This is a talk by Talks Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology. It is a must watch for anyone. you don’t have to be interested in technology to be amazed by this video. if ya get board skip to the end and watch the demos.

It will be exciting to see this technology being integrated into commercial products. It will change the way we interact with computers forever.

On Tuesday the 7th of April I flew to London to attend Cloudforce 2009.  Cloudforce was a Cloud Computing event hosted by Salesforce one of the largest players in the Cloud Computing arena and certainly one of the longest standing

So firstly, why did Damson attend.  Well we are Salesforce customers and have been interested in reselling salesforce for some time now.  One of the main reasons we want to resell salesforce is that it integrates with Google Apps.  Google Apps is Damsons flagship “Cloud Computing” product.  Google are by any standards the world leaders in many area including web based applications and any product that integrates with Google is worth a look.

Well first off the conference itself was spectacular.  From the keynotes by Mark Bennioff (CEO of Salesforce) himeself to the giant foam Salesforce mascots running around attacking people!  It was a theatrical performance matched only by some of London westends best.  They had it all down to a tea.

I learnt alot about Salesforce in a relativley short space of time.  The most fundamental realisation I had was that it is not simpley a product accessible online like most other web apps.  It is actually a platform in which developers can create their own apps and run their own ideas, once they use force.com’s language of course.

This was amazing because we were shown how companies from all over the globe such as O2, Orange, Google, Dell and Starbucks were using Salesforce in very new and exciting ways.

What I realised from listening to customers is that salesforce works amazingly well for the big boys who have all the money to pay developers to make Salesforce do what they want and look the way they want but for the small business owner there is a crack which they fall through that Salesforce is not filling.  A gap that makes Salesforce too difficult, complex and expensive for small business owners to use because they don’t have developers who can make Salesforce look and feel the way they want.

This feedback was vital because it led to my conclusion that Salesforce albeit an amazing product and platform does not suit everyone and thats fine.  That is in essence our job a Damson, to match the product to the clients needs based off our analysis.  Salesforce is just another tool in Damsons Suite of products.  I look on Salesforce like the swiss army knife of CRM, it can do everything if you have the time to read the manual and learn how.  However, if you just want a knife, I’ll just sell you a knife (ie. a simpler CRM)

Every tool has its uses

Some of you may have noticed that Gmail went down today, tho only for a few minutes.   It caused panic in the Twitter sphere!  People were twittering about the Gmail  outage at a rate of 120 tweets per minute.

If your Gmail stops working there are a few things to check:

The Google Apps status page is your best bet.  Here they will give details of each outage, when it occurred and possible resolution time.

Another handy site is,downforeveryoneorjustme.com

You can see if a website is just down for you or for the world

If neither of these give you a satisfactory answer, simply do a Twitter search

If you enter a search term like Gmail or Gmail down you will quickly find people talking about the possible outage and whether it is world wide.

I hope this was helpful.  If anyone else has anything to add please do comment below.

Fintan

In these so called recessionary times we hear a lot of talk of doom and gloom. Over the past few months I have received numerous emails from people and companies claiming to have the one thing that will get my business through the recession.  If these people did in fact have the golden cure for recession blues they should probably be contacting they’re local bank.

Though not claiming to have the ultimate recession killer I do have a few things that have helped our business through a hectic 2008 and that will hopefully help us to grow in 2009.

Making a plan and sticking to it

We all know we should have a business plan. But active business plans can be few and far between. If you haven’t at least referred to your business plan in the last six months then it’s not doing you any good. A successful business man once said,

“I can get there without a plan, but a plan gets me there faster”

I think this is of the utmost importance in a recession because getting there slower could mean your not around for long. The second point is to actually stick to you’re plan. If you’ve sat down and thought this business plan through it is likely to be better then any decision you make under pressure. I learnt this lesson recently. When we were about to make a decision based off of cash-flow even though it went completely against our well laid plans.

Stay Positive

My third pearl of wisdom is the most obvious, stay positive. Try to ignore all the bad news and joy killers. If you’re doing well tell everyone. Pass on your positivity. I heard a great line once about a famous person who didn’t like all the bad things people said about him in the papers. One of his friends told him, if you don’t like what the papers say, don’t read them.

Easier said then done I suppose but the idea is good. If you read more positive news you will feel more positive about your business and your own life.

Networking

This leads onto my final thought which is networking.  It is one of my all time loves in life. Put me in a room with a bunch of people I don’t know and I am in my element! I have been to a lot of networking events in my short time in business but in 2008 I came across the greatest networking organisation of them all, BNI. This stands for Business Networking International. Many of you longtime entrepreneurs out there have probably heard of BNI before. I had come across it a few years ago but never truly appreciated its potential. BNI is made up of chapters all over the world.  Each chapter only allows one person from each profession to join, thus preventing any conflict when passing business.  Referrals are the currency of BNI.  As each member goes about their weekly business they keep an eye out for work for other members. If they see potential business they let that member know at the next meeting.

This is the main purpose of BNI to help its members gain more business

However having been a member of BNI Bridge now for almost a year I have found something else in these weekly breakfast meeting.  Not only does my business benefit from thousands of euro worth of business. I also benefit from simply being around my fellow members.  It is their willingness to say I don’t care if this country is bankrupt my business is stronger then this.  That we truly are greater than the sum of our parts.  For me it is standing in a room full of people who believe that they’re business is here to stay.

So while each week many people read about job losses, bank closures and countries going bankrupt.  I surround myself with positive friends, positive family and positive businesses.  My suggestion is simple, you should do the same.

Craig Weissman talking about Salesforce and Twitter integration

I had a laptop order for an important client this week.  He needed something powerful, light weight, but with a decent screen. My answer was the ultra-slim Samsung X460.

It is a masterpiece of mobility and packed with a comprehensive spec list.  This machine is taking Samsungs proven ability to design portable netbooks and bringing it to the the people who need a “real laptop”.  It offers uncompromising portability, reliability and functionality, plus that all-important touch of elegance.

At a mere 1.84 kg, the X460 is one of the lightest notebooks in its 14.1″ class.  This does not however mean they have skimped on features, boasting the latest Intel® Centrino® 2 processor technology, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive this machine has alot of power under its sleek hood.

With Windows Vista it was good, but when I rebuilt the laptop with XP Pro it went from good to awesome!  With the spec being more than XP needed to run smoothly it flew through program installs, upgrades and was more than cabable of running many applications at once without the processor or 3GB of onboard RAM even noticing.  It was slick in design, fast in its movements and it wasn’t even trying that hard.  I look forward to getting feedback from my client on the X460 over the next few weeks as he puts it through its paces and will definitley be recommending it to future clients looking for a fully featured portable laptop.

Highlights of the Samsung X460

Intel Centrino 2 P8400 processor

3GB Memory

250GB Hard drive

Windows Vista Business (Also includes Windows XP Pro in the box)

14.1″ widescreen display

Bluetooth 2.0/7 in 1 card reader/P-Dock support/1.3 Megapixel camera

Fingerprint reader

As I’d mentioned before with the abrupt demise of my iPhone I was forced into using a windows mobile phone again.  Well it was short lived.  After just one weekend I was driven mad with this crappy device.

The main issues I found were with the fact that I had become so used ot the iPhone and its ease of use that using the stupid windows mobile pointing stick made me feel like homer and his special dialing wand.

“Your fingers are to fat to use this phone…please match your hand to the keypad now”

I eventually went back to my P910i and bought an app that could handle SSL on email.  I think this shows a fundamental flaw in Windows Mobile and Microsoft’s essential monopoly over the PDA market for the previous decade made them lazy and unimaginative in their design.

The fact that I preferred to use a device that was almost half a decade old just shows how far Microsoft have to come to compete with a now very busy market place.

It also confirmed even further to me that the iPhone is the true game changer.  They have not only created a new phone but also a new market place where people can easily market they’re application to millions with no marketing or sales budget!  Its a developers dream.

As we saw with the recent announcement of iPhone OS 3.0 Apple have enabled over 1000 additional API’s.  This means there are now 1000 more ways that developers can make their applications work, sync, push, pull, talk, text and so much more with the iPhone.  What it really means to the consumer is that there is going to be applications launching with even great potential and functionality then they have ever seen on a mobile device.  Mac have realised that the to make the iPhone the most important mobile device since nokia launch their first phone the just had to do two things

1. Create an easy way to get apps onto your phone (mirroring the iTunes store with music)
2. Open up as many doors to the devices as developers need

Now they simply sit back and watch everyone else make them money.  Genius

This is just a short video I made on Qik from my iPhone.  I was hoping to see how good the quality is as I am heading to the Cloudforce 2009 conference in London on the 7th of April and am hoping to do some video while I am there.

As a cloud computing expert my constant job is not only to convince people of the merits of cloud computing but also in many cases explain what the hell it actually is.  Most of Damson‘s clients aren’t techies and they don’t like when you make it technical.  So finding real world examples of how cloud computing/WEB 2.0/SAAS can really change their working environment is vital in helping people to understand the true benefits.

Technical explanation:  With cloud computing your data is synchronised across all your devices and is always backed up.

Real world example:  When you create a file on your laptop at home it appears on your desktop in the office (instantly!).

I know what your thinking, sure that’s just sugarsync or dropbox or putplace.  That’s easy, right?  Well for a lot of people its not, in fact most techie’s would be shocked at the amount of people out there that don’t know about these technologies that we use everyday.  More importantly then that, trying to get across the actual benefits (not features) of these services can be a challenge.  So when I come across a real life example of how to explain a complicated technology I save it away in my data-bank of analogies and metaphors, for the next customer meeting.

So, while my  iPhone was  off for repair last month it was time to find a replacement.  I had temporarily began using my P910i, great phone, but old and it couldn’t handle SLL which ment no email for me, not acceptable.

The brother was kind enough to give me a lend of his slightly younger XDA Orbit from O2.  It was running windows mobile 6.

So with my new device I formatted it (deleted everything) just to be sure and went about adding mt email settings and Google sync settings.  After about 15 minutes of synchronisation I had 1200+ contacts,  1 year+ of calendar and 200 emails on the XDA.  Impressive and it was all thanks to keeping everything on the cloud.  The mobile was simple a photocopy of the real data held safely online.

Now using the windows mobile OS, is another days post.  However, I live safe in the knowledge that come rain, hail or thievery my data is safe…always.

Really all I  hoping for is Technological gadgets I come across and business networks I go to from time to time.

I will keep it as interesting as possible but I cannot promise anything ground breaking.