iPad International Data Plan from AT&T
Here are the international data plans from AT&T for the iPad 3G introduced yesterday in the US.
Expensive bits.
Mobile
Windows Phone 7
Surprisingly, Microsoft Announces Cool Phone
While Apple’s iPhone is the leader in smartphones, there is competition from Google’s Android phones, RIM’s Blackberries, and Palm’s Pre. This week’s announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona should put Microsoft back in the competition.
While Microsoft has made phone software for over 13 years, the phones were never popular outside of business. The phones looked like slimmed down versions of Windows and were clunky. With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is using the acclaimed user interface from their Zune music players and completely revamping the phones.
Expect to see phones running Windows Phone 7 around November 2010.
Note the first line of this video demo/promo. It says “A different kind of phone…” Reminds me a little of another company with small market share that asked people to “Think Different.”
For more videos, see Microsoft’s YouTube page on Windows Phone 7.
The iPad Arrives
Rumored for years, the Apple iPad is finally here. Starting at $499, it is a major new product that will compete with notebooks and eBooks. See the full video from Apple’s presentation today.
Old Kindle and Kindle 2 users get no improved battery life
Kindle Battery Update.. Not For Most People
It has been widely reported that the recent Kindle firmware update improved battery life up to 85%. Unfortunately, this is not true for almost all Kindle owners. The battery life improvement only applies to the recent Kindle 2 (Global Wireless)
The Kindle 2 (U.S. Wireless) version does get the other benefits like built-in PDF reader and manual screen rotation.
Dropbox Tips and Tricks
Dropbox is one of my favorite tools to help small businesses in the D.C. area share files on the cheap.
Dropbox Wiki Info
Besides simply sharing files with your friends, office co-workers, or just your other computers, there are lots of other uses.
See the Tips and Tricks page and Dropbox Add-on page on the Dropbox Wiki explaining things such as:
- Automatically updating a website
- Syncing other folders – bookmarks, games, USB flash drives, passwords
- Setting up multiple instances of Dropbox on one Mac or Linux computer
- Setting up multiple instances of Dropbox on Windows with Dropboxen
Other Dropbox Tips and Tricks
- See any updates that occur to your Dropbox files with the free Growl (Mac) program. Dropbox for Windows does this through the Dropbox System Tray Icon. This is especially useful if you are sharing folders and need to be notified when there are new files.
- Automatically make web photo galleries by moving pictures to the Dropbox Photos directory either from a computer or using the free iPhone Dropbox App.
- Use a Dropbox Add-on that allows you to quickly move a file to a public folder and place the URL the clipboard. This makes sending people a file super easy.
- Change shared folder names. For example, I share a folder with Joe that I name “Joe”. Joe can accept to join that folder and then rename the folder “Rick” so that it makes more sense for him. The great thing here is that the folder is still named “Joe” for me. Alternatively, I can share a folder with Joe that I have named “Rick” and then rename it to “Joe” once he has joined that folder. On Windows machines, renaming a shared folder has sometimes caused me to leave a shared folder. To get around that quirk, rename a shared folder from the Dropbox website.
- Move shared folders. You can move shared folders, for example, to a directory named “Shared” or “Work”. This does not affect any of the shared users.
Sign Up Referrals
Dropbox is free for 2GB of space. See their pricing for more space. One of the reasons that Dropbox has quickly grown in popularity is their referral program. Once you sign up, you can invite others and get 250MB of extra space for everyone you sign up. On that note, please use my Dropbox referral when signing up for Dropbox to give both of us an extra 250MB of space.