Saving Companies Thousands. Be One!

In Japan there is a cell phone culture called Ketai Culture. They have several things on their cell phones that we would not normally consider as a normal option. Some phones have pedometers, crime prevention buzzers, and many other things. The culture is so intense over there  that half of their top selling books are written on cell phones and many are read on phones as well.

I wanted to mention QR Codes. What is a QR Code? It is very similar to a bar-code, but when you take a picture of it, the QR Code will direct you to a URL. In Japan many movie posters have them (which direct you to the movies website or viral site), grocery items have them, and even business cards will direct you to the company or employees website.

If our tech/cell phone culture continues to boom here, I think this is something that Americans will start taking more advantage of. Imagine, being able to research almost everything you see, just by taking a picture of the QR Code. That would be awesome! They are currently testing it out in San Francisco where the QR Code will direct you to a Citysearch website for restaurants and shops. It seems like San Francisco is the spot for all the awesome stuff to be tested.

Sprint has been testing a product called Airave for quite some time. To simplify it, you basically plug the Airave device into a router and it will give you unlimited minutes while you are in the reach of the unit. So for those people that are worried about using their minutes at home this is a great device. Some of us do not have the luxury of waiting until 7 p.m. (Which is still the best in the industry) to make calls.

Just plug the Airave into your router and add $15 a month for unlimited calls for one line or $25 for a family plan. I think this is a perfect product for so many people that have Sprint. Not only does it provide you with unlimited minutes, but it also gives you better reception in your home. The awesome thing is it gives 5,000 square feet of coverage, which should cover most large homes. And with the support of three simultaneous users you should not have too many problems.

So think about it. I think it will really help many people out and we believe in giving our customers the best. I think it is a good product and it makes sense for so many. If you are a heavy user, or if you are trying to save money by cutting your home phone line, DO THIS. As always, if you have any questions let us know!

Many customers that walk through our doors day in and day out ask for a phone that is tough or rugged. People need the toughness for different reasons; they are in a line of work where the phone could get damaged, they are very hard on their phone, their phone is prone to more clumsiness than others, or they have a small child. I personally think the most dangerous is children.

We are seeing more phone manufacturers listen to this need and make military spec phones. And there are other great companies like Otterbox which has made my Blackberry 8830 “Baby Proof”. Now both options are great for durability and toughness, but I really feel that a 3rd party case like the Otterbox will protect your phone more.

There are great military spec phones that are on the market, or still available to order. One of the phones I recommend the most is the Sanyo 7050. Sanyos are normally known for their durability and great reception, but adding some rubberized casing and covers in choice places, really elevates it beyond most phones. Verizon has the Casio G’Zone phones which are great, and I have known a lot of customers that have had great results with them. Sprint IDEN (Walkie-Talkie) phones are usually know for durability, and the new Sprint “NDC” phones look to follow in their footsteps.

The point is do not be afraid to ask for what you want. Durability and strength does not have to be ugly in phones and Motorola, Samsung, and LG are all starting to make more durable and better looking phones. And if you are like me and NEED a Blackberry the folks at Otterbox have you covered, or visit and of our locations and pick one up.

I am not sure how many people are like me, but I was usually cramming for a test 5 minutes before it happened. In high school I always had good intentions to study, but many of the times my backpack was never even opened, which created the cramming sessions. I was going through my Viigo today and I found an application called Cram. It looks to be a really cool little tool that lets you upload your tests and answers to help you study.

Sometimes I ask myself why a tween or a young teen needs a Blackberry or PDA, but with helpful applications like Cram starting to come out, it is making a lot more sense. Many tweens, teens, and college students can take advantage of this. Instead of writing those 50 text messages before class they can take a few minutes to refresh their memories about the material. Even as an adult there are great applications you can use it for ,like reviewing your notes on your client before a meeting, or learning the names of all the people and their roles for a new project.

So Cram is really cool, it is $19, but has a free downloadable trial. It currently has 10 reviews and still has a perfect score. So hopefully this helps our readers out there, and if there are any cool applications you would like to share let us know!

I was reading my Viigo feeds at red lights on the way home. I wanted to catch up a little on what I had missed today. I noticed a post about Gypsii which I had to look into because the name just sounded really funny. To ensure everybody’s safety while driving I decided to do further research at home instead of in the car.

When I looked at Gypsii.com it seemed pretty cool. It is yet another Social Networking site, but it definitely caught my attention. Here is the rundown with Gypsii I can geotag pictures, video, and audio. I could geoblog. So say I go to a restaurant and I have great service or horrible food, I could blog about my experience and exactly where it happened. It is really awesome. I would recommend going to the website and checking it out. If you are asking, the answer is yes it works on Blackberrys, but it also works on Windows,Symbian, and even the iPhone.

For business owners, this type of social networking could be used for professional reasons. If you need to make sure somebody is where they say they are you can make them place themselves on Gypsii. It is a great tool for many people, real estate comes to mind. The agent can take a picture of the house and geotag it. Now there is a picture on their Gypsii profile with the home and the exact location, which may also show other listings in close proximity. The real estate agent just showed 5 listings using Gypsii as a business tool.

As many of you know we are CRAZY for Blackberry devices. They are really well made products and have a really intuitive interface that is extremely efficient. We feel most business customers could save an hour a day with a Blackberry and we wanted to let you know about some shortcuts that should make it a little easier.

Something I didn’t know how to do was calling a number like 1-800-GOOG-411. Sure, I can look at a regular phone and find GOOG is 4664, but I do not always have one right in front of me. With the Blackberry I can hold the ALT button down and type GOOG. When I dial it will automatically place the numbers in for me. Another cool thing I have learned is when you are in your pictures you can type N to go the next picture, P for previous, I to zoom in, O to zoom out, and R to rotate.

There are so many shortcuts it is crazy. A couple other things that are really awesome; You can press the spacebar twice to insert a period and automatically capitalize the next letter. I find when I am on my desktop I space twice at the end of a sentence wishing it would do this for me.  The last cool tip I will leave you with is when you are typing an e-mail address press the spacebar to add the @ sign and press again to add the period for the .net or .com.  Any questions contact us.

I have been hearing whispers about Zumobi for  a month or two now, and our good friends at Blackberry Cool recently have had a hands on with Zumobi. Now besides a cool name, what is it? Zumobi basically is a widget for your phone that houses different apps like Twitter and Weather. Now this is really cool. You could get 1 million and one things on your Blackberry, but sometimes it is hard to make them as neat and organized as Zumobi does it.

Zumobi is really awesome and for those of you that are not Blackberry Addicts there is a Windows Mobile Zumobi as well. I have not had too much time with it, but I do know I like it. It is pretty easy to set up as well you just go to Zumobi.com and register. It will send you a link with the download and it only takes a few minutes to set up. Thankfully it gave me another way to update my Twitter account on my phone.SCORE!!!

I know in this day and age we are picture crazy, and with rising prices we are always looking for ways to save money. I have found a fun application that does both. Its called iTookthisONmyPHONE.com. One of the best things about this particular application is its automatic. You sign into the site one time from your Blackberry and as long as you don’t turn your phone off it will automatically upload all of your pictures and videos to the online site.

And with iTOOKthisONmyPHONE’s automated web transfer, you don’t have to worry about filling up your smartphone’s memory as you take photos or record video. Plus if something happens to your phone your pictures are safely stored online.

With a few fun options you can view your photos and video full size or watch a slide show, plus you can invite friends and family to visit your albums and easily share your photos with them.

I have found it saves me a lot of space and protecs my favorite phone pics for me. Enjoy!!!

I was reading an article on one of my favorite tech blogs Gizmodo and they were taking a poll on whether you love, hate, or do not care about push e-mail. For those of you who do not know what push e-mail is, it is basically your phone retrieving e-mails from the server for you. The results are what I thought; 40% love (whether they use it a lot or not), about 20% feel they need to stay on top of things, 20% do not need, and about 20% hate.

When it comes to push e-mail Blackberry is still the king. They did a side by side comparison with the iphone and it takes the iphone approximately 5 times longer to receive their e-mails. Now I am currently on an Exchange Server hosted by Rackspace, and I only get my work e-mails on my Blackberry. It can be very annoying if you have G-Mail or Yahoo Mail, because the push e-mail may deliver 30 spam messages at 4 in the morning ( I know because it happened to me and my wife was not happy).

Many small and medium businesses out there thrive because they can stay on top of their customers needs. Push e-mail really helps that. If you have another device it can be very draining on the battery life since it is constantly trying to retrieve the info. The Blackberry servers deliver the info to your phone. If you have not tried a Blackberry try one out. If you are a business owner take The Smartphone Challenge and see what an extra hour of productivity a day can do for you!

I recently read on Crackberry that mobile users pay an average of 15.9% tax on their cell phone bills. This is a super huge amount. As a retailer we want to take care of our customers and give them a close approximation for their bill, but with mobile taxes rising so much it is hard to do. We know every penny counts now and we would like to help you save money.

Sometimes we get started on a plan that is not the best for us and we stay with it for years because we do not know of any better options. It is so hard to go to your carriers website and wade through the pages and pages of information you do not need to find what you need. Not only that, but there are other things that can save you money based on your mobile habits. Let us take a look at your bill, tell us your habits and let us show you an immediate savings! If you call 411, save your money and call 1-800-GOOG-411. There are so many ways to save out there its crazy.

We save companies thousands, that is what we pride ourselves in. We also pride ourselves in taking care of our customers like nobody else and saving our customers money. If you have any questions contact us, or if you are in the area visit one of our stores and let us help you out.