Cloud Management for N – Access Points – How many do you have – How do you manage!

Want something with performance, something that is EASY to Manage!  You can read on for more details and/or review the video.

Wireless Access points – Today with WiFi everything – everyone is getting into the game and offering these services for their customers.  Just think – McDonald’s new modelled restaurants will all have Wireless access for their customers.

Does your doctor’s office or local restaurant have wi-fi yet – any place where you need to wait are potential customers looking at internet access for their patrons.   Today EDUCATION is no different – if they don’t already offer limited access they are growing that access to allow more and more students – visitors and faculty access for not only the school owned resources, but also the individuals hardware.

You have several options when looking at adding WiFi….

1) A consumer type product with limited management and function

2) Premier product that requires a management appliance to control and manage each of the access points

3) Cloud based solutions to manage and control access

AMER has a great offering in the Enterprise class Wireless N Access point with Cloud Management.  Being a new player entry into the Cloud Management arena – we have priced both our Hardware and management products very aggressively.

How would you like to configure all your access points from your desk, send them out to your schools and have them plugged into the network  – a few minutes later your wireless access points are up and running.  Need a guest Network, want to charge using the Hotspot feature and have everything including the credit card application ready to go!  AMER & CloudCommand are the products you want.

Need better security then a simple password that has to be changed as people leave or it gets to people who shouldn’t have it.  Want to know where and who is on your network at any time,  controlling the products that have access.   You give a student permission to use your network with your hardware, but you don’t want them to be able to use their iPhone as well.  Need to limit the time or bandwidth of access, want to give your users the ability to move around from building to building without losing connection.   Need to offer guest services – let your reception give them permission and be able track and limit both by time and capacity.   Want to know the bandwidth usage by person, by device and by Access point.

This is just a small portion of the features you receive when looking at Amer and Cloud Command.

Education & Evernote

I have talked about Evernote in the past and a few others web options that I have tried….  These are all more than just Notebooks, it’s a filing systems and can become your 2nd memory.  Take a picture of anything with your phone, send it to Evernote – TAG it and you have a new record.  I am back using Evernote full-time it has become a very important productivity tool for my day-to-day work.  The reason it has moved up in importance is that I was able to install the Windows application on my system and it brought many additional tools that allowed me to be more productive.

Calling – To-Do’s – Scripts – Specials – policy’s – Order tracking – etc…

I believe anyone using a computer can use this great tool – this is really a great tool for Teachers – the following Blog post on Evernote blog details just a few ways one of your peers is using Evernote to make his job easier.

10 Tips for Teachers Using Evernote – Education Series

Smartphones – Microsoft & Nokia JOIN FORCES!

Two huge companies are getting into bed together to go against the NEW leaders in the smart phone arena. If these two very large companies do it right, I would think that both Apple and Google are going to have a fight on their hands… but will they – Can they?  To this point neither have shown themselves to be quick to market – Reason for them joining together!

The other questions is how long before we see product, Iphone 5 is coming, new Android O/S coming – things are changing quickly and can these players get into the game in time?  Microsoft already took too long to get into the mix, though they did bring a great product to market – one that people should be looking at as an alternative.

 

Related Articles

• Nokia and Microsoft team up to build ‘iPhone killer’ (thestar.com)
• Nokia, Microsoft to Join Forces, Shares Tumble (businessweek.com)
• Smartphone Wars: Nokia’s Rallying Cry (news.sky.com)

Security – iPhone Password Lock – Do you feel SAFE?

I guess this is not specific to Education, but I know many Tech people who use the iPhone  – so I thought they might be interested in this article.

Research being carried out at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany has revealed an iPhone password can be recovered in just 6 minutes from a locked device. In other words, if you lose your iPhone, but it has a password lock, anyone can unlock it in just a few minutes without having to figure out the passcode.

It’s also made clear in their study that using encryption on the iPhone is not a way around this problem as the encryption relies on the user’s secret information (revealed by this method) to gain access. The best advice at the moment is to change passwords as soon as a device is lost or stolen to limit the damage.

It only take 6 minutes to reveal an iPhone password

Apple – IPAD more then for GAMES! – REMOTE ACCESS…..

Want to have access to your home PC, your work PC (might be a little difficult) – Well for FREE you can set up your PC, download a single AP from the AP store and your almost ready to run your PC software, view your files etc…

Great VIDEO demonstration from itbusiness believe it or not.

Video Rewind: Turn your iPad into a remote desktop connection

Junk – Can everything be JUNK! Disposible Technology

I have been saying this for years…   No one can really keep up with technology, but companies are certainly trying to force the issue with the methods they produce product today.  It’s truly sad that we have gone down this route, might be too late to turn around though.

Companies creating product that cannot be upgraded, batteries that cannot be replaced and the quality of the product just not standing up.  This includes everything from little electronics to large appliances!

Found this great article today that I wanted to share, it positions the current situation perfectly using the products of today!

That shiny new Android phone you just bought? Yeah, it’s a piece of trash. No, I’m not some Google-hating Apple fanboy. The iPhone 4 is junk, too.

So is that giant, flat-screen 3D TV and tablet you bought in the past year. It’s trash. All trash.

Of course, everything ends up broken, obsolete and unusable at some point. The trouble is, the companies that make our consumer electronics are deliberately or carelessly decreasing the useful life of our gadgets so they can sell us another one sooner 

Gadgets: Built to Not Last READ MORE

Notebook in the CLOUD – 10th Grade Students – TEAM Resource – Evernote

If you have been reading this blog you know I am user of Evernote and starting to use it more as I learn from others on just how powerful this tool can really be.

On the Evernote BLOG there was a great story about how a TEACHER introduced Evernote to her students for a specific project and they love it and have started educating other students as they all feel it’s a great tool.

Why I chose Evernote

I felt Evernote would be a perfect solution for the students’ need to archive and organize traditional and non-traditional sources of information. In addition to the more common features, Evernote offered some specific ones that made it the perfect tool for what we would be using it for. These included:

• Handwritten notes – Students could take handwritten notes if they preferred and still add them to their research by scanning or taking a snapshot.
• Flexibility – Students could use Evernote on their smartphones with apps available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android, as well as at home using any computer they had access to.
• Sharing – Students could make their notebooks public and import the RSS feed into Google Reader, iGoogle, or Netvibes.
• Email – The unique email address every user gets is very useful for adding things to your account from different places.

FULL ARTICLE –

How my students started using Evernote – Education Series 

Security – Keeping Kids SAFE – Filtering Emails & Soon Social Media

Something all parents want to do is keep our kids safe from cyberbullying, sexting and inappropriate messages which is very difficult.   There are a lot of things we can do, but we all need something else. 

Soon there will be a program called MouseMail that can filter messages on your kids smartphones.  Most kids will not be happy about it, but when are they when we as parents try to protect them from others and themselves.

ARTICLE – USATODAY – MouseMail filtering program traps kids’ cyberbullies

MouseMail’s free Web-based e-mail features will be available Thursday at MouseMail.com; the free text message filtering applications will launch that day on most major smartphones, with Apple iPhone expected to add the app soon. Later this month, a premium service will be added (no price set) that monitors social networks and lets parents look for mentions of their kids’ names.

HOW IT ALL WORKS:

• Parents add children’s e-mail accounts into the family profile page on MouseMail.com’s portal.

• MouseMail checks each e-mail against a list of approved contacts and a dictionary of suspicious or inappropriate words.

• E-mails that do not include suspicious words or phrases and are sent from approved e-mail contacts pass on to the child’s e-mail account. on Google, Yahoo or other e-mail sites. Questionable e-mails are sent to parents.

• Parents download an app to a child’s smartphone and set up the program so that they are forwarded questionable text messages. Parents can get alerts about e-mail and text messages online or on their own cellphones

MOUSEMAIL.COM

e-Books – BIG DAY for GOOGLE – NEW STORE – Google eBookstore!

One big difference with Google’s eBook store from competitors–thanks to the library scans–tons of free ebooks. For instance, there’s A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens and Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen for free.  Full ARTICLE @ TechnologyLIVE

So what e-Reader do you have and will Google’s eBooks work?

Web browsers. You can read Google eBooks on any browser with JavaScript enabled. Learn more about the Google Web Reader.

Smartphones. You can download and install the Google Books reading app for free on any US Android phone (version 2.1 (Eclair) or later) or on the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. (iOS 3.0 or later).

eReader devices. Google eBooks can be read with any dedicated eBook reader that supports the Adobe eBook platform, including the Barnes & Noble Nook™ and Readers™ from Sony. More than 85 devices support the Adobe eBook platform today including Reader™ from Sony devices (PRS-300 – PRS-700), Aluratek Libre, Astak EZ Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook™ and Nook Color™, BeBook, Bookeen, COOL-ER, Elonex eBook, HanLin eBook, IREX Digital Reader, Neolux Nuut, and more. Please see the full list of Adobe eBook Platform supported devices.

Amazon Kindle. Currently, Google eBooks are not compatible with Amazon Kindle devices, though we are open to supporting them in the future.

Looks like they have a very nice management piece included with multiple book shelves to sort and store both your purchased and Free e-books.  Will have to play with it a bit to get a better idea of how th manager works.

 I am surprised that they don’t have Kindle support which will close off today about 72% of e-readers on the market!  Might be trying to get the Store up and running for the holidays!

Smartphone – Windows Phone 7 – Couple days later!

I love the media – really! 

They love to have headlines to attract readers and most of the headlines today are negative on the sales to date of Microsoft Phone 7.  Some of the numbers being mentioned is only 40K units sold to date – that would be North America (US & Canada).

I believe the uptake will be slower today

1) The market is a much different world then when the iPhone was announced

2) Since the iPhone many other manufactures have come to market, so a lot of the early adopters have already invested in a phone with a contract period

3) Economically there is a huge difference, the world has gone through some difficult times the last year or so and most are still be very careful.

When you put all these things together, the growth of Windows Phone 7 will be one that grows over time.  They have a wonderful product with some really cool features you don’t find on anything today.  There application store is growing daily, but it will take time to build quality titles.

Just give it time!

Related Articles

• Report: 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices sold (news.cnet.com)
• Why Windows Phone 7’s first day sales numbers don’t matter (venturebeat.com)
• Are You In Line For A Windows 7 Phone? (MSFT, T) (businessinsider.com)
• Windows Phone 7 Success Tied to a Million in Sales (CIO)