@boagworld Here's a transcript of today's AudioBoo.

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I moved my blog!

Hey everyone, I moved my blog. You can find it at http://www.nickfrandsen.com/blog

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iPad Give-Aways! 5 Reasons I want, and ways I would use an iPad.

RSRecently the iPad (for good reason) has been getting tons of hype. Everyone has been talking about it, wanting one and people even camped outside Apple Stores to get them last night. I want one just like it seems everyone else in the world wants one. I'm writing this blog post in response to all those recent iPad Giveaway's on Twitter from @TapTapTab, and @LeoLaporte / @LisaTickled Pink and tons of others. I'm just typing out 5 reasons I want / ways I would use an Apple iPad if I were to win one. 

If anyone were ever to read this blog post their first response would probably be "Well if you want one so bad why don't you just go out and by one" I'm not trying to cast people in a negative light I'm just saying that's probably what you'd think that's why I'm explaining each reason and in response to that I would say, "I'm 14 a high school student I don't have $500 bucks to spend on gadgets and gizmos (as much as I would love to)". 

Reason #1 - It's really, really awesome!
This may not sound like much of a reason at all but it's true, this is a revolutionary device and I believe it will change the way we look at technology and computing (even though only time will tell). I just think it's really cool and their are so many uses I can think of for it, I'm only covering a handful in this post. 

Reason #2 - I'm a Freelance Web Designer.
As a 14-year-old freelance web designer you can imagine I don't have much cash to spend on Gadgets and Gizmo's (Like I said above) but think of how cool it would be to present my designs to clients on the iPad, walk them through wireframes on the iPad, show them a video tour of their site on the iPad and even present them with website statistics on the iPad. I can imagine being able to interact with the design with your hands would make you feel more in control of a website and that's how I want my clients to feel. Not to mention the practical uses of an iPad for business. As a student it would be great to be able to manage invoices on an iPad using the MiniBooks app for Freshbooks since the iPad is portable I could bring it around with me wherever my life and business takes me.

Reason #3 I'm a Tech Support Provider. 
I'm a web designer but I'm also a Tech Support Provider (No, I don't have a computer science degree, or my Microsoft Certification) but I have a keyboard, a mouse, and a major interest in technology. I've helped friends and family with their computer problems but I also help customers and clients as well and I've begun building up a growing customer base for my tech support business. When going to fix and troubleshoot a clients computer can you imagine using an iPad to record their computer information, put all their info through the iPad to a support ticketing webApp like OSTicket where the customer can view all your notes for later and even add notes of their own? Sure I can do that on my MacBook Pro but how does it look to the customer when I'm typing away on my MacBook when I'm supposed to be fixing their machine, I think the iPad would revolutionize the way I provide tech support.

Reason #4 I'm a News and Political Junkie!
I've taken a strong interest in news and politics during the past few years. With the iPad I can see myself getting more of everyone's viewpoints. Being able to read more books, blogs, and news sites will help me better for my opinion on important issues and what's a more natural way to read and browse through posts, articles, and text than on the iPad. Think about would you rather bring your MacBook to a coffee shop to get caught up on news or your iPad. A large item with a big keyboard and trackpad, and power cable, and case, and... or would you rather bring your iPad, a simple small device perfect for reading that has a long battery life. 

Reason #5 I'll Admit it, I'm Unorganized!
I try to be as organized as I can but I'll admit it between my Mac, my PC, my iPod Touch, my school planner, my business, and my life it's hard to stay organized especially with all that, so you're saying "Why do you need an iPad that's just another device to spread your thoughts through". I think an iPad would help me stay organized! You're asking, How? Well, I can have it everywhere with me, it can travel, it can stay at home, it can even come to school (just like my iPod touch or you could argue my MacBook) but the iPad I think is the best way to stay organized because you can see everything, everywhere your not forced to sit at a table and look at your computer, your not forced to squint or stop to see the small screen. The iPad is large enough / yet small enough, and portable enough to help you (or at least me) stay organized. Your not even forced to type on a small keyboard! 

    So that's my sort of my last minute pitch my "iHope iWin an iPad so iBlogged" this post. I realize with however many thousand followers all these twitter iPad competitions have my chances of winning are slim but who knows? Maybe one of them will see this post?! 

- Nick Frandsen

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Long time no, Posterous. Re-Launching my Blog.

Ok so way back in October you may have seen my blog post about G-Mail, but then what? I seemed to disappear, my blog seemed to be abandoned but not to worry I'm back in the Blog-o-Shere! Having a couple good ideas for blog posts pop into my head I decided to re-visit my blog at http://nickfrandsen.poserous.com posting more frequently I will be sharing my thoughts on everything from my life, to events in the world of web design, to apple, google, and more! 

Also, you can still follow me on twitter @nick_frandsen and even subscribe to this blog. I think that's it for now just a really short post! More coming soon so stay tuned!

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Retaking control of my Inbox - Switching from Thunderbird to Gmail.

For the past couple of years I've been using the Mozilla Thunderbird Email Client connected through IMAP to an email account on my website. With that, I've been dealing with My Hosting Provider's 10MB email space limit by transferring my messages from the server to Local Folders on my computer every few days, and organizing it through folders and backing up by having messages forward to Yahoo! Mail.

My problem as you can probably guess was that I was that I had messages in multiple places, I was sorting it online through Yahoo! and Backing it up locally but I didn't really have a system, so centralized place, no email control center. My brother suggested I switch to Gmail, my problem was I didn't want a new email address, I wanted to continue to use my existing email address without using my servers. I worried about how difficult it would be to receive mail sent to that address and send mail from the address. It turned out to be simple, I setup a simple Cpanel forwarder to get all mail sent to me@mydomain.com redirected to me@gmail.com and "added an email address" in my Gmail Settings. It now works great!
           Using Gmail I can have my mail syced accross multiple platforms. I am writing this email which I will then send to posterous using Gmail Offline on my way home from Iowa, I can obviously check it online from any computer connected to  the interent, and with a simple selection and entering my username and password I can sync my Gmail with my iPod Touch. If I wanted too I could also sync my Gmail with my Phone or use Gmail's my Mobile Website. It's so easy, I always have my email no matter where I go. To organize my email I take advantage of Gmail's Labels (I enjoy how you can add more than one label to each message). I keep my Inbox clear by Archiving and I enjoy how you can convert email messages to tasks and they appear in your task pane in the lower right.

Switching to Gmail I have recently been exploring other Google Services, these services also sync across the multiple platforms I discussed above. I have been using Google Calendar to organize my increasingly busy life and I've been exploring Google Docs. Gmail has helped retake control of my Inbox.

Filed under  //   E-Mail   Gmail   Google   Mozilla   Organization   Thunderbird  

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