I review the Motorola XOOM that I received for review.  I’m bringing it along the BlogHer conference happening in San Diego this weekend!

I cover the hardware specs and features of the Motorola XOOM. Pretty amazing tablet overall and I cover the hdmi option, the dual cameras, usb host option to transfer files and my initial thoughts on the tablet.

Motorola XOOM Tablet, MZ604

• 10.1 tablet
• Honeycomb 3.01 installed, upgraded to 3.2
• Dual core 1GHZ processors
• 32GB storage with micro SD card slot (supports up to 32GB)
• Dual cameras, 5 megapixel (back), 2 megapixel (front)
• Video recording on back facing camera is 720p
• USB host adapter for transferring files, music, movies
• GPS for navigation
• GeForce video card
• HDMI port (mini HDMI) for video/audio output

Disclaimer: Although my reviews are my own, Motorola sent me this device to review and I was compensated for my time.

Over the last few days, I explored the mobile Google+ android app and will take you through:

• Google+ Stream
• Photos
• Circles
• Huddle
• Google+ Profiles

To followup from my post earlier this week, I met up with the folks from Samsung to take some shots of San Francisco to help promote this new campaign called, “Coast To Coast Photo Post“.

Their Twitter account for this campaign is @samsungcameraus and the hashtag is #SamsungCTC

This is for their new camera, the Samsung SH100 which is a small, 14 megapixel digital camera with video, wireless upload and remote control functionality.  It has nifty photo filters which I played with (photos below) and for the purpose of this review, I will focus (pun intended) on the photos I took, saving the technical evaluation of the camera for after this weekend once I use it at StartupWeekend.

To show how easy to use this camera is, Samsung doing a “social media aware” road trip across the US and stopping in cities to ask people to snap photos.  The images will be uploaded to their Facebook page where you can vote for them (including the ones I took *smile*).  Winners will be invited to a gallery event in NYC in June.

I don’t need no darn manual

I decided to keep with the spirit and not read the manual beforehand.  I wanted to imagine I was just a regular person who needed to buy a digital camera.  I wanted the authentic experience reflected in my photos.  The first 2o minutes after meeting up with Chin and Daisy from the PR firm were spent with me fiddling with the camera and making comparisons to my Panasonic Lumix ZS3.

The Samsung was much smaller, a bit lighter and had a touch screen.  They’d already popped in the mini-sd card (the camera comes with an SD adapter chip so you can easily pull photos onto your Macbook or PC desktop which nowadays both have built-in card readers (oh, the days of usb card readers….) so I was ready to go.  The first thing I did was take a quick video.  I like that the video is recorded in Mp4 format so it can be edited on multiple operating systems.  I’ve been frustrated in the past editing video from my Canon HF20 camcorder because the .MTS files need to be converted first since it seems iMovie doesn’t support them directly.  Grrr!

Fun with filters

Since I had picked for us to meetup in Hayes Valley during a craft fair, there were all sorts of interesting things to photograph.  Some vendors were in the sun while others were in the shade.  I kept the camera on automatic and snapped the following photos:

Time Flies - Old Film 2 filter applied

Stuck In time – Sketch filter applied

Again this is a play on words but this time the image focuses on old typewriter keys that have been set with a brass outlay to wear on a necklace.  I used the sketch filter this time and took the image at an angle.

All Wrapped Up – No Filter applied

Dynamite Rings – Negative filter applied

Keyboard Earrings – Minature filter applied

Keyboard Earrings – Sketch filter applied

Europe’s Dark Ages – Vignetting filter applied

Europe’s Dark Ages – FishEye filter applied

Story Time – Classic filter applied

Back to your regularly scheduled broadcast

I then went left my newly self-discovered artist mode and went back to snapping regular photo shots:

and I snapped photos of people:

and food:

and dogs:

Off to the Presidio for greener pastures

If you’ve not been to the north western part of San Francisco known as the Presideo, you should go because it’s a beautiful chance to escape the hustle and bustle of the city plus get more aquainted with the nature and beauty this city has to offer.

A shot of the bridge

wildlife

people flying kites and playing dodgeball

the beach

which was pretty empty

a nature scene

and me relaxing in a chair

Summary

I think for under $200, the Samsung SH100 is a great little camera.  I’ll do a review next week of the more technical aspects but for now, I give it a thumbs up!

Disclosure: In accordance to the FTC Guidelines and WOMMA Code of Ethics, I am disclosing that my time and efforts have been compensated by Samsung for my participation in the Coast to Coast Photo Post campaign, and I was also provided a Samsung SH100 camera. Although I have a material connection to Samsung, any publicly stated opinions of Samsung remain my own.

Review of the HP Wireless Elite Keyboard (Amazon affiliate link) I purchased July 2010 from Amazon.com.  I paid $34.82 and it’s going for $32.61 as of this posting so pretty stable price.

At Amazon, it has 4 out of 5 stars based on 251 reviews.  Reviews were also good at Newegg but for some reason they have it priced at $45.99.  In this case, Amazon FTW with free shipping!

Features

Low profile – it’s almost horizontal to my desk which I like.  I never have any wrist pain.  No carpel tunnel here!

Quiet - I think I read a review somewhere while searching for “silent keyboard” to replace my second Logitech UltraX Keyboard

Laptop keys – for some reason, I just like how the keys on a notebook feel so this is now my third keyboard that deviates from the standard, chunky keys

Wireless – I switched to a wireless mouse a few years ago and found I had less wrist pain so it was logical to try a keyboard too.  Nyoce!

Color - I would have loved another sliver/black keyboard but this one is all black

Thing I like

• Bounce on the keys.  Nice feedback
• Keyboard letters don’t fade easily
• Battery life (although it wasn’t 12 months as stated on the box

Things I don’t like

• Multimedia keys to adjust audio and start/stop/pause iTunes don’t work with Dell XPS 8000 running Windows 7

Summary

Get it.  Awesome, lightweight, well performing keyboard…even if it is made by HP *smile*

37Signals has released a new book called, Rework.  The authors are Jason Fried and DHH, co-founders of one of the most successful cloud apps on the market, Basecamp and creators of the wildly popular application framework, Ruby on Rails.

Should you buy it?  Will it help you make the leap from existing to exceptional in your business?

I ordered Rework last week and had it shipped to my hotel for SXSW.  I was able to read it start to finish on my 2 and a half hour flight from Austin to Chicago so it’s an easy read.

I’m going to lay down the good points here in my review.

I will start off by saying this is a business book.  This means the goal of the book is to help you take action.

This book is about how to get the balls to run your business.

Twitter hashtag I’ve seen going around is: #rework

Ready To Get Real?

If you haven’t read “Getting Real” which is the first book by 37Signals, you need to read it.  It was the first book put out by 37Signals nearly 5 years ago.

Getting Real is  free to read online or $19 for the ebook and $25 for the paperback.  I bought Getting Real in 2005 around the time I first trialed Basecamp and it caused me to quit my job (a good thing!).  Getting Real delivers sound advice on how to run a company.  Even though it’s actually addressing a style of computer programming, the lessons are applicable to any business out there.  It made me realize that the company I worked at needed to “Get Real” but it wasn’t my job to help them.  People start companies to run them so I started my own within 6 months of reading this book.

Digging into Rework

photo credit: dbnunley

If you already have balls, you won’t need this book.  That’s the truth.

Rework is a feel good book that is there to give you that push to start making change in your business.

It starts off by making several statements that you end up nodding your head in agreement:

Success is more important than failure.
A Harvard study found that successful entrepreneurs had a 34% chance of having future ventures funded.

Working long hours affects your creativity and judgement.
Workaholics aren’t heroes.

Serve your own needs.
The best business for you is the one you created to scratch your own itch.

But you already knew that right?  Maybe not.  They have a ton of great examples in the book to illustrate how business owners (including 37Signals) make bold decisions that pay off.  See, I’m already drinking the juice here so this was more of a checklist for me than revelation.

They touch on important points that are obstacles for self realization:

Finding Time – “Whaaa!  I can’t find the time to do xyz”.

One of my favorite quotes says it all:

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”  – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

They point to how you spend your free time.  One of my clients last year was having trouble.  He’d hired me as a Personal Technology Trainer to help him start his business.  We kept bumping into tasks he said he was going to do but didn’t.  I began asking him about his free time and suggested he cut out television.  I like to say, “Do movie stars watch TV?”.  Within 15 days, he began to notice a difference.  He actually had more time, felt less stressed out and began actually working on his business.  I’m happy to say he now has a business name which is registered with the state of Georgia, a domain and his business cards are “in transit”!

Getting Started – “I can get this idea going once I _______”.

I have a favorite post by Seth Godin I point people to as they start counting off all the reasons they can’t seem to get traction.  It’s called, “When To Start“:

The best time to start is after you’ve worked all the kinks out of your plan.

The best time to start is when you’re sure it’s going to work.

The best time to start was last year. The best opportunities are already gone.

Each day you open your eyes.  Thank God you made it another day.  That’s what Dr. Maya Angelou says.  Consider how you would behave if the end of your life was much closer.  After 9/11, many people felt that sense of urgency take over.  How soon we forget.

Need Things or Money – “Once I get that raise in 14 months I’m going to _____”

And then you get laid off.  This happened to a friend of mine.  He was planning to get some Microsoft certifications under his belt so he could start looking for a new job.  We met for coffee in 2008.  I urged him to take action by creating a plan.  I even emailed him an excel spreadsheet.  I offered to coach him on this since I had several Microsoft certs and had done a good deal of job hunting in my day.  My friend let the distractions of daily life get in the way.  One year later, he had a pink slip, no severance, no Microsoft certifications and a newly leased car.  Now, one year later, he’s still struggling.  He thought about starting his own business, filing a patent and now is considering going back to work full time for someone else as his unemployment runs out.

Would Rework of helped my friend?  Probably not.

Rework is a “yes” book.  As you read through it, you find yourself saying yes…a lot.  I found that I had say a quiet “yes” at least 5 times by page 19.

Yes, is great but the point of yes is action.

Action requires balls so my next question is…

Do you have the balls to run your own company?  And successfully?

Business Balls Checklist

photo credit: HokutoSuisse

I made this short list of 9 items covered in the 37Signals book, Rework.  This is your reality check.  There are a lot of people out there who think they’re making progress but in truth, they’re simply moving the same pieces of a puzzle to a different part of the table vs actually completing that task at hand.  How do I know?  Because I used to be one of them until I got sick and tired of allowing others to run my life.

1. You don’t worry about what the competition is doing
2. You take risks but set goals with measurable metrics
3. You run your company based on the needs of your customers but don’t let them run your business
4. You have a process in place to digest feedback
5. You know what every position in your company requires (because you’ve walked a mile in their shoes)
6. You expect higher productivity vs hiring more staff
7. Location is not a factor when it comes to hiring the best folks
8. You say no to “endless meetings”
9. You ignore naysayers

What I Expected in Rework

photo credit: alykat

If you’ve had a chance to read the blog, Signal vs Noise, you know that 37Signals as a company is extremely transparent on how they run things and very opinionated.  One of my favorite posts that I share with my clients is “Making Money Twice” where Jason Fried lays out how they generated nearly $800,000 from one product.  Here’s an excerpt because it’s just that good:

Money One: A lot of our ideas originate on this blog. We post articles which generate traffic. We make money off the traffic by running Deck ads in the sidebar. We make a few thousand a month off The Deck ads.

Money Two: We bundled up the best blog posts about our software development philosophy and turned it into a PDF book called Getting Real. We sell the PDF for $19. We’ve made a few hundred thousand dollars from the PDF.

Money Three: We take the Getting Real PDF and turn it into a paperback at Lulu.com. We sell the paperback for $25 and we make a few thousand a month on royalties. The paperback is currently ranked the 4th best seller on Lulu.

Money Four: We took the content from Getting Real and produced a Getting Real conference series. We held a few conferences a year and made about $50K per conference. We’ve produced about 5 of these conferences.

It Adds Up

So if we add this all up, we made about $100K on The Deck ads (The Deck has been around about two years and we are a founding partner), $350K on the Getting Real PDF, about $65K on the Getting Real paperback, and about $250K on the Getting Real conferences (before that they were called Building of Basecamp).

That’s roughly $765,000 over a few years off roughly the same content. Insight and ideas about how we run our business. Blog entries, PDF, paperback, and conferences.

Jason is talking about repackaging information.  I thought this post was just brilliant and I began to look into my value as a “knowledge worker” to see what I could do to strengthen my existing messages rather than spread myself thin with many.  This post was also personal to me because my last boss paid to attend one of these 37Signals conferences.  $800 a head for him and two developers.  That was the turning point for me at the job after reading “Getting Real”, seeing my boss flock to Chicago to find out the “secret” of working smart and realizing my workplace didn’t match my values.

I like the Signal vs Noise blog because they explain how they run their business. Another great post was “How we reduced chargebacks by 30% (as a percentage of sales)“ where 37Signals explored different options for the line people see on their credit card statements.  37Signals figured out that putting in a url in that “merchant name” space gave people the opportunity to understand why there was a charge from this 37Signals company.   Brilliant!

I was looking for more concrete examples like this in Rework.

Summary

photo credit: jcarwash31

I was expecting a book with hands-on exercises.   What I got was a pat on the back that everything I’ve been doing for the last 4 years since going into business for myself is right.  It’s nice to know that I’ve internalized and acted upon the workflows and ideas I’ve read about.

But what will happen to people who keep puttering along?  Unable to take that very important step through the door of success?  A strong piece of imagery I picked up from Tyler Perry is about the door of success.  Often times, people point to the door, talk about the door, walk near the door but many do not pass through the door of success.  Fear of failure, fear of success or just the plain unknown is enough to keep most of us from reaching our dreams.  People need step by step guides when making drastic changes in their lives.  I think this book was a great opportunity to provide that.  Maybe 37Signals is planning to release a “Rework workbook”?

In fact, while reading Rework, I kept comparing it to The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.  I’m going to break out my comparative thoughts in part two, “Rework vs Four Hour Work Week”.

So, what are your thoughts?  Are you going to pickup a copy of Rework?

 

Photo Credit: adria.richards

In case you were curious on “What I’m working with” behind the scenes of ButYoureAGirl, AskAdria and Freshworkshops, here’s a view of my desktop from a few weeks ago. The two monitors connected to my Dell are the Samsung 23″ 2333SW model.  My 3rd 23″ Samsung, a P2370HD which is also a HDTV, just arrived back from an RMA with Buy.com so I will take some new photos soon.

I have all 3 monitors on desktop stands which allow me to pivot them 360 from Ergotron

I blogged about both my systems late last year:

• Dell XPS 8000 running Windows 7
• 13″ Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard

My desk is from IKEA and it’s called the Jerker (haha, now discontinued). I scored 2 of these desks on Cragslist in early 2009 after reading about them on Lifehacker.  Lifehacker featured the IKEA Jerker again in September, 2009.

Ok, @tilly85 on Twitter wants to know about the chair I use!  It’s the IKEA KLAPPE chair.  It has a 5 point system for the feet and is intended for people who spend long periods of time in front of desks (that’s me!).  I lucked out getting this chair because it’s normally $300.  I went to IKEA several times, drooling over the chair.  Finally I was ready to buy it and found one in the “As Is” section of IKEA for half the price!!!!

I have a microphone on my desk I use with Skype for VOIP calls plus a wireless usb headset.

I have a Belkin power strip mounted on the underside of my desk (Thanks again to Lifehacker for the idea) and a landline from Comcast near my mouse.

I sync my iPhone with my Dell desktop.

I do backups to an external Western Digital hard drive and also to Mozy for redundancy.

That’s all for now!

Today I look at how the remote sound feature for LogMeIn Pro works.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkwhNXyTNyE[/youtube]

I subscribed to the monthly version of Logmein Pro before I went out to New York for Wordcamp as I knew I would be transferring files from my home computer.  It worked out lovely!

Over Turkey Day weekend, I had a chance to finally test the remote sound.  The sound was great!  It was loud, clear and there were no skips while I played music in iTunes on my old computer.  This is a nice feature as I move applications, data and songs from my Shuttle XPC to my new Dell XPS 8000.

The Pro2 version would be great for someone who is on the road often.  Network administrators would also find it helpful to install on a server to quickly get a bird’s eye view of the system.  More on that in a future post.

LogMeIn has several tools you can use to remotely access your computer. You can connect to your PC or Mac while on the road and do it securely without installing any complex software.

The Pro version allows for remote sound and printing plus other goodies like file transfer and detailed diagnostics. The cost of LogMeIn Pro2 is $12.20 per month or $69.95 for the year.

There is also LogMeIn Free which provides you with remote access as well you just don’t get all the goodies mentioned below.

I’ve been using LogMeIn since 2006 and like the direction they’re going to have more cross platform support.

More reviews soon!

Mid February 2011 photo o fme in my “I’m Tweeting This” Shirt.

Video and photo of my awesome ThinkGeek t-shirt I bought in 2009. Get your own Unfortunately, it looks like ThinkGeek doesn’t carry this shirt anymore *sad face* girl geek shirt at ThinkGeek
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGiKzZXFJW8[/youtube]

New feature in Picasa 3.5 allows for facial recognition.  Is it a good idea?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Ch2D9g8vg[/youtube]

I’m wondering where Google got this technology to find faces.

• Did they contact the Las Vegas mafia?
• Was this recovered from an alien spaceship?
• What are the potential problems with identifying people you’ve photographed and giving that information to Google through Picasa?

This is the first product from Google where I’m a bit suspicious and although I think Google is quite awesome, I’m worried about the privacy issues.

Want to collect money for your events?

Struggling to manage registrations for your event and not lose money?

Want a better way to promote your event and utilize social media to do it?

Say Hello To Eventbrite!

How’d they do that?

Have you ever attended a conference and thought to yourself: ”Wow, they did a great job and I learned so much!”.

It takes time, energy and organization to hold a successful event.  Many companies struggle with the registration process, using outdated methods like asking people to register via postal mail or email.  This puts a huge administrative strain on the organization resulting in overtime, lost registrations and stress.  This is why so many people are smiling on the event day; they’re thinking, “We made it!”, lol!

Get paid before your events

Another challenge is collecting payment.  After you go to the trouble to promote an event, shouldn’t it be easy for you to get paid by attendees?  Again, most organizations are still asking people to mail in payments or are struggling with some sort of online merchant account, Paypal button that doesn’t tie into registration or just asking people to mail checks in.  Why wait until the day of the event to get paid?  People who pay ahead of time are making a commitment to attend and that makes it easier for you!

Making registration fast and easy

Now you could hire a programmer to come in develop a custom event registration system for your business.  I’ve seen several out there which look like they were put together in a way that the registration site looks awkward and just plain confusing.

Break the mold

If you’re still reading this post because you want relief.  You’re tired of low registration numbers for your events, lost entries and people getting in who didn’t pay.  You would like a system that is fast and easy with no training required.

Eventbrite will rock your event!

Powerhouse for SEO and event promotion

One of the most amazing features of Eventbrite is it’s powerful SEO.  When you create an event, you get a customized URL where people can sign up.  Eventbrite has swirled in their SEO mojo to make these pages highly optimized for search engines.  A few days after I posted my workshop for Microsoft Word training, I noticed hundreds of hits to my event page only to find out I was #4 on Yahoo search for, “microsoft word“!

Eventbrite also has built in functions which make it easy for you to promote you’re event on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook plus when people are done registering, they can tweet or post that they’re going to your event!

Blog and CMS Friendly

Want to sell tickets for an event from your blog?  Easy!  You can embed event registrations right into your blog posts for a seamless look.  They also have code snippets that will rotate your upcoming events in the sidebar.   Great way to post events in your WordPress, Blogger or Typepad blog.

Looking to list events on your Joomla or Drupal website?  Never fear!  Eventbrite works here as well and you can customize the colors of your event page to match your website.  Your event registrations are secure as Eventbrite uses SSL through the entire check out so your registration info is safe.

Free event?  Free for you too!

Eventbrite has an interesting fee structure.  Events that you hold for free don’t cost you anything.  If you charge for the events then you are charged:

Eventbrite fee

You pay this fee every time you charge for an event.

• 2.5% of ticket price plus $0.99 for each ticket sold

Payment processing

You pay one of these fees to accept electronic payments for your event.  You can also choose to accept payments offline or at your event in which case you won’t pay a processing fee.

• Eventbrite is 3% per transaction
• Paypal is about 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction
• Google checkout is about 2.5% + $.30 per transaction

Who’s using it?

• Thousands of Wordcamp events
• Hundreds of Barcamp events
• Social Media events
• Green confereneces
• SEO workshops
• Colleges, Fortune 500′s, Nonprofits and more!

Humanity’s Greatest Challenges was held at NASA’s Ames Research park in July where the leading experts in our environment gathered to discuss how we could develop and maintain more sustainable ways of living

Mashable held their Social Good conference via Eventbrite in New York City to educate people on the four charities chosen for the Summer of Social Good campaign; Livestrong, Humane Society, Oxfam America and WWF.

Techcrunch’s annual event to feature new an innovative companies is known as TechCrunch50.  For those of you who know, the tickets to this conference are $3,000 each so that speaks volumes that Techcrunch rolls with Eventbrite!

Savannah State University held several trainings on ADP payroll software to bring staff up to speed on their transition to the new service.

Summary

I started looking for a tool that would help me easily and quickly allow people to register for my live, online training at Freshworkshops.  I didn’t want people to fool around with signing up and needed a way to quickly communicate with attendees.  I needed the process to be as automated as possible so I didn’t have to babysit registrations.  I found Eventbrite and fell in love!

It’s so easy that I can setup a new training workshop in under 15 minutes.  I sold my first ticket within a few days of posting the training.  It rocks to wake up and see people have signed up for my technology workshops!

If you’re using some archaic, old system for registrations, you need to have a serious staff meeting, move your conferences to Eventbrite and start making money!

Photo credit: Gnerk, Davemedia