Monthly Archives: December 2010

The Best iPad Apps of 2010

December 30, 2010 by Robert McKay Jones · Comments Off on The Best iPad Apps of 2010

I have spent hours and hours (in fact, more hours than that) with my iPad playing, creating, testing, writing, working, planning and more.  Here is a list of the applications I use the most.Would I recommend you buy an iPad?  Absolutely unequivocally YES!  Enjoy.  

Productivity (Work Related)
Logmein (Remote control)
DropBox  (Setup account here: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTMxNjUxODM5?src=global0)
QuickOffice (Word and Excel document viewing and editing)
iThoughts (Great mind mapping tool)
Corkulous (Post it Notes on a bulletin board)

Social Networking
LinkedIn
Facebook
YouTube
Twittelator
Facebook HD (Lets you look at all your friends picture albums)

Art
Let’s create Pottery (Awesome! Fun)
iDough (mush up a piece of clay)
Livesketch HD (Very cool drawing tool)
Sketchbook Pro (A very good almost professional drawing and design tool)
Drawing Pad (Great for the kids, has crayons and pens and pencils and markers and stickers…..)
World of Sand (4 falling streams of sand which you can block and divert. Ammuzing)

Photography
Paintmee (Turn photographs into paintings)
Photgene (Edit photos)
Phot fx Ultra (Edit Photos)
Crop Smart (Great tool for cropping pictures)

Reference
Clinometer – Very cool tool to check level and angles
Backyard Birds – If you like birds, great tool to figure out who is making that chirp
Starmap – if you like astronomy
Live Cams HD – Lets you look at a bunch of live cameras all around the world

Music
Pandora – an online radio station that builds music playlists based on the music you select and like / dislike.  Very cool
BeatPad – if your kids like to create beats with drums and cymbals

Games
Scrabble
Pinball HD
10 PinShuffle
Yahtzee
Simcity DLX
RealGolf2011
Vegas Slots

Publications
Kindle Software for iPad
TED
Audible
NPR

Research
IMDB – database of the stars and cinema
WebMD
Zillow – Housing prices and for sale
Dictionary
The Weather Channel
Google Earth
Where to – Find a place to eat, drink, shop, etc close to where you are or where you are going
Stumble Upon – Just a sampling of what is on the web

Lifestyle
Yoga HD
Bowls HD – Tibetan singing bowls
SimplyBeing – Guided meditations
SilentIsland – Great for background sounds and nature
ZenTimer – Silent timed meditation
Whitenoise
GazeHD – Sounds combined with video to help you relax

Just for Fun
Inspiro – when you have nothing better to do than think
Jiggle Balls HD – Cool toy withlots of balls and great sound
Forge of Neon – Light show you create
Liquidmantra – like a plastic covered vat of colored oil to squish around
WindTunnel – Interesting and educational
SymmetryPro – Just fun

Utilities
NightStand – Great clock
SaiSuke – Calendar that interfaces with Google Calendar

Posted in iPad.

Why Use a Web Portal?

December 27, 2010 by Robert McKay Jones · Comments Off on Why Use a Web Portal?

This is a complicated subject that deserves some attention. First, what is a web portal? Simply stated, a web portal presents information and software services in a unified way through a web browser. It is far different than running your own software on your own servers. A web portal application runs on one or more host computers storing data in one or more locations and the use of the portal is paid for on a recurring basis as in a monthly or annual fee. The major advantages of a web portal are:

  • No investment in hardware
  • Little or no investment in software (unless the service is customized) as the application is rented as needed
  • No support staff is required to maintain server or client systems
  • Software can be operated from anywhere in the world

So let’s look at a custom Inventory Control system to compare. If you were to purchase this and the server that it requires, it would cost upwards of $25,000 not including customization and portable data terminals / bar code scanners and the monthly support would cost roughly $225 per month. So if you amortize the cost over 5 years and add the month-to-month, it would add up to about $650 per month at which point new hardware and would probably be needed.

Compare this to the cost to of a basic Inventory Control Web Portal Application – between $420 and $600. A maintenance-free solution at a considerable savings.

So when you are looking at new software, consider Web Portal solutions.

Posted in Uncategorized.