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Category: Information Technology
Sprint Overdrive – Mobile Broadband Internet Access
Most companies rely heavily on the internet as an important part of their daily business. The Blue Gurus absolutely rely on a reliable internet connection as part of our social media training efforts. There are many times that I can remember arriving at a location and realizing that internet connectivity was going to be a problem. We have solved that problem with the Sprint Overdrive. This is one of many mobile broadband solutions out there from Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and Clear. I did a lot of research on the best solution based on coverage, bandwidth and pricing and my choice came down to either Sprint or Verizon. It was so close that I went with Sprint to give business back to our local economy. (Note, Clear is doing a lot of advertising right now, but buyer beware. There are many more negative comments about Clear than positive and one ranking site for ISPs gave Clear a 2.5 out of 5 stars)
What is the Sprint Overdrive? Physically, it is a square shaped hockey puck with an AC adapter. Technically, it is an extremely portable broadband device with a built in WiFi network. You plug it in, and as long as you are within Sprint cellular network coverage you have instant broadband access. The Overdrive WiFi hotspot that can accommodate up to 5 WiFi enabled devices at once. For example, I was able to have 2 laptops, an iPad and an iPhone sharing the internet connection provided by the Overdrive at one time. This is incredibly useful when you want to collaborate with someone but don’t have easy access to an internet connection. I have been using the Overdrive for 2 weeks now and am happy with the speed (average connection speed of 5 MB download, 1 MB upload), reliability and convenience.
Pricing for the Sprint Overdrive is $35 to activate, $60 per month and a contract length of 2 years. If you don’t like contracts, you can purchase the device outright for a little less than $300 and then pay month-to-month. There is an equipment coverage protection plan that is an additional $7 per month. I usually don’t buy these, but I have a feeling the Overdrive is going to get used a lot and moved around a lot. Probably worth the $7 “no hassle” coverage for repairs.
Kodak Pulse – A Social Photo Frame
I have been looking for a digital photo frame that has WiFi access to my home network easily for months. My wife Trista bought me the Kodak Pulse digital photo frame for Christmas and it has a unique and interesting twist. It is a social digital photo frame! What I mean by that is that you can connect Facebook Friend photos that get delivered wirelessly to the frame with no effort on your part. And the best part is, it updates regularly as your friends add new albums on Facebook. That has always been my hang-up about these kinds of devices… I don’t want to have to pull a memory card out, plug it into my computer and update the pictures and then plug the memory card back into the frame. Lazy, I know, but I really wanted a “set it and forget it” kind of device, and the Kodak Pulse is a great answer.
Setting up the pulse is a snap and involves three steps. First, you connect to your wireless network and enter the password (assuming you are encrypting your WiFi network… and you should) Second, you create an online account at www.kodakpulse.com that is the hub of your digital photo experience. Third, you simply upload photos to your Kodak Pulse online account and within a few minutes they start showing up on your digital frame! It is really fairly impressive. It gets even better. You can then connect your Facebook account to your Kodak Pulse online account and specify which of your friends you would like to have contribute to your photo hub. (I recommend that you pick a couple of REALLY good friends at first instead of selecting all… you can fill up your digital frame pretty quickly if you have active Facebook friends) You can also connect your Kodak Pulse account to Kodak Galleries. Another interesting and useful feature is that you can create a custom email address for your frame like jasonterry@kodakpulse.com. (No, this is not the email address for my frame… in case you are a spammer or want to have questionable pictures show up in my living room) If you set up a custom email address, then all you have to do is provide that address to anyone you choose to allow to send pictures to your photo frame!
What I like about all this is that the setup took about 30 minutes and now the frame will continually update with new and interesting pictures without any additional work on my part. We keep the photo frame in our living room so that we can see the pictures often. It was an eye opener to see pictures of friends and family that I had not taken or even seen before just automagically show up on the digital frame.
The ten inch version of the frame has an MSRP of $200, but you can find it for $180 online. I recommend you give it a look if you have been thinking about getting a digital photo frame or if you are tired of upgrading the photos on your old frame!
6 Quick Organizing Tips That Will Save You Time, Money and Pretty Much Change Your Life
One of the personal characteristics listed in the Summary section of my LinkedIn Profile reads as follows:
“Organized – My desk, my work, my email inbox, my car, my closet, my home….you name it, it’s organized.” (Help keep me honest and test me on this the next time you see me!)
For me, it’s a bit of a personal addiction. One of my pet peeves is wasting time, be it mine or others, so having things organized increases the probability that I won’t spend hours picking up around the house, cleaning out my email inbox, looking for my car keys, dealing with IT issues, or whatever it is that can end up wasting valuable time throughout the day.
It struck me the other day when I was at a client’s office and staring at mountains of paper, files, sticky notes, etc. that “being organized” is a unique skill-set. I know it seems some people are born with an “organization gene” coded into their DNA, but the reality is YOU TOO CAN BE ORGANIZED!
So please indulge me a bit as I share the following tips that can absolutely save you time, money, and pretty much change your life if you commit to implementing them:
Changing Microsoft Word 2007 Default Settings
We often hear people complaining about the fact that Microsoft Word 2007 has screwy default settings when opening a new document. If your favorite font is Calibri size 11, and you LIKE the fact that when you hit enter you get a carriage return and an extra blank line, please disregard this article. Many of you will still be reading… <grin>
Changing Word 2007 default document settings is fairly straightforward. First, you will want to find the not so obvious little settings icon next to Font in the ribbon bar. See the graphic below. It is the TINY icon that looks like the upper left portion of a square and a little arrow pointing down and to the right from within the square. Clicking on this icon will bring up the Font Settings dialog in the 2nd image below.
Image Resizer PowerToy- Simple Solution for Emailing or Uploading Your Photos
Have you ever sent photos to someone over email without changing the file size?
Have you ever received an error message from your email program (or the recipient’s email program) because the email you are sending is too big?
Have you ever been impatient while waiting “forever” for photos to upload to Facebook, Kodakgallery, or another program?
Of course you have! We all have!
A client recently emailed several photos to me for a social media post I worked on for their company. They sent me 5-6 separate emails with several large file photos in each email. What they and many other people don’t realize is that emailing photos without resizing them puts a large amount of unnecessary stress not only on your email server but also on the email server of the recipient.
The good news is there is an easy solution to this problem for anyone using a Windows operating system such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7:
The Image Resizer Powertoy