Category: Small Biz Go Mobile

Want to be the first to score a custom designed Moto X? Sign up now!

by Shy Mukerjee

custom moto x from attFor your new Moto X smartphone, you can choose from only two colors for the front device (white or black), but when it comes to customizing the rest of your phone, you have hundreds of combinations at your disposal. Exclusively from AT&T, you’ll be able to select from 16 backplate colors, 7 accent colors for the buttons on your phone as well as the ring around the camera. And the phone comes in two different capacities, 16GB and 32GB. You can even get it custom engraved on top of that!

How do I get a Custom Moto X?

Orders start soon, and while the phone will be available on multiple carriers, only on AT&T will you be able to totally trick out your phone. Want to be first in like to snag a custom Moto X? Head on over to AT&T’s Moto X microsite and sign up today. That’s the only way to ensure that you’ll be one of the first customers to purchase and design a Moto X any way you please before it officially launches. Read More

Microsoft Releases Office for Android Phones

by Katherine Elsasser

Microsoft Releases Office for AndroidOn the heels of its June release of Office for iPhone, yesterday Microsoft made its venerable Office product line available for Android phones. It’s been a sticking point for mobile professionals that the most common word processing, spreadsheet, and slideshow programs were inaccessible on the most common mobile devices. But now we’re able to have Word, Excel, and Powerpoint with us on the go.

Sort of. Despite the ubiquity of smart phones the last few years, Microsoft didn’t make its most popular applications available for a good (to Microsoft) reason: until now, Office products were only available on Windows phones, and Microsoft had hoped that the popularity of those applications would drive users to phones that used their operating system.

And even though Microsoft has finally offered Office on different platforms, they’re still banking on the popularity of Office to pull users further into the Microsoft experience. For one, these aren’t exactly stand-alone applications. Unlike their Windows Phone or Windows 8 counterparts, they require a Microsoft 365 subscription.

And while you can email attachments, syncing and cloud storage is only available through Microsoft’s SkyDrive or SharePoint. Finally, these apps are only supported for the iPhone and Android Phones– there’s no comparable support for iPads and Android Tablets.

Of course, the news isn’t all bad. While you can’t create new documents with the iPhone or Android Office (also unlike their Windows Phone or Windows 8 counterparts), you can edit existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files online through the Microsoft services and offline. The editing capabilities for Excel seem especially robust. Check out some of these features from the Microsoft Office for iPhone help:

  • Find text within a workbook
  • Apply filter
  • See the sum, average etc of a range with AutoSum
  • Sort selected data
  • Add, delete, and display comments
  • Format cells
  • Clear cells
  • Undo/Redo
  • Share files via email

On top of it all, the interface is easy and intuitive, and the documents, spreadsheets, and slidshows look good to boot. This isn’t just to make it easy on your eyes: in a crunch, a pocket projector and your smart phone are all you need to give a professional looking presentation.

So while it isn’t quite time to toss out your laptop and start running your business through your phone, you can at least make changes to your work while you’re on the go.

HLN: Know your neighbors and use Nextdoor.com

by Shy Mukerjee

According to a June 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, only 29% of Americans know some of their neighbors and 28% know none of their neighbors by name! So this week through this weekend, Mario Armstrong is appearing on HLN to talk about what YOU can do to meet and get to know your neighbors and use that knowledge to better connect with people, reduce crime in your neighborhood, and just keep tabs on what’s going on!

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Mobile Perks: Google to Offer Free WiFi at Select Starbucks

by Katherine Elsasser

Google offering free WiFi at StarbucksThanks to Google, every entrepreneur’s favorite second office—the coffee shop—is about to get a major pick-me-up. Google announced yesterday that it’s partnering with Starbucks to bring free WiFi connections to all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks stores.

There are over 13,000 Starbucks stores in the US, some of which are franchised, so it’s possible your favorite Starbucks will be passed over. But if you see “Google Starbucks” as an available network, you’re good to go.

This is more than just free internet. Google promises that wireless connection speeds will be up to 10 times faster than the wireless connections previously offered by the coffee shop. And for those cities that have Google Fiber (so far just Kansas City, but coming soon to Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, and a few other cities), they plan of having speeds up to 100 times faster. So whether you’re uploading video or just listening to music while you work, your wireless experience will be zippier and more seamless.

This isn’t Google’s first experience with free WiFi: they’ve been offering the service in their home city of Mountain View, California, for a while now. They also offered free wireless at certain Starbucks after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.

The incentive for Google is clear: with free, fast internet, more eyeballs can linger on Google’s advertisements, whether through search, YouTube, or elsewhere. The move makes sense for Starbucks, too, increasing the draw for customers to pop in and grab a coffee (or a few, if they plan on staying awhile).

Is Your Mobile Site Too Slow?

by Doug Sillars

doug sillars at&t networking exchangeDoug Sillars is a Sr. Product Development Engineer at AT&T. You can find more blog content from Doug and other experts on emerging technologies on the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog. AT&T has sponsored the following blog post.

AT&T Networking Exchange

Performance, Perception, And What Speed Really Means To Your Brand

We’ve all done it.  Clicked a link on our mobile device, but loading the link takes forever, we click back to the app we were using, and never go back.  Or, we’ve visited a webpage, but all of the links take too long to load, and you go on to your next task.  What happens when your site is slow?

A recent survey by SOASTA shows that it is more important for the site to always work (72%), be fast (62%), and perform as expected (53%) than it is for the site to be fun (38%).  Even more telling is that when your site is under-performing, 88% associate a negative feeling with your brand!  Obviously, performance is growing in importance for your mobile brand.

So we know how slow sites feel to us as an end user, and we know perceptions of the end user to slow sites.  How do we make sure that OUR customers do not behave this way with OUR content?

I think the first step is to understand what “forever” or “too long” means to users.  A review of website load times from 2004 shows that once you hit one second of load time, there is a perception of delay, but no effect on user habits.  If your site does not load before 10 seconds, you have lost the attention of your customers and they are not likely to continue (or return to your site).  So it appears that our goal is to hit 1 second (or really darn close) to load our site.

In addition improving the speed of your site, there is a perception of speed.  Steve Souders points out that making your page/app appear to load faster will keep users around for a longer time.  By adding progress bars, or spinners, you can keep your users engaged, and more forgiving of the long load time.

In conclusion, slow websites can cause your customers to curse (23%) or throw (4%) their phone.  Make sure that your mobile presence keeps your users engaged, and their screen in one piece.

Have you considered how long it takes your website to load? Have you taken steps to improve performance or the perception of speed?

 

$35 Google Chromecast device beams music and movies to your TV from your smartphone, tablet or laptop

by Shy Mukerjee

Chromecast is a little device you plug into your TV that allows you to seamlessly connect video and audio from your smartphone, tablet or even laptop to your television and home stereo system. And you can buy one for just $35, a price affordable enough to connect up every TV in your home. You can order it today at Amazon, Best Buy, and play.google.com. It will also come with 3 months free of Netflix.

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Google Introduces the New Nexus 7: New design, display, and price

by Shy Mukerjee

At their press event today, Google introduced an updated version of their Nexus 7 tablet. Building on the success of their original tablet, the new version offers several key upgrades that should continue to expand the Android tablet market.

While this updated version is still made by Asus and features the same 7″ display size, the design has been changed to more closely mimic the thin bezels first seen on the iPad mini. This new Nexus 7 is a narrower tablet that weighs less than the original.

The price is new too, slightly more expensive than the $199 the original Nexus 7 is selling for. The 16GB version goes for $229, the 32GB version costs $269, and a 32GB model with4G LTE will sell for $349.

On sale next tuesday, July 39th on play.google.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Radio Shack, Amazon and more retailers.

But what’s inside is the biggest update here. The display, still 7″, has been updated from a 720p screen to a hull HD 1080p screen, so the Nexus 7 can now boast that it has the world’s highest resolution for a 7″ tablet at 323 points per inch.

Needless to say, text and images will look much sharper on the device now. Read More

Three Tips for Using Frequent Flyer Miles

by Katherine Elsasser

Being in business often means traveling for business. And if you’re traveling a lot, you’ll want to make sure you’re signed up to get rewards for it! There are tons of tips and tricks out there for accumulating and spending points, but here are a few basics to remember, and one great website to check out.

1. Pick the Right Program
While it can’t hurt to enroll for the frequent flyer program from any airline you use, it makes more sense to pick an airline and “concentrate” on it. That means knowing what airline you’re most likely to use, either because they have a strong presence at your home airport, or fly often to your most common destination city. If you’re traveling often, you’ll know which airline offers the best deals and routes for you.

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Is VPN The Next Big Thing For Tablets?

by Sander Biehn

Sander Biehn is an account manager with AT&T. You can find more blog content from Sander and other experts on mobility on the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog, where this post originally appeared. AT&T has sponsored the following blog post.

using tablet for business
How to get it all done – safely – on your tablet

It is only my second full week of working exclusively on my tablet, and I have been steadily and consistently surprised by what applications have been the greatest assistance to me. One of the biggest surprises has been the VPN client. By using the VPN and the resources attached to it, I have skirted many thorny issues that I experienced working on the tablet. These include printing, Microsoft document retrieval and manipulation, and access to such systems as our CRM platform, which does not have a mobile interface or login routine.

Klaus Brandstaetter blogged recently on SecurityInfoWatch.com about the increasingly important role of the VPN for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) users from the point of view of the IT team. He rightly explains the overwhelming desire not only for employees to access corporate data on a mobile device, but also for that device to be personally owned. Brandstaetter outlines the pitfalls for IT, which include security breaches and the effects of malware on the worker productivity. But many of these threats can be avoided by using VPN. This is Brandstaetter’s main point. While he addresses IT’s concerns, I thought the benefits to the end user were still vague.  I would like to add to his work by outlining the ways in which the VPN can assist a highly mobile end user. After all, for any strategy to work in the world of BYOD, it needs to be beneficial to both IT and the end user.

1. Getting it all done on the tablet

My first week and a half was full of frustration as I tried app after app to bridge the gap around documents. An inherent problem for tablet users is the lack of an easy way to store and manipulate documents. The solution came from a post on our Salesforce Chatter help desk about RDP Remote Desktop Lite. I downloaded it, and could securely see all the files on my laptop and was even able to manipulate, save, and send them. Here is the biggest news: I can send documents to the printer from this app too. The VPN solved more #tabletchallenge problems than any other single application. Who would have dreamed that was possible?

2. The big scare…not so scary

I spent the weekend in Miami at a friend’s wedding. It was extremely handy to have my laptop at the pool Friday night to catch up on the several hours I missed on Friday in transit. Upon arriving home, I couldn’t find my tablet! The normal panic started to subside when I remembered that there really wasn’t anything stored on the device. Unlike a laptop, I wouldn’t lose documents and files (of which there are quite a few) that were stored on the actual device. Luckily it turned out that my son had removed it from my bag and was looking at some of the photos I had taken at Miami beach. The sense of freedom I felt not being dependent on a personal hard drive was amazing. I knew I could access the things I needed from any device that I have VPN access on.

3. The VPN leading the cloud revolution

As witnessed above, we all have some letting go to do with respect to keeping files and work applications with us locally. I think we are still recovering from a time when the network was not always as reliable. With Cellular and WiFi networks at every street corner, we can now relax. Working each day with a mobile device — with no practical way of holding any document files at all — has made my reliance on the cloud complete and non-negotiable. I have to tell you that it is especially comforting, because I am often carrying my tablet outside the office (see the #tabletchallenge FreestyleFriday gallery) and I really don’t need to worry about my device being stolen, broken, or attacked by malware. I am therefore more likely to bring my device along which means I have the ability to be more productive.

Working exclusively on my tablet has really turned my world upside down. By using to the network and the cloud many of my initial problems have been solved. The one thing I am still getting used to is remembering to keep my tablet charged. I was just forced to leave a very comfortable chair to move to another spot closer to an outlet in order to finish typing this blog post!

Keep up to date with my progress under the Twitter handle @sanderbiehn and #tabletchallenge.

In what other ways might VPN help the mobile user? How do you think mobile VPN will affect BYOD adoption in the Enterprise?

 

CUBED: Work smarter on your smartphone with “Documents to Go” app

by Mario Armstrong

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: entrepreneur Jodie Yule is constantly traveling and working from her smartphone, but needs a way to get even more done while on the go. Right now, she’s juggling an endless stream of office documents coming in, but she has to wait until she’s back at the office to work on anything. Since she has a smartphone on her all the time, wouldn’t it make more sense if she was able to squeeze some work in during all those little moments in-between deliveries of her product, a weekly newsletter delivered to restaurants and coffee shops called “Coffee News”?

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