Imma need you to get the airport on time!

I use TripIt as go-to service for travel organizing. I simply book my plans and make sure to check the “receive a copy of your confirmation via email” button. As soon as those email hit my inbox, I forward them to Plans@TripIt.com and BOOM! My travel itinerary is automagically created complete with phone numbers, addresses, reservation info., and even maps and weather information.

So I thought I would quickly drop this little gem on you…

(If you can manage to make it to the airport on time) You might want to sign up for the free TripIT travel organizer and download the mobile app for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Why? Because customers can save 15% on their next Park ‘N Fly reservation.

If you’re not famililar with Park ‘N Fly, it’s an airport shuttle service that saves you money on airport parking. Like I said, if you plan ahead and are punctual, you can park a little farther away from the airport and avoid paying those steep fees if you regularly park in the airport-run garage.

The cool thing about Park ‘N Fly is they also offer luggage assistance, covered parking, and services such as car washing & detailing, pet boarding, car maintenance, and valet at many of our locations. Pretty dope right?

So the next time you really (Really) want to plan ahead on your next trip, be sure to visit TripIt to get your stuff in order and when that’s done, be sure to reserve your parking on the Park ‘N Fly website for extra savings and convenience.

Just to show you I care, everybody who:

1). Drops a comment about all the crazy ways they currently organize their travel plans

and

2). Retweets, likes, or “+1′s” this post

…I will hook them up with a free 3-month trial of TripIt Pro that also lets users track rewards points, monitor travel status, get quick refunds, and more.

Take Your Online Facebook Page Offline

I must say i’m a fan of MOO.com. Sure, you could get cheaper business cards made someplace else, but MOO.com has the easiest card creation and best quality cards out there. Now, I would prefer that people adopt more techie ways to share contact info (You DO know I’m also a fan of QR Codes, right?). But, since everywhere I go people still ask “Do you have a card?” I’ve decided to combine the two and use MOO.com to create QR Code biz cards.

MOO is becoming more and more recognizable and has previously launched campaigns That uses your information from sites like About.me and Klout to personalize your own biz card. Well, the latest victim is Facebook, who will now let businesses and brands create free eye-catching cards based on their Page.

More than four million businesses have Pages on Facebook. So it makes sense that the social networking site wants to help users who have invested quite a bit a time, design work, and capital into their Pages online, see their hard work in the wild as well.

For example, you can use your Timeline/Profile cover image, with contact information as the front of the card, and use a quote, status update, or business bio/profile on the back. The cool part is you are not manually uploading any of this info to MOO.com. You simply give the service access to your FB account, and it pulls relevant information and automatically gets the process rolling. From there, you can proof/edit information for accuracy, and/or add more images to personalize each and every card. You can also use MOO.com’s “Printfinity” feature and pair just the right images for a new offering, service or product launch – whether it’s for strictly business or for fun social and networking occasions.

So if you’re a Facebook King/Queen, and most of your traffic and/or engagement is on Facebook, you can use MOO.com to integrate your products and services showcased on Facebook Pages and make dope business cards.

For more info or to get started, visit the MOO.com Facebook Cards Page

Thanks...you REALLY shouldn't have

Since Mother’s Day 2012 is over, and the flowers, brunches, and generational pictures (you know – those pictures where the women of all ages get together an take one picture to show how many generations deep they are) have ceased, I want to know – How do you REALLY think your gift of a geeky gadget went over with the mother in your life?

As a techie, I must admit that sometimes I force technology onto the ones I love. No matter how useful, handy, or beneficial technology can be for just about anybody, it may not be the perfect fit for every situation. So this year, I backed off just a little and got Mrs. Tech a fancy blender/juicer for Mother’s Day. She has been hinting at more healthy eating FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY (sad face), so I resisted the urge of buying something geeky, I got her something I though she would get more value out of.

Yes, she liked it and surprisingly, I did too *sips milk-chocolate banana smoothie for lunch* but it wasn’t my first choice. I was going to get her something geeky; something she had to learn how to use;  something she had to keep charged/synced/updated; something she probably would have spent more money on via accessories, cases, and more content.

Now to me, that sounds GLORIOUS. But I resisted the temptation, and went with something she can use without much fuss, and without me convincing her that she would love. I am slowly but surely learning that there is a time a place for everything, and sometimes (just sometimes) technology my not always be the answer.

…But that’s just me.

I want to get a consensus from all you who did decide to go the tech route for a Mother’s Day. How many of you just assumed the mother in your life really wanted some gadget? If so, did she love it just because it came from you, or do you think she would have really preferred a swanky trip to the spa and some alone time?

#NoWhackQRCodes

Anybody who knows me or has been following me for longer than a week should know that I am a QR Code fan. I even have a place on my website that lets you create your own QR Code for peet’s sake. I can’t help but scan them everywhere I go.

So you can say it frustrates me when I scan whack QR Codes. I love you to death, but if I meet you and come across one of your QR Codes, be warned – I AM going to scan it and I AM going to talk about you if it’s whack.

Peep my latest “Tell ‘Em Why You Mad, Son” video on how to identify if your QR Code game is whack…and what you can do about it.

links: Scan Pages

iPhone 5 Concept Drawing Courtesy of Uptown Magazine

Every once in a while, I get tech questions via social media networks and other channels. So I decided to start a new area on my blog where I answer some of those questions in order to help a larger audience who my have the same questions. So don’t go getting all up in your feelings if you ask me a public question and it shows up here – Consider your question as inspiration for a blog post…You’re welcome.

This one comes via Twitter:

“Bro Terrance is it worth waiting for i-phone 5…..In fall maybe? or just go with 4S”

I chose this question because the iPhone 5 rumors continue to poor out, and I’m sure people don’t want to be “left behind” when it comes to the latest and greatest technology. I put “left behind” in quotes because the only way you won’t be left behind is if you fork over every penny you have on every new gadget that comes out.

It seems as if a new smartphone is introduced every week. Apple typically releases a new iPhone every year. I’m an early adopter and I don’t have loot like that. So let’s just put that “I don’t want to get behind on the times” sentiment to bed because quite frankly, we’re ALL behind.

Something else to consider is your current phone status. If you’re without a phone or the phone you have is SERIOUSLY on its last leg, it sounds like you need to make a decision sooner than later. If so, I would suggest digging in those pockets now and sign 2 years of your life over to your wireless carrier and get the iPhone 4S. You will be more than happy with the device.

If you’re wireless contract is up, but your phone is fine, sounds like you’re just tired of looking at your “old” phone. I put “old” in quotes because you’re probably just hating on other folks with newer phones and need an excuse to ditch yours.

Having said that, if you just WANT the “new hotness” all the while understanding that you don’t really NEED the new hotness, by all means, wait for the iPhone 5.

Since Apple drops a new phone every year, and it was the fall when it released the iPhone 4S, it’s a pretty solid assumption that the iPhone 5 (or whatever it’s gonna be called) will be released this fall.

Long story short, if you are legitimately in need for a new phone now, you will be more than happy with the iPhone 4S ever after the iPhone 5 is released later this year. If you don’t really need a new phone and can resist being “left behind” and can use your “old” phone for a couple more months, I say save your duckets and wait for the iPhone 5. In the meantime, there are always ways to breathe new life into your old devices as well.

(Ask me how I know)

#Plug

Thanks for questions (validates that i’m in the right business) and keep ‘em coming. You can hit up my contact page, or find me on the web:

Twitter: @BrothaTech

Facebook: Terrance Gaines

Google+: Terrance Gaines

Links to the gadgets mentioned the video (Courtesy of Amazon…Help a Brotha out)

Powermat Dual 1850

Kensington Pocket Battery

Mophie Powerstation

Code Academy Founders Mike McGee & Neal Sales-Griffin

I can definitely dig what Mike McGee and Neal Sales-Griffin are doing up in Chicago. Going from knowing nothing about coding or development, to almost $1 million in revenue for their tech startup that teaches students how to code in as little as two years, these Brothas are putting technology in Chicago on the map.

Check out an excerpt of the story I wrote in Black Enterprise:

Named after the year of the Great Chicago Fire,1871, the 50,000 sq. ft. startup hub in downtown Chicago officially opened its doors last Thursday, ushering in the future of technology in one of Chicago’s oldest buildings, The Merchandise Mart. Now, engineers, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, startups, techies, and students can use the space to begin crafting their dreams, and Code Academy, a 12-week program that teaches non-techies web development, has been the first tenet to “beta- test” the space.  Even before the grand opening, Code Academy was able to pack the house with over 500 attendees for their first Demo Day.

Launched by two young African-American entrepreneurs, Neal Sales-Griffin and Mike McGee, Code Academy started its third semester with 80 students and three instructors. According to McGee, they should be in the neighborhood of $1 million in revenue by the end of this summer, which is the direct result of about two years of hard work, determination, networking and being told ‘no’ more times than they would’ve preferred.

Northwestern graduates, Sales-Griffin, 24, a business major and McGee, 23, a graphic design and political science major, knew nothing about software development before they founded their tech startup. But they attempted to learn code themselves over a 12-month period, scouring the web for classes, materials, and any resources they could find.

Want more? Read the entire story over on Black Enterprise

You should all know by now that Evernote is the first app I download on any new mobile device I get right? As a result, any app that integrates with Evernote is an app I will take a serious look at.

Case in point: I use Penultimate to jot notes on my iPad with a stylus or my finger; and yes, Evernote integration allows me to send my notes to Evernote to keep all my information in one place versus spread out across multiple apps. So you can say I was geeked when I found out that Evernote acquired Penultimate.

As with any technology acquisition, you have to assume that some of the talent & features that made the acquired company/brand so popular will inevitably will spill over into the company that did the acquiring.

*Crosses fingers in hopes that the folks over at Instagram make the Facebook mobile app better*

According the Evernote Blog,

We couldn’t be more excited that Penultimate is joining Evernote. Our team has been working on handwriting recognition and digital ink forever and it feels like for the very first time, the experience of writing on a tablet is actually great. That’s what Penultimate has done. Now that we can add Evernote’s technology and expertise, it’s about to get a lot more powerful. Just wait till you see what we’ve got in store.

It would be dope if I could use a stylus to jot notes directly in Evernote. I would still use Penultimate for doing heavy note taking in a meeting or at a conference, it would be KILLER if I could quickly open Evernote to scribble a phone number, address, or Twitter handle with my finger.

Let me just say if you’re not using Evernote, I am going to slap talk about you…bad. If you have an iPad, you should download Penultimate for $0.99 in iTunes and just imagine all the possibilities if just some of those features made it over to Evernote.

You get what you pay for

“Imma tell you why I’m mad son” Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like EVERY TIME I go to my local coffee shop to get some work done, The wifi speeds are horrendous.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that free wifi while I drink a smoothie (cause I don’t do coffee) is a privilege and not a right; but Why must you make me suffer on your abysmal network signal?

Peep the video for more of my beef with whack network speeds at your local coffee shop and what you can do about it.

Garrett Johnson of SendHub

Ya boy is spreading his freelance writing wings and penned a piece for Black Enterprise about SendHub’s mass text messaging service and its co-founder Garrett Johnson who has caught the eye of Silicon Valley by raising 2 million in seed funding to expand on the service that makes it easy to send “opt-in” text messages to large groups.

I did an interview with Johnson and in addition to telling his story, he dished the dirt on how to raise venture capital funding.

Excerpt from article:

Messaging startup SendHub continues to make news with the launch of its much-anticipated iPhone app today. The mobile app will allow businesses and individuals to access features offered on the web platform such as sending messages to large groups and adding contacts, among other elements.

Garrett Johnson, co-founder of SendHub, aimed to create a service that made it easier for businesses, educators, healthcare workers and virtually anyone to send texts to individuals and groups of any size. Well, he certainly has. At least that’s what his investors think. SendHub recently announced it scored $2 million in seed funding from venture capital heavy hitters like Kapor Capital and Menlo Ventures, among other public and private investors.

At the grassroots level of any startup, the top question posed is: What problem does my idea solve? For Johnson, the problem was, “How can teachers better communicate with students and parents?” His initial solution was to build a quick and easy-to-use text message-based communication system. (What kid do you know that can’t text?)

Continue reading on Black Enterprise

“Brooklyn we did it”