Dain Binder's Technology Blog

Keeping Secrets by Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO (Collateral Damage of the Sony Hack)

2014-12-17T19:26:00.002-05:00

The recent hack on Sony that has incidentally affected many people over the past couple weeks claims another causality. Snapchat has become the most recent victim when emails containing many of Snapchat's secrets came into public view. In a twist of bad luck, it turns out that Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton (who sits on Snapchat's board) and Snapchat's CEO Evan Spiegel communicate often about acquisitions, future endeavours, and other sensitive information.

Evan shared his thoughts about the recent events with his team and the world:

Keeping Secrets

I've been feeling a lot of things since our business plans were made public last night. Deﬁnitely angry. Deﬁnitely devastated.

I felt like I was going to cry all morning, so I went on a walk and thought through a couple of things. I even ran into one of my high school design teachers. She gave me a huge hug. I really needed it.

And I really need to tell you that I'm so proud of all of you. I want to give you all a huge hug because keeping secrets is exhausting.

Keeping secrets means coming home late, after working all clay and night. Curling up with your loved ones, hanging out with your friends, and not being able to share all of the incredible things you're working on. It's painful. It's tiring.

Secrets also bring us together.

We keep secrets because we love surprising people. We keep secrets because it's the best way to keep showing the world that growth is not only possible, it’s necessary. We keep secrets because it's the right thing to do, not because it’s the easy thing to do.

We keep secrets because we get to do our work free from judgment — until we're ready to share it. We keep secrets because keeping secrets gives you space to change your mind until you're really sure that you're right.

We care about taking the time to get things right. Secrets help us do that.

Secrets keep the space between our community and the public — space that we need to feel safe in our expression and creativity.

I am so sorry that our work has been violated and exposed.

A couple of people have asked me what we're going to do. First we're going to be really mad and angry and upset. And that’s ok.

It's not fair that the people who try to build us up and break us down get a glimpse of who we really are, It’s not fair that people get to take away all the hard work we've done to surprise our community, family, and friends.

It’s not okay that people steal our secrets and make public that which we desire to remain private.

When we're done being mad and angry and upset we're going to keep doing exactly what we are doing. And then we're going to do it ten times better.

We're going to change the world because this is not the one that we want to live in.

Evan Spiegel
December 17, 2014

I shared this with our team today and I wanted to share it with our partners and friends bc I think it's important. pic.twitter.com/eN5HpAhp42
— Evan Spiegel (@evanspiegel) December 17, 2014

New Photo Editing/Enhancement Tools In Google+

2013-09-11T22:48:00.001-04:00

Google+ has just rolled out new tools to edit and enhance your photos. Check out the new features below and watch the video to get introduced to the updated photo editor.

Tune Image - Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, and warmth levels
Selective Adjust - Tune parts of your photo without altering others with control points
Details - Enhance the fine details and improve the sharpness
Crop & Rotate - Resize, trim, rotate, straighten, and change the aspect ratio
Center Focus - Draw attention to the subject of your photo by blurring the surrounding area
Drama - Add style with a custom effect specifically tailored to your photos
Frames - Select a border for you photograph
Tilt-Shift - Simulate depth of field by creating a narrow in-focus area
Vintage films - Make any photo look vintage
Retrolux - Go retro with light leaks, scratches, film styles, and more

Give the new tools a try and let us know what you think. (Note: Chrome is required to use these new tools on the web.)

SARAH Makes Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests Easy

2013-09-08T21:58:00.002-04:00

SARAH was built by Hicham Oudghiri at TechCrunch Disrupt's 2013 Hackathon. SARAH eases the process of requesting data that United States federal government agencies have collected about you as allowed by the Freedom of Information Act.

It is your right to make FOIA requests, but the government doesn't have to make the process easy. Each agency defines how the request must be received and what information has to be supplied. With SARAH you only complete one web form to request data from over 20 federal agencies (listed below). The service then mails letters with your information included to the proper address.

Will you be requesting your information? Let us know in the comments below.

Google AdSense Android App Now Available

2013-07-31T15:40:00.000-04:00

Google AdSense now has an Android app!

As you know, AdSense is Google's publisher advertising platform for content creators to monetize their website by displaying contextual ads to their audience from Google AdWords and other ad networks.

The new app allows fast and easy access to data from your AdSense account. Information can be viewed by your selected time period (today, yesterday, last 7 days, this month, last 30 days, or last month) and for each account in use on your Android device. The screens available are:

Earnings Overview
Top Sites
Top URL Channels
Top Custom Channels
Top Ad Units
Payment Alerts
Settings

Check out the screenshots and let us know your thoughts about the app in the comments below. It works great and is a good first version to gain quick insight into your ad performance, but is not nearly as robust as the website. Hopefully future updates will expand the functionality. Install Google AdSense for Android from Google Play to give it a try.

Having Google Login Problems? (Android, Chrome, Google+, OAuth, etc.)

2013-05-06T17:20:00.000-04:00

If you have experienced or are experiencing problems when trying to sign in to Google services the solution may be simpler than you think. Although there can be other reasons a primary one, albeit not well known, is that you have too many active tokens.

Tokens are created, for example, when you login to third party services with your Google or Google+ account using OAuth, share your Gmail contacts, allow web apps to view your Google Reader subscriptions, sync your Chrome OS or browser data, use Android (phone and certain apps), or use/link any of Google's many services or APIs (Keep, YouTube, Picasa, Drive, Calendar, etc.)

The error message received is usually unclear and varies greatly from each service. You may receive an incorrect password message (the most confusing of all), be unable to connect and see a blank screen, or be told you have too many active tokens (google_too_many_active_tokens). If you have these types of problems while logging in with your Google account email and password to any service, site, or app you can usually rectify it by releasing some account tokens.

Follow these steps to remove authorized connections (tokens) from your Google account:

Go to the Manage Access to Connected Applications and Sites page (slow to load sometimes)
Click the "Revoke Access" button next to the connections you want to remove

Find services you no longer use and remove (it is good to do this anyway)
Remove some "Sign in using your Google account" items

Note: Removing a connection will not close your account with the other app/service. Although, you will have to use another token if you login there with Google again.

Google would not comment on the number of tokens allowed and I don't know if the limits are service specific. The only text I could find regarding a limit is "there are limits... per user across all clients" on the OAuth 2.0 page. Based on my account I believe the limit to be around 500 tokens. A lot of people may never have this problem, but for people like me that enjoy trying new apps, websites, and services you may hit the upper limit after a while.

Good luck!

Google Affiliate Network Shutting Down [Updated]

2013-04-17T21:02:00.002-04:00

Google has quietly announced that the Google Affiliate Network (GAN) will be closing. This appears to be a quick decision, or at least was kept very quiet internally, because they recently created new help videos, have been adding new advertisers, and are active on Google+ and Twitter.

An official closure date has not been announced at this time. GAN vaguely said it will wind down the affiliate network over the next few months, although I received information from an advertiser stating that Google's support will not be available after April 30, 2013.

Update - May 2, 2013 (email notice): All GAN services, except for payment and reporting, will be suspended on July 31, 2013. On October 31, 2013 the remaining services are to shutdown and Google Affiliate Network will be terminated. Payments to publishers will be made for activity through July 31st; after this date you should remove all link/add placements from your web properties. If you are interested in trying Google AdWords and do not currently have an AdWords account please email me for a promotional credit.

I have found affiliate advertising to benefit the advertiser more than any other party involved. Don't get me wrong, that is not a bad thing if you are the advertiser! As a publisher I have displayed Google Affiliate Network ads over the years with little success. The primary reason I did not see meaningful revenue is because I don't have the amount of traffic to generate enough clickthroughs. Even still, most visitors didn't click and the people that did rarely ordered which essentially allowed the seller to get extremely inexpensive display advertisements. I understand Google's decision and feel it is the right choice for them. Many people love it and if you are looking for a new service try AvantLink, ShareASale, and Impact Radius.

Google has other advertising solutions/services such as Product Listing Ads, AdSense, and The Conversion Optimizer that marketers can use.

What do you think about the closing of the Google Affiliate Network? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Best Web Based RSS Readers

2013-04-16T00:12:00.000-04:00

Are you looking for a new or additional RSS reader? Below you will find our best recommendations based on actual use over a couple weeks of testing more than thirty readers. Each unique service has different features and interfaces allowing you to find one that meets your needs and reading style. We focused on free news reader services that do not require downloading a program and that allow you to easily add and view a specific feed. Response time, stability, usability, design, and trustworthiness were all considered. In alphabetical order:

AOL Reader's RSS service provides an informative interface that is fast and simple. The overall functionality and experience will be familiar to most; tags, unread counts, etc. The have integrated the top read later services and allow sharing to many social networks. An API is available for third party developers to create services and apps.

Bloglovin' has an easy to use service that supports feed search/discovery as well as manually adding single feeds or multiples through importing. The interface allows you to sort by date or blog, view popular posts by category, and it tracks your unread posts. A standout feature is getting new posts by email. Also available on Android and iOS.

Digg Reader is a basic reader with simple functionality and a clean layout. The top read later services are integrated and sharing to your social networks is easy. Popular stories are quick to find because it is backed by Digg's news aggregation/discovery site. Also on iOS and Android.

FeedBooster is an advanced reader with customizable views, filters, and content searches. Feed discovery is supported along with the ability to manually add a single feed or upload a group of them. It does not display the entire article, therefore this reader is great for title surfing and honing in on a specific topic to monitor in realtime.

Feedly provides a familiar feeling yet robust reader with multiple layout options including a featured section that highlights the most shared articles within your feeds. Easy organization and importing are accompanied by a wide range of sharing and read later services. It is used by many third party apps as their reader of choice. Try Feedly on your mobile device; Android or iOS.

FeedShow is a basic reader with a traditional layout. It lets you organize the feeds you add/import into folders that indicate when there are new items to read. Saving the story locally and converting it to a PDF file are some nice additional features.

Feedspot has incorporated a social element by adding commenting and the ability to share posts with your friends that use the service. You can add and search for single feeds, read full articles, and see what you have not read.

Good Noows has over ten different visual layouts for you to choose a suitable style. Subscribe and find feeds or import your feed collection to get started. Clicking on a story opens a pane with the full text for a uncluttered read. Searches can be saved as a label to quickly find specific posts you are interested in.

NewsBlur has enhanced its classically styled reader with the ability to follow other users, share stories to your internally hosted blog, and train the system to recognize what you like. Organizing the feeds you add is simple and it shows your unread counts. The full item is shown so that you do not have to click through. To read it in the original format you can use the "original" feature to see the actual webpage in place of the feed text. Get it on Android and iOS.

The Old Reader is a very traditional reader with the ability to follow other users and see trending posts. Subscribing and importing is supported and you can share posts with your followers as well as like and comment on them to start a conversation. The full story is presented, but you can set it to only show the titles using the list view.

While many readers (new and old) were researched for this post most were found to be lacking some of the features that make a full RSS reader useful and efficient. Current news aggregation and consolidation services that surface trending stories are extremely useful and proficient, but are not good at reading and following a specific blog feed. With the closure of Google Reader some feed readers that are currently limited to certain platforms are working to open up and new players are coming on the scene. If new RSS readers perform well they will be added to this post.

Which feed reader are you using? Take our poll! Also, share your reader recommendations in the comments below.

Updates: - July 4, 2013: Added Digg Reader and Feedly
- July 30, 2013: Removed The Old Reader because it is closing to the public
- August 3, 2013; Added The Old Reader back; it will remain open
- August 28, 2013; Mixtab has closed; removed
- August 30, 2013; Added AOL Reader

Bonus: These readers have been recommended by our readers: FeedHQ, vRSS Reader, rssque, InoReader, Ridley, Feever, SwarmIQ, FeedFiend, BazQux Reader, Feed Reader, Feedity Reader, Pheedr, MultiPLX, and Wordpress Reader. (Share your favorite reader in the comments and it may be added here! Note that we have not used/tested these services.)

How To Add Google+ Sharing FeedFlare To FeedBurner

2013-03-15T14:01:00.003-04:00

With Google's decision to shut down Google Reader I wanted to make sure my RSS readers could still easily share to Google+. This will also add sharing to other readers such as The Old Reader. Using FeedBurner to publish your feed allows you to add sharing links called FeedFlare to each item. Oddly, they do not have an official one for Google+ so I set one up.

Simply follow the below instructions which, along with other information, can also be found on Google Code and GitGub.

Go to FeedBurner and login
Select the feed you want to work with
Go to the Optimize tab
Click FeedFlare on the left side
Scroll down to Personal Flare
Add your Flare Unit URL

Google+ Flare Unit URL: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/108330518946726927825/feedflare-googleplusshare.xml
You can also host the Flare Unit yourself

Click the Add New Flare button
Click the checkbox(es) next to your new unit
Scroll down and press Save/Activate

If you have any questions please as them in the comments section. Enjoy!

How To Resize Your Google+ Cover Photo

2013-03-06T23:10:00.002-05:00

Update September 20, 2013: Google has locked down the web image editor for uploaded cover photos. As a workaround you can use the Picasa Windows program; sync to your "scrapbook photos" album, crop your current cover photo, then let it sync.

Today Google+ rolled out a few updates to profiles and pages. One in particular has to do with profile cover photos; they are now 16:9 aspect ratio and must be at least 480 x 270 pixels (up to 2120 x 1192 pixels). This creates a cover photo that takes up your entire screen. Some users find this to be excessive while other people like it. When uploading a new cover photo you are unable to alter its size from the Google+ profile interface.

Following the below workaround will help you change the size of your cover photo.

1) Go to your profile, click on "change cover", upload a new photo, then click "save". You will need to use an image that meets the minimum pixel requirements. (See note at end of post regarding cropping.)

Your profile will now have the large cover photo.

2) Go to your photos, view albums, and select "Scrapbook photos". Click on your newly uploaded cover photo then "edit photo" at top left. You will be at the below screen. (Update: Instead of going to your photo albums, you can simply click on your cover photo from your profile, then click edit photo. Thanks for the tip Ray Hiltz!) If you prefer to completely remove the cover page click the delete/trash can icon instead of edit.

3) Select "crop" in the left panel then adjust the crop lines. (See note at end of post regarding cropping.)

4) Click save at top right and replace the original photo.

5) Apply the crop.

6) Your edited cover photo is complete. Go to, or refresh, your profile to see the update. You can view mine to see it live.

Note: Cropping in step one and three affects the finished image. Depending on your desired result, and the source image size and ratio, it may take a couple attempts to get it exactly how you want it. I found the best and most predictable results happened when the full image width was used in each crop.

YouTube Taking Another Step Towards Paid Subscriptions?

2013-02-26T22:10:00.001-05:00

YouTube has recently been reported to be launching paid subscriptions which was essentially confirmed while reviewing YouTube's updated Android application code. In addition, Google is rumored to be working on a streaming music service which may offer you the ability to purchase a subscription via YouTube for songs (audio only) and music videos.

In my opinion, a YouTube survey sent out by email today is another indication of an impending subscription purchase plan. The timing and questions seem to point towards a premium service while the answers may help them decide on the launch channels. What do you think?

Below are the questions (slightly modified/shortened, please see images for exact content and setup).

YouTube always wants to improve and deliver the best experience to you. On the next few pages, please tell us how we are doing.

How often do you access YouTube?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Less than once a month, but within the past year
Not in the past year, but have accessed previously

Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements:
It is a good alternative to TV
It is a place I want to go to every day
It has content that is professionally made
It is a place for high quality channels
It has cutting edge content

Please name any YouTube channels or YouTube personalities/stars that come to mind:

Which statement best describes how you use YouTube?
I watch videos and occasionally make a video and upload it
I only watch videos
I watch videos and make videos regularly to share on my channel

Gather, The App For Organizing Meetups, To Shutdown

2013-01-22T21:42:00.001-05:00

Gather was launched on July, 20 2012 by Mikeal Rogers and Max Ogden to help bring people together. Gather for Android, iPhone, and web is used to share your upcoming plans with your Facebook and Twitter friends as well as those in your Gather network. The clean and simple interface makes creating, broadcasting, and managing your meetups quick and easy while giving you a single place to stay up to date with nearby friends' plans.

Today, Mikeal announced that with finances running out and a small user base they have decided it is time to phase out Gather. Unfortunately this answers Techcrunch's statement "Now let’s see about that traction". The good news for users is that there is enough money to keep the apps available and the service running until the end of the year!

Gather truly did an amazing job of creating a simple and useful product. It will be sad to see them go, but perhaps it will get enough traction this year to justify them getting more venture capital. They have praised Atlas Venture, there seed investor, for their continued support, which is great to hear. Give the app a try if you have not before and follow them on Twitter for updates. Have you tried Gather?

Blogger Updates The Navbar With Google+ Sharing And More

2012-08-30T22:47:00.001-04:00

Blogger, which is owned by Google, has updated the Navbar that is displayed across the top of every blog page, except when a Dynamic View is used. Many bloggers hide/remove it, but I like keeping it there for my readers to use if they wish. The right half remains the same.

The old Navbar:

When you clicked Share it opened a pop-up window to share to Twitter or Facebook:

The new Navbar:

Upon clicking More it now opens an in-line dropdown menu:

The changes are small, but powerful! Having the G+ Share button in a prime visual position will certainly increase sharing to Google+. They have also added Share by Email as an option. Each post will continue to have the Share Buttons which includes the +1 widget.

Do you like the new changes? What else should they change? Share your thoughts below.

I would like to see more options available for publishers other than only having the ability to change the color. An additional change that would be nice to have is the option to display a Twitter and/or Facebook share button in addition to the Google+ one. Lastly, I want the other sharing options to perform like the G+ Share functionality where it overlays on the page instead of opening a new tab.

10 Cloud Storage Services, Recommendations, and Tips

2012-07-29T19:17:00.000-04:00

Cloud storage provides many benefits over local storage and is the direction the future is headed. With it you can access files from any location on any device, are better backed up with redundant systems and hardware, and it is more secure than your home network. Some people are 100% in the cloud while others only use it as a backup. Either way, if you are not taking advantage of the cloud then you are possibly at risk and certainly behind the eight ball.

Before you begin you must formulate a plan that works for you and that you are comfortable using. If someone else sets it up and you do not understand how and why things work the way they work you are in trouble. If this is your first step towards cloud storage I recommend that you first use it as a backup to your physical local data. This will give you peace of mind and allow you to interact with the cloud to gain a comfort level while still being able to work in a familiar way with your local data.

Remember to set up a solution that you can manage! I prefer saving to the cloud manually, but you may want an automatic solution to set it and forget it. My files are spread across multiple services to take advantage of the different services' strengths. If that is to much for you to track then keep everything in one spot. One final recommendation before we look at some options; be sure to backup your cloud data with another cloud service to always have two copies.

Service Name	- CX
Free Storage	- 10 GB, up to 6 GB more for referring
Paid Storage	- Starting at $4.99/month for 25 GB
File Size Limit	- None
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- iOS, Android
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Features	- Collaboration

Service Name	- Google Drive
Free Storage	- 5 GB
Paid Storage	- Starting at $2.49/month for 25 GB
File Size Limit	- 10 GB
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Feature	- Collaboration

Service Name	- SugarSync
Free Storage	- 5 GB
Paid Storage	- Starting at $4.99/month for 30 GB
File Size Limit	- None
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes (enhanced)
Mobile App	- Android, iOS, BBerry, Windows, Symbian
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Feature	- Outlook Plugin

Service Name	- Dropbox
Free Storage	- 2 GB, up to 16 GB more for referring
Paid Storage	- Starting at $9.99/month for 50 GB
File Size Limit	- 2 GB
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac, Linux
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android, iOS, BlackBerry
File Sharing	- Yes

Service Name	- Box
Free Storage	- 5 GB
Paid Storage	- Starting at $9.99/month for 25 GB
File Size Limit	- 100 MB
Desktop App	- No
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android, iOS
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Feature	- Upload by email

Service Name	- SkyDrive
Free Storage	- 7 GB
Paid Storage	- Starting at $10.00/month for 20 GB
File Size Limit	- 2 GB
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android, iOS, Windows
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Feature	- Office Web Apps

Service Name	- Mozy Stash
Free Storage	- 2 GB, plus 256 MB for each referral
Paid Storage	- Starting at $5.99/month for 50 GB
File Size Limit	- None
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android, iOS
File Sharing	- No

Service Name	- iCloud
Free Storage	- 5 GB
Paid Storage	- Starting at $20.00/year for 10 GB
File Size Limit	- Unkown
Desktop App	- Mac (OS X Lion)
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- iOS 5
File Sharing	- No

Service Name	- HiDrive
Free Storage	- 5 GB, plus 5 GB for referring ten people
Paid Storage	- Starting at 9.90 €/year for 100 GB
File Size Limit	- 2 GB
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android, iOS, Windows
File Sharing	- Yes
Other Feature	- Third party uploading

Service Name	- Google Music
Free Storage	- 20,000 Songs (maximum 300MB per song)
Paid Storage	- Not available
File Size Limit	- N/A
Desktop App	- Windows, Mac, Linux
Sync Option	- Yes
Mobile App	- Android
File Sharing	- No

Although the last item is not a traditional cloud service I included it to make you think outside the box. You can also use Picasa to get 1GB free photo storage and online email services provide a lot of free space.

As a side note and personal recommendation, if you have more than one device a nice set up for your local data is to store nothing on your individual machines. I have a single external hard drive connected to my router so that all computers on the network can access it. This way all my files are in one location to make organization and cleanup easier. I then have another external hard drive to protect against hardware failure that is connected once a month to do a 1-to-1 copy (no compression) of the primary drive that is stored un-networked and unplugged for a backup. In a perfect world the backup should be at another physical location, but it is a hassle for me. In the event of an emergency this setup allows me to grab just a single drive to save my entire digital life. Of course that only works if I am home, if not, the cloud is there to save me.

Enjoy saving and working in the cloud. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section below. Once you are set up, or if you are already, let everyone know what services you use or recommended below.

Cavootle - Location Enabled Polling

2012-05-17T00:02:00.001-04:00

Cavootle is a new service to vote on bands, movies, fashion, entertainment, books, restaurants, politicians, and more. What makes it innovative is that unlike a regular poll you can view the answers for a specific geographic region. You can find the favorite beer for people living near Boston, Los Angeles, or wherever by changing the answer location. From there you can expand the area and even take into consideration everyone no matter where they are. Creating a new Cavootle and adding options to existing polls is easy.

The service is new and has room for improvement, but I can already see this being very powerful when you are traveling or doing research. I would like to see an improvement on the location feature so that we know exactly what area "far" covers and the increments between. Perhaps giving a distance radius would do the trick. The other issue that will probably be solved over time is a distinction between a general question and one that involves a location. For example, this question asks what is the "Best Steakhouse in New York City". Using the location feature for that question really is telling you the location of the voter and works differently than a question such as "What is the Best Steakhouse" and setting the location for NYC. It is an interesting dynamic when dealing with location.

Cavootle was founded by Patrick Kling and Brian Kane. You can signup today and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. Adding an API and the ability to embed Cavootles with definable default locations would drive rapid expansion. I can envision them being embedded on travel and business websites to offer readers great insights. I am certainly going to follow their progress.

Google Launches New Research Tool For Google Documents

2012-05-15T20:44:00.001-04:00

Google has launched the Research tool for Google documents. This new tool allows you to add Google Search content directly to your document without leaving the page. Right now when you login and create a new document you will see the new pane on the right side. You can reopen the tool anytime by clicking Research under Tools, or by initiating a search.

To initiate a search based on text you have already written you can right click on any word, or highlight a phrase and right click, to find the research function. Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac are key shortcuts you can use also. If you prefer, when the tool is open, there is a search field at the top so that you can search for anything you want at anytime. The tool is not available in spreadsheets or the other file types.

The Research tool enables you to add a lot of different media that can easily be edited. Perhaps the best feature in my opinion is that any content inserted is automatically cited if required with a superscript number and footnote containing a link to the content along with a page title and date if available. Images and maps can be dragged to the document while text is added or cited by hovering over it. Any web page can be previewed in another pane that comes up next to it; even the webpage screenshot can be dragged to your document. Here is a quick sample document I made so that you can see the footnotes..

Give it a try and let us know what you think. I wish I had this in school!

My Roku Service Headache (Updated)

2012-05-14T22:27:00.000-04:00

Let's start off by saying I generally love Roku! They produce excellent well made streaming devices that have a great interface, simple controller, and plenty of channels to choose from. They have built a perfect ecosystem and is the #1 streaming device in my opinion.

My passion started last year when I picked up the LT as a simple low cost device to stream content to my bedroom TV. In the living room I already had a Sony networked Blu-ray player and Google TV so I didn't need anything else. It was so nice to use that four months later I purchased the Roku 2 XS for the living room and no longer use the other gear for streaming, but still have it for other things.

Today, like many times before, my Roku players updated to software version 4.7 - build 2049 (4.7.2049). This time I wondered what changed so I headed to their support website and blog, but could not find any information about the software update. Next I went for the live chat and after about a five minute wait the below fiasco began:

Begin
8:27 PM EDT: Prem
Hello Dain . How may I help you?

8:27 PM EDT: Dain
Hello, where do I see what a software version update entailed? My Roku 2 XS updated to 4.7.2049 and I was wondering what was changed or enhanced. Thanks!

8:28 PM EDT: Prem
Hi, Dain.
Press home button on Roku>settings>software version.

8:30 PM EDT: Dain
I see that, but, what does version 4.7.2049 do? What was changed from the previous version?

8:32 PM EDT: Prem
Sorry for the delay, Dain.
Your Roku player's software version is the latest version.

8:33 PM EDT: Dain
I know. I updated today. What does that version improve upon or change?

8:33 PM EDT: Prem
Previous version is 4.6 build 240.
It is the software improve. To fix some bugs and to get some extra features.

8:34 PM EDT: Dain
What features? What bugs? Is there a blog post or release note about it?

8:37 PM EDT: Prem
It is just to fix some issue like buffering while playing a movie, or kick back issue with some channels. And features like, screen saver upgrade, display . Software upgrade is user friendly.

8:39 PM EDT: Dain
User friendly? Not sure what you mean by that.

8:41 PM EDT: Prem
yes, by upgrading the software it is easy for you to control Roku player. That is what exactly user friendly mean.

8:41 PM EDT: Dain
For the future; where can I find an overview of what the software update entailed?

8:42 PM EDT: Prem
It is not possible Daine. Whenever Roku releases a new software , it will be updated automatically.

8:44 PM EDT: Dain
I know that. When companies update software they usually provide highlights about what has changed. Google Chrome for example has a blog where they state what changed. Their updates are automatic as well, but they know people like to know what is updating. Updates to Windows are similar. It would be nice for Roku to have a different blog for release notes to let people know what has changed.

8:45 PM EDT: Prem
Please visit this link www.blog.roku.com
Visit the above link, Dain.

8:46 PM EDT: Dain
I did before this chat and you don't have release information. Unless I missed it? Where on that blog does it talk about 4.7.2049?

8:47 PM EDT: Prem
Or else you can also visit this link Dain. www.forums.roku.com

8:48 PM EDT: Dain
I went there also and could not find information on the recent software update. Can you point it out to me?
Found it! Thank you.

8:51 PM EDT: Prem
That's great, Dain!

8:52 PM EDT: Dain
We should have just started with that! That was exactly what I asked to begin with.

8:53 PM EDT: Prem
I am sorry for that, Dain.

8:53 PM EDT: Dain
Off to watch some shows. Have a good night.

8:53 PM EDT: Prem
Is there anything else I can help you wit now?

8:53 PM EDT: Dain
No, thanks

8:53 PM EDT: Prem
Thanks for using chat support! There is a quick survey after I disconnect. You will also receive a broader survey in your email shortly. Please take a moment to complete that to help us gauge and improve our service.
End

In my aggravated state when I search the forum and saw results for 4.7.2049 I thought I was all set. Come to find out the forum did not answer the question either, in fact, it was another person asking the same exact thing.

The most annoying part was the non comprehension and quick to answer based on a keyword attitude. It ended up taking 26 minutes and multiple iterations of the same question to pry a little bit of information out of them and no resolution for the future. The first reply should have been "Dain, the update primarily fixed an issue with buffering and had a screen saver upgrade. We do not publish release notes, but will pass the request on to my manager." That would have resolved everything in about two minutes!

Update, May 15, 2012, On the support forum a few people mentioned about it being a limited early release. I did not know about that, or that I was on that list, but that would have been a perfect explanation as to why they didn't have the information and/or release notes. Although, if it is being tested publicly it would be good to provide release notes to better enable a "tester" to know what they have and provide educated feedback if something is not working. I understand not making the notes public because the release has not been fully deployed and could change, but they should be available internally for situations like mine. It would be easy to maintain one internal webpage of general release notes with the version in testing being a different color.

Update 2, May 15, 2012, Roku has published a blog post about the release. Doug from Roku commented below letting me know that they post all of the update notes on their blog once they are confident with the release. I appreciate his comment and that they are going to work on improving the issue and shared with him my thoughts (above) about how to handle the early release information.

If you are a Roku employee the case number is 1386484.

TraitPerception - Crowd-Based Trait Measurement And Reputation

2012-05-12T00:37:00.000-04:00

TraitPerception uses behavioral questions to determine your traits as rated by your LinkedIn or Facebook connections. By crowdsourcing these types of questions from your peers, friends, and family they are able to build an accurate view of how others generally view you.

The way the question are presented plays a pivotal part in the equation and truly sets TraitPerception apart from others in the same arena. You will notice that the questions are not simple yes or no questions and you are never asked to specifically select or type out a list of traits for an individual. It is much more situational and based on your direct and personal perception of the individuals.

Below are some sample questions where you would choose one of the five people presented that has the embedded characteristic.

Who might often feel discouraged?
Who has a more vivid imagination?
Who is most likely to probe deeply into a subject?
Who worries most about things?
Who is the quickest to understand things?
Who is less interested in other people's problems?

You can see how these questions get right to the point. It is nice because they probe your mind as well to make you think of traits you might not have thought of on your own. They are also worded is a manner that is non-confrontational because answering one about a group of five means almost nothing, but get a crowd to do that over and over and with their algorithms you have some powerful information. At least 50 questions need to be answered about a person from a minimum of 10 contacts before a percentile based trait report can be generated. You can almost relate it to an Amazon product review for people says co-founder Juan Cartagena.

The service is still very new and needs to gain a good following to make it relevant, accurate, and useful. Some of the uses could be for an employment application, interview, networking, team building, resume/references, dating, and online commerce. You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook. The TraitPerception team is Juan Cartagena (CEO), Borja Martín (Chief Dev), and José Ignacio Fernández (CTO). At this time you can either login and rank under your Facebook or LinkedIn account, not both; I hope it is enhanced in the future to connect the accounts. Try out TraitPerception and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Joinbox - A Slick Dashboard That Brings Social, Email, And News In To One Stream [Shutdown]

2012-02-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Joinbox announced on December 17, 2012 that they have decided to discontinue the service (copy of message displayed on homepage).

Joinbox is on a mission to create a better web experience for the everyday user. They hope to merge your social activities, email, and news together to form one cohesive consumer website that does it all. This tantalizing video from last year got everyone excited for a one stream solution! One year later, a true product demo has been released along with early access.

Did that get you excited? That sure is an elegant, simple, and fluid dashboard. The founding thought of the service is to bring everything to your personal internet mailbox. Do you travel around the world picking up magazines, newspapers, and letters or are they mailed to your home? Joinbox wants to eliminate the need for you to be opening and monitoring numerous tabs and visiting countless websites every day just to stay on top of your networks and the news. It should also be just as easy to check up on your network when you are traveling or on a friend's computer.

Five founders started this mission in 2010 after they could not find an easy way to consolidate all the incoming information they were looking at while researching to possibly start a freshly baked croissant delivery service. Since then they said goodbye to the croissant world and hello to Joinbox. It has been a long. hard, and educational journey to build in Node.js and to get to where they are today after starting over from scratch this past summer. This information consumption problem is a complex one and can't be solved overnight. After two months of alpha testing with about a hundred users they are ready for a larger private beta. We have invites!

Let's take a look at what Joinbox Double Rainbow can do. Below we see the settings page where everything is setup and deleted.

Social Networks - Connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts via OAuth. It will allow more than one Twitter connection, but no Facebook pages. LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr integration is in the works.
Email - Bring in emails from one or more services by adding your email address and password.
News - Search for news and follow sources. Unfortunately this does not support you to directly follow an RSS feed or import a set of subscriptions via OPML.

On the main page you are shown the total unread/unseen items with a breakdown for each stream. You may drill down using the left navigation panel to view everything, only social networks, all emails, just news, or individual accounts within each section. When you click on an item in the middle stream it opens to the right. When available, content is included in the displayed item (photos, videos, RSS stories, Twitter conversation, etc). Tweets do not automatically pull in the content from included links. It would be nice for them to do that like Parrotfish can on Twitter.

When composing a new message you are able to send it to by email, Twitter, or Facebook.

Overall the design is fast and intuitive. If your browser window is smaller it will auto expand the area on mouseover and, as seen above, grey other sections out that are not in use. The only real issue I had was upon login, sometimes I had to refresh to get my feed to come up the first time. Retweeting, replying, favoriting, liking, and commenting all work as expected. I use Gmail and replying broke the "conversation" which I don't like. For a just out of alpha release it is solid and looks very promising. I will certainly be using and testing it, but need to see more features and enhancements before exclusively relying on it.

The five founders that make up the Joinbox team are Konrad Mazanowski (CEO), Michael van der Weg (CTO), Felix Steiner (VP of development), Fabian Jordi (development), and Tobias Kneubühler (development). In the future they want to add more services, chat, enhance email functionality, and tackle news aggregation. With that they hope to eliminate double inputs (you don't need to see the same story on three different channels) and to find what is really important to you. They admittedly have a lot of work a head of them. You can follow Joinbox on Twitter, Facebook, and their blog.

Who wants to use Joinbox? Retweet the below Tweet, or email me, and tomorrow I will randomly pick ten people from those that did to give access to. Be sure to follow me on Twitter so I can direct message you.

Joinbox - A Slick Dashboard That Brings Social, Email, And News In To One Stream - goo.gl/dxLfO
— Dain Binder (@dbin78) February 28, 2012

Dropbox Redesigns Web And Releases New Android App

2012-02-24T02:36:00.001-05:00

Today Dropbox has redesigned their website's file management portal and updated the Android app to the include the automatic background uploading we saw in the beta test earlier this month.

The new website design, as shown in the screenshots below, is brighter and more spacious. In addition, it includes a lightbox feature that allows you to easily flip through larger images. It will show up once you automatically upload some images.

Once you download the new Android version and allow automatic uploading you will get 500 MB of additional space added to your account when your first photo/video uploads. Your entire current photo and video library will upload automatically, then whenever you take a new photo or record a video it will be uploaded to the "Camera Uploads" folder in your Dropbox account. Over time an additional 3 GB of space will be added to your account when you automatically upload more images and videos; they have not disclosed the specifics of how this increase will work.

Download the new Android version today from the market and let us know what you think. An updated iOS version will be coming soon as well as new Windows and Mac desktop clients.

ScreenLeap Drastically Simplifies Basic Screen Sharing

2012-02-22T18:27:00.000-05:00

ScreenLeap's founder, Tuyen Truong, and team members set out to make screen sharing simple. After extensive research, coding, testing, and feedback they have succeeded. This is screen sharing even your grandma can use! The initial web app offers:

2 click instant sharing (1 if you grant perpetual permission)
No user account for either end
Nothing for the viewer to install
Anyone with a browser can see the shared screen

Many will argue that this already exists. It does on a feature/product level with services like GoToMeeting, WebEx, and JoinMe available. Although, none can match the simplicity and universal availability of ScreenLeap. Did I mention it was free? It is, and always will be. They plan to monetize it by proving additional premium features that are available for a charge.

What makes this so powerful is that I can share my screen with my wife on her Chromebook, on my parent's iPad, on my friend's Android phone, and of course on my brother's Windows laptop; all at the same time and in real-time. The viewer is simply on a webpage built with HTML and JavaScript while the presenter allowed a Java plug-in access to broadcast their screen.

Upon arriving at screenleap.com the presenter will click "share your screen now" to start the session. Once that is done you are given a link people will use to access the broadcast. If it is not easy to send the link you can verbally give them a share code to enter in the field at the top right of the homepage. The sharer is able to see how many people are viewing and also limit what part of the screen is shared.

What does the future hold? "We want to really nail the screen sharing experience first and make it work reliably for everyone. Remote desktop control and live collaboration are follow-up ideas that we are definitely looking into," Truong says. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Floq - A Survey Platform That Has Global, Open, And Shareable Answers

2012-02-20T20:28:00.000-05:00

Floq is on a mission "to make all types of questions and answers global, open and shareable" says Jonah Cacioppe. The service has been in development for over a year with Jonah Cacioppe (co-founder and CEO), Michael Kruger (co-founder and CTO), Brinley Ang (developer), Rod Pattison (developer), Chris Cacioppe (designer), and David Jardine (marketing) making up the six person team. Floq is tied to, and partly owned by, Integral Development. ID is primarily owned by Dr. Ron Cacioppe and Jonah and is providing some of the workspace, infrastructure, as well as the initial pool of data.

Update, May 15, 2012, Floq has publicly launched! The core services now include team surveys, mobile customer feedback, and organizational surveys. Many enhancements and updates have been implemented to include QR codes, web embedding, social sharing, and PDF generation.

Floq's web application provides the ability to compare your group's survey results with other similar survey answers within the industry. Doing this provides a benchmark to strive for as well as deeper context to the respondents' answers. Questions and answers are anonymized with the questions being constantly compared to show you if your question has been asked before.

Imagine asking if a person prefers iOS or Android. While setting up your survey the autocomplete feature shows you that the question has been asked before. The previous results divulge that Android is selected more often overall, but the demographics of your team have not been asked. The answers you receive from your survey will benefit you as well as contribute to the community by providing more data for that question. Perhaps your small team prefers iOS but you see more people in general like Android. Another way this could benefit you is if you have a very small team to include their answers with a larger data set to receive a more accurate answer. This type of tool could be immensely beneficial.

Looking ahead they plan on integrating the Q&A with social networks to further expand the platform. A survey library will also be coming so that people can search a repository of pre-made survey templates that anyone can contribute to. The lessons learned and technology platform may also be used for other things such as ratings, polls, and tests.

Floq can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The user interface and design are very slick! It is in very early private beta testing and has some issues here and there that they are working on.

Mentimeter Is An Easy To Use Audience Polling Service

2012-02-16T01:19:00.002-05:00

Mentimeter was created as a tool to interact with and engage an audience. While attending the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden the four founders discovered that they were not being actively engaged by the teachers. After seeing the same thing occur in their professional lives they set out to change how speakers interact with audiences. The solution needed to be simple, fast, and always available. They also didn't want it tied to a classroom; it had be accessible to anyone anywhere.

Steve Jobs and Apple's creations strongly inspired them to design products with "a holistic user experience", says co-founder Johnny Warström. As you use the product you will notice everything from the text entry to the gently animated dynamically resizing chart just works. The other founders are Henrik Fräsén (management and digital marketing), Niklas Ingvar (design and testing) and Kristoffer Renholm (architect and coder); Johnny heads up marketing and customer interaction.

Mentimeter allows you to quickly create custom polls using a web interface. Once the poll is created a unique code is given for the group being polled to enter at vot.rs to access the voting page on their mobile phone, tablet, or any connected device. A QR code is generated as well for anyone that has a reader app. The public results URL is provided for people to see the results while a special administrative one is created for updating, closing, or resetting the pole. Code for embedding the results is provided for easy publication which I have included below the post; be sure to vote over to the right.

The architecture has been built to allow for incremental expansion using a Ruby (Sinatra) REST API hosted on Heroku and a PHP frontend. All content is published from the frontend, but Wordpress is used in the background for their content management system. Raphaël Javascript is used to get the presentation view to scale correctly on all sized devices; AJAX polling updates the view when live votes come in. Finally, Backbone.js syncs the Document Object Model with the API.

Looking to the future they want to maintain Mentimeter's simplicity while adding more interesting features. Some of those features will be user accounts so that people that want to can more easily retrieve questions, saving and comparing historical data is on the horizon, as is additional question controls for professional lecturers. Mentimeter has a blog and is on Twitter.

This video shows how it looks in real-time when numerous votes come in:

Mentimeter promotional video:

Hall.com Opens The War Room For Full Team Collaboration

2012-02-15T17:22:00.001-05:00

Hall.com publicly launched its real-time collaboration platform in November of last year and in less than four months has taken it to the next level with War Room. The core functionality, which we wrote about last year, is still active and being used, but is now called "Community Rooms" instead of a "Hall". Other enhancements such as the new top navigation bar and a persistent information panel on the right now adorn the site. They still need to add a search function to find public communities.

Let's see what the War Room can do!

Each of the numbered items below correspond to a red number on the large screenshot underneath. You can click on the image to enlarge it or right click and open it in a new tab so that you can flip back and forth.

Group Chat - Each person in the War Room can type and everyone can see the messages. To direct, but not hide, a message to a single person you can @mention them.
File Sharing - Files may be uploaded traditionally or by drag and drop for everyone to access. This is only a way to easily share files with a group for review; they can not be edited or viewed within the browser.
Notepad - This virtual piece of paper can be used for anything. All edits are visible as they occur by anyone and everyone can edit and create content live at the same time.
Invite - Here you are able to invite people to your War Room by email, Facebook post, or by sharing a specific URL. Each member needs to have an account to enter and can sign up traditionally or with Facebook.
Members - This section shows the current members and has a green icon in the lower right corner of each avatar to show if the person is activity logged in to the room.
Video Stream - Up to four members can broadcast video and audio for a video conference. Other people in the room can still see and hear the group even if they are not able to participate.
Private Chat - You and your contacts (#10) can IM privately without the War Room seeing.
Actions - The monitor/administrator can edit the room name and privacy, make other members monitors or kick them out, and change the email notifications. An email may be sent for each action, a daily summary, or no email at all.
Activity - A list of recent activity in the Community and War Rooms you participate in.
Contacts - Your contacts (requires mutual approval)
My Hall - Lists of your rooms

This is a great step forward in getting everything you need in one place for everything from ordinary meetings to project collaborations by virtual companies. Hall.com can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and their blog.

PressPass Tries To Easily Connect People And Businesses To Journalists

2012-02-14T20:01:00.001-05:00

PressPass is in beta testing and has just launched a directory of vetted journalists with the goal of creating a platform for startups, street reporters, small businesses, and everyday people to connect with them and share stories. The database boasts over 5,000 journalists reporting for about 250 publications.

The idea is rock solid, but the functionality and effectiveness fail in my opinion. Before I get into specifics lets take a look at what it purports to do.

PressPass wants to provide a benefit to journalists by proving them with new stories to write about, and to the individual by helping them find the best reporter to get their story in front of for coverage. "I’m hoping that everyone who has a newsworthy story will be able to not only find the right reporters to get their word out, but build trustworthy relationships with them." says co-founder Valencio Cardoso.

When arriving at the website you will begin to browse through the journalists, their media outlets, beats (topics), and geographic regions with the goal of finding the best reporter(s) to contact about your story. This is where things start to go astray for me. First you must know that this is built around Twitter with heavy integration and is the primary data source and communication channel. Cardoso says the reporter's profile is there "to help you to get a more in-depth understanding of the reporter, ensuring that you’re pitching your content to the right people. It also helps journalists receive leads on stories they’d be interested in."

To the right is the PressPass profile page for Matt Brian, a writer for The Next Web (click it for a closer look).

Let's say you didn't know that his Tweets were behind this and you came to the page without reading any information about PressPass; what is your initial though about the stories listed? That Matt wrote them? If so, you are like 90% of the everyday (non-techie) people I asked. Given that misconception you may think he writes about football/soccer, used to be an alcoholic, and uses Twitter.

Even if you do know these originate from his Tweets it still does not really provide substantial information for me to base my decision on about approaching him to write an article about a new iOS app. (He writes mostly about Apple at TNW by the way.) What is mostly peculiar is that he has shared numerous stories he wrote, but they do not show here. As for these 5 items:

Tweetbot was shared at 10:00 AM on February 13th
The drunk one was actually something he Retweeted on February 4th
He Tweeted The Register item at 3:21 AM on February 14th
Striker was also a Retweet from January 31st
I could not find the fifth one, but the article is from January 31st

The chronological order seems to be modified based on a Tweet's influence (favorites and Retweets). That still does not explain why the articles from the Tweets below are not shown.

Google+ article written by Matt for TNW - Tweeted at 3:01 AM on February 14th
Tweet about Angry Birds article Matt wrote at 9:32 AM on February 13th
Sports post on TNW by another writer was Tweeted at 8:08 AM on February 13th
Apple Tweet about a story by Matt at 8:44 AM on February 13th

It seems to me the articles a writer publishes, especially for their publication, should be given a much higher weight. Seeing articles they Tweet or Retweet may help me know more about the writer personally, but it does not provide value when looking for someone to give my story to. For many publications an author will have a page that lists all the stories they have written (here is Matt's). Tapping into that would provide a wealth of information about the journalist.

In addition to the articles on a writers profile you can see other information from the links shown on the top of the page. None are very useful for me.

Topics - Gives the top hastags used in their Twitter stream
Spotlights - Shows the people they mention the most
Ranking - Simply ranks people overall and by beats based on their total follower count

When I want to contact Matt I press the "Contact this journalist!" button which initiates a Tweet box. For him it shows as "Hey @m4tt >> YOUR MESSAGE << via @presspassme"; your message total obviously can not exceed 140 characters. With Matt there may be a chance of him seeing your message, but imagine trying to get Anderson Cooper to even see your message, never mind reply to you!

I believe for a startup to succeed it needs to create something completely new, greatly improve upon a current service or product, create a new method of thinking, or make a task exponentially easier. As it stands now I can just as easily send an @mention on my own and the author pages do not offer enough insight. The idea behind PressPass is a good one, but I strongly feel they need explicit participation from the journalists and other ways to contact them to succeed. This is just the beginning and I will certainly keep an eye on their progress.

PressPass is based in Dubai and was founded by Valencio Cardoso and David Haddad. You can keep up with them on their blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

SendHub Brings Simple Group SMS Subscription Services To Everyone

2012-02-13T00:05:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I almost skimmed right passed a post about SendHub from TechCrunch. Based on the name I initially thought it was just another service that brings all your phone numbers together like Google Voice. I am beyond happy to have taken a moment to read more about it and to try the service out.

SendHub offers a group SMS (text message) service that could not be simpler. Within ten minutes of signing up a new way to subscribe to this blog was available. This service can be used for families, clubs, companies, classrooms, churches, sport teams, and a broad range of other groups. They use Twilio's reliable API to power the communications. The venture actually started as InfoRate in 2010 and received some press back in September 2011 and only recently changed its name to SendHub. The team is made up of the three co-founders Garrett Johnson, Ash Rust, and John Fallone along with Ryan Pfeffer; (Michael Siedlecki recently left the company).

On initial sign up you will verify your cell phone number by using a confirmation code that is sent to you. After verifying your number will be linked to a new number from their system that will most likely have the same area code as yours, or you may select a different one. Their number is the one people use to subscribe to and will be the number they receive text messages from. You can send texts to your group members through SendHub from your personal cell number.

Lets take a look at how I am set up to better illustrate how this works:

My number, as found on my contact page, is 413-342-1082
SendHub assigned me with 413-315-4418
I set up a new contact group named Dain Binder's Technology Blog and enabled the Text to Join feature using Keyword TECH

Now anyone can text TECH to 413-315-4418 to join my SMS group; when they do:

A message is sent saying "Welcome to Dain Binder's group: Dain Binder's Technology Blog - please respond with your full name to complete the subscription."
Then, "Thank you, your subscription is complete. To cancel, send 'unsub tech' to this number. To stop all messages text STOP at anytime."

An example of a message I recently sent is:

"Like Secret Finds Romance Within Your Social Circle - http://goo.gl/1YTww -rate http://j.mp/xtJlGZ"

The "-rate" and link are automatically added by SendHub and will be used in conjunction with an upcoming analytics feature
I sent this from the website, but it can also be sent from your cell phone by sending a text to your SendHub number and precede the message by, in my case, "@tech".

As you can see this is a really powerful and solid way to communicate for many reasons. The SendHub number can be replied to and even called; if called it connects to your linked number. There are options to disable incoming messages and/or incoming calls if you choose. If you have contact lists and permission to use cell phone numbers you are able to import and add them to your groups. This entire setup can be used for individual communications also.

Join SendHub on Twitter, AngelList, and Facebook. If you want to try it out feel free to use a test group I set up by sending TEST to 413-315-4418, or subscribe to my TECH group. I will send out test messages from time to time under the test group and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.