apps Archives - Foster Institute

Fire Phone at Work

Mike Foster — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 16:10:54 +0000

Amazon just announced the new Amazon Fire phone. The first thing I wanted to know was about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) features. How will your business utilize this great new device? The news is good…

The Fire Phone, scheduled to be available the end of July from AT&T, tracks your face for “sort of 3D,” sports an amazing camera, can recognize almost everything it sees or hears, but what about features for your company?

You will have the ability to view MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. The phone provides Outlook and uses your Exchange server for messages, contacts, calendar, tasks, etc. The device supports encryption and is supposed to support VPN connectivity soon. Then, of course, there are so many apps available in Amazon’s own Fire Phone Apps in Amazon’s store. See details by googling: “Fire Phone for Work site:amazon.com” or click here: Fire Phone for Work

For IT Pros, they will be happy that the phone supports their ability to remote-wipe a lost or stolen phone and control the installation of applications. A notable tool is Amazon’s Whispercast.

Whispercast is a stable platform that schools and businesses use already. It provides an easy interface for your IT professionals to manage these devices including limiting Wi-Fi connectivity and provide content restriction (such as blocking access to social media sites). IT Pros can configure users into “groups,” with each group receiving different content and restrictions.

Soon other MDM (Mobile Device Management) tools will add robust features that your IT Pros need in order to enhance security and productivity for devices using your network.

Is there a Fire Phone in your future? Can your IT manage the BYOD features? At least you know it can “do business.”

Please post your comments below…

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The Secret of the Tile Guy

Mike Foster — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:00:36 +0000

One of our best clients told me about what would have otherwise been a mundane event: Replacement of floor tiles by their local “Tile Guy”. However, this turned out to be pretty exciting. Let me share with you this (slightly dramatized) story: It was a dark and stormy night, and the “Tile Guy” only works at night…

The tile guy assured the company that, even though all floor tiles will be replaced with new ones, the desks and everything else would stay right where they are on the floor. He can “magically” install the floor tiles without needing to lift or move anything in the office. Not the desks. Not printers. Not anything. “Everything will still be exactly where you left it”, he proclaimed to the stunned employees and executives alike. Some of them murmured, “Maybe Santa Clause helps him…”

The IT professionals – shaking their heads in disbelief – asked the tile guy, “Are you sure you don’t at least want us to move the computers and wires from everyone’s desk?” There was a hint of concern in their voice. Even though the datacenter was locked and “off limits” to the tile guy, he could still cause problems by moving the cables, etc.

The tile guy told them that there was no need to move even the computers. He can make the old tiles go away and the new tiles appear in their place without moving a thing.

The IT Professionals, being the intellectual types we are, scratched their heads. This “magic tile replacement” needs some investigation.

At the end of the day, the IT guys headed out the door with everyone else, the tile guy waving goodbye from inside the building. Then, surreptitiously, the IT guys came back into the office, to learn what was really going on.

Note: The only reason I’m telling you this guy’s secret methods he uses at work is that your business can benefit from knowing…

Peeking around a corner, they witnessed the tile guy kneeling down on the floor inside a cubicle, phone in hand, turning slowly in a circle. He was using the camera feature to record a panoramic picture of where everything in that office was located. The panoramic photo would show position, angle, and every detail. He moved on to the next desk and did the same thing, and so on.

So that’s how he knew how to put everything back in place as if it had never moved!

The IT guys snuck back out of the office, undetected, and acted appropriately shocked the next day when everything was neatly perfectly in place on top of the brand new tiles.

We thought that is a pretty clever use of a smartphone, in a work environment, to create “magic” for his customers.

Here is the “so what:” What magic do you do now, or could you do, using your smartphone to “wow” your customers? Post your own stories…

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Where are the Microsoft Apps?

Mike Foster — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 06:00:36 +0000

What about all those great Apple Apps? Microsoft is still paying developers, reportedly $100,000 and more, to develop apps. How long will it take Microsoft to “catch up”?

You may be pleasantly surprised with the selection of apps that are already available for the Surface Pro.

Do you like the Kindle and ESPN app for the iPhone? They work great on the Surface too. Of course the Kindle reader works. Visit http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/apps to choose “Search for Apps.”

Smoke and Mirrors: When we look at Windows 8 on a Surface Pro (not Surface RT), in the “tiled” interface, it has icons like the iPad has icons. It is a “tease” that you can operate the Surface Pro like you operate an iPad. It is true that the tiled interface is similar to the icons on an iPad, sort of.

One of the best tiles on the Windows 8 tiled screen is the tile named “Desktop” that takes you to something the iPad will never have: Windows, with an interface almost exactly like Windows 7.

Practically any Windows program runs on the Surface Pro. That’s a huge boost in your choice of apps.

Applications that run via web site interfaces – commonly called Web Applications – run fine as well.

Remember, Apple has had time to polish iOS, Microsoft is still polishing.

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Apps for Taking Notes in Meetings

Mike Foster — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 06:00:37 +0000

Many executives find that using their tablets, Android, iPad, and other choices is very productive. Here are three tools that will help you take better notes.

First: Use a great app. Many of the executives I work with have their own favorite apps for taking notes during meetings. The one app that executives consistently use is the app called Notability. One of the many features of Notability that executives like is that they can “record audio” during the meeting as they take notes. Notability links the audio to the notes so that the note taker can go back to the notes at a later time and hear the audio that was recorded at the time any particular note was written down. It is up to you to consider the ethics of recording a meeting, and I recommend you obtain a speaker’s permission to record them and also make everyone in a meeting aware that you are recording the audio.

Second: Use a stylus designed for note taking. Writing on the face of your tablet with a finger, or even a normal stylus, can be very frustrating. Executives find that the Adonit stylus works very well for them. The stylus is shaped like a pen and has a protective plastic disc at the end to help avoid scratching the surface of your tablet’s screen. Just know that using a stylus does NOT improve anyone’s handwriting.

Third: Have a way to share the notes between devices. Of course, the standard for saving, sharing, and synchronizing files is still the app named Dropbox. Not only does Dropbox offer inexpensive storage, it runs on just about every platform for tablets, smartphones, and computers. Additionally, many apps already natively support saving and opening documents directly to and from Dropbox.

Note taking can be very helpful, and these three tools can help ensure the best outcome for you and your teams.

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What are your favorite apps?

Mike Foster — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:00:37 +0000

Here are a list of favorite applications created from polls of CEO groups. You may wish to try out some of these yourself, and I will GREATLY appreciate you responding with YOUR favorite apps—especially those you use in business. It is okay if they are in the list already—I’m keeping score of how many people like them.

Apple, Android—all apps are welcome. These are some of the applications other senior level executives like:

Around Me
Bestparking
Camera
CNN
DBM with Family
Doc Scanner
Doc Scanner Great Quality
Docs To Go
Documents To Go
Evernote
Fire 2
Flixter
Words with Friends
Glipse
Google Voice
GoToMyPC
Group Chat
GroupMe
Harvard Business Review
Hipmunk
Next Gen of Kayak
Intellicast

Logmein for iPad
Map my Run
Movie Phone
Notepad
NPR App
NPR Podcasts
Oprah
Pandora
Pulse
Slacker Radio
SlingBox
SugerSync
Task thing
TED
TripIt
Tunein
Vocatel
Weather and News
Weather Channel App
Yelp
YouSendIt

Please post your favorite apps on this blog.

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