Here's the situation.  I have a corporate email account on hosted exchange (Microsoft BPOS) and this is my work email, calendar, and contacts.  I also have a Google apps domain for my personal email, calendar and contacts.  I am a Google voice user and share my Google apps calendar with my wife.  It is essential that these calendars and contacts are the same.  I also have an iPhone that uses the exchange active sync connection and have to Goggle apps account setup for email only.

In the dark days of owning my blackberry, I tried to sync everything using the Google app on the phone.  The results were disastrous.  I had to undo the sync and restore from a backup.  I also received errors all the time saying that the contacts and calendar were being synched by another program (Enterprise activated) and could not complete or a duplicate would be created.  

This time around, I said that I need the application to reside my desktop to handle the issue.  I searched and searched for something free to do this but could not find it.  Add to the complexity that I am running office 2010 x64 edition.  This only further narrowed my options.

After searching for a while, I found Gsyncit. (http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/).  I read all about it and decided it was going to do everything I wanted it to.  The app is $14.99, but very much so worth every penny.  It took about 10 minutes to setup, and then I had some de-duplicating to do in contacts because the contacts between Google Apps domain and Outlook were already out of sync from me manually doing it when I remembered to.  The de-duplication process to about 20 minutes.  I have almost 300 contacts so not to bad.

But here's where I ended up after my $14.99 purchase and 30 minutes of work.  All contacts and calendars are synched between the two accounts.  If I make a change on my phone while I am on the road, it gets updated to corporate exchange.  Then when I get back to the office, I load Outlook and all those changes are synched back to the Google side.  I can also accept invitations from either of my accounts in any method I want.  Then changes are synched later when Outlook is loaded on my desktop.  Finally, since all my contacts are in sync, Goggle voice calls are very rarely unknown callers any more and I am no longer required to press 1 to accept the call of an unknown caller.

To be a complete nerd for a little bit, I have been trying to accomplish this for a very long time.   I have seen Gsyncit for a while but really didn't want to pay $14.99.  It has been a frustrating uphill battle to get these all in sync but now that they are, I feel major satisfaction.  

I WANT an e-book reader and I must have one!  I am tired of all the books I buy and having to keep up with them.  I have broke down my thoughts and would love any comments to help me finally decide.

Kindle 

The kindle with its low price has me wanting to go that direction more than any other.  I know what type of books I like to read and amazon book store has most of the titles available for the Kindle.  The e-ink and battery life of the new generation is very attractive.  The big downside, I don't get all the cool features of the iPad.  Apps, web surfing and so on.

Nook

In my opinion, I feel like this is a very similar product to the Kindle.  Barnes and Nobles saw the success of the Kindle, tweaked and added some features and called in Nook.  To me, there just does not seem to be enough originality to make me want to chose one over the other.  Additionally, when I searched the BN site for books I like to read, less were available for the nook than the Kindle.  I welcome someone to prove me wrong on this one and bring up some points I have missed.

iPad

Total awesomeness.  I want it!  But wait, reports I have read say two things bad.  1. it's not that great of a platform to read books on.  2. because of the light it emits, the iPad is more like watching TV than reading a book.  Meaning that my sure fire way of getting sleepy, reading, now is going to keep me awake.  Apple's selection doesn't seem to be that great right now (at least for the books I like to read).  But it is Apple, that will change.  I can't remember that last time I bought music anywhere but iTunes.  We all know Steve Jobs wish is for the same thing to happen with books and media in general.  We are now saying, "what's a CD?", but Steve Jobs wants us saying "What's a book" or "What's a Magazine".      

Wrapping it up

What's makes this the hardest for me to decide is that I am cheap.  I want to be a cool kid and have an iPad.  But it's the most expensive option. My other issue in general is that a recent report shows that people read much slower on the "ebooks" than real paper.

Microsoft is trying to kill public folders and make everyone go to SharePoint.  As far as mobile access to SharePoint went, it was rather bad.  Text only or a really small screen of the SharePoint page. Today I needed a way to make SharePoint pretty on an iPhone.  Basically more elegant than the text only version.  After some research, I found Moshare.  http://moprise.com/

Right now the program is free to download and use via the App Store.  I downloaded, installed and configured in under 10 minutes.  

The drawback I see is that all information is read only.  Which, let us be honest, if you are using your iPhone to access the site, do you really want to do more than read the info?  

Disclaimer: not every bank has this setup yet, my bank just happens to be leading the pack.  

I got my iPhone 4 about three weeks after it had been released.   I am finally one of the cool kids and I do not have a blackberry or windows phone anymore.  I installed my banking app and remembered someone telling me that their app allowed depositing of checks via the app by taking pictures.  Honestly, I thought this was the most useful thing to do with the camera and the iPhone in general.  

I get expense checks from time to time that are not direct deposited and my bank has no local branches.  Previous to the iPhone app, I had another bank locally, and I had authorized wire transfers between the two.  But this still required me driving a ways, depositing the check and then transfer the funds.  iPhone app comes along and this is not a problem any more.  I choose mobile deposit and take a picture of the front and back (which is signed with and labeled for deposit only into my account).  Funds are available immediately.  

To me, this is a game changer and should send banks into examining why they have so many branches when a smart phone could do a bulk of deposits for individuals.  Commercial deposits, well, not every solution is a good fit to every problem.   

The other night I was up late (imagine that), and I was tinkering with my phone and some possible cool apps.  I came across one of my all time favorite apps, QIK for my Blackberry.  QIK is really a website, www.qik.com, that allows you to stream live video from your video camera enabled cell phone.  I live streemed this video from my Phone and then it was automatically Published to the site.  You can also mark videos as Private, share them with specific people, or publish to several social networking websites. Your Live Streams are also archived.

If you are also interested in finding out more about the RoomAlert, check my blog or subscribe to the RSS feed.  I Should be posting about it soon.

Very Cool!

This past year I have spent much time trying to work more efficiently and find excellent solutions for my clients that will not break the bank.  In my pursuit I have tested Linux and Windows software.  Some have been duds and others have been GOLD.  Below you will find my top ten for 2009 and receive David Shoffitt's seal of approval. 

XenServer - http://www.citrix.com

Wow.  Let me say it again, WOW.  Citrix has released a wonderful Virtualization Solution with a robust HyperVisor that allows companys to start a virutalization initiative at NO COST, provided that you have the hardware to run it on.WHen we first started trying it out we ran it on a PC class machine with a Core2Duo at 2.4 GHz.  We ran 6 servers on the small computer with no speed problems.  We then migrated them to an enterprise class environment.  We also converted 2 baremetal machines to virtual in the process all at no cost.  Let me say again WOW.  We have no need for VMWare at our business because we have a enterprise class solution at again no cost.  There are some added features that you can get that cost money like enhanced Storage Link Technologies, and email alerts and notifications, and rapid server provisioning which still would come in at a fraction of the cost of VMWares solutions. Cost :Free

True Crypt - http://www.truecrypt.org

I use this software on my laptop.  It works great!  I use preboot authentication so that if someone were to steal my laptop they would have to know a password that is well over 20 characters before they could access the files or even boot the computer.  My data is safe.  You can also create virtual HardDisks on your computer that are encrypted if you just want to encrypt some data but not all data.  I recently had corrupted my OS on my computer and was able to plug my HardDrive into another computer to recover my files.  The harddrive was not readable until I used the TrueCrypt software on my PC and mounted the drive as an encypted volume and then I was able to read it.  Very Powerful product. Cost :Free

Drop Box - http://www.dropbox.com

This is a nice synchronization tool that allows you to synchronize a folder on your computer with other computers over the internet.  Very useful!  Also it will allow you to go to the website and download your files directly in case you are not around any of your subscribing PCs or laptops. Cost :Free

CloneZilla - http://clonezilla.org/

 In my line of work it is almost a daily necessity to take a point in time fully restorable backup of a PC before you potentialy kill it with some update or possible fix to resolve a problem that would require you to rebuild the computer.  Well with this software you can reapidly redeploy a computer with its configuration prior to when you formatted it along with all of the partitions that were on the harddrive originally. I like the version based on Ubuntu. Cost :Free

Ultimate Boot CD - http://www.ubcd4win.com/

The Ultimate Boot CD is a must have for any technician.  It will empower you to be able to reset the local admin password if you ever forget it.  It will also allow you to browse the HardDrive of a computer that is broken and allow you to fix partition tables and even copy files to a network resource or USB Drive. There are many, many more utilities on this disk that are useful for a technician.  Cost :Free

RichCopy - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx

I often have the responsibility of moveing large numbers of files and large amounts of data from location to another and Windows File Copy rarely fits the bill.  What I have found is RichCopy which offers a large amount of options so that you can leverage multiple threads to copy more than one file at a time.  I love this tool and user atleast once a week! Cost :Free

USB to SATA -  http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300&CatId=3770

A wonderful tool that will allow you to hook your SATA or IDE HardDrive of another computer up to your computer via USB without having to open the case of your computer to use it..  Simple tool, great flexibility. Cost :~$20

CD Burner XP - http://cdburnerxp.se/

My favorite CD Burner application.  Can burn audio or data.  Can make ISOs and burn them too.  Everything I need a nice little package.  Cost :Free

FileZilla Server - http://filezilla-project.org/

FileZilla is a simple and robust FTP server that allows for Secure Encrypted FTP along with normal FTP.  The best thing about this software is that it comes with all the necessary bells and whistles to setup a small business FTP Server.  The big feature I would like to see would be Active Directory Lookups or LDAP Authentication.  Cost :Free

PrtScr - http://www.fiastarta.com/PrtScr

Nice and easy screen capture utility that allows you to do freeform captures and markups.  Cost :Free

It seems that everywhere I go I am being inundated with Cloud Computing.  It's on radio talk shows, magazine advertisements, sitcoms, websites, and billboards.  Much like the marketing phase we all suffered through a couple of years ago where any product could be granted hipness by slapping an "i" or an "e" on the front of it's name, marketing executives seem to think that any product can be transfored into cutting edge or revolutionary by placing the word "cloud" somewhere in the product's name.  But what does this buzz word du jour really mean?  Why do I care if something is in "the cloud?"

At the most basic, cloud computing means that you can access data from your computer or phone where the data is hosted by someone on a server somewhere.  The server is in the cloud.  The beauty of cloud computing is that you don't care who manages the servers, what software runs them or where they're located.  The important part is that you can access your data or application very easily.

We all use the cloud in at least a limited sense.  For instance, Google.com is a cloud based app.  When you type in a search for best cheese curl recipe your query is sent of to banks and banks of servers somewhere.  You may be getting results from a server down the street or across the world.  It doesn't really matter.  As far as we're concerned, who cares what database system is processing my recipe request - as long as the answer to my question comes back fast and is the answer in the ballpark for what I wanted.

Although websites are the most obvious cloud application we run into, they're not the only game in town.  At The Strickland Group, we've been using a cloud based backup product for a couple of years now.  It's a server that sits on a client's network and takes periodic backups throughout the day.  At night - or whenever the client's off-peak internet bandwith hours are - this server compresses the day's backups into one file, encrypts it with AES 256 bit encryption and sends it to a datacenter on the East Coast US.  From there the data is replicated to another datacenter on the West Coast.  This gives the client emergency disaster recovery capabilities if something happens to their server room.  This product has several other killer features such as the ability to create a virtual server from the most recent backups - if your mail server has a hardware issue, this device can build a virtual mail server that your employees can use without any action on their part until you can get the hardware issues repaired.  Really amazing technology.

Another up and coming cloud app is Cloud based antivirus.  This is a new slant on anti-virus software.  Essentially, your files are sent to the AV providers servers where they are scanned.  Your PC is not spending valuable CPU time scanning files because it's all done on a server somewhere in the cloud.  You don't have to keep virus definitions up to date, you don't have to install the latest version, you don't have to keep your computer on certain nights of the week so a scan will run.  All you really need is a very fast internet connection.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the cloud computing trend.  I think it's safe to say that the buzz worthiness of the concept will wear off, but the technology of cloud computing is here to stay.  More and more of our online lives will be in the cloud.

With over 100,000 IPhone Apps and more than 300 new apps created every day, it can be impossible to find apps that are worth the download.  Here is a list of my current top 10 favorite FREE iphone apps (in no particular order).

Urban spoon - Shake your phone and this app will suggest a local restaurant to eat at.  Sorted by city, type of food and price, Urban Spoon will serve up a world of choices.

Pandora - free internet radio.  This app will build a custom radio station based on your faviorite artists

Flixster - movie showtimes, previews and reviews

Shazam - need to know what that annoying song playing overhead at the grocery store is?  Shazam will tell you

USA Today - great news app.  Really like the daily pictures

AP Mobile - Another great news source

Kindle - plenty of free content, but great paid content as well

InstaPaper - find an interesting article on your computer?  Hit the Instapaper icon and that article will be formatted for the iphone and synched to your phone for reading at your leisure.

Toobz Free - hours of mindless entertainment

Boxed In - Great puzzle game