Category: Small Biz Go Mobile

New MacBook Air Challenges the Idea of a Mobile Device

by BrothaTech

We can all agree that whole idea behind a laptop is the notion that you can work from anywhere…including your lap (but I would keep an eye on the heat if you’re planning on having children). As long as you have an internet connection, you can do the same things on a laptop that you can using a full desktop computer, but just in a smaller package. I have never really thought of a laptop as a mobile device…until today when Apple released its newest version of the ultra-portable and ultra-advanced MacBook Air.

The reason why I excluded a laptop from the mobile device category was because even at their current smaller sizes, they are still kind of a pain to lug around. Additionally, with their longer than RIGHT NOW boot up times, and not-so-long battery life, I would much rather browse my favorite websites, check Twitter & Facebook, and send a couple of emails using my smartphone or tablet. I am assuming Apple took that to heart when refreshing and upgrading the new MacBook Air. Its features include:

– Lightning fast Intel Core i5 and i7 Processors with speeds up to 1.8GHz

– Flash storage that’s always on and doesn’t need to “boot up” like traditional Hard-Drive storage

– Multi-Touch trackpad that gives the MacBook Air smartphone-like gestures

– 5-7 Hour long-lasting battery that can stay in standby mode for up to 30 days

Add all of those features up and combine them with the MacBook Air’s compact size weighing in at just under 3 POUNDS for the 13″ version (but with the same sturdy Aluminum body found on the MacBook Pro) and you’ve got yourself a device that might just have you second-guessing purchasing that tablet device.

Apple is so confident that the compact and ready to go MacBook Air will be the go-to device for entry-level fans and enthusiasts, that the traditional MacBook (you know, the white one) is being phased out and replaced by the MacBook Air. You may be able to get a refurbished model if you’ve always lusted after the white MacBook that has been the “it” Apple computer for the better part of a decade. But with all the extra features at half the size, the MacBook Air (Shipped with the new Mac OS X Lion pre-installed), might just make you want to spend the extra dough ($999 to $1,699) and spring for the “new hotness”. The new MacBook Air is on sale now online and at Apple Retail Stores.

Google+ Wants Your Small Business

by BrothaTech

A couple of weeks ago, SmallBizGoMobile writer Nick Muntean wrote a piece outlining reasons why he thought the new social networking site Google+ is Not Yet Ready for Business. Maybe Google read his piece, because recently, the company has rolled out its plans to let businesses create Google+ profiles, similar to a LinkedIn or Facebook Page.

Google is planning to run a small beta experiment within + with a select group of businesses that will enable them to create a business profile and try out tools and features aimed at productivity and further sharing news and information about the business/brand. Google product manager Christian Oestlien announced on YouTube that the Google+ business profiles will include “things like rich analytics and the ability to connect that identity to other parts of Google that businesses might use on a daily basis like AdWords.”

So imagine if you already use Google Apps for Business. The ability to share your documents, email conversations, calendar events and other Apps data/content with individual users or all of your businesses Google+ Circles may push Google even higher up on your “One stop shop for ALL your business needs” list. Furthermore, a Google+ profile may be even more valuable than your LinkedIn or Facebook business profile due to the possibility that more than just sharing information and connecting with other users may be happening over on your businesses Google+ profile.

Currently, that’s all speculation due to the fact that the Google+ for business beta hasn’t rolled out yet. But you can’t help but wonder: Will a Google+ personal, profession or business profile be worth the trouble of adding yet another social networking site to the list of stuff you have to manage? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Priceadvice tells you the value of used items

by Justin Alcon

Previously we’ve discussed ways to use your smartphone to save money when shopping for your business.  Although we all know you have to spend money to make money, no one wants to spend any more than they have to.  Enter priceadvice.com, who can deliver instant values for used items.

So, what’s the benefit of priceadvice.com? Here’s an example.  I work at a growing company, and it’s a really cool place.  As a really cool office, they provide snacks for us in the kitchen area.  One of the most popular snacks is soda (my favorite is the lemon lime seltzer water).  As our company grew in size, we quickly outgrew the capacity of the office fridge and needed something larger.  Our COO hunted around the kitchen supply district near Chinatown and found a big glass-door cooler, used.  This piece of equipment was perfect for our needs, but we had no idea what it was worth.  No problem.  We just pulled out the old iPhone and went on over to priceadvice.com, put in the name of the cooler, and instantly could tell if we were getting a fair deal.  The only thing that could make this process easier would be if I could just take a picture of the item and know its value; although amazingly, sources say that this is a feature that priceadvice.com is currently working on.

The other thing priceadvice.com works for is selling.  Sometimes in business, you end up with perfectly good items that no longer meet your needs.  For instance, after our recent office move we found ourselves with some great furniture that we no longer had a use for.  Again, priceadvice.com to the rescue.  We knew exactly how much to ask for these items, which in turn makes it faster and easier to sell.  People are more likely to buy your used things when the price is fair, ie, not too high to be unaffordable and not so low that it gives off scam-vibes.  So, if you’re buying or selling used items, use your phone to check the value on priceadvice.com. It could end up saving you a bundle of time and money.

Is “Hacking” Devices Good for Business? Let Us Know!

by Nick Muntean

I’ve been curious about the Xbox Kinect system for quite some time, and last night, I finally bit the bullet and purchased one.  Simply put, it’s a fantastic device, with flawless voice recognition and an innovative use of physical gestures to control the Xbox environment.  My decision to finally buy a Kinect was largely spurred by a recent Wired article about how the Kinect has been a massive game-changer for robotics researchers, as the device can easily be hacked, turning the game controller into a sophisticated, integrated array of field sensors that previously cost close to half a million dollars.  Microsoft, in a decided break from its longstanding animus towards hackers, has embraced this secondary market for the Kinect, recently announcing that it will release a software development kit to allow users to integrate the Kinect with their Windows 7 PCs, and even more recently, announced that they would soon offer a full-fledged robotics software development kit, as well.

Microsoft’s attitude towards the Kinect is emblematic of a larger sea-change in the electronics industry, with an ever-growing number of companies handing consumers the keys to their previously “black-boxed” products.  Cellphone giant HTC, for instance, has pledged that all of its phones will ship with unlocked bootloaders, thereby allowing users to easily root their phones, and access features and functionality unavailable within the stock mobile operating environment.  All of these developments got me wondering; how do small businesses feel about “hacking” the products they use on a daily basis?

Perhaps “hacking” is too strong a term for the type of activities I’ve outlined above, wherein manufacturers themselves are opening their products to allow a far greater degree of user customization and control.  While such developments may be wonderful for individual end-users, it seems as though the implications of this “Great Opening” might be mixed for small business and enterprise clients, as this increased flexibility can bring issues of intra-system compatibility and compliance along with it.  If you’re a small business owner with five employees who are always on the road, rooting their Android work phones to allow free wireless tethering might seem like a great idea, but what happens if those devices no longer qualify for warranty replacement?

As a small business owner or employee, what have your experiences been with “hacking” and “rooting” work-devices?  Any success stories?  Any horror stories?  Tell us your experiences in the comments section, and we’ll include them in a future follow-up to this post.

Small Biz Tips with SmallBizTechnology.com

by Shy Mukerjee

We are pleased to work with Ramon Ray, CEO and editor of SmallBizTechnology.com, journalist, and technology evangelist, to bring you new Small Biz tips. Each week they’ll be sharing videos and articles featuring hot topics, products and trends in small business.

Smallbiztechnology.com on the Mobile Tech Tools SMBs Can Use

Increasingly, the development community has fashioned mobile programs for small-business owners, recognizing that on-the-go is simply part of running a modern enterprise, according to Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com.

“They’re all about speed, efficiency and serving customers better,” he said in the Wall Street Journal. “They enable small businesses to do big things.”

Let’s take a look at how mobile technology affects small business marketing and poll results.

iTwin: Secure Remote File Sharing With USB Gadget

I’m a long time user of Dropbox, for file sharing. I know others of you use, SugarSync, YouSendIt and other tools. I also use Carbonite for remote file access. Now, there’s  new kid on the block, iTwin.

iTwin is not an online service but it’s a product, in fact a double sided USB drive. You plug one end into computer “A” and the other end into computer “B”. Once both ends of the iTwin USB drive are plugged in you can share files stored on the iTwin drive of one computer with the iTwin drive of the other computer.  Pretty neat and simple. Watch a video about iTwin and read more.

Are You Backing Up Your Data? Here’s Why You Should

Sixty percent of small businesses that lose their data go bankrupt because of that data loss. Those are able to recover their data successfully spend anywhere from $2000 to $8000 per megabyte. Why go through the trouble, and take the risks, when the solution is as easy as backing up your valuable data?

“Have the peace of mind that your data is secure,” said Danesh Rao, Business Unit Manager for Small Businesses at Intel Home Storage. “It should be a no brainer.”

Rao said that small and medium-sized businesses are realizing the value of a good storage system.

Wyse Pocket Cloud is Powerful, But Hard to Set Up

by Justin Alcon

When I saw Wyse Pocket Cloud at a recent tech show, I was initially very excited about it.  It’s designed to give the user complete access to a cloud, their PC, Remote Desktop Services, Terminal Server, VMware View or virtual machine from their mobile device. In short, it’s meant to give full access to any kind of computer or personal storage from your phone or tablet.

With Pocket Cloud, IT administrators can securely administer end-user machines remotely. When managing a large numbers of computers, or when you have users in many locations, this can be very handy.  Pocket Cloud also allows a user to continue working on their machine remotely when traveling. PocketCloud accesses any physical or virtualized infrastructure that supports the Microsoft RDP or VNC protocols. Additionally, Pocket Cloud is VMware View 4.5 Certified and supports VMware View 4.5 connection broker in direct and tunneling modes.

PocketCloud keeps your sensitive data secure using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology and they’re implementing newer technology as well.  One real “get” is that it allows a backdoor way to access flash content even from an iOS device since the flash is actually running on the remote machine.

This all sounds pretty appealing, right? However, I found the product extremely cumbersome to set up. As a matter of fact, as of writing this I haven’t been able to see this product actually work.  Now, don’t get me wrong; I saw it working at the product show booth. At the booth, it was everything that the demonstrator promised. However, when I installed it on my personal machine I met with frustration and failure – not a good feeling to associate with a new product!

The app and companion software were easy to download and install on my machine.  Everything ran as expected and all the lights turned green on the interface.  So, I fired up the app on my iPhone 4.  It seemed to automatically detect my laptop where I had installed the companion software, so I tapped the icon of my computer.  The connecting indicator spun for a while, and then I got an error message that wasn’t helpful (pictured right).  I searched their knowledge base for solutions, but was met with a hard-to-search database filled with dense technical documentation.  Protip – the harder a user has to work to find easy and understandable product support, the more likely they are to just throw their hands in the air and give up.  I’m sure that if I spent a few hours working on this I could get it going (I am, after all, a software engineer) but I just can’t call this “easy to set up”.  This may be a great solution for enterprises with a dedicated IT staff, but if you aren’t super tech-savvy this solution may not be ready for your small business just yet.

Google Voice Spam Filtering Stops Telemarketers In Their Tracks

by BrothaTech

One of the cool (and free) little services I use for my business is Google Voice. My GV number is what I use as my “official” business number…but I set it up to ring to my smartphone. That way, I don’t have to give out my personal number for business, and I don’t have to worry about missing a call since my phone is always with me…always.

Now SkyNet Google has added global spam filtering that let’s you stop telemarketers from reaching you if they happen to find your GV number. If your number was recycled by Google, this setting will stop folks that hassled the person that owned the number before you as well. By enabling the feature, Google will catch already recognized spam by Google (or other users).

Simply log on to your GV account online, click the “Voice Settings” cog in the upper right corner, go to the “Calls” tab and click the “Global Spam Filtering” check box. All spam recognized by the system will skip your inbox and go straight to the spam folder.

Since a Google Voice number is still a phone number, telemarketers will still try to sell you windows, siding, free vacations (if you SUFFER through a timeshare presentation) and everything else under the sun. At least now you have a weapon to push those persistent so and so’s to your spam folder.

[via Google Mobile]

Smartphones are Taking Over America: What New Research About Smartphone Market Share Means for Your Business

by Nick Muntean

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released the results of a new survey yesterday, which finds that 35% of American adults own a smartphone.  Moreover, 68% of smartphone owners use their device to access the Internet on a daily basis, and 25% use a smartphone as their primary device for accessing the Internet.  With smartphones clearly on track to become a ubiquitous device, it’s worth thinking about what the current state of smartphone adoption means for small-business owners, especially those who primarily operate Web-based retail operations.

It’s probably no surprise that smartphone adoption is currently highest amongst the young and the wealthy, but it’s still worth taking a look at some hard numbers: 59% of adults in households earning more than $75,000 a year own smartphones, and 58% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are smartphone owners.  Interestingly, it seems that age is a stronger indicator of smartphone ownership than income, as ownership rates among 18-29 year-olds living in households earning less than $30,000/year is equal to the ownership rate of those living in households earning the national average (which is roughly $45,000/year).  Smartphone users are, by and large, absolutely giddy about their devices, as evidenced by the word cloud Pew created based on their respondents’ descriptions of their devices (fig. 1).

So, for small-businesses who heavily rely on their Web presence to generate revenue, what does this all mean?  For starters, maybe it’s time to stop creating “mobile” variations of your website—which are often little more than stripped-down, functionality impaired versions of the full website—and focus instead on making the main website more easily navigable by small-format touchscreen devices.  Eschew the Flash-heavy splash pages and complicated drop-down menus, and offer a clean interface that scales seamlessly from Android smartphones, to iPads, to Windows 7 desktops.

If you’re thinking about creating mobile “apps” to allow users to access your online business, consider whether the development costs are truly worth it; if the app can provide features and functionality not readily attainable through traditional website (such as location-aware offers, or integration with other mobile apps), then it might be worth it. Otherwise, those development costs might be better spent streamlining and enhancing the main website (as argued above).  Even the venerable Amazon, for instance, has fallen into the mobile-app-trap, as their general Android app doesn’t really improve upon the Amazon experience available through the stock Android Web browser, and is therefore largely unnecessary.  BUT, Amazon’s MP3 Store and Kindle apps are brilliant, as they allow easy mobile access to particular portions of Amazon’s offerings, and integrate seamlessly with other apps and functions on users’ mobile devices (the MP3 store app, for instance, can download music purchases into whatever music player you might be running on your smartphone).

The takeaway: Pew’s research shows just how quickly and deeply smartphone devices are being integrated into our daily lives, and we can infer that, based on their relatively small touchscreens, these devices are being used more for consuming than producing (if you need to create and manipulate a large spreadsheet, you’re probably going to do it on a full-fledged laptop or desktop).  Throw tablets (another device category designed primarily for consumption) into the mix, and we’re suddenly talking about a majority of users’ online commerce experiences occurring through devices that (typically) can’t run Flash, have awkward text-input interfaces, and do a poor job of scaling large-format websites.  The mobile online experience is no longer a “developing market,” it’s now rapidly becoming the dominant path through which consumers are engaging in online commercial activity.  Stay ahead of the curve, and treat “mobile” as the new norm for website design and development.

The Mobile Hotspot Elevate Will Be AT&T’s First 4G/LTE Device

by BrothaTech

AT&T has announced today that the first device capable of working on its 4G LTE/HSPA+ wireless network will not be a smartphone or tablet, but rather a mobile hotspot that can connect your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to the carrier’s faster 4G network soon to deployed sometime later this summer in select cities.

A mobile hotspot, for those that don’t know, is a device that creates a Wi-Fi network that you can then connect other devices, just like your wireless network at home or in the office. Unlike your router, however, a hotspot delivers data access just like your smartphone does, over the carrier’s cellular data network. The big difference between older, 3G hotspots and the new Elevate 4G device will be speed. 4G data transfer rates are considerably faster than 3G speeds. Exactly how fast? Well, we’ll have to wait to get a device in our hands to find out.

The AT&T Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G needs so software to get all your mobile devices up and running on 4G. The handy LCD screen on the front will walk any user through setup. Have multiple devices that need that stupid-fast connection? Up to five users or devices can connect to the Elevate 4G over Wi-Fi.

Finally, if you’re an international jet-setter, the Elevate 4G lets you stay connected even when traveling the globe…just be ready to fork over for those international roaming charges.

There is no official word on when AT&T will roll out smartphones capable of handling the new 4G network (my safe guess would be the next generation of the iPhone), but if you are an AT&T fan looking for even more speed (and possibly more reliability), then you can get a 4G capable device in your hands soon. Head on over to AT&T’s site to sign up to get a notification when the Elevate 4G becomes available.

Central.ly – Maybe Your Business Doesn’t need a Website?

by BrothaTech

“Your business needs a website” is what just about EVERY person will tell you when dishing their $.02 cents about running a business. Maybe your business doesn’t need a website. I know that’s a pretty cavalier statement, but what if all you REALLY need is a web presence? Central.ly wants to be your businesses professional landing page that you can set up without any coding knowledge.

The hook to Central.ly is how easy it is to set up. Similar to the about.me service that gives users the ability to create a personal landing page (check mine out here), Central.ly lets you enter your businesses basic information – name, introduction, and upload your logo. Your changes happen real-time, so you can actually see your progress as you add, remove, or edit your content. You can also add a high-resolution background to really give your landing page some pop. You can choose from several designs and add links to all of your social-networking sites. Central.ly also offers a small level of analytics so you can track when somebody visits your page.

Your Central.ly site will reformat to look good on mobile devices as well. So in one fell-swoop, you can quickly get up on the web (traditional and mobile) in no time. Central.ly site is good for any size business, but in my opinion, it’s great for the entrepreneur, independent contractor, freelancer, sole proprietor, small business owner, self employed, musician, free agent consultant, artist that ONLY needs to be able to answer the question “What’s your web address?”

For more information, check out the Central.ly page and let us know what you think in the comments section.