple

by Justin Alcon

I love Apple products. There, I said it. However, as comes with the fanboy territory, many of us have started to notice small things that we would change about our favorite iOS features.  Over at Apple Matters there’s an article about just this – in particular, how certain apps for your iOS devices can be replaced with something better.  The highlights:

Their list starts with Instacast, which does a better job of managing and finding podcasts than searching through the iTunes Music Store on your iPhone.  Podcasts represent a surprising share of iTunes traffic.  I can see why when I look at the really great ones like The Complete Guide to Everything, Laughing Historically, and the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. If you don’t have a favorite, you should definitely go exploring.  Similar to Instacast, although it is not on the list at Apple Matters, Stitcher is quickly becoming the most popular way to manage podcasts among my friends.

Next comes PhotoSync, which wirelessly syncs your photos between your iOS device and computer. If it only synced everything (not just photos), this would be a real game-changer.  Stil,l if your mobile life involves a lot of photo management this could really help you out.

Finally, they list Stash Pro, an image management application. It’s more expensive than the other apps we’ve discussed at $3.99, but it does allow you to download images directly from websites. Plus, you can add keywords, titles and ratings to images for superior organization of large sets.

I’d be amiss if I left my latest favorite Apple hack out of this post. It doesn’t come from the list over at Apple Matters, and it isn’t a software hack: it’s Applecores.  Pictured with this post is the cool, affordable little solution to my biggest Apple beef: tangled headphone cords.  You all know the story- you neatly wound your headphones and put them in your pocket, only to later you pull them out and boom! A bird’s nest of tangles and knots!  Well, no more.  Applecore offers their simple and effective solution for the Apple cord tangle for only a few bucks- a bargain, in my opinion, to be freed from the daily headphone de-tangle.

Intuit GoPayment for iPad

by Justin Alcon

Earlier this week, Terrance gave us the skinny on Square being sold at Apple stores. So now lets take a look at some of Square’s competition!  Enter Intuit’s GoPayment for the iPad, a mobile payment application that gets you paid on the spot using your iPad to process customer credit cards.  Yesterday, the company announced that the iPad app is now available to the general public over at iTunes.

GoPayment’s new layout takes advantage of iPad’s larger, high-resolution display and multi-touch interface (highlighting the devices superiority to is little cousin, iPhone, in this department). It also includes new features intended to enrich the user experience by integrating images and interactivity.

GoPayment uses the free Intuit Credit Card Reader.  GoPayment has actually been around for years, but only recently started to target the small business market (Square’s main share) namely, businesses without merchant accounts or who don’t already take credit cards.

Expect several other competitors to this market in the near future. However, Square should be most concerned about Intuit since Intuit already has trusted relationships with millions of businesses through QuickBooks and a few advantages in the way that payments are processed.

Blackberry PlayBook: A New Kind of Tablet?

by Shy Mukerjee

With Apple holding a near-monopoly of the Tablet market (currently at 73% market share) , and Honeycomb-based Android tablets finally hitting the market, is there room for a brand new platform?  RIM, creators of the BlackBerry series of smartphones, seems to think so, this week releasing their Wi-Fi only PlayBook tablet running a custom-designed operating system and architecture.  With prices starting at $499 for the 16GB model, is the PlayBook a legitimate 3rd option in a market in which Apple had nearly a year head start?  Today, we take a look. Read More

Latest Evernote for Android Update goes BIG

by BrothaTech

Quoted from the Evernote Blog:

This is the first time that we have crammed this many great features into a single release of any Evernote product

In other words, Android folks who swear by Evernote as their go-to “put everything here” service should be in for a nice surprise the next time they check their app update status. Just a few key features include:

  • A progress bar at the top that shows you exactly what is being synced
  • A new ever-so-sexy widget bar that lets you quickly jump into the app to create text, audio and snapshot notes, as well as to perform searches
  • Maps and location. Now in addition to just tagging your notes with location information (if your phone’s GPS in enabled), you can now see all of your notes locations visually on a map.
  • Posting notes directly to your Facebook wall, Gmail, and Twitter accounts in just a couple taps.
  • Browse and edit shared notebooks. If other Evernote users have shared notebooks with you, you can now search for notes within those shared notebooks and edit them if necessary.

Those are just some of the features that come with the free Evernote version. Premium subscribers have the extra functionality of a PIN lock that enables you lock your data with a pin. This comes in handy when you share a mobile device (like a tablet) with multiple users, but still need to keep them away from your data.

The Evernote Blog claims to have even more features in store for Android users. With all the current features and capabilities currently being offered for free, there is no reason why you can’t stay organized on the go. But just in case you don’t believe me, download Evernote for Android and try it for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usUg-CdJEKo&feature=player_embedded

Access Stored Mozy Data on your iPhone or Android

by BrothaTech

For the record: I am Dropbox ’til I die (or until something better comes along).

Mozy: a familiar name in the cloud backup/storage game may just be that “something better” with its iPhone and Android app that gives users access to their stored data and more.

On its face, the Mozy app just appears to be a way to view files that you have backed up to your Mozy online account. But there is much more functionality that appears once you dig a little deeper. In addition to just browsing files, you can:

  • View backup history for all devices linked to Mozy Account
  • Share files via in-app email or post photos directly to Facebook Wall
  • Full resolution photo downloads to device

Similar to Dropbox, up to 2GB of Mozy storage space is free, as well as the mobile apps; but, while Dropbox is more geared towards file storage/synchronization (that you could use for backup purposes), Mozy is still a trusted name dedicated to full device backups of your computers. The Mozy app just gives you additional access to files backed up to your account.

If that’s the case, maybe you don’t have to choose either Dropbox or Mozy, use both:

  • Dropbox for complete data synchronization across all of your devices
  • Mozy for complete off-site data backup management for your laptop/desktop computer.

Visit Mozy Mobile for more information and download instructions for your device.

Jailbreaking

by Justin Alcon

Greetings from the beautiful French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana! In the grand French tradition of Jean Valjean, today our topic is ‘jailbreaking’. If you’ve recently jailbroken your device for the first time, or you are thinking of jailbreaking your device, you probably don’t know where to start. Luckily, Brian Sweet over at Cult of Mac has written an in-depth post on his six favorite things about jailbreaking.

The highlights:

  • Custom themes personalize the look-and-feel of the iOS platform. The themes include custom elements for nearly every part of iOS. Most notably, you get cool sounds, widgets, and wallpapers.
  • SBSettings is an easy and fast way to turn certain functions on and off, including 3G, Wi-Fi, location services, Bluetooth, and more. This is great for easily managing battery life and security.
  • An alternative to the built-in Folders feature of iOS, “FolderEnhancer” can enable subfolders, add pages to your folders, scroll through the icons in your folders vertically or horizontally, and improves the performance of folder organization generally.
  • Jailbreaking opens up the entire filesystem for you to browse. iFile is a simple, yet powerful, tool which does just that. Capabilities like web server managment, Bluetooth file sharing, fie compression, and emailing support make iOS a much more powerful data platform.
  • An alternative to the default iOS notification system, LockInfo brings various notifcations quickly to your lock screen and has tons of improvements over the standard iOS notifications system.
  • Lastly, there is biteSMS, a replacement for the standard messenging app. The most notable feature is the ability to reply to text messages without leaving the app that you are currently using. This combined with the improved notification system is a big time saver for all you multi-taskers out there.

So if you are into taking risks, or just like to tinker with things, you might consider a jailbreak for your iPhone. Like they say: information wants to be free, so why not unlock it?

Bing for iPad

by Justin Alcon

Good news everyone! Good news, at least, If you’d noticed that the Bing iOS app was great for iPhone but left something to be desired when used on the larger iPad. It appears that Microsoft was listening, and they’ve released a new version of Bing designed to make the most of the iPad’s larger screen. The app works well with both iPad and iPad 2.  iOS 4.2 is required, and it brings an arsenal of new features tempting us to try it.

The ‘trends’ area serves up the most often-searched terms on Bing. A dedicated movie searching section will help make your theatergoing decisions easier, and multiple map views provide turn-by-turn directions and real-time transit info that will help you make your show on time. Weather updates for up to five cities are delivered via MSN Weather.  There’s a Bing ‘Voice Search’ option as well which is pretty useful for web searching while on the go. The price is right for all these features- it’s free. I’m sure that the folks over at Google have taken note!

<a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&#038;from=sp&#038;vid=bf79720b-2fce-4f05-b880-21793cd62bd9&#038;from=en-us&#038;fg=dest" target="_new" title="Touch and Decide: Introducing Bing for iPad">Video: Touch and Decide: Introducing Bing for iPad</a>

Hashable App for iPhone and Android: Throw Away your Business Cards?

by BrothaTech

If you’re a heavy Twitter user and own an iPhone or Android device, chances are you meet enough people in the same boat that you could simply use the Hashable app to connect with people, trade contact information, and grow your network without having to hand out business cards like a robot.

After you’ve done your chit-chat/elevator pitch at an event, immediately following up via Twitter (“Hey, it was to good to meet up with @[Twitter handle] tonight at blankety-blank event”) a is the popular way to go. Sometimes finding a Twitter name, following them and/or sending out a tweet in the middle of a conversation can produce 50/50 results via your Twitter client of choice. Hashable looks to smooth out that process by letting you set up your profile ahead of time and trading information in just a couple of clicks. Hashable also includes several pre-defined hashtags (hence the name) that you can choose from to quickly send out a “guess who I just met” Tweet without all the fuss.

Once you’ve made the connection and added their contact information to your iOS or Android device, Hashable can help you grow your network by seeing who your friends are connecting with – There may also be a potential match there for you as well. If you feel that there’sa person in your network you think someone else should meet, you can “Send Intro Tweet” by picking the people you want to introduce, and adding a quick message. Bam! A Tweet will go out and @mention both parties. All this is done in the Hashable app without all the clutter or steps you would have to navigate through to handle the same task via your Twitter mobile client.

There is much more functionality in Hashable that I haven’t touched on, including a leader-board to see who is making the most connections, so you will have to download Hashable for the iPhone or Android and toss those business cards!

If you just love your business cards to death, you can add a QR Code to your business cards and make them interactive…but that’s another post for another day.

Add a Schmap to a Tweet to Get Traffic to your Business or Event

by BrothaTech

If you’re a small business, you should be on at least ONE of the many social networking sites…It’s FREE MARKETING AND PROMOTION for Pete’s sake!

My favorite site is Twitter for social media business marketing – word spreads FAST, and there’s nothing like a little word of mouth wildfire to bring attention and traffic to your business or event. Many apps/services like Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, etc. cater to local businesses in hopes they will actually start to pay attention to their social media patrons.

A cool service I found is schmaps/schnaps and it enables you to add maps and pictures to Tweets to drive attention/traffic to your business or event. Instead of creating yet ANOTHER social media account, schmaps integrates with Twitter and immediately gives you options to add an address or venue name and one image (schmap), or import multiple images from your computer or via Flickr to a tweet (schnap).

So instead of tweeting “Doing BIG things over @ Big Things Bar & Grill on 3rd & Pratt St.” You can actually create a schmap by adding a map complete with an image/flyer of your location or event and a map indicating exactly where it’s located to your tweet. If you want show your Twitter followers what a good time folks are having at your event, you can add up to 8 images to a tweet to create a schnap.

In both cases, a schmap.it url is created and added to your tweet, so users can click (or tap if they are mobile) to see your additional information.

Additional features include:

  • Adding additional links, Hashtags, or your own ads
  • Preview your schmap/schnap before sending
  • Allow visitors to add comments or RSVP on your schmap.it site

Schmaps also offers a free iPhone app that lets you create, edit, and manage schmaps/schnaps from your mobile device.

As far as cost, All of the above is free to use. A $9.95 monthly upgrade to Schmaps PRO will add a TON of additional features, including metrics tracking, turning off schmaps ads in tweets, permanent tweet scheduling, and more.

Don’t be afraid, social media sites are safe to use for business marketing and promoting. With FREE services like Schmaps, you’re just being silly it would behoove you to get on board and take advantage of all the additional avenues to bring business to your doorsteps.