Even if you are not a MAC person, you have to marvel at what Apple produces. The computer company is constantly at the forefront of every major breakthrough in the industry and the iPod touch is just one example of how Steve Jobs and his firm have changed our lives. There are many others as well.

1. Apple iPod Touch. Instead of asking what the iPod touch can do, you should ask what can’t be done with this ingenious mobile device. It comes with up to 64 gigs of memory for all of your music and video, plus has a retina display that is crystal clear with 960 by 640 resolution. This device doubles as a phone and with FaceTime you can make video calls. You can buy an Apple iPod Touch on eBay and take HD video with the device even though it is the thinnest iPod Apple has ever made.

2. Apple iPhone. The latest version of the iPhone is the Apple iPhone 4 which has a number of the same features as the iPod touch. It can do video calling and comes with the same retina display. One of the big selling points of the iPhone 4 is that you can multitask and operate several different apps at the same time.

3. Apple iPad and Apple iPad 2. The iPad is another Apple device that comes with some of the great features of the iPod and iPhone. The iPad 2 now has a ten-hour battery life and is more mobile than ever. This machine also operates faster than ever before because Apple has powered it with the A5 chip. One really fun feature of the iPad is the dual cameras, one focused on you for chatting and the other focused out to record images or video of what you are seeing.

4. Mac Mini.  If you are looking for speed, then Mac Mini is for you. Apple describes this desktop as a little powerhouse. It uses either the Intel i5 or i7 processor and an AMD Radeon graphics processor for great gaming and running multiple programs at once.

5. Apple iView. It doesn’t seem fair to call the iView a computer monitor because it looks more like something you would see in an airport cockpit. The curved video display was designed to match the curvature of the eye for optimal viewing.

6. MacBook Air. If you are looking for a laptop for word processing, photo storage, video editing and surfing the Internet, the MacBook Air is a versatile work horse. You can choose an 11 or 13 inch version of the MacBook Air. It quickly launches any application and even features a backlit keyboard.

Who knows what advances are next from Apple which will further amaze us. What is your favorite Apple product?

ThinkFree

ThinkFree is an easy-to-use application that lets you store your documents online and access them from anywhere. You can check on a spreadsheet for valuable figures or vital information. You can check on the progress of an application you’re personally having developed. You can even backup your tax information in case something happens to your computer and you get audited later on. Simply put, ThinkFree is your personal, massive, portable filing cabinet.

MetroFax

This latest MetroFax app for the iPhone is the missing link between yesterday and today. For businesses that still fax this is a vital link, because MetroFax allows you to receive and store faxes from anywhere in the world. This application just released today and with it you don’t need a dedicated fax machine or a landline to receive and even send faxes. No matter where you are faxing is no longer a challenge.

WorldCard

The WorldCard business card scanner allows you to ditch your old business card book because it lets you rapidly scan in any card someone hands you. With WorldCard you can bring up any business card it has ever taken in, so you can easily access information on your entire network of people. You no longer have to transcribe in e-mail addresses, Skype names or phone numbers, because WorldCard simply scans the entire card.

iSchedule

There are a lot of scheduling programs. However, iSchedule is a simple way to keep your work schedule reasonable and knowable. No matter how many shifts you have to swap and pick up, iSchedule can keep up with your crazy work life. Even your incoming schedule change requests are instantly cross-referenced against your existing schedule, which allows you to spot conflicts before they reach the crisis level.

PDF Reader Pro

With PDF Reader Pro, you get all of the basic functions of Adobe’s PDF reading software plus portability. PDF documents look as they should and you can access the massive library of PDFs available online from anywhere.

Ringtones Uncensored PRO

This app allows you to access nearly 10,000 pre-recorded ringtones and allows you to create your own. With that many possibilities, it’s likely anything you think of has already been done professionally. You could have a different ringtone every day for decades using just this program’s built-in tones.

There are a lot of different apps that make business run smoother. Since they’re inexpensive and often don’t require any monthly fees, stocking up on apps can pack a tremendous amount of functionality into your smart phone or tablet PC. Since every app comes with the automatic ability to take its function anywhere, your business life has gotten very easy.

Video Game Designer

This is the tech job that anyone who drools over video games wants to do. When you start to consider a career in this field, you need to consider:
-the industry
-training
-where you want to work and live
-your path to getting hired.

The first step here is to learn everything you can about the industry and the games in it. This means playing a wide variety of games, learning how they are created and what people are playing the most. It is imperative that you get a college degree that deals with game software development. These programs are offered both on campus and through the internet, giving you a wide variety of options. You also need to consider where you want to work and live, which ideally should be near a large urban area where the industry is booming and jobs are available. One way to get your foot in the door is to apply for an internship. This gives you the opportunity to network and experience the job first hand.

Teach Science

Your science teacher may have been your idol in school, knowing everything from advanced mathematics to the path an electron takes around the nucleus. This is a fantastic job for the geeky at heart who loves to study science and teach others what he or she knows. When considering teaching as a career, think about these aspects:
-what grade level you want to teach
-if you want to do research
-the kind of science you are interested in
-education required
-various positions available.

If you like children and want to teach a wide variety of science, then working at the junior or senior high level may be for you. You will have to attend a four year program and pass state testing requirements to be eligible for licensure. When applying, it is imperative that you be yourself, positive and open minded. Schools are looking for people who want to teach, not just collect a paycheck. You have to have patience, love to work with teenagers and be able to handle classroom discipline.

If you are more interested in research, the university level teaching position is for you. You can specialize in a certain area and conduct research within that same field. This is the ideal position for those who love the laboratory but also have a penchant for the classroom. You will have to pursue higher education at the master’s and doctorate level to be eligible to apply. You will also need good interpersonal skills to work with students and be self-motivated.

When you consider these jobs, the most important thing is to find what excites you most. What passion do you want to follow?

Marketing Success

To get marketing success, know what marketing methods are working well right now. You will then need to tailor these marketing methods to your own business to ensure that you have the best opportunity to get results.

1. Make the decision on who the target customer is and then market to that type of person. The more targeted this scope is, the more you can play to that person’s needs. Ensure your marketing campaign answers the question, “what can the business do to solve this person’s needs?”

2. Develop a website that contains relevant, authoritative information. Become the leader in the industry by demonstrating your knowledge online. It will eventually help you to attract search engines and help those who visit the website to know that your business can help fill their need. Take Internet marketing classes to help you learn how to market your site.

3. Sometimes, the best way to market a small business is to use social media. Social media is the marketing method of engaging with others online through various social forums. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of people go online to learn about a company or to solve a problem before they turn to local sources for help. If you can establish a presence online as the go-to solution, you can fill those needs. Social media can help with this.

4. Blog and do so with the intent of developing good, deep interactions with your readers. This means being creative and delivering information that your customers want and need to know. Blogging is also a great way to get traffic to your website and it does not have to cost a lot to implement, either.

5. Market locally, too. You can sponsor a baseball team or market in local newspapers. The good news here is that marketing locally helps to establish your business as a trusted community member, if you do it right.

As a small business owner, it is critical that you put forth the right amount of time and effort into marketing your business. It does not always have to be a large bank account that draws in customers. Rather, it is through creative programs that target the right customer, where that customer is searching for information, which will get your new business in the door. 

The Boogie Board is a modern equivalent to the old-fashioned chalk slate – a device that allows users to write and quickly erase messages on a screen the size of a sheet of paper. Company spokesman Kevin Oswald said orders for the boards have forced the plant to run three shifts a day for much of the year.

He added that he expects orders to increase this fall when the company adds a version of the board that can save images for later use.

“[The expansion] will allow us to meet worldwide demand for the Boogie Board tablets for the foreseeable future,” Oswald said.

Sales of multimedia tablets, such as Apple’s iPad or Motorola’s Xoom, have boomed this year, but Oswald said Kent’s product doesn’t compete with those. Boogie Boards cost $40-$60, depending on size, and are meant as a replacement for notepads and paper, not computers.

It will be interesting to see if this technology eventually finds it’s way into the all-purpose tablets.

The famous Grateful Dead lyric is, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” While those words were describing the drug-fueled events of the 1960s, they could easily be attributed to the evolution of the cell phone. For one, the size of cell phones has changed dramatically with each generation.

They were first manufactured in a size similar to a brick (think Zack Morris in Saved by the Bell) and then shrunk to the scale of a cracker. And then there is a cell phone’s capability—at their inception they could only make static-filled phone calls, while today we use them for anything but calls.

However, the advancements of cell phones themselves are only half the story. Their popularity helped revolutionize data and communication networks; like the latest satellite technology from wildbluedeals and wireless communications. So from 1G to 4G, here is a recount of the trip travelled thus far, and where the journey may be taking us next. 

1G

In the 1980s, man made the first cell phone network for mass consumers, and it was fairly decent. The first generation of wireless telephony was completely analog based, unlike its progeny that runs on digital systems.

In the U.S., cell phones operated on the AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) network (TACS and NMT in Europe), which basically modulated calls to a higher frequency around 150MHz or more. Hardly what one would call advanced; it was as if your cell phone was just as powerful as your ham radio.

Meanwhile, the phones themselves were bulky and had nearly no data capability whatsoever. That meant no texting, no cameras and no apps. Teenyboppers in the 80s sure had it rough. 

2G

The digital age finally arrived in the second generation. In the early 1990s, digital TDMA-based systems were introduced—GSM first in Europe and D-AMPS in the U.S. With digital technology, voice quality improved, security was stronger and power was increased, while equipment became less expensive and more refined (i.e. phones that could really be considered hand-held).

Messaging systems also got their big break in 2G with the introduction of short messaging service (SMS). The text generation was beginning. 

2.5G & 2.75G

Things started to snowball in cellular technology as not one, but two additional generations quickly hit the scenes in the late 90s. Data transfer became grew in importance with the release of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks, mainly because cell phones could now actually transfer it.

With transfer rates of 56-115 kilobytes 2.5G devices started featuring WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging) services, which meant Internet capability was here. So, why the 2.5 and 2.75 designations?

The United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which set worldwide telecommunications standards, had put 3G specifications into place as new cellular technology was just being released. That put EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution), which was better than GPRS but didn’t meet all of the ITU’s standards, in the precarious 2.75G category.

3G…3.5G…3.75G

The turn of the century saw a completely new generation of wireless technology realized. Third generation networks CDMA2000 and UMTS used entirely different radio frequencies than that of 2G, which had 3G cell phones boasting data transfer rates up to 2Mbps. That gave users the power to exchange and capture images and video, watch TV on the go and have full Internet access to surf the Web and download music.

It also gave people the ability to avoid interacting with others in person, too. In this generation cell phones not only became more powerful, but also lighter and thinner with colorful and interactive displays.

Subsequent network systems—EV-DO Revision A and HSDPA, for example—increased data capability substantially to 14Mbps and beyond, garnering 3.5G and 3.75G labels. It appears generations can’t keep up with the technology. Ironically, many wireless carriers used the 2.75G EDGE network to hold them over until 3G grew in demand, and less in cost.

4G

To add one more pop culture reference into the mix: where we’re going, we don’t need roads (Back to the Future). That is the promise of 4G cell phones with practically few limits in what they can do. With the popularity of apps for smartphones like the iPhone and Android, data is officially king for 4G networks, which are still in their infancy. 

Everything in 4G is, and will be, geared towards the Internet. Cell stations for 4G are even eliminating routing equipment, becoming smaller and more efficient, as phone calls rely solely on VoIP.

The current 4G networks that are in place, such as WiMax and LTE, boast speeds 10x faster than 3G, but eventually 4G users will see data transfer rates as high a 100Mbps, and even 1Gbps - that out performs broadband cable connections. Whether the fourth generation will see 4.5 and 4.75 designations is unknown, but what is certain is cell phones will be moving a heck of a lot faster.

CONCLUSION

As the generations pass, cell phones and their networks are quickly moving away from telephony and more towards computing. While the first generation enjoyed the novelty of making a phone call from a car, the current generation wants their phones to help them decide which restaurant nearby serves the best sushi. We can only guess what will come for the cell phone generations of the future. 

1. Increase in Content

As companies become closer to their customers through social media and try to connect with them on a deeper level, there will be an increase in valuable content. The idea is to give customers content that is important to them and will be shared with friends through Facebook and other social media platforms. 

2. Monetization of Twitter

We’ll see Twitter becoming more monetized in the next year, just as Facebook has in the last 18 months. This could include promoted tweets, adding ads to the site, and making deals with mobile carriers. 

3. Purchasing on Facebook

A big trend you’ll see is companies selling items on Facebook through commerce software. This is a big benefit to companies. For small businesses, this will give them the opportunity to build an e-commerce site to reach customers. It will help drive traffic through customers sharing what they purchased with their friends. 

4. Group Buying

You’re bound to see the power of group buying grow with sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial. When you can get an item for free just by getting three of your friends to purchase the same item, there is a lot of promotional power through social media sites. 

5. Location-Based Apps

Applications such as Foursquare are bound to become more popular this year as more and more companies utilize them to promote themselves with things such as discounts just for checking in. As a user, does it make you nervous for your friends and family to know where you are all day every day?

6. Mobile Applications

Social media will become more accessible from mobile devices, increasing the need for apps that connect to social media in new ways. It’s hard to say what direction this will take us, but with smartphones becoming more like mini-laptops, we’re bound to see them used in imaginative and innovative ways.

7. Facebook Credits

The use of Facebook credits will increase this year, becoming a huge boost for Facebook since it will receive a percentage for every credit purchased. Besides social media games, they’re likely to be used to purchase products and given out as prizes in promotions by companies.

8. Questions Answered

Q&A sites are popular, but soon the power of social media will be used to help its users get answers to questions. This will be something that you’ll be able to add to your profile page, allowing you to get answers from the collective knowledge of Facebook users.

One thing’s for sure: social media is not going away. It will only become more and more a part of our lives — evolving and changing in new, fun ways.

Then there are the not-so-good sites, the ones that are so bad that they’re a virtual train wreck. Now, nobody who is working as a web designer wants responsibility for creating a gapers block on the Internet, but it happens. Everyone has to start out somewhere, and sometimes the start is not very auspicious. Web design disasters like these become legendary for all of the wrong reasons.

Here’s a look at the top 10 web design disasters and mistakes, and why they are so bad:

1. Yale School of Art. This one is a tad forgivable, considering that it’s a wiki for the art grad students, faculty, staff and alums. However, it does nothing to highlight the school’s art program and can even turn off potential students.

2. The website of Joneschijoffis presents something, but what exactly? The site does absolutely nothing, loosing the user’s interest quickly.

3. Never put important text into an image on a website. This move is guaranteed to ensure that search engines won’t find your keywords. Prepare to kiss your ranking goodbye if the search engine crawler can’t find your keywords.

4. Don’t load your site with duplicate content. The more duplicate content you have, the less seriously your site will be taken by the search engines and potential customers.

5. Shop In Paradise is a perfect example of schizophrenic web design. Images laid out in no planned order, blocks of text in different fonts, and random products slapped in random places on the page.

6. Resist the urge to place all of the content on one page. This creates a main page that just keeps scrolling, turning off users. Remember that multiple pages are always better than one.

7. Zinc Bistro. Just try to figure out where the website navigation is located. It is not obvious, nor is it intuitive. Add annoying music with a rapidly moving slideshow you get a site that doesn’t make any sense.

8. Avoid using music or audio that plays automatically. It only serves to annoy users and cause them to either leave the site or go in search of the “off” button.

9. Don’t use Flash or Java for menus or navigation. Search engines cannot read it and will overlook the site as a result.

10. Use graphics correctly. Don’t use obnoxious animated GIFs and hope for the best. Avoid nasty images, opting for tasteful and appropriate content instead.

Web design can offer a rewarding career that includes much expression and creativity. Use the mistakes and disasters of others as a guide for what not to do.