Customer Service Using Clouds and Social Networks

Customer service can make or break a company. You’ve heard how it is so much cheaper to keep an existing customer than get a new one. You’ve no doubt also heard how good customer experiences amount to free positive advertising for your company. On the other hand, one frustrated customer can do a lot of damage, especially these days when social networks make it easy to spread the venom.

Here’s the carrot and stick. Create an excellent customer service system for your company and you’ll be rewarded. Do a crummy job and you’ll be punished royally in the marketplace. Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to take the high road in customer service. What you are seeking is a ready-to-go, easy-to-use customer support system that integrates the new social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, along with traditional contact methods like email and toll free numbers. Here it is, take a look...



Does this sound like the type of system you’ve been wishing you had someone to develop? Forget paying the big bucks for a proprietary in-house system. Assistly has already done the heavy development lifting and is ready to go to work in your organization. Not so sure? No problem. Take the Assistly free trial offer and see if works for you. There’s no commitment. You don’t even need a credit card. Give it a go for 30 days and then see if you can bear the thought of giving up the best customer service tool you’ve ever used.

Assistly is fond of saying that they aren’t just about satisfying customers, but wowing them. That’s the new paradigm is an economy stuck in the doldrums. When business is booming, there’s more than enough for everyone and customers come to accept so-so service. These days customers know that their dollars are valuable and vendors are plentiful for just about anything they want to buy. If you want to stand out and be sought out by prospects and repeat customers, you need some special magic. Where better to sprinkle the magic dust than in the one part of your company that interacts the most with potential and current customers?

Assistly has a fair number of well known and respected businesses on-board with their cloud-based customer service system. Can you really afford to blow off the potential for something that can really goose your sales when they’ll let you try it a month for free? If you sell anything to the public and aren’t already thrilled with your customer service results, take a closer look at what Assistly has to offer your business.

Pink Android Intercept Means Business

Remember the movie “Pretty in Pink” with Molly Ringwald? Gotta love the '80's. Anyway, the same title might be applied to the Samsung Intercept in its stunning satin pink case. This is not just a pretty phone, its a pretty hot business machine.

The pink Android's beauty starts with a large three inch touch screen display that gives you access to all your apps. There are thousands available through the Android Market. But unlike lesser touchscreen phones, this one also sports a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard for high speed email, instant messaging and texting to family, friends and colleagues. The email client is equipped to handle Microsoft Direct Push as well as mobile email like Gmail and Yahoo! You’ll be able to view document attachments in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint to take care of business.

Yes, you have full access to the Internet. The browser is a full HTML Web browser. You’ll be connected at 3G speeds wherever possible through the Sprint 3G network. If you want more download speed or just want to save your 3G Mbytes for on-the-go usage, you also have WiFi capability.

The Intercept is a multimedia phone that lest you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll always have a high resolution digital camera with you. The included camera offers 3.2 Megapixel pictures good enough to print as well as send. It also works as a camcorder for capturing video at a moment’s notice. Catch the latest news, sports, weather and entertainment with Sprint TV. You can even control your home’s FrontPoint security system.

Will you be sociable using this phone? Yes, you will. Access to Facebook is built-in, as well as access to Twitter. With the real buttons on that full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, you’ll find it effortless to keep up with your social networks. Of course, you can always use the voice network, a.k.a. telephone, when you want to communicate old school.

Speaking of telephone, the Intercept allows you to “intercept” your voicemail using Visual Voicemail. Listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without actually calling in.

Another nice feature is integrated GPS that provides support for location-based services like Google Maps. There’s no excuse now for getting “lost” at lunch time and coming back late. Oh, well.

Have you been looking for a high performance smartphone that also has a flair for fashion? This may be the Android phone that you’ve been wanting. If so, you can get it FREE for a limited time when you order online with new service. Learn more and get your Samsung Intercept Satin Pink for Sprint right now.

Of course, there are many other free and low cost smartphone and cell phone models available to you. Visit Cell Phone Plans Finder and check out today’s cell phone specials.

BlackBerry Torch Fires Up Mobile Business

Like the torch that heralds the start of a new Olympics, the blackBerry Torch heralds the introduction of a new approach to mobile business communications.

The two big changes you see in this smartphone are the combination of touch screen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard, plus introduction of the new BlackBerry 6 operating system. Some of BlackBerry’s claims for the new OS are the ability to see all your social and RSS feeds in one place, faster Web browsing with multiple pages open, universal search for everything on your BlackBerry smartphone, improved multimedia with a build-in YouTube app, simple setup and personalizing, an intuitive fluid design.

If it sounds like BlackBerry has gone social, it has. This simply reflects the fact that social networking is now an important element in business, especially customer service and new customer acquisition. Of course you want easy and fast access to Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, Linkedin and your other social networks. You need those interactions on an impromptu if not continuous basis.

Other key features of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 for AT&T include the impressive 5 Megapixel digital camera with flash, continuous auto-focus, digital zoom, face detection integrated GPS location tagging and video capture. The GPS services support also works for location-based services like AT&T Navigator.

The full touch screen features a full HTML Web browser with pinch-to-soom and tabbed browsing. You’ll be able to access email, read important documents or surf the Web while you are on a call, thanks to the AT&T network that has this multitasking ability enabled. Others don’t. You’ll be able to download view Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on the go. The next generation messaging capability allows you to send group messages and maps. Visual voicemail lets you listen to your voicemail messages in any order and easily manage your inbox without calling in.

By the way, this is not just a BlackBerry device but a 220 country world phone as well. It is compatible with the GSM 850,900,1800 and 1900 bands and UTMS 800, 850, 1900 and 2100 bands. That pretty much covers the globe. You’ll have 3G data speeds where available and WiFi that autoconnects at AT&T HotSpots. Don’t worry about running out of storage for everything you carry with you on your BlackBerry. The Torch lets you expand up to 36 GB using a microSD memory card.

Are you a BlackBerry user that’s ready to move up to the latest technology? Or have you been eyeing BlackBerry devices with envy? Here’s your chance to get a leg up on your colleagues at a tremendous online discount. Learn more and order your BlackBerry Torch 9800 for AT&T now.

Of course, you’ll also find excellent deals on free and heavily discounted smartphones at Cell Phone Plans Finder. Be sure to check the today’s special deals.

Your Ally In The Android vs iPhone Battle

LG’s first Android phone is a winner right out of the gate. The LG Ally for Verizon Wireless offers an impressive array of features and the ability to customize your phone with tens of thousands of apps from the Android Market.

Is texting or email an important part of your mobile activities? If so, you’ll love the ability to use real keys instead of poking at a glass screen. The LG Ally offers both a 3.2 inch touch screen and a slide out full QWERTY keyboard with nicely sized physical keys. You’ve got 5 home screens to customize, so just go nuts with those Android apps.

This is also a social networking phone. The included LG Socialite widget lets you manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts simultaneously. Why have to choose when you can have both? What fun is voicemail unless you can view and manage it on your cell phone. This one has that capability.

As you can see, the LG Ally has some unique capabilities. But it also has all the standard Internet and multimedia capabilities that you expect in an advanced smartphone. Text message and multimedia messaging are built-in. So is an email client that supports push Gmail and Exchange. The Android Webkit HTML5-based Web browser puts the Web at your fingertips. Verizon’s 3G EVDO Rev A network and WiFi access connect you to the bandwidth you need to access the Web with ease.

You’re all set up to capture what you see with the 3.2 Megapixel digital camera. This one has modes similar to many higher priced digital cameras. You get night mode, macro mode, panorama, smile detection and beauty shot. Flash and auto-focus are part of this camera, as well as the ability to use it as a camcorder to capture videos that you can share with friends or your social network right from the phone.

Other useful features include integrated GPS that provides spoken turn-by-turn directions and real time traffic updates, MP3 player that lets you download MP3s from the Amazon Music Store, streaming multimedia support, Stereo Bluetooth so that you can stream your music in high quality to headphones and other compatible devices, and a lot more.

Does the this sound like the type of smartphone you’ve been looking for if you could afford it? Well, you can. Right now the LG Ally is free when you order it with new Verizon Wireless service. That deal may not last for long, so go for it this is the phone for you.

If you prefer, you can check out all the Android phones and other cell phone special offers now available through Cell Phone Plans Finder.

HTC Aria Social Networking Smartphone

Need a friend on the cellular networks? Don’t get a dog. Get FriendStream. It let’s you stay in touch over Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. You’ll be connecting with the HTC Aria, one of the newest and hottest Android smartphones.

It starts with a single block of jet black aluminum that forms the smooth and seamless case of the Aria. Small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. Powerful enough to use for both business and personal needs. Its large 3.2 inch touchscreen features pinch-to-zoom, which automatically reflows text for easy reading as you zoom in and out of websites.

Yes, this is an Android smartphone. It runs Google’s Android 2.1 operating system and HTC Sense user interface. You can create and save multiple customized home screen layouts. You’ll be able to access thousands of apps and widgets on the Android Market. The Aria comes to you preloaded with Google Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, search and YouTube video access. Being on the AT&T 3G network, you’ll be able to surf and talk at the same time. That’s not true on all cellular networks.

The HTC Aria is set-up for messaging. The Email client accesses and syncs your corporate Email, Push Gmail and POP/IMAP regular email accounts. Or use your Web-based email account. There’s an HTML Web browser that gives you PC-like viewing and navigating of the Web with pinch and zoom capability. Multimedia messaging lets you send and receive picture and video messages. You’ll take some nice ones with the built-in 5 Megapixel autofocus digital camera that doubles as a camcorder.

The Aria is loaded with connectivity. It works on the worldwide GSM standard networks at 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. It also supports UMTS on 850 and 1900 MHz. You’ll be downloading at 3G speed over the AT&T HSDPA network. Want even more speed or to save your data plan? Use the WiFI capability with AT&T HotSpot support.

Mind you, this is a small phone that weighs-in at just 3.9 ounces. Dimensions are 4.1 x 2.3 x 0.5 inches. Yet it sports 384 MB of RAM and expandable to 32 GB using plug-in microSD memory cards.

Like Music? you can stream stereo music to and from A2DP compatible Bluetooth devices. The MP3 player supports AAC, MP3 and WAV formats. It’s also a high performance streaming multimedia phone. Watch full length TV shows with AT&T Mobile TV and stream music and videos.

Does this sound like the kind of high performance phone you’ve been looking for but not sure you can afford? Relax. You can get the HTC Aria for AT&T for FREE when you order it with new cellular service online.

Of course, there are many more free and low cost cell phones available to you right now. Check out the current specials and see what meets your needs. You’ll probably have a hard time picking just one.

Year of the Tiger Poken

Did you know that February 14 was a momentous day? Yes, of course, it was Valentine’s Day. But it was also the start of the Chinese New Year. The Chinese name the years using a Zodiac cycle of 12 animal signs that include the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The year that is just beginning, 2010, is known as the "Year of the Tiger".

The year 2010 is also expected to become known as the “Year of the Poken.” We introduced you to the Poken social networking gadget toward the end of last year, when they began to come to America in large numbers from their native Switzerland. Poken has been making a splash at celebrity events such as this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Pretty soon you’ll be seeing them with influential people everywhere you go. If you don’t have a Poken, you’ll be left out of the fun.

Fear not. It’s really easy to get your own Poken and you don’t have to be a celebrity to afford one... or an entire collection. They’re less than $20 each. For that, you get your choice of PokenSPARK characters, a secure online portal where you can create your own virtual business cards and review your contacts, and your entree into the worldwide Poken community. Considering the importance of tigers this year, the Poken Tiger might just be your lucky Poken.

Were you born in the Year of the Tiger? If so, you are smart, instinctive, generally well liked, with lots of charisma and a strong desire to climb the ladder of success. Of course, you were born in one of these tiger years: 1902, 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, or 2010. Even if you weren’t born in the Year of the Tiger, a tiger talisman can still be your lucky charm... especially if it is a Poken Tiger.

Another way you can honor the tiger this year is to support efforts that protect the mere 3,500 tigers still in the wild. Yes, their numbers have dwindled from more than 100,000 just a century ago to near extinction today. Only 50 of the South China or Amoy tiger remain. There still is time to save the world’s last tigers before we lose them completely. Learn more about Tigers Under Threat and consider donating help save this magnificent species.

Going Incognito With SANYO and Sprint

If someone says you have to do your messaging incognito, just SANYO.

The new SANYO Incognito for Sprint is the text messaging phone you’ve been waiting for. It’s subtle on the outside and powerful on the inside. Remember the big black monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey?” Well, this looks a little like that, except it’s pocket size. Keep it in your pocket and you won’t have to worry about any apes going loopy and throwing bones around. When you need it, the mirrored shell will glow to reveal a monochrome display and the buttons you need for dialing a phone call.



“OMG, it’s full of keys!”

OK, another homage to the Stanley Kubrick movie. But flip open your SANYO Incognito and you’ll find a full QWERTY keyboard with keys big enough to enable high speed messaging. You’ll also have a crisp 2.6 inch color display with 320 x 240 Pixel resolution. It’s almost like having a sub-netbook computer in your hand. Hopefully, not too smart of a computer. You don’t want to be texting along and hear a disembodied voice say, “I’m sorry Dave. I can’t let you send that.”

No way. That’s not going to happen... at least right now. You know some clever dude is going to develop a HAL 9000 app, but you won’t have to download it unless you want the cybernetic companionship.

Are you a social person? How about a social networking person? Good. The Incognito has your favorite apps, including Facebook, MySpace and Photobucket pre-installed. There’s a WAP 2.0 browser for surfing the Web and support for email, instant messaging, multimedia messaging and standard SMS text messaging. After all, you’ll need to make good use of all those keys.

Multimedia will get a workout, too. The SANYO incognito sports a media player that works with your music library and streaming media, including Sprint TV. The onboard digital camera has 2.0 Megapixels of resolution with multiple capture modes including night shot, multi-shot, color effects, zoom and more. You can capture video clips of any pesky simians and expose their evolutionary antics on YouTube.

Is Incognito the messaging phone you’ve waited eons to appear? Well, would you like to have one anyway, especially if you knew you could get it free online? No need to wait for any Moon or Jupiter missions. Get complete details and order your SANYO Incognito for Sprint PCS right now.

Or check all the current special offers for free and low cost cell phones and smartphones.

Five Years Of The Explainer

T1 Rex’s Business Telecom Explainer celebrated it’s 5th anniversary this month, with well over 800 posts since 2004. We started off with a mission to explain the intricacies of telecommunications services and offer competitive service options to businesses. This mission has expanded to include a host of products, services and issues of interest to our readers. As we get ready to enter the second decade of the century, let’s see if we can make sense of what happened in the “aught” years of the Millennium and where we might be going next.

As the name implies, this explainer blog was launched in conjunction with T1Rex.com. T1 Rex came to be because of a new invention in the world of telecommunications. A company called Telarus developed a software process called GeoQuote (now patented) that automates the pricing of commonly used business telecom services. The focus was T1 lines, which are the most common professional grade voice and data connection for most businesses.

Prior to GeoQuote, the way you got a quote for a T1 line was to submit an inquiry form or answer questions over the phone and then wait a week or two while your request was passed through channels and your quote was manually calculated. With the GeoQuote automated quote form on T1Rex.com, a curious business manager or network engineer could enter some basic information online and get a quote that was better than 90% accurate in less than a minute. It’s even more accurate today and there are many more options than just T1 lines.

GeoQuote upended the marketing of telecommunications services the same way that the IBM computer changed accounting, numerical control changed manufacturing, and computer aided design changed engineering. Once automation gets into a process, everything happens faster and with fewer errors. The productivity increases can be orders of magnitude above what they were with the old manual processes. There’s no going back.

We’re all getting a taste of this in our private and well as business lives. Social Networking has emerged in the last few years to revolutionize how we communicate. Remember when everyone wanted to make a website? Hardly anyone builds sites anymore unless they have a very specific business or special interest need. Websites were replaced by blogs. Blogs are being replaced by social networking sites like MySpace, FaceBook and LinkedIn. Do you still email? Twitter is the new email. It nicely complements and integrates with cell phone text messaging.

Even Twitter may seem like yesterday’s news later this decade. Most cell phones now have cameras with fairly good resolution and the ability to take short video clips. Picture and video messaging are gaining popularity. How soon before there’s a video screen on a service like Twitter so you just click for a short video message? Video and audio won’t replace text, of course. There are too many situations where you need to communicate briefly and with stealth. They’ll simply add another dimension.

Video is the long heralded “killer app” for the Internet. You know what a phenomenon YouTube has been. Now TVs and Blu-ray players come Internet-ready so they can play those YouTube clips on the big screen and also access full length network programs on the Web. You can catch up on many TV shows you missed by watching them on your computer. But you know that you really want to lay back in the recliner and watch them on the TV. That’s going to be common very, very soon.

Video conferencing is breaking out of the corporate conference room and onto the desktop right now. My iMac came ready to video chat with a built-in camera and microphone. Many other computers, including laptops and netbooks, are similarly equipped. As I write this, the airlines are busy tightening security because of terrorist attack that almost succeeded. Some of the new rules are going to make an annoying travel experience nearly insufferable. That, combined with the Great Recession that may linger for years, is going to get a lot of business people and casual travelers thinking about alternatives. In many cases, a convenient video conference can do the job of a personal visit. As this catches on, you can expect a push to improve quality and ease of sharing photos and videos similar to what Cisco calls Telepresence.

Video conferencing is also going to be big on cell phones. If people can walk down the street working their thumbs while staring at text on a screen, they can certainly watch the person they are communicating with in real time. To think that they laughed at Dick Tracy’s wrist TV in the 60’s. We wouldn’t even settle for a screen that small anymore.

Video is what has gotten the telecom carriers scared stiff, and for good reason. Just like the move from email to interactive Web sites forced the upgrade from dial-up to broadband, the move to video and high definition everything is forcing carriers into a bandwidth upgrade. Verizon has wisely started deploying fiber optic to the premises before demand makes it mandatory. The cable companies are deploying DOCSIS 3.0 for the same reason. There will soon be no such thing as too much bandwidth. For business locations, the best answer seems to be Ethernet over copper or fiber. When multiple business locations outside of a metro area are involved, MPLS networks are the emerging leader for high bandwidths at reasonable prices.

It’s the cellular carriers that feel faint at the thought of everyone having a smartphone. Their thousands of towers were equipped to efficiently handle telephone conversations and text messaging. Light duty Web surfing and limited multimedia is being accommodated with 2.5 and 3G upgrades. But they will need 4G and a lot of it to handle the load of HD video streaming on a near-continuous basis. Even the FCC is already wondering if there are more over-the-air TV channels it can repurpose for cellular broadband. There’s a real danger that there just isn’t going to be enough spectrum to go around. At sometime during the next decade you can expect a major fight to ensue over what is the “best” use of the choice VHF and UHF frequencies.

A new technology we’ve just started following is called Poken. It’s wireless, but what’s called near-field wireless. Using low frequencies that won’t be part of the TV/Cellular/Microwaves slugfest, Poken devices exchange information when they touch each other. The idea is to replace business cards and social business cards with an electronic data transfer and a portal to manage the contact information. It nicely supports hot links to your current social networking and business sites, for instant access by those you contact. Poken is already hugely popular in Europe.

Well, this is almost certainly the tip of the technology iceberg. Many exciting developments in the coming “teens” decade haven’t even emerged yet. It’s our plan to be writing about them as they do, and I hope that you’ll be with us for what is bound to be an exciting time.

Do You Have A Poken Card?

You know how much business has changed since the rise of the Internet. You wouldn’t think about looking for a new job and ignoring all the online employment sites. You wouldn’t consider cutting out ads in the newspaper and completely ignoring the employer’s web sites. In fact, you almost certainly have a website for your own business. You also have email, instant messaging, and accounts for social networking sites like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn. In fact, you’re proud to say you’ve been proactive in keeping up with the latest developments in technology and the online world. So, where’s your Poken card?

Don’t tell me that you’re missing out on the move to electronic business cards. OK, it’s true that this development is taking off far faster in Europe than in the US. But electronic contact management is here now. It’s just a matter of time before you become a pokenite or are left behind with the crowd that still uses typewriters and those mechanical pop-up address books.

Poken S.A., the Swiss company, has created a new technology with a complete support system that changes the process of exchanging business and personal contact information. It’s often described as an electronic business card because it is a direct replacement for the 3.5 x 2 inch cardboard slips that we’re accustomed to offer at any business encounter. You set up a Poken card to mirror what you put on a business card. But being electronic, the links you publish are active. You also have real, working buttons for your social networks. Here’s a screenshot of my poken card. Online, all the links are active.

The electronic card replacement is only one aspect of the Poken innovation. The real magic is in how you exchange cards. You exchange paper business cards by handing over a physical product. You poken, or exchange electronic business cards, by wirelessly transferring a number code. That code uniquely identifies you and your card, which is stored in an online database. The code you receive is stored, with up to 64 others, in the memory of your Poken device. When you plug the poken into your computer, those contacts are uploaded to your account where you can see them in a list and a timeline display with pictures. That timeline is an excellent memory jogger to help you associate names and faces by when you met them.

Have you been missing out on an important productivity enhancing development? It’s not too late. You still have a chance to get in on the leading edge of electronic business cards for your company, interest group, convention, political organization, or other opportunity to connect people with a common interest.

Business Cards Go Green With Poken

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Going to slip under the sea
As the ocean warms and the nasty storms
Are convinced we can’t do three-fifty.

The start of the climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark this week has me waxing lyrical. Despite the deniers and the cynics who are convinced we can no more get to 350 ppm of CO2 than we can stop sucking high fructose sugar water in the handy 2 liter travel bottle, I remain hopeful. People nay-sayed acid rain until it started dissolving war memorials and everything else made of stone. Then we up and stopped it in a matter of a few years. This, too, will be dealt with.

With green the theme, I’m onto something that may well change the way we network. No, not a threat to Ethernet. This is about person to person networking. You know, the kind where you all get in a room and start passing around business cards. In just a matter of minutes you have absolutely no idea which face goes with each card or what these people really have to offer. Isn’t there a better solution in these 2.0 everything days?

There sure is, and it’s gaining momentum as we speak. It’s a technical solution consisting of a small hardware tag and a complementary online portal in the cloud. Is there any doubt that technology would once again step up to save the day?

The solution I’m talking about is called Poken and it rhymes with token. The token is a small plastic device that looks either like a standard USB flash drive or a cartoon character. It your choice of whether to go hip or go square. They work the same.

Each device has a big white hand with four fingers. It’s looks so friendly. That’s by design, of course. When you meet someone else that has a Poken, you touch their hands together. They start glowing green to indicate something electronic is going on. That something is a data transfer over a low frequency near field comm link. You send them a small data dump that has your name, phone number and social networking links. They reciprocate by sending you the same. It’s all stored in the Poken.

When you are done for the day or just get into an upload mood, you pull out the hand and plug it into a USB jack on your computer. You are automatically connected to the pokenHub, a personalized portal that uploads the contact info stored on your Poken and displays it in a timeline format. If you can remember about when you met somebody or who you were with at the time, you can likely find them right away and see just what they’re all about. Data transfers and your portal are secured. That’s handy if you don’t really want to admit knowing some of these people.

This probably isn’t the end of business cards as we know them. After all, we still need to use something for a bookmark. Or do we? That Amazon Kindle and the new Barnes & Noble e-readers are about to pull the plug on book printing. In a few years... who knows?

If you’d like to learn more about Poken and perhaps get your sales, marketing or project team connected, then you should Meet Poken. If you are more of a lone wolf, you can simply order one of these for yourself and use it at clubs, class reunions or other get-togethers where you may want to rekindle and old friendship or get to know someone new. Will they Poken you? Of course. Who can resist a three eyed space alien, a panda or a vampire that hangs around your neck?

Poken Enhances Face to Face Social Networking

When you meet new people and want to get contact information, what do you do? Grab a napkin and scribble down their name and phone number? Write something on your hand and hope you don’t sweat it off before you get home? Present your little cardboard business card?

Lame!

Just as FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter have enabled online social networking, Poken is bringing face to face contacts into the 2.0 era. They do it with a little device called a Poken. A Poken is something like a token. Actually, it’s more like an amulet. It’s magic power comes from the electronics inside.

For most people under the age of geezer, one of the many standard Pokens with the big hand will work just fine. But if you are concerned that less progressive CEOs at the Country Club will point and laugh at that panda hanging around your neck, there are business grade Pokens available. The PokenPulse looks like any other USB flash drive. If anyone observes you touching flash drives, they’ll just think you’re in a secret society and become insanely jealous. You can decide if you want to let them in on the secret or just watch ‘em suffer.

Could Poken be the next craze in business and social networking? I can see this taking off at trade shows, business networking events, job fairs, speed dating and anywhere else lots of people want to share info with lots of other people. Has it piqued your curiosity? If so, learn more and get your own Poken right now.

Santa Is Real And Here’s The Proof

All you doubting Thomases and Thomasinas take note. There is visual proof that Santa Claus is not only real, but has visited your home. The same is true for the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Cupid. All are real. All have been caught in action at your home. Look at the photos. Now, who are you going to believe? Some bitter naysayers or your own lying eyes?

The photographic evidence is provided by CatchACharacter, a company specializing in capturing fictional characters in action. Their target market is small children who aren’t quite so sure what is going on and need to see it to believe it. Personally, I just bought into whatever the story was as long as the goodies kept coming. But kids today are more worldly. They’ve got to see the evidence.

Well, here’s how you get them the evidence. Don’t spend big bucks hiring a private detective who will run up a major tab watching your house on key nights. For much less than it costs to keep that gumshoe in coffee and donuts, you can have a professional quality photograph ready to present to your child. It’s about $10 for the pix.

There’s also sweat equity involved here. The way it works is that you get a snapshot of your favorite scene from inside or outside your home. You upload this photo to the CatchACharacter site. Then you select the character in question from the lineup and place that character into your photo. Magic completed, you download the composite photo and print it as your proof. If anyone dares to utter the dirty word “photochop,” they immediately get coal in their Christmas stocking, Easter basket or under their pillow. A nice earful of coal and no money will stop that maligning of the Tooth Fairy in short order.

What do you need to make this work? The most important thing is a high resolution photograph with up to a 12 MB file size. The higher the resolution, the better. Horizontal formats work best. File format should be jpg, bmp or png. Most photos are already in jpg format these days as they come off the camera. You’ll also need a broadband connection as the upload process can be very time and processor intensive.

Once you’ve uploaded your photo, chosen a character in the right size and achieved the best composition you can, your personal Character photo will be stored on the CatchACharacter servers. You can download it for printing in many popular sizes, email it to family and friends or post it to more than 20 social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.

I should go without saying that it’s a rotten thing to send Tooth Fairy pictures to your college student’s fraternity brothers. So, I’m sure I don’t need to say that. And kids, if you happen to be reading this and are computer savvy, it should also go without saying that it’s really rotten to show Santa kissing mommy or, worse, daddy and sharing that with their social circle or employer. If that’s the sort of thing you have in mind, just stay away from this site altogether and keep your mitts off the practice photos.

For those of you who are responsible adults and have little ones who would thrill at the sight of their favorite fictional character caught somewhere in or around their home, then you are both authorized and encouraged to visit the CatchACharacter Site to watch a quick tutorial video or try using the system free with one of their sample photos. Now, isn’t it true that seeing is believing?

Motorola Karma's Gonna Get You

Karma is the effect of your actions coming back to you in the future. John Lennon sang about "Instant Karma" back in 1970. Now Motorola's got karma in the form of the new Karma QA1 Silver cell phone. It's perhaps the first phone designed for social networking. With all the cool technology in one compact package, this Karma really is out to get you - as a customer, that is.

The Motorola Karma is a palm size device, almost square in shape when closed, with rounded corners. With a flick of your thumb, it slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard normally hidden beneath the screen. With the crisp 2.5 inch color screen and this keyboard, messaging is a pleasure. You'll be fully enabled for SMS text messaging in a threaded, chat-style view. Plus email, instant messaging, and multimedia (both picture and video) messaging.

Ful HTML Web browsing is available with the MEdia Net Web browser. This one will perform, too, because the Karma connects to AT&T's 3G network. Data download speeds are up to 3.6 Mbps, better than many landline broadband services.

Motorola isn't kidding when they call the Karma a social networking phone. They've built-in quick and easy access to Facebook and MySpace. Oh, yes, you can also actually talk to people if you want. It is a cell phone. In fact, it's a internationally compatible cell phone so you can call from most anywhere in the world.

Not feeling all that social at the moment? Then listen to some XM radio or your own tunes. Get away from the madding crowd. Don't worry, you can find your way back when you're ready. The aGPS systems supports AT&T Navigator for mapping and directions.

While the Motorola Karma goes out of its way to make text messaging easy, it also gives you the ability to capture and share high resolution still photos and video clips. The 2.0 Megapixel digital camera takes pictures good enough to print. You can do that wirelessly with any Bluetooth enable printer. In camcorder mode, you can record video clips at 15 frames per second or share them in real-time with AT&T video share service.

What are the hottest cell phone deals available right now, including free cell phones? Use the Cell Phone Plan Finder to check out the top phones and associated wireless service plans.

WiFi in a Memory Card

How many SD memory cards have you seen that sport an FCC ID on the front? This one does because it's more than a mere 2 GB digital memory card. It's also a WiFi transceiver. Configure it with your computer using the included USB adaptor, then pop the card into your digital camera. Now take all the pictures you want and they'll automatically upload to your computer or the online photo sharing or social networking site of your choice when you get within range of your home network. Poof, they're out of the camera and uploaded before you even know it.

The Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Card solves the age-old problem of photography: Pictures that never come out of the camera. I say age-old, because I've discovered undeveloped rolls of film in cameras buried in the closet decades later. Digital photography is worse. It's easy to take snapshots. It's hard to dig out that special USB cord and plug your camera into the computer. Most cameras have lots of memory and none of them bug you to do anything with the pictures you take. Pretty soon, there you are out in the middle of nowhere with a nearly full memory card and no option but to delete older photos to take new ones. Oh, yeah, those pictures would sure look good on Flickr. But it's soooo much work to get them there.

Now you have no excuses for not doing something with the pictures you take. The Eye-Fi card takes care of all the tedium involved in formating and uploading photos to photo sites. That includes printing sites such as Costco.com, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish and Wal-Mart. You don't have to print them, but they'll be there whenever you want to.

So how does it work? The Eye-Fi actually contains a WiFi networking chip within the confines of a standard SD memory card measuring 32mm x 24mm x 2.1mm and weighing a mere tenth of an ounce. Many cameras accept this standard size memory card. It gets its power from the camera. There's also 2.0 GB of memory onboard, so it's a real memory card too.

The Wireless networking specs are impressive for something that looks like a little orange wafer. The range is over 90 feet outdoors and 45 feet indoors. Both 802.11b and 802.11g networks are supported, as are 802.11n networks that are backwards compatible. Security is built-in and includes support for Static WEP 40/104/128, WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK configured networks. Keep you networked locked down and still be able to upload photos any time you want.

The other piece of magic is the Eye-Fi software. It runs on both PCs and Macs, and works with IE, Firefox and Safari browsers. You'll need your computer on and running the Eye-Fi Manager software when you want to transfer photos from your camera to your computer. The card remains inside the camera. The transfer is wireless. You just tell the software what folder to put your photos in and it takes care of the rest.

But that's only half the story. The other way to transfer photos is directly to the Internet. Your computer doesn't need to be on for this activity. You just need a working WiFi network. Your camera talks directly to your router and sends the pictures to the Eye-Fi server, where they are then formated and sent on to one of many sharing and printing Websites of your choosing. Logging in, passwords, and resizing are all handled automatically. Want to get those pix on Facebook as quickly as possible? Once you've set it up, all you need to do is get your camera within range of your network and up they go. Or send them to your TypePad blog for instant photojournalism.

Does Wireless photo transfer sound like it would be a time and effort saver for you? Learn more and get your Eye-Fi Card, Wireless 2 GB SD Memory Card now.

Widgets for Charity

The holiday season is traditionally the time for giving to family and friends and the causes we care about. This year technology and social networking get into the act in the form of a contest based on Internet "charity badges" to raise money for your favorite cause. It's got Web 2.0 technology, $500,000 in prize donations, Kevin Bacon, and perhaps yourself.

Kevin Bacon? Yes, Mr. six-degrees-of has created his own Web site, SixDegrees.org, to support the charities of celebrities and is promoting the Charity Badge concept to help non-celebs bring in the bucks for their causes.

The whole idea is that all of us have social connections that run farther than you'd ever think. That includes friends, family, co-workers and other people we associate with on a day to day basis. But today it also includes Web Sites, Blogs, MySpace and Facebook pages, email lists, and other online resources. In the days since the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game was a fad, we have all multiplied our connections and influence worldwide. Truth be told, many of us associate regularly with more people online than we do in person.

What "America's Giving Challenge" is doing is to acknowledge that we can be activists for our causes just as easily as donors. All that's needed is for someone to package the technology in an easy to use tool and give us an incentive to get going. The technology is the Charity Badge. The incentive is $500,000 in donations sponsored by Parade Magazine and The Case Foundation.

The contest aspect awards the prize money to charities based on how many people donate through the Charity Badge, not the highest monetary donations. As a small time champion, 50 friends donating $10 each counts just as much as 50 corporate big-wigs donating $100,000 each. You don't have to sponsor a formal ball for the elites in order to win this thing. Just get people to click the donate button on your widget and kick in $10 or more using their PayPal or credit card. The way the prize money breaks down is that the 8 charities receiving the highest number of unique donations during the contest period will be awarded $50,000 each. The next 100 charities receiving the most total donations get $1,000 each.

Oh, by the way. You have to get moving on this if you want to participate. The contest opened on December 13 and runs through 3 PM on January 31, 2008. You can get all the details and rules and sign-up by visiting America's Giving Challenge on the Parade.com site.

So how does this Charity Badge work? It's basically a Macromedia Shockwave Web object that you insert into your Web page or blog. Generically, these are often called widgets. You don't need any tools to generate the code. Once you sign-up as a champion for your cause you get the opportunity to build a Charity Badge like the one shown on this page. You supply a graphic of your choice and 250 characters of information about your charity. You can also link to a video if you have one, or use Kevin Bacon's. Make sure you pick the Parade Challenge as badge type. Then continue and find your charity in those listed in Network for Good or GlobalGiving. When you're all done, the system will give you the code and also email it to you as a backup. Paste this code into your Web page, social network page, or Blog. Network For Good also hosts your badge on their site and gives you a link to use in email or online in lieu of pasting the actual widget.

Notice some interesting things about the Widget. At the top is a running total of the amount of money donated and number of donors. This updates in real-time as people make donations. There are also three tabs. The Charity tab is the one usually displayed with graphic, text and big orange donate button. The About tab tells visitors about the contest. The Share tab is the most interesting. Why? because it gives visitors the opportunity to copy your badge code and put it on their site. Or to grab the link to your badge for their site or email.

This is extremely valuable if you have visitors who want to support your cause. It multiplies your efforts so that more donations can come in attributed to your badge, giving you a better chance of getting a high enough total to win one of the prizes. If everyone makes their own badge for the same cause, the donations will be spread among the champions.

By the way, if you don't already have a cause you are passionate about, please take a copy of our widget or a link to put on your site. Our cause is the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. They rescue old and ailing elephants no longer wanted by circuses and zoos and give them a wonderful home on 2,700 acres of natural habitat in Tennessee. Perhaps an elephant you knew as a child is there now... or should be. Donations are also warmly welcomed. We thank you on behalf of the current and future inhabitants of the sanctuary.