Iphone for Verizon or AT&T which one is better

http://www.gadgetsdna.com/att-vs-verizon-iphone-4-comparison-infographic/8645/

Conquer Your Email Overload

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks
If you’re an employee or owner of a small business, the focus point of your attention is often your email inbox. Sometimes, it seems so many different people want so many different things that you end up spending all of your time in your inbox, just trying to figure out what needs to be done. Email can be paralyzing.

Many productivity experts have already fingered email as the bane of a modern worker’s existence and made it the focus of in-depth organizational programs. But whether you’re looking at Getting Things Done, the Pomodoro technique or another strategy, there is always one key piece of advice: create distance between yourself and your inbox. Here’s how to do that.

Set aside time

Taking little bits of time throughout your day to deal with email is a productivity killer. Set aside times on your calendar to deal exclusively with email. You want to gather it into groups and go through messages one after the other.

Divide and conquer

But what if you have to keep checking your email because some incoming items may be urgent? The rule here is fairly simple, but hard to follow. First, reassess what’s really urgent. Most messages can wait until you’ve got a time scheduled for email in your day. Over time, even your demanding co-workers will learn your new schedule. Let’s assume that you’re in the rare group for whom there are still drop-everything urgent emails. If that’s the case, go ahead and drop everything — but only for that email. The difficult part is not be controlled by messages that aren’t really urgent. Setting up files and filters that are intuitive to you, can help you separate emails into categories and define what needs to be done soon, what can wait for later, and what you just need to be aware of. Each person’s system will be a little different and will require tweaking over time. The important thing is having a system of “soon” or “later” action items that you know you will come back to as regularly as you need to.

Minimize your contact

The key to making the above two rules effective is to make sure that when you click on an email to read it, you don’t leave anything hanging. If at all possible, do whatever needs done: Respond to the email, carry out the needed action, or schedule a time to get back to it. Maintain a separate to-do list and contact database and use them instead of searching through your email. You should, as much as possible, only need to look at an email once. This counts in reverse, too. Make your email clear and concise, so that the recipient doesn’t need to puzzle over it.

Tools to explore

In addition to all of the above, you can help yourself out by having a great email program. Microsoft Outlook remains the standby for most people in business, but if you want webmail Zimbra is great. For Outlook, there are several great add-ons that help organize messages and the information in them: Xobni, ClearContext, etc.

You can contact the author at press@janusnetworks.com

To find out how Janus Networks can provide tech solutions for your small business visit us at: http://www.janusnetworks.com/
Also, visit our blog: http://janusnetworks.wordpress.com/

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What Accounting Application is Right for Your Small Business?

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Traditional

Intuit Quickbooks 2010 — The Pro and Premium versions of this program are so feature rich they’re almost a whole business management suite. You can see a one page snapshot of your company’s finances, download your credit and bank transactions to integrate with Quickbooks, generate over one hundred business reports with one click, scan and deposit your checks from your office with Intuit Check solution, accept debit and credit cards within the program, track time and expenses to bill clients, organize and back up documents in the cloud, create email marketing campaigns and more. All this on top of creating invoices, printing checks, managing payroll and tracking sales & taxes.

The most obvious downside is the upfront cost: Pro is $199.95 for one user. A learning curve comes with its wide functionality. Also, most of the more complex features are only available through your desktop version, so if you prefer to work online you may prefer one of the following web-based programs.

Easy as Pie

LessAccounting — This product is specifically positioned as a simple, easy to use, web-based alternative to Quickbooks. The website says its creators “just needed to manage our contacts, money in, money out and reports. That was it!” It also has an optional mileage tracker and integrates with other online programs such as Shopify, Basecamp and Paypal. Free to $24/month based on the feature set you need.

Ledgerble — The simplest program I encountered, with only one payment option of $14/month. Create invoices in three clicks. The system will remember previous entries for minimal typing. Track your accounts and create simple custom reports you can drill into. Accounting zen.

Cash Flow Based

AcountingASAP — Another very easy to use program. This is a invoice-based accounting system, with a pricing structure based on the number of transactions (500 per month for $10). Make easy invoices with just a few clicks. It also tracks payments and inventory and generates simple reports. No deep feature set here, but one of the most affordable applications if you want multiple logins and don’t have a huge amount of transactions.

Pulse — Pulse shows you the cash flow of your business from a variety of different angles. It feels a bit like Google Analytics for your income. The reports are simple and immediately intuitive. Prices range from $9 to $24/month based on the number of users and amount of storage.

Project Based

Cobalt — Cobalt ties all expenses and income back to a specific project, for easier organization and billing. The interface is simple and easy to use. It also includes a simple inventory or “stock” tracking system and a contact database that allows you to group together contacts. Cobalt creates a variety of reports that you can drill down into for more detail. Get unlimited users for $11.25 a month.

FreeAgent — This program is aimed at freelancers or any small service based business. It guides you through creating estimates, tracking time and monitoring payments. FreeAgent also offers a time tracking widget to log billable hours and create reports for invoicing. $20/month.

Reports

Merchant’s Mirror — Ever wish accounting was a little more fun and sexy? So does Merchant’s mirror. It tries to brush the drab away with colorful graphs in an interactive, customizable dashboard. A bit like Pulse, but with a few more options, color and vendor management for product oriented businesses. $15.95 monthly or $169.95 annually.

If You Need Extra Support

IAC-EZ — This program has a lot of the same functionality of many of the others on this list: an overall snapshot of your finances, easy invoice creation, a tax calculator. What really sets IAC-EZ apart is its accountant support and community forums. If you have trickier bookkeeping issues, this program is probably the one for you. $19.95/month.

You can contact the author at press@janusnetworks.com

To find out how Janus Networks can provide tech solutions for your small business visit us at: http://www.janusnetworks.com/
Also, visit our blog: http://janusnetworks.wordpress.com/

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4 of the Best Gadgets for Small Business of CES 2010

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

HTC HD2 Windows Mobile Phone

If you are a Windows mobile user who feels left out of the “cool and sexy” smartphone craze–this is the phone for you. Previously only available in Europe, the HTC HD2 will be available through T-Mobile this spring. It has a big, 4.3-inch capacitive touch screen supporting pinch and zoom gesture commands, runs on a fast 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, has a 5-megapixel camera with dual flash, and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g). Pricing not yet available.

3M MPro 150 Pocket Projector

Giving presentations on the road can be challenging. You never know what the set-up or technology will be. But all that doesn’t really matter if you have a 3M MPro 150 Pocket Projector. It has 1GB of internal storage with an microSD expansion slot, displays Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint Presentations, PDFs, photos and videos. Just 5 inches long and weighs 5.6 ounces. $400.

ioSafe Solo SSD

Data is crucial to every business, so keeping your data safe is essential to business survival. To make your data darn near apocalypse proof, get the ioSafe Solo SSD. It protects against up to 5,000 lbs. of crush, 1000g shock, 20 foot drops, total submersion and fire. Capacities from 64GB to 256GB $499-$1,249.

Sierra Wireless Overdrive from Sprint

This very competitive device from Sprint that allows you to share their 4G WiMax network (or their 3G network if WiMax is not available) with up to five wifi devices. Other features include: GPS capability, micro SD slot for up to 16 GB of shared memory and a LCD screen that displays battery life/connectivity. Only 4.5 ounces. $149.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement.

You can contact the author at press@janusnetworks.com

To find out how Janus Networks can provide tech solutions for your small business visit us at: http://www.janusnetworks.com/
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Best Business Mobile Apps

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Documents

Documents To Go–A full-featured mobile document tool. Access and edit common office documents. Available for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and Palm Pre.

MS Office for Mobile–Another full-featured mobile option for Windows Mobile Users.

Google Mobile App–View documents and view and edit spreadsheets. Available for Android and iPhone.

Mobile Office

Logmein–A great way to access your computer remotely. Also enables collaborative troubleshooting with IT for when the need arrives. Requires a Logmein account and logmeinsoftware on the desktop device. Available for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and iPhone.

RemoteDroid–Access your desktop via Android phones.

VNC+–Virtual Network Computing for Blackberry

Mocha VNC–Virtual Network Computing for Windows Mobile devices

Meetings

FuzeMeeting–A favorite for iPhone and Blackberry users with an intuitive interface and full presenter controls.

Voicemails and Emails

Youmail Visual Voicemail Plus–A Blackberry App that allows you to view your voicemails like your email inbox. With a subscription to their CallWave service, your voicemails are transcribed so you can read them.

Google Voice App–With a Google Voice account you can view transcriptions of your voicemails from your Blackberry or Android phone, though sometimes the transcriptions aren’t perfect.

MyCaption–A great Blackberry app/service for email dictation.

Note Taking

Evernote–very handy note taking app that syncs with a cloud application and will help you remember anything. Includes OCR. Available for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre.

AK Notepad–An Android app that lets you take notes and set reminders based on them from your phone. Share notes via text or email. Stick notes to your home screen and desktop.

CRM

Salesforce Mobile Lite–View leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities, cases and solutions, and edit tasks and events in Salesforce.com. Most people seem to prefer this to the regular app. Available only on iPhone and Blackberry.

To Do Lists

RememberTheMilk– a cloud based system that you can integrate with twitter, email, instant messenger and netvibes. Has social and sharing functions. Great for personal and business use. Available for Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Mobile

Todledoo–an iPhone app that syncs with a cloud based system.

Things–an iPhone app based on David Allen’s popular Getting Things Done system, sync with Macs for a very smooth experience for Mac users.

Outlook Mobile App–If you are an Outlook and Windows Mobile users, this app provides easy syncing.

Travel Assistant

Worldmate–Great features have made this the #1 mobile travel service. View local and world time and weather, your travel itinerary, and a currency converter. The premium version adds on a travel directory, flight schedules, and real-time flight updates. Available for nearly every smartphone.

Expense Reports

iXpenseIt–Highly functional iPhone app that allows multiple views for expenses:summaries, bar charts and graphs.
ExpenseManager-Easy to use Blackberry app with easy CSV and Excell exporting.
Hello Expense–Easy to use Android app with easy CSV and Excell exporting.
You can contact the author at press@janusnetworks.com

To find out how Janus Networks can provide tech solutions for your small business visit us at: http://www.janusnetworks.com/
Also, visit our blog: http://janusnetworks.wordpress.com/

follow us on twitter: @JanusNetworks

ACAP: Can It Help Monetize Content Online?

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

ACAP, or Automated Content Access Protocol, is one of the latest buzzwords in the debate about how the Internet is affecting traditional publishers. The protocol, being developed by the World Association of Newspapers, the European Publishers Council and International Publishers Association allows for publishers to easily communicate to search engines what content they want those search engines to have access to. It has gained attention since Rupert Murdoch said he was thinking of locking his newspapers away from the crawling eyes of Google and also when Microsoft reportedly pledged about $200,000 to fund development of ACAP.

The idea is that by controlling what search engines, specifically Google, can index, publishers will be better able to monetize their content online.

Regardless of if that goal is successful, something like ACAP is a useful tool for anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t want part or all of their content accessible to search engines. The proponents of ACAP admit hiding content from search engines has been possible since the beginning through a protocol called robots.txt, but claim ACAP modernizes and expands on robots.txt. ACAP accepts instructions in plane language and then converts them into instructions to web-crawlers automatically. Purportedly, ACAP also allows publishers more granular control over what content can be accessed.

But better control over search engines can only be a small part of better content monetizaton. It is well reported that it is delinting ad revenue, not readership, that is causing the problems for big, traditional media outlets. They simply can’t demand the same ad rates online or in print that the once could. The sheer amount of ad real estate created by the web, has driven down the price of advertising in print and online. Creating a closed environment for your content doesn’t, in and of itself, raise your ad rates.

Of course, the proponents of ACAP probably plan to implement a subscription service. Yet traditionally subscription rates have been a small portion of newspaper and magazine revenue compared to that of advertising. This is not to say a subscription model can’t work, just that probably rates would have to significantly higher than what consumers have been used to paying. If the content is unique and compelling enough, a critical mass of users may agree to the rates, but that is uncharted territory.

The media landscape is still changing quickly. A couple of years ago, paying for journalistic articles was largely considered unreasonable and unnecessary. But now that so many papers and magazines have shuttered, their are murmurs from many that 24 hour blogo-twitter-sphere often feels…well, a bit trivial. I think there is a growing group of people that would consider paying for access to a lot of high quality journalistic articles online. But the value must be clear–any subscription service must keep them informed above and beyond what they can get elsewhere, access must be easy and the cost must be reasonable. If all three of those criteria are met, a big if, than ACAP could help usher in a new way of thinking about, and accessing online content.

You can contact the author at press@janusnetworks.com

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Clicker:More Online Entertainment At Your Fingertips

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Before the Internet, we imagined that eventually we would have an interconnected world where sophisticated computers, with elegant graphics would deliver to us perfect, high-quality entertainment. Then the Internet came and, jeez, it took a long time for a picture to load, not to mention music or video. Our dreams seemed…stunted. Eventually connection speeds increased to enable streaming video, but it took even longer for there to be quality video available online. We had to wait until 2005 for the grainy, short user videos of YouTube. We had to wait for 2007 for Netflix to offer on-demand movies, and another year for that selection to be at all compelling, and that was not free but rather subscription based. Hulu was the first site to offer a variety of popular programs with a high quality streaming experience for free. But Hulu isn’t really a dream come true, for most consumers it’s more quality programming they can easily find.

A new company, Clicker (www.clicker.com) enables consumers to find all the broadcast quality, full episodes available on the web. Clicker says it is “one part directory, one part search engine, one part wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR” but it feels like a TV episode search engine. You can search for a show by name, genre, what’s new, what’s hot, recommended and a few trending topics. Genres, like comedy, are broken down into a long list of subcategories for easy browsing. Popular shows are featured below the list. Some music and movies are also available. After you find the show you want to watch, you are generally directed to the site where the content is (similar to any other search engine), but sometimes kept on the Clicker site for an episode or two. Overall, the site is easy to use and the experience of being guided to an episode is seamless.

Of course, Clicker is not the only site helping people find what to watch online. Setjam.com is similar, but also incorporates search results of paid content such as what you can buy or rent from Amazon. With a business model focusing on affiliate relationships–Setjam tends to steer users more towards paid content. However, a significant portion of Clicker’s library comes from Netflix which, as previously mentioned, is a subscription service.

Yidio.com is another player in the space, apparently focusing on social recommendations and a discovery engine. Yido is also easy to use, but currently, the library of content it accesses (300,000 episodes) is smaller than that of Clicker (450,000 episodes). Probably, most of the content is the same, but not all. Online TV lovers could benefit from both.

Hulu is still the most well known guide to online broadcast quality entertainment. But it’s not a search engine or a discovery engine–it’s a walled garden of content produced by NBC, Fox and ABC. It doesn’t help you find any content not made by these companies. However because the Hulu library is large, Clicker, Setjam and Yidio all tend to point you to Hulu frequently.

The only frustrating thing about Clicker is that it continually illuminates how little content is available online. Finding out that there are only nine episodes are Seinfeld online, only makes you want there to be more episodes of Seinfeld online. For some shows, the entire catalog is available, but most have just a few. Online broadcast quality entertainment is still limited, not quite a futuristic dream come true. But better ways to help users find all the programming that is available online, like Clicker, may encourage studios to put more of their catalog online.

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Google Navigator

By Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Google has released what promises to be fierce competition to older, more established devices in their Google Maps Navigation cellular app. Designed to work on their Android platform, the app connects through your cell network to deliver real time navigation, similar to a number of apps on the iPhone. The difference, though, is in the details.

With Google Navigation, your phone gets a lot more forgiving. For instance, you could type in “nearest Pete’s Coffee house” and Google will figure out that you meant “Peet’s Coffee & Tea”, then locate the nearest one and start giving turn by turn directions in real time. You could also type “Coffee Shop” and wind up at the nearest coffee shop known to Google. With Google Navigator search and interpretive technology, you can search by business name, address, place or just a type of business – like a coffee shop or towing company.

Another trick feature is the voice-response search. Since locations like “Guggenheim Museum” can be difficult, or even lethal, to type while driving, Google devised a better way: just ask your phone to navigate you to the Guggenheim. Pronunciation may still be an issue, but once you get that worked out the phone interprets your speech and searches for it–automatically bringing up the best result and navigating you to it. Since it is connected to the Internet through Google, you can even ask things like “Navigate to the Kandinsky exhibit” – even if you don’t know where that is exactly. Incidentally, the Kandinsky exhibit is at the Guggenheim, where you were already headed.

It also includes real time traffic data along your route in three colors, green yellow or red. With the push of a button, the application will find you an alternate route to avoid heavy traffic.

The app incorporates some of the signature features from Google Earth and Maps, like a satellite view and layered displays of ATMs, Banks, Restaurants, Gas Stations and Parking. The ability to see actual overhead photographic information of your route without altering the route display is a nice advantage for drivers over the TomTom or Garmin units. With available Google Streetview, you can read the actual signs you’ll be seeing in the next few miles and see what it all looks like at ground level.

Google is offering this application at the cost of your data package, that is to say, no additional cost.

Despite its advantages, Google Maps Navigation has limitations. While Internet connectivity and “smart” features like voice command, step by step directions and instant access to Google Streetview may seem to make Google Navigator far superior to traditional car based GPS navigation, it is unlikely that we will see Garmin and TomTom close up shop in the next few weeks. First of all, it will only work when you have a solid data connection. While the Verizon network is solid, it still won’t work everywhere. If you are touring Colorado on US 550, Google Navigator could leave you lost, while the GPS based Garmin will get you where you need to go.

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Soonr:Collaboration in the Cloud

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks
Google Docs is a great, simple office suite in the cloud. It works perfectly for a lot of people and small businesses. I’m even using it right now. But if you, or your business, need to use more powerful programs, yet want the easy accessibility, convenience and ease of collaboration that Google Docs provides, then Soonr is a good option.

Soonr isn’t new. It was founded in 2005 as a service that enabled standard mobile phones to use the applications on computers in an optimized way, but since then it seems to have evolved into a complete productivity tool.

You install the Soonr app on your desktop and mobile phone and select which files you want to sync with Soonr’s servers in the cloud. From then on, all those files are automatically updated and synced as you edit them. Just like with Google Docs, you can grant others access to documents and they can edit as well. Teams can collaborate on “Projects” containing multiple documents all organized under the same umbrella. Users can also comment on documents without editing–a nice layer between read only and edit. From the Soonr dashboard you can see all the recent edits and comments and who made them. From your mobile phone you can email or fax (that’s right you heard me, fax) documents out through eFax. With an iPhone you can even print a document from any networked printer.

The mobile interface for viewing documents is apparently very intuitive and fast, because it only requests from the cloud the portion of the document you need at any given time. Soonr supports over 800 mobile devices. We don’t offer handset editing ourselves, but coupled with QuickOffice it’s possible. We’ve integrated with QuickOffice to offer QuickAccess.net. Often times handset editing is a limitation of the handset/os , not the software.

I should clarify that Soonr isn’t an office suite, it just supports such a variety of document types (it even supports .mov files) that you can choose which office suite to use, and it is all continually updated, organized and safe in the cloud.

Soonr isn’t free. If you want acess for more than two users or more than 2Gb of storage you have to pay bit. To get at least five users and 40Gb of storage, you will pay $19.95 a month. I don’t know how the cost scale goes up from there, but it is probably reasonable. So if you work collaboratively are mobile and are tired of fiddling around with the frankly clunky version

AppCentral: Hubb for Enterprise Mobile Apps

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Mobile applications have redefined the way we think about our smartphones. Nearly every day you can read about a great new iPhone app in the consumer tech press and the iPhone is just one platform. Blackberry and Android apps tend to get slightly less attention, but the cumulative interest in mobile apps is nothing short of an obsession for the tech media. But considering the amount of work that is done on mobile phones and the importance of the mobile web to so many workers and companies, where all the apps for them? Until now, enterprise has largely been left out of the app revolution. AppCentral, a venture of Ondeego, hopes to change that.

According to AppCentral, there are three primary reasons the enterprise market has lagged behind the consumer market in mobile app adoption: it is not easy to find apps for business amongst the thousands of consumer apps in app markets; Mobile apps can be difficult to manage for IT professionals and sometimes even dangerous to company data; and third party developers currently don’t have the right tools to make “enterprise-ready” apps or a good marketplace to sell them.

AppCentral says it tackles these challenges with it’s three part ecosystem. It addresses the needs of end users by providing an easy to use web-based portal for employees to find and download the mobile business applications they need. It helps IT professionals by allowing them to easily enable and disable applications as well as handle the data of each application. Additionally, AppCentral’s patent pending “Securitization” technology creates a “security wrapper” around apps enabling remote management. But how AppCentral claims to help developers is what may make it a real game-changer in the mobile applications space. The technology is platform agnostic, so it gives developers valuable tools to efficiently create and market their apps to a wide audience. The securitization layer is also added automatically, so no additional work is required from the developer.

AppCentral just launched a private beta in early October, so its claims have yet to be tested. However they have definitely identified a pain-point in the marketplace and the concept is different from anything else currently available. Being platform agnostic also gives them a leg up on any similar marketplace that might be created by Google, Microsoft or Apple. Although, at the moment AppCentral cannot support development for the iPhone because of “legal reasons.” However, if technology is as easy to use Ondeego says, AppCentral will tap into the largest, most lucrative, yet currently least accessible mobile application market.

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