Archive for the ‘downside’ tag
Hack a Zoom H2 Portable Audio Recorder to Accept Four Inputs [Video]
The Zoom H2 is great, inexpensive portable audio recorder. The downside is that its input options are rather limited. If you’re willing to take the device apart, however, you can change that. More »
Install Mountain Lion on As Many Macs As You Want Without Purchasing Additional Copies [Os X Mountain Lion]
One of the upsides of OS X Mountain Lion’s already low purchase price of $20 is that one copy can be re-downloaded and installed on any other Macs that you own for free. The downside, of course, is that if another Mac in the household doesn’t share the same Apple ID as you, the buyer, you have to get another copy. As it turns out, there’s a very simple solution so you can just reinstall from the same copy as many times as you need to. More »
Google Affirms The Nexus 7?s Main Fault With This Adorable Commercial
The Nexus 7 is a fantastic tablet — for the price. To me and many others its only downside is lack of built-in wireless data connectivity. It can only connect to the internet’s tubes through WiFi.
Google apparently agrees. I won’t spoil the cute commercial but let’s just say the dad isn’t using a WiFi hotspot to entertain his son.
With WiFi hotspots, phone apps, and USB modems, there are a ton of ways to feed a tablet or computer wireless data while on the go. But none are as seamless or efficient as a built-in solution. Requiring another device adds another potential point of failure.
Still, even though the Nexus 7 is only WiFi-only, it’s still an amazing tablet that’s totally worth its price. But I wouldn’t buy it. I’m spoiled by a Verizon iPad and, before it, a first-gen Xoom. I simply cannot imagine owning a tablet that requires another device to connect it to the internet. I mean, I really don’t want to bring my phone along on a camping trip, but a tablet is a must-have to keep the kids entertained. What else are they going to do camping? Get dirty and have fun? Pssh. It’s Kingdom Rush time!
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer On Stage At TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco
It was May 2010 and all I wanted was an answer to my question, “What is Yahoo?” Then Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz wasn’t able to answer that question. But the conversation was…lively anyway.
TechCrunch wants to try this again, and Marissa Mayer and I have both agreed. I’ll interview her at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, coming up in just a few weeks.
My guess is she’ll have her feet wet enough at Yahoo to be able to really talk about the challenges and opportunities for the company, and where she’ll be leading it. She’ll probably even answer that question I asked two years ago.
Mayer will also be judging the final round of the startup competition at Disrupt. She’s been a finalist judge as long as TechCrunch has had conferences. But given her new job, it’s particularly thoughtful that she’d take the time to continue to mentor these startups.
As for me, well, TechCrunch invited me back again to participate in the event. I’ll do a few on stage interviews and participate in the startup competition.
My primary goal is to do great interviews and have interesting conversations. And there’s little downside – I doubt Marissa will break down and swear at me like Bartz did (which was all in fun, trust me). And It’s not like Pando Daily can fire me twice (can they?).
This’ll be great. See you there.
Escape Is Possible: Zoho Office Now Integrated Into Google Drive
This morning, Zoho Office, the David to Google Apps’ Goliath, is announcing that it will now be integrated into Google Drive. To be clear, this is not an official partnership between Zoho and Google (Google isn’t that crazy), it’s an integration made possible by way of Google Chrome extensions. There are some challenges with that method, of course, but for those looking for the escape hatch from the Google Docs universe, this may be it.
The benefit to using Google Apps, but also the downside, is that it limits your ability to try other products and services on the market. Everything under Google’s umbrella is integrated to work together – you click on a document in your online cloud storage, it opens in Google Docs; you can click an attachment in your Gmail, and opens it in Google Docs; when you save a file authored in the cloud, it saves to your Google Drive. There’s not much benefit to trying a different, disconnected service once you buy into Google’s suite. There are areas where Google can improve these integrations (Calendar and Contacts jump out at me as lacking), but for the most part, they work well to keep you locked into the entire Google ecosystem.
Zoho, however, is positioning the new Google Drive integration as a challenge to Microsoft, which this week revealed the future of its own Office Suite and online offerings. Like much of Microsoft’s install base, Zoho also targets the corporate and enterprise market with its products. But Google is making its own inroads into these areas – according to Google’s own website, 4 million businesses now use Google Apps, in addition to 40 million active users. Zoho’s business install base is much smaller than that: 6+ million users (that’s users, not businesses), but the lot of those users are business customers, not consumers.
To use the new Google Drive integration, Zoho users will head over to the Chrome Store for the extensions. Unfortunately, each one is packaged seperately: Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show.
Verizon’s New Shared Data Plans Will Replace Your Unlimited Plan [Video]
Verizon announced their new cellphone plan today, called “Share Everything”, which gives you unlimited talk and text with a data plan that you share among 10 devices on your plan. You can choose how much data you and your family need, and tethering is included for free, which is a great perk. The downside? If you switch to it, your unlimited data plan will go away, and you’ll have to keep track of the entire family’s data instead of just your own, which seems incredibly cumbersome. You can, however, keep your unlimited data plan as long as you don’t buy any subsidized phones from Verizon—so if you want to buy a new phone, you should do it before then plan goes live on June 28. Hit the link for more information. [Verizon Wireless] More »
Why Facebook Camera Matters
Facebook launched a mobile camera app.
You may be wondering why Facebook launched a mobile camera app (quaintly called, Camera) just a short while after purchasing Instagram in a heart-stopping billion dollar acquisition. Everywhere you turn online, there is discourse about this app. Most of the discourse is a quizzical wonder as to why Facebook would even bother (especially because many people think that it is inferior to Instagram’s capabilities).
Facebook Camera is not for you.
If you have Instagram, odds are that Facebook Camera is not for you. If you read this blog, odds are that Facebook Camera is not for. Facebook wants more and more people taking and sharing pictures (one of the biggest and most important functionalities of the online social network), and they’re smart enough to know that trying to get more and more people to join Instagram (another online social network) is probably a lot harder than launching a camera app that automatically syncs up to your Facebook profile. Facebook’s new camera app is for everybody else. It’s not for us.
It’s a mobile world.
You know it. I know it. Facebook knows it. Putting the IPO issues to the side and the many challenges that the company will now face as a public one, Facebook Camera demonstrates that the company is both serious about mobile and that it’s going to do everything it can to move forward fast. This speed is crucial because we are quickly leaving the browser-based/web-based Internet as we have known it to date, into a world of hyper-connected individuals who are highly untethered (no more fixed stations).
Facebook Camera is for everyone.
Will it be a raging success? It’s way too early to call. Should Facebook have simply integrated Instagram? Who knows? Regardless, this camera app has allowed them to take another step into the mobile world with something that everyone – who is already connected on Facebook – can use (in a very fast and simple way). It’s hard to see a downside in this move. My only critical comments are for those online who are quick to judge as if everything and anything that is released should be aimed at the early adopters or more sophisticated users. Remember: the majority of people use the cameras that came with their mobile devices. The majority are not early adopters. The majority are not all that sophisticated with their technology. If Facebook Camera makes it dead easy to take, play with and share photos, this could become a runaway success…
Whether us eager beavers like it or not.
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Which Format Is Best? When You Should Shoot Photos in JPEG and When You Should Use Camera RAW [Digital Photography]
All DSLRs, and even many point-and-shoots nowadays, can shoot in RAW format, meaning you can save your images as a completely unprocessed file that offers the potential for a higher-quality photo. The downside is that RAW files take up a lot of space and require extra work to process in post. So when should you use this format or when should you stick to space-saving JPEGs? SLR Lounge performed several tests to come to a (mostly) definitive conclusion. More »
Get Free Books, Gadgets, and More by Writing Popular Reviews [Free Stuff]
It’s fun to get a shiny new gadget or indulge in a great book or movie, but constantly purchasing these items can get pretty pricey if you do it often. If you want to keep getting new stuff without the downside of paying for it, however, work-life blog Savvy Sugar points out that all that’s necessary is a couple of good online reviews: More »
Inspiration Alley: McCormick Pin-Spiration
Pinterest is the social network for women who love fashion, decorating and food. That’s why it’s the perfect home for McCormick’s new marketing campaign. They call it Spring Pin-Spiration.
The campaign challenges people to create a board with photos of dishes they made from at least five recipes from McCormick.com. Photos must be properly tagged and finished boards have to be emailed to the company overseeing the contest. 25 winners will get a spring baking kit.
The results are lovely to look at and the use of Pinterest is perfect. On the downside, the contest rules were extremely hard to find and they don’t contain an “enter by” date. Since social is forever and the main post keeps getting repinned all over the site, there’s no way of knowing if the contest is currently open to new submissions.
The other problem is the tag they’re using. @McCormick Pin-spiration is not clickable, so you can’t see all of the entries simply by clicking on one. You have to search the term in the search box and that’s more effort than most will put out.
Actually, the entire campaign is a lot of work. 5 recipes made, photographed and posted is quite a bit. At the moment, it doesn’t appear that they have that many entries but it’s hard to tell after a quick search.
Get Pin-spired
Now it’s your turn to get Pin-spired. How can you use Pinterest to draw attention to your company?
1. It must be graphically oriented. You can post links to webpages, blogs, etc. But Pinterest is about photos. The more striking and colorful the better. Ask people to post their own photos highlighting use of your products or related activities. If you run an online store, challenge them to build a wish list for themselves or perhaps for Mom on Mother’s Day.
2. Less complicated, more entries. Make the rules as clear and simple as possible. The more steps you add, the less entries you’ll get.
3. Create a tag. Tags are the easiest way to monitor the flow of connected information on Pinterest.
4. Offer a prize. People will be more likely to post if there’s a prize at stake. Doesn’t have to be a trip to Hawaii. A small gift certificate or product from your store is enough to get the competitive spirit in gear.
Anyone can use Pinterest to promote their business but some will be more successful than others. In general, Pinterest appeals mostly to women. Fashion, home decor, cooking, travel, and crafts are most likely to get you noticed.
Are you using Pinterest to promote your business? We’d like to hear about it in the comments below.
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