Andy Boyer

Blog

  • 2 Handy Text Message Tools

    I was down at CTIA in San Francisco last week expecting to be wowed by tons in mobile innovations.  I really thought  I’d be furiously taking notes and have plenty to write about for weeks.  Sadly, I was forced not to publish the trip report I did write and had sent internally to the folks at Spring Creek Group, due to my overall  philosophy of only writing about innovations I like, not complaining about things I don’t get or won’t use.  I figure Techcrunch does enough criticizing for the entire blogosphere, so no reason to be one of the naysayers

    So instead of a trip report from the Bay, here are 2 clever text messaging apps that I read about at PCWorld.com and now use fairly regularly

    1) Google Calendar SMS Commands  – I use Google Calendar, as part of my slavery to Gootle Mail, Docs, Chat, Analytics and Ad Words.  Instead of having to sync my Blackberry every day, i can simply send a text to GVENT (48368) with the word “day” and I get a full schedule.  If I want tomorrow’s shcedule, I type “nday.”  I immediately receive a text back with my schedule.

    2) Diet Watcher – If you’re watching calories, Diet.com can help you keep count. Text any major restaurant chain’s name and menu item to DIET1 (dial 34381) and they’ll send you back the nutrition stats: calories, fat, carbs, and protein.  In case you are curious, a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger has 440 Calories (23g fat), while a Starbucks Grande Latte has 

    Neither of these services are awe-inspiring, but if you want information quickly, they are pretty useful.  And really at the end of the day, “Useful, Easy and Free” beat slick marketing and $60 Million in Series C funding any day of the week.

  • Go Miniman Go

    I bet you didn’t know that the Lego “Mini-man” just had his 30th birthday. Launched August 25, 1978, he’s now been featured in hundreds of Lego products. So how do you announce this across the Social Media spectrum? I think this video does a great job.

  • Two Useful Chotchkes

     If your company is forced to attend tradeshows, eventually you have to settle on what kind of chotchke you need to hand out.  This conversation usually goes like this:

    Boss: What are we giving away?
    You: How much do you want to spend?
    Boss:  Not much.  I want all our best leads and customers to get something really cool so they’ll remember us, but I don’t want random people to get anything from us for free.
    You: So cool, but kid of secret.
    Boss: Exactly.  But something they can use over and over when they get back home.  
    You: Like a pen, USB key, mouse pad, etc…
    Boss: Like that, but different.  This makes sense right?  Ok, let me know what you come up with.

    Well, I saw two useful chotckes at CTIA yesterday, and thought I would pass them along.

    1. Laptop screen cleaning cloth thingy –  I never seem to have one of these, so every day from now on I will be thanking vsnax.com for my clean screen.
    2. Pocket size notebook – Thanks to Ontela.com, I was able to ditch my bag and just walk around the show floor with a notebook I could fit in my back pocket, and write down things or companies I wanted to follow up with when I got home.  It kept me from having to grab any collateral 

  • At least We Know Google News Doesn’t Filter Headlines

     Funny clip from Google News.  Notice who the headline is slamming.

  • Geeking Out With Some Google Chrome Commands

    I found a pretty fun little list over at Lifehacker today, in one of the comment threads.  If you are testing out Google Chrome (and you really should be so you can see how Browser War II is going to play out) then these toolbar commands will give you some things to play with.

    • about:memory
    • about:stats
    • about:network
    • about:internets
    • about:histograms
    • about:dns
    • about:cache
    • about:plugins
    • about:version 

    Note:  This is as “techy-nerdy” as this blog will ever get.  But some of the commands are pretty cool. Let me know if you find others. 

    ADDITION:  Yardloo.com also has a handy list of normal commands that you can use with Windows: 

    • F5 – Refreshes the page
    • Ctrl + F5 – Super-Refresh where the cache is ignored and a total refresh of the page is done
    • Ctrl + D – Bookmarks the currently open page
    • Ctrl + “+” – Increases the text size in the page
    • Ctrl + “-” – Decreases the text size in the page
    • Ctrl + F – Opens a box with the option of find-in-page where one  search for  keyword in the page.
    • Ctrl + U – Opens the source of the page
    • Ctrl + Shift + N – Opens a new window in incognito mode.
    • Ctrl + Shift + Esc – Opens the task manager for the browser
    • Ctrl + Shift + T – Re-open the last closed tab Maximum of last 10 tabs.
    • Ctrl + N – Opens a new windows for your browser
    • Ctrl + T – Opens a new tab in the same window
    • Ctrl + W – Closes the presently open tab
    • Ctrl + F4 – Closes the presently open tab
    • Alt + F4 – Closes the window
    • Alt + home – Opens the default homepage in Google Chrome
    • Ctrl +1 to Ctrl + 8 – The number you press along with the Ctrl key, move to you that number of Tab.
    • Ctrl +9 – Takes you to the last tab in the multiple number of tabs
    • Ctrl + Tab – Switch to the next tab
    • Ctrl + Shift + Tab – Switch to the previous tab
    • Ctrl + B – Option for toggling the bookmarks bar on/off
    • Ctrl + H – Opens the history page
    • Ctrl + J – Opens the downloads window
    • Ctrl + P – Prints the current page open in the browser

     

     

  • If You Make A Mistake, Remember This

    I really like what Hulu is doing.  If you haven’t checked it out, go to the site and play around one evening.  It really seems to be run by some smart folks.  

    So, I’m not picking on them for launching a promotional TV schedule with graphics that display the wrong calendar dates.  It just shows that no one is perfect, so if you are going to launch something on your web site, it’s never a bad idea to have someone review it.  That way your boss doesn’t have the chance receive a snarky email froma “colleague” that asks why the creative team can’t read a calendar.   

     

     

  • Flight for a Dollar, Do I Hear Two, Yes, Now Three Dollars…

    I’ve heard people ask a lot of questions about the byzantine world of airline pricing.   The process is so bizarre, that an entire company (Farecast.com) was built to help consumers decide the best time to purchase.   That company was then bought by Microsoft for millions.

    But WCBSTV.com reports that now JetBlue brings us a promotion, that if successful, could break the model.   The airline is auctioning off more than 300 roundtrip flights and six vacation packages this week on eBay, with opening bids set between 5 and 10 cents.   The flights are to more than 20 destinations, including four “mystery” JetBlue Getaways Vacation packages to undisclosed locations.

    If implemented on a wider basis, those who want to fly the most will pay the most fot eh ticket.   There would be potentially no ceiling on highly sought after flights – but potentially no floor either.   I think the interesting thing will be to see what amount of “bargain buys” would go unused.   If I can lock down a $40 flight to LA for 3 months from now, I would gladly pay the pittance.   But who knows when November rolls around if I use it or not.   Anytway, this is an interesting promotion to watch.

  • Metallica Discovers the Whole Interweb Thingy

    Remember when Metallica was visiting Napster, trying to get music downloaders fined?  Well apparently even guys with that kind of conviction can be swayed.

    Wired reports that the band launched a promotion on YouTube featuring their favorite Metallica cover songs on the site. Drummer Lars Ulrich introduces
    their selections.  They have their own channel, called MetallicaTV.

    I don’t have too much of a take on this, other than I think it’s always encouraging when stalwart opponents of common sense eventually come around.  I’d love to give my feedback on the site from a social media perspective…..but I can’t get the channel to work in Google Chrome.  It all shows up fine, but no videos wiil play.   Is this common for other people, or just me?

  • Want a real longshot? Bet on Obama to Coach English Football…

    Check out this odd article from SI.com.  A British bookmaker has placed odds of Barack Obama being named the manager at West Ham United, at 10,000 to 1.   Proof that you really can bet on anything….

  • Welcome to Fall, Where The Tech Industry has Forever Changed

    So i won’t be one of those people who pretends to know how the new Google browser, aka Chrome, will affect the stock prices of Google and Microsoft, or what it means to Mozilla and the Open Source Community.

    But I think it’s fair to say that the launch of Chrome fundamentally changes the landscape of the how the tech industry will operate.  I mean, you have to be curious about what the Google Browser will look like, and how they will integrate Docs, Calendar, mail, etc….

    Now, contrary to the Open Source guys, I won’t be saying that a Google Browser is a Microsoft killer.  For example, as much as I love Google Docs for collaborating on a shared whiteboard, as an actual device for building a real document, it’s fairly useless.  So while there will be a lot of anti-MSFT sentiment that will put Chrome on a pedestal, I’ll test it out with an objective mind.

    But my point is, Chrome will be a game changer on the tech environment one way or the other.  After years of people saying, “Google will kill Microsoft when they release a browser,” they will finally have to deliver.  So mark this date as a critical moment in technology.  Chrome either rocks (like Gmail), is ok (like Docs), or becomes irrelevant (like Froogle).  Test it out and see what you think.