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.

MacRumors.com

If you are a follower or fan of Apple products, you should be sure to check out MacRumors.com.  This site is dedicated to all things Apple.  In the past 2 years, we have read about late breaking stories like new iPhone features and early product pictures, iPad release information, the oh-so-funny story about how an Apple employee lost their development iPhone at a bar and more.

Sandisk 16GB USB Memory Key

It is time for another update on our RoboForm2Go USB Password Management solution.  We have mentioned this device in the past and we are bringing it up again because we have had so many of our clients raving about it.  Our goal at Blue Gurus is to educate you, save you time and help you grow your business.  One of the great time saving solutions we offer our clients is the installation of a RoboForm USB Password key.  Think about how many times each month you type in a username and password on a web site to do your job.  Now think about how many times you couldn’t remember the password and had to go through a “Password Reminder” process just to get to the point where you could actually log in to do your work.  What would it be worth to you not to have this problem ever again?  Our clients usually say “a lot”.

iPad Arrives

We got our first iPad delivered today and have had a chance to work with it for a few hours now.  And we love it.  Sure, it is a lot like an iPhone on steroids, but the iPad is so much more.  It is hard to describe how easy it is to do the things you want to do.  It synchs email, contacts and calendars with Microsoft Exchange Server through ActiveSync.  The calendar views are stunning and easy to read by day, week and month views.  The contacts are presented as a well formatted address book.  Email is easy to navigate and the large screen makes it easy to read.  Apple has hit a home run with this product.  For less than $1,000 you can have a device that will take the place of a handful of gear you currently lug around, and the battery goes all day long!

If you have an iPad, let us know what you think about it.  If you don’t, read on for more reasons why you should have an iPad.