SAN DIEGO, Feb. 4, 2010 — ecoATM, the only company to
provide automated systems for recycling consumer
electronics, announced today it has installed an ecoATM
Automated eCycling Station at Westfield North County
Shopping Mall in Escondido, CA. This will be the first pilot
program in which an ecoATM Automated eCycling Station will
provide cash for used phones.

Westfield North County (http://westfield.com/northcounty/)
serves more than 10 million visitors annually and is home to
a large variety of mobile phone retailers offering new
mobile phones from Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and
Apple. The ecoATM kiosk is located on the second floor next
to the escalators.

“ecoATMs provide a quick and convenient method for consumers
to check real-time market prices for their used phones and
then sell them back on the spot when they decide to upgrade
to a new phone or if they simply want to clean out the
electronic clutter from their homes,” said Tom Tullie,
ecoATM Chairman, President, and CEO. “The large number of
wireless dealers at Westfield North County, combined with
the fact that this is the first ecoATM pilot where we pay
consumers directly in cash, leads us to believe we should
see a great response to this pilot.”
About ecoATM

Based in San Diego, CA, ecoATM provides a convenient
in-store trade-in solution that benefits consumers,
electronics retailers, and consumer electronics
manufacturers. ecoATM is the only company to develop
patent-pending Automated eCycling Stations that visually
and/or electronically inspect virtually any consumer
electronic device, connect them with secondary market buyers
and recyclers through pre-auction/auction systems, and
administer trade-in promotions for retailers and
manufacturers.

Since starting its pilot programs lastfall, ecoATM has won
several noteworthy awards:

– Connect’s Most Innovative Product Award in the
CleanTech category;
– Coinstar’s Next Big Idea Contest; and
– San Diego Venture Group’s Tenth Annual “Pitchfest”
Winner.

(ARA) – So you finally got the flat panel TV of your dreams. Sleek, compact and high definition, it’s the crowning glory of your home entertainment system. So how do you best showcase this jewel? The experts advise – take it to the wall.

Wall mounting a flat screen has become one of the most popular ways to display a TV; it makes a stunning impression, gives everyone a great view and keeps delicate electronics out of the reach of little hands. And thanks to some innovations by mount designers, hanging your flat screen has never been easier, or afforded you so much flexibility in terms of decor and use.

Here are some hot trends in wall mounts to help you show off and enjoy your new flat screen TV:

Look Mom – no cables!

In the early days of wall-mounting, your appreciation of how great your flat screen looked hanging on the wall might have been diminished by the tangle of cables connecting the TV with auxiliary units like cable or satellite boxes, DVD players and surround sound systems. A new generation of “cable-free” wall mounts eliminates the problem with in-arm cable channels that protect and conceal cables the entire length of an extension arm.
Don’t take this laterally

Older mounts allowed you to hang the TV on the wall – and there it stayed, unmoving, regardless of the seating arrangement in your room or where you happened to be when you wanted to watch. If you weren’t sitting right in front of the TV, you might not get the best view in the house. New mounts allow you to move a TV laterally – left or right on the wall bracket – so it’s positioned how you want it on the wall. It’s also a useful feature if your wall studs are off-center.

Other mounts allow for a full range of movement, so if your flat screen is mounted over a console table, but you happen to be sitting in the recliner on the left side of the room, rather than on the sofa in front of the table, you can move the TV for the best view from wherever you’re sitting.

Lighten up

Old-style heavy steel mounts were often unwieldy to manage and mount, especially for do-it-yourselfers. Mounts made of extruded aluminum compare to steel in terms of strength and durability but are much lighter, making installation easier. Plus, they’re eco-friendlier since aluminum is an easy to recycle material.

Get your motor running

Not only can your mount move, it can move by itself, thanks to motorized versions that allow you to adjust the position of your TV without ever leaving the comfort of your armchair. A new mount, debuting from Sanus, supports 37- to 56-inch flat panel TVs weighing up to 110 pounds. A remote control allows you to move the TV by extending the mount up to 9 inches from the wall and swiveling it up to 120 degrees. Fully retracted, the mount sits just 2 inches from the wall, unlike older, bulkier motorized models that require more depth for the motor. The 35-decibel motor is quiet enough for a library. Visit www.Sanus.com to learn more.

You can never be too slim

Super slim is the hottest trend in flat panels and a new generation of wall mounts continues the minimalist concept by keeping super slim flat screen TVs closer to the wall than ever before. Mounts like the VisionMount LL11 Super Slim mount emphasize the sleek look of ultra-thin LCD, plasma and LED TVs by placing them just over half an inch from the wall. Proprietary technology makes the mount easy to install and allows easy cable access without removing the TV from the mount.

More cable news

HDMI cables can make all the difference in how great the picture is on your high-definition flat screen TV. Good quality cables deliver images so crisp and clear you might think you’re looking through a window, rather than at a TV screen. But until now, the cables have been unsightly and awkward to use in tight spots, or with super slim screens. The next hot thing in HDMI cables is a head that pivots 180 degrees, making it easy to connect to hard-to-reach ports in tight places and behind TVs mounted on low-profile wall mounts.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Charter. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’m very much a “do it now” kind of a person. I don’t like to wait for lengthily decisions to prolong or pass an opportunity right by. I don’t like progress bars and I certainly don’t like buffering.
I’m all about instant coffee, precooked bacon, instant oatmeal, video on demand, instant access.

There’s no reason why, with today’s technology, anyone should have to wait for videos or other online media. Well, shouldn’t have to wait very long at least.

There is a time and a place for instant and for slow and relaxed. Internet access should never be slow and relaxed! I want all of my data dashing from wherever it is to me as fast as it can possibly go.

It’s surprising what a few Kb/s difference in an Internet connection can make. Seconds really do make up minutes.
In this day and age we can’t afford any loss of productivity. We all need faster and less expensive.

Charter is doing their part for our instant gratification society by offering reliable, secure, DSL High-Speed Internet from just $19.99 per month! (they even install it for free)

Charter has a very good track record with their High Speed DSL Internet Service with happy customers al over the country.

So, save yourself some time and some money and stop waiting and get going with Charter.

Check out Charter’s Facebook page

Pogoplug – “it’s a device that lets you access and share the contents of your external hard drives through the Internet.” … and it works!

The Pogoplug device isn’t storage in itself, it’s an interface between your Internet service and your External USB Storage devices.

Essentially you connect the Pogoplug to your home Internet Router and connect your USB storage to it and can then access whatever is on the USB storage anywhere on the Internet.

Understand my skepticism when I unbox the gadget and see no buttons, a USB port on the front, a couple of USB ports on the back, and power and Ethernet sockets. That’s all?!

Puzzled, I connected it up and then looked at the instructions (yes, I’m a guy) and was directed to a web site. After a couple of steps on the site and clicking the link in the confirmation email, obviously by some form of magic, the device was ready to go.
I dug out an old thumb drive and hooked it up. Right away the Pogoplug web interface found it and made it ready to go!

The web interface is very easy to use. Navigation is simple and intuitive. Uploading files to your drives is pretty zippy, just add files to the queue and upload them.

One of the more interesting claims is that you can listen to or watch your media anywhere you are. Yes, it’s online storage and this can normally be done with some difficulty, however, when you upload files the Pogoplug transcodes them for you. Transcoding is merely making your media ready to view online. There are two stages to a transcode, first Pogoplug makes a 10 second preview available for you with a partial transcode, then it runs a full transcode to give you the full video. Of course the time it takes to transcode depends on the length and complexity of your media – it doesn’t take hours though.

Once transcoded you can either play your media through the web interface or through a free iPhone app. The app gives you full access to your Pogoplug devicesand lets you play videos and music on your phone, as well as browsing your pictures etc.
I even left my apartment (and Wi-Fi) to get onto 3G to test the streaming over the AT&T Network. It streamed really well!

Also, with the iPhone app you can send pictures with your phone and send them straight to your home network.

You can share folders on your drives too – publish them to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, RSS or just a link.  Your friends and family don’t have to download anything to see what you have on your cloud storage.

The fine people who made Pogoplug have a vision too – this isn’t ‘it’ for the Pogoplug, they’re making it extensible, publishing API code on the web and encouraging developers to use it.

“Pogoplug is getting even better all the time. Our system is expandable over the Web. Soon, your Pogoplug can connect directly to popular sites such as backup, file synchronization, photo printing and more.”

Through the Pogoplug desktop application you can have your desktop computer automatically sync selected folders (i.e your pictures, your movies, your music) straight through your Pogoplug.

Let’s see – pros and cons?

• Pros – Super simple set up (really is plug and play), fast access, easily navigable apps and web interface, simple to share folders.
• Cons – Pink? a more neutral color would be nice, $130 is a little pricey for an interface.
• Overall – excellent idea, excellent delivery. Well worth it if you have external storage. I’d buy it.

See more at Pogoplug.com Follow @pogoplug on Twitter

Specs

• Power requirements: 100-240V, 50/60HZ
• Drive connection: USB 2.0
• Drive Formats: NTFS, FAT32, Mac OS Extended Journaled and non-Journaled (HFS+), EXT-2/EXT-3
• Network connection: Gigabit Ethernet
• Operating Systems: MS Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Mac OSX 10.5 and above (Intel and PowerPC) 32bit kernel only, Linux
• Web browsers: Safari, FireFox 3, IE 7, IE 8, Chrome

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Google just made life for us Google Voice users a little bit easier.

Now, using Google Voice, you can send SMS messages to multiple recipients (where before you had to copy and past the message and send it multiple times).

Just separate the numbers in the ‘To’ box with commas.

There’s a maximum of 5 recipients now but it certainly helps.

Can I make a request though? can we pleeeeeease send to groups. That would be great!

Find out more at the Google Voice Blog

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So, you are looking for the ways of reducing the expenses associated with the newsletter printing. In this article I want to offer you some techniques that you can use for achieving this. Hopefully, you can try these tips on your own business without any challenges and exploit their benefits.

- Use your home printer with samples. The one of the cheapest ways to print your newsletter is to produce them at home. By just using free newsletter samples in publishing software, you have the opportunity to create your own newsletter at home.

Using sample wizards, the running of the whole newsletter design process is an easy process. All you need to do is to print your newsletter in your home printer and that is all. For this type of printing a newsletter you will need the paper and printer inks. This way is considered to be very cheap in comparison with the other ways of printing.

- Photocopying small newsletters. The other cheap method to mass produce your newsletter is with the help of photocopying service. In the case your newsletter is in a standard small letter size format, you have the opportunity do it very effectively. You just can print the initial copy of your newsletter. Then you just need to go to the nearest photocopying centre and mass produce your newsletter. All that is left to do is to bind all pages of your newsletter in any way available to you. This way is considerably cheap and very fast in comparison with such way as printing at home.

- Regulated colors. In the case you want your newsletter professionally printed, do not worry there are ways of reducing the expenses. The very thing that you have to do is to regulate your used colors. With this aim you can print your newsletter just in black and white. It is the cheapest way of printing your newsletter professionally. In this case your images will be printed in grayscale format. This way is looked very simple, but still by using it you can reduce your expenses on 40-50 per cent.

- Wholesale printing. And the last technique, in the case you want to reduce your expenses associated with the professional newsletter printing, you can have your newsletter printed in bulk. It is the type of wholesale printing where you print a lot of newsletter copies and it could be a money saver while looking at it in a long term. It happens as the more copies of your newsletter you print, the lesser each newsletter copy costs. So, in the case you print all at once instead of printing in some sets you have the great chances to save a lot of money.

In case you are looking for free newsletter templates – go to this web site. This is the place where you can see different newsletter templates and choose the ones that fit you better.

And a final piece of advice – today the Internet technologies give you a really unique chance to choose exactly what you need at the best terms which are available on the market. Strange, but most of the people don’t use this opportunity. In real life it means that you should use all the tools of today to get the info that you need.

Search Google and other search engines. Visit social networks and check the accounts that are relevant to your topic. Go to the niche forums and participate in the online discussion. All this will help you to create a true vision of this market. Thus, giving you a real opportunity to make a smart and nicely balanced decision.

P.S. And also sign up to the RSS on this blog, because we will do the best to keep this blog tuned up to the day with new publications about becoming successful in the email marketing industry and getting great newsletter templates in particular.

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VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) has been around for a few years now, businesses and residential users have been slow to pick up on the ‘new technology’ but you?

If VOIP is so powerful, is VOIP can save you so much money and if it’s so convenient, why haven’t more telephone users made the switch from traditional carriers to VOIP?

Part of the problem I think is perception. Users see and hear “Over Internet” and naturally assume that the entire thing is wholly Internet related and therefore is subject to the same faults and intolerances as the Internet is. Also, why would I want my phone to be attached to something that is mainly used for web pages and Instant Messaging?

It’s more a branding problem than anything I think.

I’ve had VOIP phone here at home for years now through Vonage and I love ‘em. I’ve consulted on and installed enterprise class VOIP systems in the commercial sector too, with very, very positive outcomes.

I use VOIP at home because it’s terribly convenient. I’m British, that’s no secret. Thanks to the VOIP technology through my provider, I can have a phone number anywhere in the World as well as my home number. For a low monthly fee, I have a phone number in London that my family can use to call me. It costs me nothing and costs them the price of a local call.

It’s inexpensive too! for as much as I use my landline, I don’t need anything terribly complicated. VOIP is a cheap alternative to selling your soul to the typical phone providers.

Cable companies are really hopping onto the VOIP bandwagon now too. Along with your cable television service, and high speed Internet, you can buy VOIP phone service through your Cable service provider, often saving money with all of the services bundled together.

Why would you or wouldn’t you use VOIP at home or in your business?

The organisers of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, being held in Las Vegas have, for the first time ever set aside a dedicated area for e-book readers. It’s hardly surprising – there are at least two dozen different manufacturers displaying e-book readers at the show.

The increased level of awareness, both from electronics manufacturers and the public is no big surprise. After all, 2009 was a very successful year for e-book readers. And there’s every indication that 2010 will be even better.

There’s little doubt that a great deal of the credit for this heightened awareness of e-book readers in 2009 must go to the Amazon Kindle reader. The release of first the Kindle 2.0 in February, quickly followed by the Kindle DX launch in June, created a great deal of good press for e-book readers in general and for the Kindle in particular.

The Kindle quickly became the top selling product on Amazon and, during the festive season of 2009, the Kindle became the most gifted item on Amazon. Kindle book sales had been running at 35% of all book sales (where a Kindle edition existed). For the first time ever, on Xmas day 2009, Amazon sold more Kindle books than traditional books.

Public demand, both for e-book readers and the e-books to read on them had been firmly established and now seems set to take off.Right now, Amazon has 60% of the American market and Sony has 35%. Obviously there are plenty of other manufacturers who want a share of this new market. On the face of it, they will have a hard time considering Amazon’s dominance – but the market is very new and changing and developing at breakneck speed. Exponential growth seems very likely in the near future and the right product at the right time could rewrite the rules overnight.

Electronics manufacturers are not the only businesses interested in the growth and development of the e-book reader market. Independent manufacturers who produce various accessories – reading lights (the displays of e-book readers are not back-lit),chargers, covers, screen protectors etc. – are also benefiting from a market that, until very recently, was simply not in existence. At the moment, Kindle accessories are, predictably, the most common, but as other readers begin to make inroads in the market these will, almost certainly, also be catered for.

2010 will be a big year both for e-books and e-book readers. Next year’s Consumer Electronics shows will also have a separate e-book reader section – but it will probably be considerably larger in size in comparison with this year.

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The Glastonbury festival or ‘Glasto’ is an incredibly popular contemporary performing arts festival held in Pilton, England.
Held (almost) annually, the festival sees between 150.000 and 177,000 attendees which of course, in turn generates a lot of waste.

This year the organizers are looking for ‘Green Police’ to help…well… police the event and make sure that attendees are a little more green in their practices than usual.

In keeping with the spirit of the event, the Green Police have been termed as a “funky alternative walkabout in the heart of the festival” informing people of “the rules” using humour and sexiness.

There will be ‘green bags and leaflets available to all those at the festival with a strong emphasis on issues such as wildlife conservancy and generally being nice to mother earth.

I think the advertisement (see right) depicting Al Gore as a Green superhero really says a lot.

The printing industry will not come to a crashing halt, writers will not be sent to the poorhouse, publishers will not go out of business, pen and ink will not become obsolete. At least not this year.

There will, however be changes.

I wasn’t around but I’m sure that there was a certain amount of skepticism when paper mills started churning out paper in 12th Century Europe, I’m sure that there were those who scoffed when the paper making process was mechanized in the 19th Century. I’m sure that there were those who claimed that “this new paper thing will never catch on”, just like there are those now, who are doubting the implications of such a large shift in the e-book market.

In only a couple of months, one of the World’s larges companies with a long established International presence will open an online book store, they’ll sell electronic books to an already wanton, established, market. They’ll develop new markets and change others.

This online book store will bring e-books to the masses in a format that will be readable on millions of devices already in peoples hands globally, and will cater to devices, not yet on the market.

Apple is going to change the way e-books work!

Yes, Amazon has tried. Yes, Barnes and Noble has tried. Each with their own form of success.

Apple coming to the electronic book market is like changing the classroom from reading the chalkboard and etching on a piece of slate to making paper text books and notebooks widely available. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like!
It’s also like the changes that have been brought upon the world of printed and televised news media by Social Media.

The next evolution in education (at least) will be issuing students with electronic tablets, whereupon they can download and read up-to-date text books and submit their work, legibly to their teacher, all over the ether.
Quizzes and exams can be taken electronically and graded immediately. Teachers’ workloads will be cut immensely.

Getting a book, any book, published and into the hands of your public is quite a task mostly because it costs so very, very much for a publisher to back and promote something that isn’t really a sure thing. Whenever a publisher takes on a book they have to be sure that they can make back the money that they’re going to spend on editing, promoting and printing a book. What happens if a book flops? a publisher ends up with thousands of printed books that nobody wants.
What’s to say that the book is up to date? Text books change and become out of date very, very quickly. A publisher has to be sure that current versions are available on the market and they everyone is kept informed on the book revisions.

Electronic books make ‘printing’ a truly on demand process. If a reader is interested in the book they can download it and read it on their reader. There’s no up front printing involved at all.
Should there be revisions or changes made to an electronic book, a notification can just be sent to the device instructing the user to download the update. There is no need to re-print a whole new line of books because a planet is no longer termed a planet.

But electronic books have been around for years, why hasn’t this happened before now?
E-Book readers haven’t been particularly available to the masses. An e-book reader is just that – an e-book reader and nothing else. It takes a select segment of the population to buy a pricey device that is dedicated to just one thing. Whether it does it well or not is of little concern. Would you buy a microwave that only baked a wonderful potato?
Now that there is a device coming to the market that will be an e-book reader and a whole lot more people far far more likely to embrace it and not think of it as so exclusive.

Apple has worked hard  on establishing a global market. They’ve done it very well too. There have been more than 42 million iPhones sold since 2007. This alone is a very strong buyer market on it’s own, even without considering users who have iPods, other Apple devices and those users who don’t yet own anything Apple.
Even if just a small portion of the existing Apple users start reading e-books, this will have quite an influence on the literary market.

Apple has established a very popular online store iTunes and the Apple App store. They’ve shown that they can make it very easy for users to access the media they want, when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. Also at a price they evidently like. Electronic books in an Apple run store makes the medium highly accessible.

No, electronic books and miraculous readers aren’t going to imminently change the paper landscape. I wouldn’t want them to. There’ll never be anything that can replace the tactile, personal, interactive feeling that you get from an actual book. It will change certain markets that will benefit from the massive savings, convenience and availability that the new technologies can offer.