Archive - Technology RSS Feed

iPad – Pros & Cons

January 28, 2010 in Technology with 2 Comments

Here’s my take on the iPad. I’ve read enough blogs and opinions this morning that I figured I’d throw mine into the mix. I’ve never done a post like this but what the heck.

As someone who’s in the market for an electronic book reader I’ve really been eying up the Kindle. My father got one for Christmas and I find it highly enjoyable to read on. I think it’s as close to a book experience as you can get.

Before the iPad was introduced I worried about the reading on the Apple Tablet because adding a back light makes it like reading on a laptop which I don’t like.

Here are my thoughts:

Pros

  • Starting price $499! They will sell a TON at this price (this is also a negative though, see below)
  • iPhone Apps work directly from the App store.
  • Big screen
  • Big battery
  • Music , Movies, Photos
  • iWork (can still get some work done)
  • Mail (even though this will tempt me to check more than twice a day)
  • iBook Store (still not convinced on the reading experience)

That’s it in a nutshell. I could easily see this device replacing my laptop. It can do all the things I really want to do on my laptop and more.

Think of it this way. This is a first revision and we’re going to find lots of negative things we don’t like about the iPad but it really is a game changer.

Imagine books where authors provide commentary or non-fiction books with photos and videos.

How about cooking books where the author walks you through the recipes step-by-step. You’re reading Gordon Ramsay’s new cookbook and he’s swearing up a storm telling you what a fool you are for adding so many onions!

It’s a game changer because it will develop into a new way for us to consume and enjoy content.

Cons

  • $499 model doesn’t have 3G. OK. Let’s me say this. I refuse to give a Canadian cellular provider any more money. This includes Rogers, Bell, Telus, Fido etc. We are constantly being screwed (for lack of a better word) by Canadian providers in the cell industry and I refuse to give more money than I already do to these companies. At the same time, I believe the 3G chip should be in all the models.
    Kindle provides “global wi-fi” without a monthly fee. You can literally purchase and download a book instantly. Without 3G and without paying a provider I’m only able to buy a book when I have an open wi-fi connection on the iPad. That or you can spend $629 for the base model with a 3G chip.
  • Screen and bezel is weird. It’s a square…. but movies can be displayed widescreen and a good chunk of the screen is lost to the gigantic black bezel. This will be one of the first things to disappear in later revisions.
  • No camera. I don’t mean a camera to take photos. I’m talking about a camera to have a  video chat with someone.
  • Stupid SD card accessories. One of the first questions I had was “how does someone without a mac or .me subscription get their photos to the iPad?”  Not a fan of the accessories for getting my photos into the iPad.
  • Back light for books – Again, I’m not sure how the reading experience will compare to a kindle. I know that I’ve tried to read books on my laptop and I hate it. My eyes usually stare at a bright computer screen all day and I’m not sure it would be any different on the iPad.
  • Hard Drive Space – 16GB is too small. Books will become more interactive and therefore require more space. Add a few GB’s of photos and some music and you’re full.

Conclusion: Well…..  Last night I discussed the iPad with my wife and told her that if Amazon dropped  the Kindle in price to $99-$149 I’d most likely buy one and continue to purchase books from them. This year I’m enjoying reading more than ever, but I don’t want 200 books lying around. Going digital for reading is inevitable in my eyes.

How-evvvvvvvv-ver……… being an apple nut and fanatic I’m pretty positive that I will end up buying the $499 model.  IF (and a big IF) amazon drops the price of the kindle am I really just wasting money on a device that I’ll end up replacing eventually?

What are your thoughts?

What Matters Now

December 18, 2009 in Books, Business, Career & Work, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Success, Technology with 4 Comments

Looking for some direction in 2010?whatmatter2

Seth Godin has compiled a free eBook titled “What Matters Now” with a collection of ideas from over 70 “big thinkers” about the world in 2010.

You can download the eBook free directly by clicking the button below. WhatMatters

Here are a few of my favourite ideas, thoughts or quotes from the book.

Seth Godin – This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get.

Chris Meyer writes about the evolution of capitalism but does so by comparing business to Darwin’s finches of the Galapagos Islands. Darwin observed that the finch’s beaks would evolve and change shape to match the form of the flowers which provided their food.

Chris suggests that businesses will need to evolve as capitalism changes in our new economy. Chris suggests that the game is changing and businesses in  developed countries will need evolve their beaks and learn the new rules of the game.

Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell’s story on “Bacon Salt” and how it’s our job to find the “one percenters.” The 1% of people deep in the trenches of a niche who become the roots of word of mouth marketing.  Many are looking for the masses right out of the gate. Focus on finding the one percent first and allow them to get the roots buried deep into the soil.

William Taylor suggests that in the past businesses found a feeling of comfort by staying in the middle of the road and today the middle of the road is the most unsafe place to be. Where is your business?

John Wood – “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com) – Everything Tony learned about business he learned from Poker. Here’s an example: The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.

Guy Kawasaki on Evangelism. Guy’s message is usually pretty consistent. He is constantly hammering home what it takes to be successful. You think he’s trying to tell us something?

Dave Balter on “Dumb”

For example,

  • Putting a college Yearbook online was considered dumb..
  • Limiting small micro updates on the web to 140 characters was considered dumb.

“Recognize that your dumb idea may be tomorrow’s huge breakthrough.”

I remember when the iPod was first announced. It was considered “dumb.” Why would anyone want to carry all their music on a digital pocket device?

Look at the hilarious comments (especially the last one) left on CNET”s very first article about the iPod being introduced

“Naw …. wont take off”
“This will be the last thing from Apple ever, they’ll never be successful with this.”
“apple is going to go bankrupt with this new mp3 player thing. mp3s are going to be obsolete within the next couple years anyway”
“This is crazy. Next thing we know Apple will move all the Macs to Intel processors”

WOW. In case you don’t get why the last one is the funniest it’s because just a few years later Apple did switch to using the PC’s Intel Processor.

Gary Vaynerchuk and the “Thank You Economy.”

Gary is  right on the money and I’ve seen it in action. Two years ago if you made a video, posted an online petition and tweeted about Frito Lays not delivering enough Fritos to your restaurant, nobody cared.

Today, Frito’s headquarters calls you up and takes care of the situation personally. It’s an amazing world and the tools are here. How are you using them?

My father-in-law over at Quoteflections has done three awesome posts of his favorite quotes from the book. Check them out as well. #1 , #2 , #3

~Noah

Social Media, Skynet & The Terminator

December 2, 2009 in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Technology with 0 Comments

This is an excellent presentation by Tara Hunt. Tara provides some solid advice and thinking in regards to the ways we use social media both personally and within our businesses.

I couldn’t stop thinking of the Terminator films when I viewed the presentation hence the title of this post! :-)

Tara writes:

“The presentation I gave at nextMEDIA in Toronto today. Basic premise, let’s put human stuff first when using the ‘new’ media (and in every case, in fact). Stuff like personality, quality, relationships and taking the time to invest in the people you follow/follow you is really important for being able to raise that crucial social capital that helps us achieve our goals at the end of the day (job, growing our business, changing the world, raising money, etc).”

Some of my best friends are robots

View more documents from Tara Hunt.

Outsourcing Saved Me $8040 In One Day

August 8, 2007 in Business, E-Commerce, Technology, Time & Money with 2 Comments

Part 2 – Outsourcing Saved Me $8040 In One Day

Yesterday I mentioned how I was beginning a small experiment on outsourcing. As I had said in my first post, I’ve been outsourcing a large majority of my work for years but I’ve been doing it privately through sites like Rentacoder.com and elance.com

After reading the 4-Hour Work Week, remember I mentioned I contacted the two companies that Timothy Ferriss mentions in his book, Brickwork and GetFriday.com
I still haven’t heard back from GetFriday in three days.

Continue Reading…

A couple new things I’m into….

May 30, 2006 in Business, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Projects, Technology, Time & Money with 0 Comments

I wanted to share a few new possible revenue streams I’ve created for myself. They may never bring any income, or they may turn out to be new sources of income! Either way, I’m doing them and excited about them. You may find these to be opportunities for yourself to explore and I recommend you do so!

First, I got an invite to be an Ether Beta Tester. Ether is pretty cool. It’s a pay-per-call phone service where you can pay to call and actually speak to people on various topics. My topics are Google Adsense, Adwords and E-Commerce. The way it works is people will pay to call me for a certain length of time. During that time, I’ll answer questions, talk to the person and hopefully give sound advice.

Ether then takes a cut of my “cost-per-call.” They ask you to set your own fees. I set my time at $49.95 for a 15-minute phone call. I chose this price point for 2 reasons. First, I think that’s a good amount of time to quickly go through Adsense placement or look at your website and give you some helpful tips on how to improve things. We don’t need an hour. Secondly, if I give you even 1, 2, or 3 tips that you take into consideration and it boosts your Adsense income from .10 a day to $1.00 a day! Then you’ve made a wise investment!

I may try different price points and times in the future but for now I thought this would be a decent starting point. I’ve found various “experts” charging much, much, more. I was able to find one guy charging a few hundred for an hour of time. I guess if you could get totally sound advice that actually paid off, it would be a wise investment!

Anyways, if you’re interested in calling me to discuss your Adsense sites or E-Commerce efforts, all you need to do is click the “call-me” link in the right hand menu.

The other opportunity I’m trying out is Lulu.com
I read about Lulu.com is the most recent copy of Business 2.0. The idea is cool. Essentially, if you’ve written a book, you can instantly publish a paperback, hardcopy or digital copy for no cost. Lulu.com will store your book and when it’s ordered, they will bind, create and ship your book. You are paid about 85% of the cost at which you set. The other costs are provided to Lulu for shipping and binding costs. Pretty cool right?

I think so! There are others doing similar things but I find Lulu.com is way ahead of the rest of them. Lulu.com is essentially a self-publishing warehouse. You can become a published author in about 5 minutes (after you’ve written the content) I like the way it works especially for Digital Products. If you create an e-book and need another avenue to get it out there then Lulu.com is the answer. I’m tempted to order my own bound copy of my own book just to see the finished product.

I’m also excited since I have so many books, documents and reports that I plan to get up on Lulu.com in the coming days. I’ll share the links with you. You may be interested in purchasing.

[tags] lulu, ether, adsense, adwords, internet marketing, revenue, income, e-business, ebiz [/tags]

Welcome to NoahFleming.com Online

May 8, 2006 in Business, Career & Work, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Success, Technology, Time & Money with 12 Comments

My name is Noah Fleming. I am happily married and live in “beautiful” Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I love my wife, family and extended family. My theory on life, although while nothing groundbreaking, many of us will never put this thinking into action. Life is short so make the best of it. I always look at my parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles and think to myself, we potentially have about 80 years with these people, anywhere from 10-30 years with grandparents. Much of this is assuming we live normal lives that don’t end abruptly for any number of reasons. That being said, I knew very early on in life that I couldn’t spend my days doing something I didn’t absolutely love 250%.

I have been considered an entrepreneur for many years now, I’ve launched various successful small businesses, created websites in a few hours and late sold them as solid profit-making machines for tens of thousands of dollars. I have a strategy of always looking to create various sources of income. I am quite young and for most of my working life, my own personal income has nearly doubled, tripled or quadrupled that in which I made working various jobs. The jobs that made me realize I was bound to be an entrepreneur included things like, paper boy, video store rental clerk, metal stamping  (HELL), brick cleaner (yes, I cleaned mortar off of used bricks), lawn cutter, snow shovel’er, waiter, innkeeper, university teaching assistant, research assistant, catering assistant, non-profit organization communications officer and I’m sure I’ll add to this list when I remember…

Now, I focus primarily on my own businesses and websites. I also place a very strong focus on helping others. I no longer work for anyone except my customers and myself. My goals are simple, to teach as many as I can how they too can make a substantial income online.

I do all this because I believe so strongly with what I said in the first paragraph. I used to work in an office and I lasted 8 months. I can’t imagine anyone has unhappily worked in a position for 10,20,30 years. I just can’t imagine it. Life is too short and these days, opportunities are abundant.

Finally, as my first post concludes which is also the “about me,” I will say this. I don’t ever profess to be a genius at anything or know some mysterious secret about building wealth online. I learned the way we all should, through hard work and many, many, many countless hours up until three or four in the morning striving just to make a dollar or two online. I do however know many things that I plan to share with members of this paid blog.

Anyways, this is NoahFleming.com I hope you like it.