Evernote

The notepad app that comes with IOS devices isn’t accessible on the computer which makes it a little useless as a central information storage solution. Evernote has desktop apps and a website you log into as well as apps for the most popular devices so you can store text, photos, and small audio files in one place and access it anywhere.

AroundMe

Finds the nears atm, gas station, hotel, etc for you and links into the Maps app to give you directions.

Dictionary.com

gives you Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com on your iPad/iPhone.

Instapaper ($4.99)

Save web pages so you can easily read them offline later.

Dropbox

Online storage for files so you can access them anywhere or send other people links to download them. I use it as backup for presentations in case my flash drive doesn’t work for some reason.

Banking

Most banks have mobile apps that let you check your balance, transfer funds and pay bills. Just search for your bank’s name in the app store.

Newspapers

Most newspapers and magazines have apps or mobile websites. You can keep up with the world while waiting for the doctor, waiter, line…

• New York Times (Digital subscription required for full access)
• New Yorker
• Slate ($1.99)
• Wall Street Journal ($1.99 /week for full access)

Office

Work doesn’t stop just because you’re not in the office. These two let you view and edit Microsoft Office documents on IOS devices.

• Documents To Go ($9.99, Premium for $16.99)
• Quickoffice Pro ($19.99, currently on sale for $9.99)

Document Scanning

Keeping up with paper, business cards, receipts, whatever can be annoying on trips, just scan them into your phone and toss them.

Scanner Pro ($6.99)

Scan multipage documents and email or upload them to Dropbox or Evernote.

Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed scans and saves your receipts, so you can track business expenses quickly and easily.

TurboScan ($1.99)

A less expensive and less featured multi-page document scanning app.

Meetings

Skype (Free for Skype-to-Skype and one-to-one video calls, pay as you go and subscriptions for other services)

The Internet phone service has a video component that the newest iPhones and iPads can make use of letting you video-conference on the road.

WebEx

The widely-used video conferencing software has iPad and iPhone clients.

Utilities

Fax Print & Share for iPad ($5.99)

One of the easiest ways to send faxes and print documents from your iPad. A Pro version with additional features is available for $8.99.

Intuit GoPayment

Accept credit card payments via your iPad with a free card reader and affordable transaction fees.

First, from Google is Chrome Frame which … equips older versions of Internet Explorer with the speedy rendering and JavaScript engines at the heart of Chrome.

The second is the third-party IE Tab, which lets you use Chrome for most of your work and open a tab that runs IE for those webpages that won’t run on anything else.

• Google Wraps Internet Explorer in Chrome Clothing | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.
• Google Chrome Frame 
• IE Tab

The latest data on browser trends from Sitepoint show that more people browse the Web on smartphones than use Internet Explorer 6 and 7 combined. Those two old clunkers have been the bugbears of Web developers for years, requiring sites to degrade as nicely as possible to that least common denominator of browsers. But it’s a new world now; 6.95% of Web activity in November 2011 was on mobile browsers, and only 6.49% was on IE 6 or 7.

For a long time webdesign for businesses has had to be backwards compatible with older browsers but now we need to look forward to new trends and mobile is a big one.

While the early adopters flock to Google+ and our kids and moms become power-users on Facebook, LinkedIn is where business gets done. Execs from all Fortune 500 companies are there, and 59 percent of those active on social networking sites say LinkedIn is their platform of choice over Facebook or Twitter, up from 41 percent who called LinkedIn their most important social account a year earlier, according to a June report by Performics and ROI Research.

One of the ways around this is to reformat the page in the browser. Safari has a tool built-in and there are services that “save” the content for you but my favorite is a bookmarklet called Readable. A bookmarklet is a piece of javascript saved to your bookmarks toolbar that runs in your browser when you click on it.

With Readable, you just set your viewing preferences, drag the bookmarklet up to the browser bookmark bar and go. On any website that you’re having a hard time reading, just click on the bookmarklet and the content is reformatted into the preferences you set while stripping out everything else like navigation and ads.

This is what the page looks like when you go to Readable.Tastefulwords.com. The arrow points to the “Show Setup” button where you get started.

Next you use the pull-down menu to select what colors and fonts you want to use. in the top middle of the page, you can also select predefined themes to use instead and see what the results will be below in the “Preview” pane.

Once you have something you like, grab the box that says “Readable” and drag it up to your bookmark bar. When you find a webpage too busy to read, just click on the link and enjoy. Click on the “Close” box in the top right corner if you want to go back to the regular page. If you find you don’t like the settings as well as you thought you would, you can always delete the bookmarklet and start over.

Several times in the last few months trusted services have changed their Terms of Service without notification leading to uproars from the users. This article is a blessing because it gives pointers on evaluating ToSs according to what the companies actually need to do their jobs.

Using a social media web site Ex. Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ is a common place activity for many, but every time a new social media site comes online the same discussions surfaces and the same comments are made about rights grabs, privacy concerns and the need to lock your personal information & photos offline to preserve your ability to protect your work/business. This later concern is one photographers repeat every time a new site comes online and its often backed by erroneous information or a simple lack of understanding of the Terms of Service ToS of the new web site.

via How I Evaluate Terms of Service for Social Media Web Sites – Google+ » JMG-Galleries – Jim M. Goldstein Photography.

The basic premise is like Facebook, where you follow people to see what they post, post your own stuff and make comments. Where Google+ shines is it’s stripped down interface curtesy of a former Apple designer. The variety of content is distracting enough, the simple display makes it far easier to focus and read through quickly. They’ve also been updating the looks of their other services similarly to good effect.

Circles

The second best thing they’ve done is called Circles. Instead of lumping everyone you follow into a single “Friends” category, you can separate them into groups or Circles. There are some everyone starts with like Family, Friends, Acquaintances, and the default Follow for people you don’t know. You can also create your own Circles, for instance I have one for fellow librarians and one for designers whose work I like.

Putting people in Circles let’s you customize privacy settings. So you can just allow people in your Family and Friends Circles email you or only your friends have access to those photographs you don’t want strangers to see.

Possibly the best part of Circles is the ability to use them to filter your stream, so on days you don’t have much time you can just scan the posts of the important people and when you have time you can catch up with the others.

Not Perfect

I do have a wish list. First, the ability to crosspost with other networks, so I could post something on Google and have it automatically linked on Twitter. It’s still in testing and I imagine that feature in on the list of things to implement as it becomes more stable.

Next, the killer feature, is an “Unread” setting. My biggest hate with Facebook is that it’s like a constantly running waterfall that I can’t keep up with. I don’t read Twitter using the webpage for the same reason. I like Google+ on the web except I can’t tell how much is new and which of my Circles said it at glance. They do have a blue line that borders the unread items but the fact it took me three days to notice means it’s a little too subtle. And I need numbers I can use to make decisions at a glance. I don’t always have time to sit and read and the ability to see that there’s nothing new from my family and friends would let me skip it with a clear conscience until I have time to catch up. This may also be on the to-do list or they may plan on allowing external software to do it like other social media services do. Either way, the first company to offer me this feature will get my loyalty and maybe my money.

Bottom line for me is that I actually like and use Google+, unlike any other social network except Twitter.

Pros

• Clean interface
• Different levels of intimacy with customizable privacy settings
• Stream filtering by Circles

Wishlist

• Social network crossposting
• “Unread” items list

I was interested in using the advanced features of Twenty-Ten, particularly the custom backgrounds, but also wanted something better looking without having to create my own from scratch. Luckily there was a another new feature released for just that purpose.

Child Themes

In WordPress, even themes have different versions, the default has been updated multiple times since it’s release. A child theme let’s you override just the parts of a theme that you want to change without having to change the actual theme files. When an update is released, rather than having to make your changes again, your child theme is untouched, leaving your changes to cover the new files instead.

A child theme only needs two things: it’s own folder and css file. The css file contains the same header information as regular themes with one important addition.

/*
Theme Name: Twenty Ten Child
Theme URI: http: //example.com/
Description: Child theme for the Twenty Ten theme
Author: Your name here
Author URI: http: //example.com/about/
Template: twentyten
Version: 0.1.0
*/

The template line refers to the folder of the parent theme, telling WordPress to use it for the files that aren’t defined in the child theme. The parent’s css file is not loaded by default so if you just want to override a few things instead of writing an entire file, you’ll need to import the parent’s css file into the child’s then overwrite anything you don’t like.

@import url("../twentyten/style.css");

This is where the finicky part comes in, dissecting someone else’s stylesheet and html to find the exact selectors and definitions you need to override. No matter how thoroughly documented something is, the sheer fact it’s not set out the way you would have done it makes it harder to figure out.

I tried to use the same headings and arrangement, only overriding what I wanted to change. I made the effort to make as few changes as possible to achieve the results I wanted. Hopefully this will make it easier to update Trans Twenty Ten to keep up with the parent theme Twenty Ten as it evolves.

Twenty Ten has a lot of powerful features but I didn’t care for the look. I’ve added custom fonts (Tinos and Tex Gyre Heros and made the content background translucent so more of the custom background shows through along with some CSS3 goodies like shadows and rounded corners. It’s just enough to give Twenty Ten some polish and make the customizations more prominent. It works in Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE9. It looks fine in IE8, just no rounded corners or transparency.

I liked the results so I’m releasing it for public use.

To get the look of the screenshot, install and activate the theme, delete the header image under the preferences, set your background, top menu and widgets on the right.
TransTwentyTen

A recommendation

My one problem with the custom backgrounds is when you use a new one, the old one gets deleted. I like to keep a selection and switch between them regularly. “Custom Background From Media Library” is a plugin that lets you use images from your media library as backgrounds.