Tag: Mobile

Lenovo Taps SugarSync for Out-of-Box Cloud Storage

by BrothaTech

You can officially call the early 2000’s the age of the cloud computing wars. Traditionally, cloud computing and cloud storage were something everyday average small business owners and consumers alike didn’t need to get involved in. Now, you will hard pressed to imagine a world where we all are not affected by, or don’t have some instance of our lives in, the cloud.

As as result, cloud storage services are duking it out to be the household name when people think of cloud computing. Case and point, computer company Levono has announced its Levono Cloud Storage, built by SugarSync that will be shipping the service with ThinkPad and IdeaPad laptops and Android tablets. Read More

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

by Justin Alcon

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

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

by BrothaTech

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

Faxing stuff: apparently still a thing

by Justin Alcon

Last Monday was my birthday, and I took a personal day to go downtown and enjoy my favorite NYC cheesesteak.  While relishing my sandwich, I couldn’t help but overhear a group of guys talking at the next table.

“I mean, who sends a fax anymore?” one of the young men asked his group.

As they went on talking, I was able to figure out that they were a film crew.  Apparently, in the course of their current shoot one of them needed to send a fax on the fly. They met with some difficulty, since they couldn’t find a Kinko’s or other available fax machine that they could use.

Being nosy and alone, I helpfully chimed in with some information about the eFax site, which I’ve used to send digital faxes.  However, I wish that at the time I’d known about the eFax iPhone app, because I would definitely have recommended it to them.  It’s great – a straightforward business proposition that takes faxing into the mobile productivity era.

This simple app would have probably been perfect for our friends in the sandwich shop.  Some sophisticated business users may have found it too simplistic, but luckily eFax has responded by announcing today that users can now integrate digitized signatures into documents for fax and email. The free app can now e-sign, authorize and approve documents right from your iPhone.

As if it’s not enough that you can now receive, endorse, and return documents when you’re miles away from your desk, they’ve also added some nifty sorting and searching features for folks with lots of documents to fax.  I also like the smart integration with the phone’s contact list that allows you to easily populate a cover page with your intended recipient’s information.

Although an app like this is not as entertaining as playing Temple Run, the value of managing your faxes from your handheld likely sounds very sexy to some business folks.

Is 4G LTE just a marketing buzzword? Or should you get excited about it?

by Shy Mukerjee

For AT&T Premier business and education customers, right now you you can get a great deal on one of three Android-powered 4G LTE smartphones. But what does 4G LTE really mean? Is it just another marketing buzzword like the original “4G” designation was last year, or does it actually mean something this time?

4G LTE promises speeds up to “10x faster” than 3G according to AT&T. In my testing, I’d say that’s pretty much accurate. I typically experienced download speeds around 3mbps and upload speeds around 1mbps on my 3G AT&T devices.

Now, LTE was only just turned on in New York City last month, so chances are that the network is nowhere near as saturated as the 3G network as only a limited number of devices (like the Samsung Galaxy Note I’m testing this week) work on 4G LTE. That said, it’s not just fast, it’s really, really fast:

One of these images shows the download speed on AT&T’s 4G LTE network. The other shows the cable internet I pay almost $80 a month for. Can you tell which is which? (Hint: LTE is faster).

If you’re a business professional and finding yourself often sending huge documents, videos, pictures and more to colleagues and clients while on-the-go, you know how frustrating 3G speeds can be. With AT&T rolling out 4G coverage to an increasingly large part of the country, maybe it’s finally time for you to upgrade.

TripIt 3.0 Update for iOS let’s you see “What’s Next”

by BrothaTech

I’m a pretty big fan of the TripIt service on the web and for mobile devices. Forwarding travel confirmations to TripIt and having it automagically build my travel itinerary is just flippin’ genius. So I thought I should clue you in on the latest update to the iOS app.

TripIt has updated its travel dashboard to give you a quick outlook on your TripIt account activity & future plans.

– What’s next lets you see your immediate upcoming travel plans

– Trips lets you see all of your trip activity

– Network gives you an idea of what the people you share TripIt info with are doing including letting you know if anyone in your network is currently in your area.

– If you’re a TripIt Pro subscriber, Points lets you keep track of all the rewards information you have synced with your account. Read More

Regulators Green Light MotoGoogle – “Official” Google Phone On Its Way?

by BrothaTech

Here comes Motogoogle! Even though regulators claim they will keep a “close eye” on Google, I don’t think anyone is surprised that U.S. and European regulators approved Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, the arm that focused on portable devices. Most people think that this is Google finally getting into the patent war that has thus far been dominated by Apple and Microsoft. Those people are probably right, as Motorola has a ton of mobile patents (upwards of 17,000) that are included in the 12.5 billion purchase. But nobody really wants to talk about patents – Well, not me anyway. What I think is on everybody’s mind is will Google tap the Motorola talent to finally develop its own mobile device to coincide with its own mobile platform? Read More

Charge Anywhere Provides Mobile Credit Card Processing for BlackBerry Devices

by BrothaTech

In other BlackBerry news…

The Charge Anywhere service has released a new version of its Audio Jack Card Reader that is compatible with BlackBerry smartphones to add to its arsenal of devices that already support iOS and Android devices. Similar to the Square credit card reader, the Charge Anywhere reader connects to a BlackBerry via the 3.5mm audio jack for easy access. Here are just some of the data BB users can capture with Charge Anywhere POS:

-Signature capture
-Invoice number
-Employee number
-Tips
-GPS location Read More

Financial Management on the Go with Freshbooks and ReportAway! app for BlackBerry

by BrothaTech

Do or Die, I love the cloud. The reason being is that all of my gadgets can access information I store in the cloud. One of the services I use to manage client financial information is FreshBooks. I can manage clients and projects, track time spent on jobs, and create invoices and whole host of features I can’t begin to mention. More importantly, FreshBooks ties into my other financial software services (also cloud), and I can download apps that I can use to access and manage FreshBooks account information from my smartphone.

I’ll give you another little tid-bit about me – Even though I am an Apple supporter (I’m too grown to be anybody’s fanboy), I really want BlackBerry to come out on the other side of this “funk” they are in. So when I found out that ReportAway! offers BlackBerry users access to their FreshBooks account, I made sure to spread the news.

Similar to MiniBooks for FreshBooks for iOS, ReportAway! for BlackBerry smartphones allows you to create invoices and track time to your FreshBooks account. Read More

CUBED: Road Warrior

by Mario Armstrong

In my latest CUBED video for American Express OPEN Forum, I meet up with Theresa Nickels, a marketing contractor and road warrior who spends her days traveling between coffee shops, Internet cafes and on the road to meet with clients all over the map. I take a look at some of the areas she’s having difficulty with, and generate some solutions that free up some precious time so she gets to spend more of it with her kids! Check out the video over at AmEx OPEN.