The other day one of my Rabbinic colleagues asked what “system” I use in the synagogue to keep track of all of the various lifecycle “events” that take place in the community as well as make sure that all of my colleagues have as accurate and up-to-date information as possible. I wrote up my answers and then, after sending them to him, realized that while our uses for the services I mention are rather specific, the way in which we use them can easily be adapted to a host of different work-settings.

Here’s what I told him.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

You know how it goes:  doing backups is a pain in the tuckus, and so you put it off, or you don’t do it regularly, or some such.  And then . . . the blue screen of death!  Or the Genius Bar guy utters those fateful words, “You’ll have to do a full restore.”  Or your IT person says, “We’re going to have to reimage your disk.”  Panic!

Code 42 software wants to help you with their CrashPlan software:

Code 42 Software Inc., developers of award-winning onsite, offsite and online backup solutions for consumers, businesses and the enterprise, today announced updates and new security enhancements to the CrashPlan and CrashPlan PRO mobile apps. The latest version adds support

As much as I “harshed” on Evernote last week after they released two ridiculous iPhone apps the service remains a key part of every aspect of my life. I’ve also turned countless people onto Evernote, and many find it invaluable as well. Others however, underutilize the service and, as a result, don’t see what the big deal is. That’s where Evernote Essentials: The Definitive Getting Started Guide for Evernote by Brett Kelly comes in. As Brett explains:

The amount of information we want and need to keep track of today is, frankly, ridiculous. Not long ago, my desk was covered with piles of financial statements, medical records, automotive service receipts — and that didn’t even

Image courtesy of GigaOm

We’re pleased to give you a bit o’ notice that GD friend Clinton Finch has penned–okay, not penned; tapped out on his keyboard–“An Open Letter to Windows Phone Developers”, encouraging them to update their apps.  Well, “encourage” is probably too weak a word, but you get the idea.

Now, I’m unlikely to buy a Windows Phone–I’m really, really happy with my iPhone, I’ve made a considerable investment in the Apple app ecosystem, and (to be blunt) my previous experience with a phone running Windows Mobile was . . . um . . . unpleasant.  Yeah, that’s the word!  But I honestly want Windows Phones to succeed because… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Sometimes there is no better way to demonstrate that what a company is saying is pure rubbish than by putting it to a simple test. Apple’s Siri was released to simultaneous cheers and yawns – cheers from those who use it and yawns from Microsoft and Google (and their fanboys) saying that they already have the same technology.

This week Microsoft made a big deal about how they already had a ‘Siri-like’ technology and all Apple had going for it was ‘good marketing’. This is very similar to what Google has said, and is the sort of thing that plays well to the faithful. But is it true? TechAU took a look… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

While I may not personally a big fan of Windows Phones, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want them to succeed.  And part of succeeding (these days) means to have a big enough app base to make moving to the platform desirable.

Living in Texas, one of my favorite apps on my iPhone is a translation program, that let’s me translate words and phrases between English and Spanish.  (And English and French–my daughter is taking French in high school.)  Nice to see, then, that there’s a new Windows Phone app, Utralingua, that gives you some English/Spanish translation capability.  You can get it at the Windows marketplace for an MSRP of $19.95.

Amid rapid growth in

Earlier today I was IMing with Judie. Both of us have ditched our iPhone 4s in anticipation of the next generation iPhone. We are both looking forward to it and want it NOW. At one point I IMed “You know, as much as I am excited about the possibility of an update to the hardware for me it is all about the voice. Voice recognition baked deeply into the OS will be THE feature!”

Now I have no idea if the rumored Nuance integration voice technology integration will see the light with this release and my contacts at Nuance aren’t saying but, as I have noted repeatedly, it does make a lot of sense and… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Much has been written about how the biggest winner in two recent events – HP dumping webOS and the success of patent infringement cases against Android handset makers by Apple and Microsoft – is Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.

For me, one of the issues I have had with Windows Phone 7 is connectivity. You need the Zune desktop software to do pretty much anything. With my Android phone I can just plug it in and mount the drive – and since I have all of my music through iTunes (like ~78% of the world) anyway THAT requirement isn’t an issue.

But while I can simply install the Zone software on my… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

When Windows Phone 7 launched a year ago, it had lost several features from when it was announced. Those features were promised within a month … and ended up coming within 6 months via the disastrous ‘minor update’ and later NoDo update. I say disastrous since it was rolled out slowly yet bricked devices, failed installs, was pulled and relaunched several times, and just overall was worse than any update of a modern mobile OS (webOS, iOS, Android) in recent years. Of course, many features didn’t that update and were promised for the Windows Phone 7.5 update known as ‘Mango’.

The core features Mango will bring include Multitasking, Internet Explorer 9… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

See, this is the kind of thing I like to see.  ”Where do you stand on Android vs. iOS, Mr. Software Maker?”  ”Why, we develop for both of the them, of course!”  That’s right; they do the software, and you the happy consumer get to decide which platform is best for you.  That’s what I like to see.

So my hat’s off to Ilium software, honestly.  As a software person myself, I know that it’s a pain in the tuckus to develop for more than one OS–despite what you may think, it takes pretty much twice as many people.  So if you’re running on an Android or iOS device–and most of us are these days–and you’ve… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Too much information
Runnin’ through my brain
Too much information
It’s driving me insane . . .

Is that you The Police are singing about?  Do you have a Windows machine?  Well, Ilium Software wants to help you out (and make money, too, of course; this is Capitalism, baby!): they’ve just release their eWallet GO! product for Windows.  Including 256-bit encryption and the capability of sharing your information between Windows on your Windows Phone 7 device, eWallet GO! (I know; the exclamation point irritates me soon, but don’t blame the software!) gives you the ability to store your critical “wallet” information.  And for only $4.99 through their online store, that’s not a bad deal… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Johan with ProClip’s new MultiStand for iPad

One of the friends we got to hang out with at CES was Johan van Mierlo of MobilityMinded. Johan spent the better part of one evening explaining to me why I NEED to get a Windows Phone 7 handset. Truth be told, it was the first time I had seen and used one up close and I WAS impressed. The platform, while not yet mature, has a lot to offer and feels quite solid.

Well Johan has written up a post listing, Our Wish List for the Windows Phone 7

Back in the days of yore, when I was running Windows Mobile (ack! thpt!) on an HTC Universal (the phone of a thousand names), one of the companies whose products I came to trust was SPB.  While I’m not quite as fond of their apps on the iPhone, they’re a solid software outfit, and I think their Windows apps are pretty durn good.

If you think similarly, perhaps now is the time to surf on over and check out their new Windows Phone 7 game, Brain Evolution.  This is a Windows Phone 7 update to an existing Windows Mobile game that, maybe, some of y’all have already been playing.  It’s “an intellectual mobile game… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Well established mobile software companies are slowly rolling out apps for Windows Phone 7.  Ilium Software, a long-standing mobile software company, has just released its first WP7 app, eWallet GO! (the ! is theirs – not [necessarily] an indication of my excitement).

eWallet is a secure information manager (password protector, etc.) that has been around for quite a few years, expanding to new platforms as they are introduced.  It’s an old favorite of many – I myself have used eWallet on several different platforms in the past.

eWallet GO! offers over 30 card templates, ranging from credit cards to website passwords to contact information. Your information is protected by 256-bit AES encryption… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I am a big fan of Nuance’s series of mobile voice-to-text apps. It is one of the most used apps on my iPhone and iPad and I can’t wait to see how it develops in the coming months. Nuance isn’t just interested in iOS however and they are proving it as this year’s CES begins. Today they annunced that their Dragon Dictation is at the core of LG’s new Voice-to-text apps for Windows Phone 7.

As Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile explains:

“Consumers worldwide are continuing to demand voice as a primary interface for their mobile devices. It’s simply the most natural and intuitive way to engage the applications… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...