iPhone 4

FaceTime is Apple’s buzz word for video calling.  This feature became available with the new iPhone.  For a detailed description of this feature, head on over to Apple’s official page about FaceTime.  For a good video showing FaceTime in action, go here.

Mic and I both have the new iPhone and we have been using FaceTime for a week now.  It has been great.  When you are talking to someone over the phone, a lot is lost in translation because you can’t see their face or body language.  With FaceTime, you can see the person as you talk to them.  Even better, you can switch between the cameras on the iPhone.  There is a camera on the front as well as a camera on the back.  So during a FaceTime call, you can toggle between your face and other visuals.  For example, if you see a building or sign that you would normally describe over the phone, you simply hit the toggle button and show the building or sign for a few seconds and then toggle back to your face.  Sounds simple, but the effect is dramatic.  It allows more interactive and meaningful communication.

One down side to the current implementation of FaceTime is that it only works over a WiFi connection (for now).  It does not work over the 3G cellular network, so you have to be in range of a wireless access point.  Fring is an application for the iPhone that supposedly supports video calls over 3G and we will be trying that out.  For more info on Fring, go here.  Be sure to read the reviews before deciding if it is worth downloading.

On the positive side, FaceTime video calls do not count towards your cellular minutes because they are sent over the WiFi network, not the 3G network.

Mic and I have weekly team meetings and we do these via FaceTime now.  It has improved the flow of our conversations dramatically.  It makes the process more enjoyable.  This has been a glimpse of things to come and it is a good thing.  In 2 years we will all be looking back at the announcement of FaceTime and wonder how we got by without video calling using our mobile phones.

Have you ever opened one of your contract template documents, started entering data and forgotten to do a “Save As?”  Now your template has real client data in it.  And unless you undo everything you just entered, your “template” is screwed up.  The Blue Gurus are Microsoft Small Business Specialists and we know how to fix these kinds of problems.  We see this “template” problem in many of the small businesses that we work with.  The problem is that you may be using a standard Word document (.DOCX) as your “template file instead of real Microsoft Word Document Template files. (.DOTX)

A template file is basically a starting point for a new document.  For instructions on creating .DOTX files, visit this online tutorial provided by Microsoft.

Once you have created a .DOTX file, all you have to do is double click it in File Explorer to start a new document that uses the template as a starting point.  When you make changes and click “Save”, you won’t be saving your changes to the template file, but to a new Word Document (.DOCX)  This stops you from accidentally writing over your template file!  It also makes sure that you give your document a useful name because you can’t save it without naming it.

For more advanced users, you can implement form fields on your Word Templates.  What this looks like for your end user is that the fields that need to be filled out can simply be clicked on and typed into without having to mess with annoying underlines!  You can also place checkboxes next to appropriate choices in your content.  It makes your forms more professional looking, more consistent and easier to put data into them.  What a great tradeoff… better looking forms that are easier to use!  (Click here for instructions on turning on the Developer menu option that gives you access to placing these controls.)

This is a good concept to apply to your sales contracts, standard forms or any other document that you regularly fill out in your day to day processing of data.

iPhone 4

You are probably seeing all kinds of press related to the Apple iPhone and the Sprint HTC EVO.  For a good comparison chart of technical specs, check out this article at Wired.com. I think they are both great phones and it is amazing to me how much we are able to do with them.  (Don’t forget that texting while driving is now banned in Kansas.)

HTC EVO (link to Sprint’s site)
I was recently in New York with Trista for our Honeymoon.  We were waiting in line to get into Carlo’s Bakery, home of the reality TV show Cake Boss.  The guy ahead of us had the HTC EVO and I was able to play around with it for a few minutes.  It is a GREAT phone and definitely worth looking at if you are not already drinking the iPhone cool aid like I am.  We are going to get Trista the EVO when it is not such a pain in the rear to actually find one in stock. 

Apple iPhone 4 (link to Apple’s site)
I went into the AT&T store today to figure out what the process is going to look like to upgrade to the newest iPhone.  They have closed all pre-orders due to overwhelming response and the breakdown of the pre-order system.  Thursday, June 24th at 7am is the first opportunity you will have to walk into an AT&T or Apple store to order your shiny new iPhone 4.  I am waiting until Saturday.  <grin>  Mic and I will both have iPhones and we will do a follow up hands on about the new phones from our perspective in July.

Quick Tip: I currently have our business lines under my personal social security number. The sales people at the AT&T store suggested that I combine our 3 business lines into a small business plan using the Blue Gurus EIN with AT&T so that we could receive an 8% discount on service.  After an hour on the phone with 3 different people, I find out that you have to have at least 5 (five) lines to get the 8% discount.  Come on people, train your sales staff!  Anyway, if you have 5 or more lines with AT&T, you should be on a small business plan!

iPad

We wrote a few weeks ago that we have adopted the iPad and love it, but wanted to give you an update.  Apple has sold more than 2 million iPads in 2 months.  There is talk that the iPad will outpace Mac laptops in terms of sales volumes.  Why does this matter?  We consult with many small business owners, and after giving our iPads a whirl, they go out and buy one themselves.  It is that simple.  The user experience is fantastic.  It is just easy to use.  Couple that with the reasonable price tag and we will continue to see the iPad fly off of the Apple retail shelves.  They are still having problems keeping them in stock at certain locations.

The other thing that we really like about the iPad is how well it can be used to do the things that you need to do as you run your business.  Email, calendar, contacts, reading books, checking the weather, using the Safari browser to hit all the web sites you would normally check out on a given day… it is all right at your fingertips.  The most important part of the iPad is that it was built for touch interface.  No external wireless mouse.  You can use a bluetooth enabled keyboard with it if you want to (and we have them but never use them).  It is a different way of consuming content on the move and it just feels right.

Don’t forget that June 7th is the assumed date that Apple will announce the next version of the iPhone.  We are going to be buying them as soon as they are available!  And if you have always wanted to be able to get insurance for your phone, prepare yourself to shell out $14/month.

RSS Feeds

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. (Wikipedia definition and more details)  It is a way for web sites and bloggers to publish their content in a standard format.  The nice thing about the standard is that there are hundreds of different “feed readers” including Microsoft Outlook, Google Reader and more.  What we like most about RSS is that you can have access to breaking news on whatever subject interests you, and because the media is not printed, it is environmentally friendly.  For a list of great RSS feed readers, check out this Mashable article.

We stumbled on an amazing RSS reader with a unique twist in an iPad application called Early Edition.  (Review by CNET.com)  This reader allows you to specify the various RSS feeds that you want to consume (list of feeds we like later…).  It then grabs all of the recent articles from those feeds, mixes them up, and presents them in a newspaper looking format that works very well.  After a week of consuming RSS feeds using Early Edition, we can honestly say that it is the best feed reader we have used.  We especially love how various topics are mixed together, making it more interesting to read.  Highly recommended.