Get Rich Slick

Once again, Apple has blown away my expectations with the iPhone 4S and to be honest it’s my first iPhone.  I own all other Apple products including Apple TV, iPad, MacBook Pro, iMac and a variety of ipods but the iPhone 4s is my favorite.

I waiting years for my carrier to get the iPhone and it just wouldn’t happen so I finally broke down and switched to Sprint after 15 years of loyalty with another carrier.

My favorite feature is Siri although she’s a bit of a cultural maroon unable to understand anything but the most common English names.  If you have friends or associates with names in Spanish, Indian, Arabic, Chinese or any other language don’t expect Siri to understand them!

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This is for all the people that keep ribbing me about my iPad 2.  With the help of a company called SquareUp, I have now officially turned my ipad 2 into a cash register.   The way it works is you hook up a little credit card reader (sent free) to the 3.5mm jack and swipe the credit card and voila money changes hands.    The app is fun and easy to use and a few days later, money shows up magically in your bank account.

I will say the tech support is a bit rough since there isn’t anyone to call and support is handled via e-mail at the moment but once everything gets set up, banking accounts cleared, and transactions flow it works great and I highly recommend it.

Now you may ask what will I use this for?

Well for starters, the next time I have a garage sale, I’ll be able to take credit cards.  The next time someone borrows money, I’ll be able to say, “just give me your credit card and I’ll swipe it on my ipad!”

I am also contemplating using it for community efforts to raise money.  It seems that the parents of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts always seem to forget to bring their cash or checkbooks when fees for camping or annual membership are due but now I can swipe that credit card!

My son has expressed an interest in wanting to start a little business and now if he does, he can take credit cards after mowing lawns.   If you have a daughter that babysits, now the magic of paying with a credit card is readily available.   By the way, you don’t need an ipad, it works with an iPhone as well!

There is a somewhat steep 2.75% charge for  using the service but with no monthly fees it’s way better than anything else out there.

Once again, the iPad is a marvelous device transforming the world and I applaud Steve Jobs for creating it.   I can’t tell you how many things the ipad has replaced in my household.  The power, the beauty, the utility, and the simplicity is what will make this world a better place to live!

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I’m convinced that the iPad is the computing platform of the future.   I know there are some shortcomings to the device but we’re in the first few generations of them and if you can think back to when the first Desktop PC  or Laptop came on to the market then you’ll remember how far we’ve come.

I did an experiment on Friday at the office.  I have been increasingly frustrated by my Windows 7 computer at work and I couldn’t understand why my frustration was increasing so here are a few observations I finally made:

When I take my 5 lb laptop and hook it up to the docking station and press the power button, it literally takes over 4 minutes before I get to the point where my e-mail is open.    To be fair to Microsoft, about half of that time is booting from third party encryption software but once I get the CONTROL+ALT+DELETE screen, it still takes over two minutes to get to my e-mail.    Outlook 2010 is so bloated that I just sit there and watch at the machine tries to open the app and start pulling e-mail.

Contrast this with my iPad which goes from a cold start to operational and pulling e-mail in 30 seconds!   Not only does it take 30 seconds but I get my Outlook e-mail on my iPad much sooner and faster than on my PC!   I am using an external keyboard on my iPad responding to e-mails before they even get in my Desktop PC!

The time difference between 30 seconds and 4 minutes may seem trivial but imagine 10,000 employees wasting 4 minutes or how about 100,000 employees wasting 4 minutes each day?  That’s somewhere on the order of magnitude of 40,000 to 400,000 minutes wasted each day!

I continue to grow a huge disdain for anything Microsoft; With Apple, “it just works” and with Microsoft, “it’s just crap.”

I was the first one in the office to own an iPad and after showcasing it to co-workers, they all want one and a few have already trickled in with at least 6 new iPads entering the office in a 2.5 month time period and some of those guys waited weeks to get them.

I think the clincher for the iPad is the form factor.  Mobile phone screens are just too small and with an aging population and poorer eyesight increasing, the move will be to larger screens not tiny 3″ inch screens on cell phones which are pretty useless unless you have the eyesight of a 12 year old.  On a similar note, my blackberry screen is so small and the browser so slow that it’s garbage compared to the iPad.    I hardly use my blackberry anymore because my iPad is faster, easier to use, and more legible than blackberry crap.

I can honestly attest that my productivity has gone up at least 20% with the iPad and some of the great apps I use to manage my day.   Some people balk at the steep price but when you consider the real value, it’s a no-brainer.

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I just can’t get over my iPad.  In a previous post, I wrote about all the devices the iPad is essentially replacing and now it’s starting to replace people as well!  The iPad can easily be turned into a Personal Trainer with apps like Fitness Free HD, Diet & Fitness Tracker, Lose the Belly and Tai Chi and so many more!   The iPad can replace your nutritionist with apps like Calorie Counter, 40000 Vegetarian Recipes, Big Oven, Weight Watchers Mobile and many more!

Although I won’t trust the iPad to replace a pharmacist, I can double check any errors with the medication given to anyone in the family with the iPad app Micromedex Drug Information which gives you a wide array of information about almost any drug in the market.   WebMD has long replaced called a nurse with our family and now there’s an app for that!

The concierge at hotels is quickly being replaced with apps like AroundMe, UrbanSpoon, and OpenTable.    The TV weather man has been replaced by WeatherHD app.   The tourist guide has been replaced by apps such as FreeCity Maps & Walks, UpNext, and TripAdvisor!

There are some apps like LifeTopix that try to incorporate everything in your life from financing, health & fitness, education,  assets & inventory, travel, shopping, people & places into one giant app!

I also recently learned that my MBA classes now feature an iPad App for mobile learning but have not yet used it since I’m out for the summer but I’ll give it a shot this fall.   In other news, I’m watching TED lectures and other podcasts on my iPad to enrich my life so perhaps my professors will be replaced by an app soon enough.

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If you have an ipad then you love apps. Even better than apps are FREE apps so I found an app called “AppShopper” that identifies price drops and FREE apps for your iDevices. I can’t tell you how much I love my iPad and how it is changing my computing life.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/appshopper/id387037496?mt=8

So far I’ve downloaded about a half dozen apps but what I really love is at least trying out the apps before having to spend any money on them.

This 4th of July weekend, there are quite a few apps that are FREE this weekend only and some significant price drops on others.

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I have been on extensive business travel lately and relying almost exclusively on my ipad for just about everything and then it occured to me that it is replacing a ton of devices.

The table below shows the device my ipad has replaced, the cost of the device, the percentage replacement value and the net value.

To explain whaat I mean by replacement percentage I will use a couple of examples. I can buy a police scanner from amazon.com for about $180 or I can download a free app called “5-0″ and get 75% similar usage than the real scanner so the net value is $180 x 75% = $135.

Similarly I can buy a cheap digital camera for $100 or use the ipad’s built in camera for free but since the ipad camera is feature limited, I only get $50 of value.

The table isn’t complete as I am constantly adding items but you get the idea.

ipad 2

You will note that obvious things like books, reference materials, and such aren’t on the list because they replace heavy media with electronic media but I did use USA Today as an example.

During recent storms in Jasper and Oklahoma, I had a friend that was trying to understand what was going on, so I showed him the 5-0 app and he could listen to live police activity!

I am starting to think that the ipad may begin to replace things like cash for digital currency and digital checks. Just add an external sensor and turn my ipad into a stethascope, ultrasound machine, medical scanner, geiger counter, etc.

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So I’m totally in love with my new iPad 2.  It is everything I want in a portable computing platform and I now take it everywhere.  Since I purchased my iPad 2, my macbook pro has been sitting at the desk untouched.    I can do about 95% of what I need to do with my ipad but it has a few minor pitfalls.

The biggest pitfall is that it seems to require constant internet connection.  While “good” apps like USA Today will download and cache news articles most of them are “bad” apps that don’t cache and don’t work while offline.   This goes for some games to that seem to need the internet to run for no good apparent reason than perhaps to stream ads to the device for those “free” apps.

I have long awaited jet airlines to offer internet service but quite honestly, if they do they can kiss a large percentage of their revenue good bye, especially if I can stream netflix in flight.   But then again, airlines can save money by not having to load the plane with a bunch of TV screens.   Most of the time I’m on a plane, most of the people have iPads or iPhones or some other electronic device and hardly anyone requests headsets for the inflight movie or Direct TV.

While on a plane though, I keep thinking about all the things that I could be doing with internet access:  book a massage appointment at the spa, book reservations for dinner, get updated weather, update my hotel room preferences, on and on but no internet on the plane

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So I’ve had my iPad for about a week now and my App collection continues to grow.   While there are many Top 10 iPad lists out there, I haven’t quite yet come across the quintessential intellectual ipad app list yet.    So here are my top 10 apps for the quintessential intellectual:

1. KhanAcademy (Free) – If you have curiosity about the world, love to learn, or just plain need help understanding concepts, then this is the app for you.    From subjects like Biology, Physics, Calculus, and Chemistry to so much more, you’ll find learning lessons on just about any subject.

2. AgWine ($3.99) or AgWine Lite (Free) – No self-respecting intellectual should be without this app which provides detailed information about wine, grapes, country of origin (wines) and so much more!

3. iBooks (Free) or Kindle (Free) – I rely on iBooks and this web site http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ to download the vast majority of free eBooks.  The Kindle app is best used for books you wish to purchase (IMHO) as the books are accessible from multiple devices as opposed to purchasing from Apple.  My current free eBook collection includes:  The Art of War, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Republic, The Prince, Ulysses and a few other titles.

4. OverDrive Media (Free) – Library meets iPad!   If your local city library has any eBooks, this is the app you want to use to check out books and read for free!

5. Quick Graph (Free) – Have a complex equation you want to see graphed for free?  This is your app for complicated graphing of 2D and 3D equations.

6. FlipBoard (Free) – This brilliant application will aggregate blogs, news, and pretty much any other content and the capability is only limited by your imagination.

7. World Atlas HD ($1.99) – Why not just stick with Google Earth?  Sometimes, less information is better and this app has a clean look and feel to it and provides insight into countries of the world – all of them!

8. Art ($0.99) ADS Software Group – There are plenty of  “art” applications but this is one that provides information about artists displays very nice artworks.  The SlideShow feature will keep you mesmerized for hours on end!

9. iPod (Free) – There is an icon on your iPad called iPod.   While straight forward enough, this is a gateway to podcasts which can range from Harvard and Oxford lectures to virtually any podcast on any subject which may enlighten the human being.

10.  Epicurious (Free) – While perhaps not a true  “intellectual” app, this compilation is intended to give you all the tools to bring together your good friends to have a great discussion, dinner, and wine.   Whether the conversation is around art, philosophy, academics, culture, or contemporary subjects, you’ll be set!

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So I purposefully ordered a non-3G iPad that uses AT&T or Verizon for three key reasons.  First, I didn’t want to pay the ridiculous fees for internet service on ridiculous bandwidth/usage limits.  Secondly, while 3G is hot today, it will be obsolete in 12 months when 4G takes over and you’re going to wish you had 4G or 5G or 6G on your iPad but it’s not upgradeable!   Lastly, you can’t freaking share!   If I buy a few more iPads for my wife and kids am I supposed to sign up for 3G service on each one?  That’s totally stupid!

So what’s the solution?  Well my employer provides me with a Blackberry 9630 with unlimited usage and no tethering fees.  I work for a big company and they put the screws on the cell phone bidders and I pretty much have unlimited internet on my BB.   I initially tried using bluetooth to share the blackberry internet with my iPad but it just wouldn’t work.   A search on google revealed that I would need to jailbreak the iPad which was a no go for me either.

So after searching for a solution, I found one using CradlePoint Technology.   Essentially the way this works is you tether your Blackberry 9630 to the router.  The router emits WiFi on one end and pulls the internet in from the Blackberry’s 3G service.    The beauty of this solution is that it I can have up to 16 devices on the router getting internet access.   For my family that essentially means I can have 3 or 4 iPod Touch’s, 3 iPads, 2 laptops and a few other devices hooked up to it for ZERO cost!

There are a few draw backs, the range of the WiFi router is limited to about 60 feet or so but if you’re on vacation you’ll likely be together anyway so using it in a car on a long trip or hotel room or other locations is highly feasible.    I also now have to carry an extra device with me but its fairly small and portable. Lastly, sharing internet amongst two or three devices is fine for simple browsing and other tasks but don’t expect to have HD streaming from Netflix on this thing and two other people playing online games at the same time, it just not that fast yet….

And that yet is what I want to talk about, the router has upgradable firmware so it is my hope that when 4G, 5G, etc is available, the router will continue to work as speeds get better.    The cost of this router was $76.99 on Amazon and I had a $30 gift card I received for staying at a hotel recently so net cost was $46.99 tax free and shipping free!

Here’s a picture of the CradlePoint setup.

If you want 4G support in your router be sure to get version 2 of the device!   It should state in the description.     If you want to know if your blackberry model or other mobile device works with this you can click here.

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Prior to getting my iPad 2, I had been researching “Top 10 iPad Apps” lists and it took a long while to find worthwhile apps so I figured I’d share that information with readers here.   Rest assured, you’re not going to find the typical crap you find on most lists.   Sorry there’s no app listed here for tracking your grocery budget or tracking coupons.  These apps will help you become better informed for making investment decisions or tools to allow you to make some money in the process.   I guess you could call these money making apps for the iPad!

1. E-trade Mobile App (Free) – By far the most elegant trading application and far much better than TDAmeritrade’s App.  Designed around a widget concept, each individual window caters to specific information (portfolio, news, quotes, etc).   I have already placed an options order on this app and it was sweet!
2. TDameritrade Mobile Trading (Free) – A pretty ugly trading application and the only reason on my iPad is because I have an account here.   TDameritrade should be ashamed of itself and develop a better app or buy eTrade.
3. CNBC RT (Free) – This is CNBC’s app and it’s a pretty sweet application that gives you most of the information you’ll typically find on CNBC including videos, quotes, news, and finance information.
4. Bloomberg (Free) – Competition is a good thing and I like Bloomberg’s app as much as CNBC’s.
5. BA  II Plus Financial Calculator ($14.99) – One of the few apps I’ve actually paid for and at $14.99, its a bit pricey considering you can buy a physical calculator for about the same price however I bought it because it is a daily staple of my life for work and school and I don’t have to worry about forgetting my calculator as I take it in and out of my bag for use.   Plus, no additional extra weight to worry about in my bag when I get on a plane.   With this app you can calculate cash flows, bond rates, interest rates, amortization, and so much more!

6. CBOE (Free) – This is the Chicago Board Options Exchange app and I’m a bit disappointed its so clunky and not user friendly.  My pet peeve is when checking options on an equity, you can’t select by strike price across calendar, your only option is calendar by strike.
7. MarketDash (Free) – Yahoo’s stock app which doesn’t seem to include options data which is very disappointing but a handy app nonetheless for charts and graphs of equities.
8. Thomson Reuters Pro (Free) – One of the best news organizations has one of the best looking apps for news out there and information is the path to money!
9. Amex (Free) – If you have a personal or corporate Amex card, you need this app!  It helps you review your accounts and manage money flows.

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