On a recent flight with a pilot friend of mine, I noticed yet another way the ipad has become more than just an entertainment and Facebook browsing device. My good friend Allan brought his iPad 2 and a leg strap along. After we got buckled in, the ipad went on the lap and up on the screen came a gps-enabled navigation application Foreflight. After watching how he used it for a minute, it was readily apparent how perfectly fit flight charts are for the iPad. Knowing how poor my battery life is on my iphone, I do have concerns about having a dead battery during flight but Allan didn't seem too concerned.
After learning a bit about how Allan uses it for private aviation, I did some research and discovered that American Airlines has adopted iPads for exactly the same use. Watch the video and you will hear that by replacing paper navigation maps/reference materials, they believe fleet-wide that they can save a sizeable amount of fuel dollars (the typical bag of maps that pilots carry weighs approximately 25 pounds each). Thankfully, the iPads will not come with wifi so your airline pilot won't be tempted to play Words with Friends.
This weekend, I had my first experience with a table-based mobile device at a chain restaurant. Different from the game systems many of us have seen, this one allowed you to order, check your bill, swipe and pay via credit card, and email yourself a receipt. My first thought was that it was more of a novelty than a useful device. By the time the meal was over, however, I realized why Chilis was investing in them. Our order was accurate, the server was able to focus on keeping us happy versus ferrying orders, bills, and credit cards back and forth and last but not least, we were in and out probably 20% faster than without the device. I found the experience more satisfying because I had more control over the order accuracy and most of all, not having to wait for the server to run credit cards. I did a quick search and found a slightly different and very valid perspective on the device - it is yet another distraction that sucks away from our ability to talk to one another and not act like mobile/electronic zombies (http://www.measurecp.com/2011/11/why-im-not-a-fan-of-chilis-tablet-kiosk/).
The technology was likely installed to increase the number of bills paid per table. Similar to a taxi driver going 100 mph to maximize # of fares paid per hour or Southwest airlines' famous rapid turnarounds to keep planes flying (if they aren't flying, they aren't generating revenue), Chili's is smartly maximizing bills per table per hour. I am sure the technology REALLY comes in handy when there are multiple bills per table. Good use of technology Chili's. Now we can all get fatter quicker.
In recent months, I have become more and more concerned about personal and business security for my various web accounts and devices. Essentially, a few security situations have popped up with family and friends as well as having read articles on people who experienced hacks. In one recent instance, a family member was coerced into believing that I had been robbed and in jail in Mexico. See this video and the FTC website for "the Grandparent scam".
Check out some of these incredible stories that should concern you:
- this one is very close to what happened in our family... "Mugged in Madrid" emails were sent out from a hacked Gmail account. This one is lengthy but worth the read.
My recommendations aren't complicated, just the basics:
DONT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED....the hours and heartache and stress that come from the one time you get hit will more than balance out the time and effort you take over time to have good security habits.
SECURE YOUR PHONE AND TABLETS.... Your mobile devices are certainly a target. When all of your passwords, accounts, bank statements, etc. are on a desktop in your home, it is somewhat more secure physically. Now with mobile devices proliferating, access points into your personal information are with you in your car (which can easily be broken into as has happened to us twice in the last few years), in your pocket, everywhere you go and is easily loseable as I have done more than once with my phone.
IMPLEMENT STRONG PASSWORDS.... I like OnePassword. It definitely takes security to a new level with the ability to create 40+ character non-dictionary passwords and distribute across all of your devices easily. There are numerous password managers out there. Use one! Don't be the guy that uses one password for everything from social accounts to bank accounts. If someone cracks or steals one account, they have your whole life!
WATCH WHERE YOU CONNECT... Don't punch in passwords on open networks in coffee shops, airports, hotels, etc. where your activity can be logged by third parties.
DONT BE NAIVE ABOUT POSTS ON FACEBOOK....As a cousin who worked in military counter-intelligence recently said, if you wouldn't be willing to shout it out in a crowded restaurant, don't post it.
DONT CLICK ON LINKS AND ATTACHMENTS IN EMAILS....even from people you know, be super careful.
RUN VIRUS SOFTWARE AND ROUTINELY SCAN....we like Malware Malybytes, there are numerous apps to choose from on CNET.
DONT FORGET YOUR WIRELESS SIGNAL AT HOME....if your password is too easy and gets punched through, a lot of information is wide open to prying eyes.
This is clearly not a comprehensive list so what else should we put here? My approach has largely been gathered by talking to family and friends and reading articles. What additional advice does everyone have? POST IT! I want to learn from as many folks as I can.
April 12, 2011
Its always nice to get a backlink on Searchengineland....
I took a hammer to my recently "damaged beyond repair" iphone3G. No I am not crazy; it was permanently damaged in an "incident" and so my natural curiosity saw an opportunity. I really wanted to see what the guts of an iphone look like and to see if I could find the hard drive before it goes to recycling. iphones don't make the battery accessible (unlike all of my previous mobile devices) so I was curious to see how it was configured.
As the hammer began doing its work, I felt like I was in an alternative universe knowing that for 2+ years I panicked every time it hit the ground from more than knee-height. I gave it some pretty hard pops and surprisingly it held up for a good 3 or 4 shots. On roughly the 5th shot, the screen popped off. What I found was multi-layered hardware stacked on top of each other - no surprise really - so it could actually fit in the phone. The layers were:
1) touch screen: although the picture is awful (taken with a first generation iphone), its the black piece on the left. This screen actually lies underneath the outer screen that you touch with your finger under normal oreatoin. The outer screen was shattered into hundreds of glass pieces in the "incident" and was gone on impact.
2) SIM Card, circuitboards, camera, and small tethers to the back of the touch screen
3) battery (not shown -under the circuit). To get to the battery layer, I had to unscrew 6 tiny screws to lift the circuit boards.
Overall, I didn't find anything too shocking. I think the most interesting findings are that the touch screen takes up at least half of the space in the phone and that it was somewhat resilient when I gave it a few shots. Maybe I can rest a little easier now with the next phone (hurry up Verizon) when the little guy in my house drops it on the floor every other second.
I was pleased today to see Search-Werks' client philosophy skin care and cosmetics featured on Oprah's Favorite Things today. Hope in a Jar was touted by Oprah as "hands down the best skin moisturizer she has ever used". I know my wife April really swears by it too after getting her hands on a few samples. Now lets get some of this content retweeted and backlinked! Congrats philosophy!
Although its a little off topic, I couldn't resist posting something that came up recently with a client partner of ours. Its a reminder that when something is free, you usually get what you pay for.
Inadvertantly during profile and account edits, the client's Google Analytics account was deleted. The client immediately posted on the Google Analytics help forum in obvious panic. Approximately 9 days after the panic request for help post, the client received this "helpful" response (I have to admit that it came infinitely faster than I expected).
"Hi,
We're able to restore deleted accounts immediately after they've been canceled but not after a few days. Therefore, we're unable to restore your account.
Thanks,"
Thank you Google for the helpful response. Obviously I removed the Googler's name. No need to get in trouble. However, my advice to GA users out there...DON'T ACCIDENTALLY DELETE YOUR GA ACCOUNT (my humor) and if you do, don't expect Google to help.
Thankfully, the Googler didn't know that we had previously rescued the client's account from the garbage can through contacts we had. If not for that, the client would have lost several years of data.
I recently went to a conference on mobile commerce and surprisingly I didn't hear about this one. Its been out for a while so I am thinking that I must be living under a rock?? Has anyone tried this yet and if so, how did it go? I know I spend quite a bit of time as a small business owner running back and forth to the ATM to deposit funds so this could be a nice little time saver for me.
I saw a headline yesterday that caught my attention..." Apple launches social music network Ping". I had to read because I was thinking that I misunderstood. Considering my terribly expensive golf habit, I was thinking the well established Ping golf clubs/putters that happens to be based here in the Phoenix area.
But after reading, Apple did truly launch "Ping". Conceptually, a music oriented social network really is a great idea (and still slightly innovative several years into the social networking boom). But come on Apple....Ping??!! With such an incredibly creative company, that's the best name you could come up with? Not only is it non-descriptive, uh hello, that name is already taken by the well established Ping golf club brand and by Microsoft by changing the P to a B.
This headline triggered a recurring thought in my mind about some of the dumbest social media and search names I have heard over the years. Way back in the day, I remember saying "Gooo-gul? What is that? At least its a name that you would recognize if you heard it again." Google got away with a kitchy name because they were the first and it was memorable. Please please everyone else, stop naming your products and websites with dumb names. It is NOT a requirement to copy Google and have a double letter name or drop a vowel to be memorable, be a social media hipster, and get lots of VC funding.
This means you Flickr, Squidoo, Tumblr, Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, and numerous others. While I am at it, bit.ly, delicious, and orkut too.
Looks like this morning, Google has unveiled a very impactful match type, modified broad match, in the Adwords platform. I can see this really helping remove some funky matches from clients' broad match adgroups.
Update: we have tested it today already and found that it can be somewhat difficult to make your keyword setups act exactly like you want. Our advice.....start out slow and test before you leap in full force. It could wreck your campaigns if you throw the modifier on all of your broad match adgroups.
