You also have to deal with corporate IT blocking certain types of commonly used attachments (typically those with .ZIP or .EXE, etc., file extensions).  Sometimes your attachment is blocked and you don’t even know it!

You can easily get around attachment file size limits and Corporate Firewalls by using YouSendIt (http://www.yousendit.com/how-it-works).  A free account lets you send files up to 50MB in size (often more than double what your current e-mail service allows).  Paid accounts allow you to send attachments up to 2GB in size.

You can send your files directly from their website, but YouSendIt also offers many nice productivity tools (http://www.yousendit.com/productivity-tools) that make YouSendIt easier and more convenient to use.  I especially like YouSendIt Express for the desktop.

YouSendIt is always on my list of must-have apps.  With a paid/Pro account you also get your own Dropbox allowing you to send files directly to a Dropbox account (https://s4.yousendit.com/cms/prosc).  Dropbox working together with YouSendIt is a great combination.

The next time you get a message back from your postmaster telling you the file attachment size limit has been exceeded or that your attachment was blocked – tell them where they can SEND IT and go to YouSendIt.com instead.

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You get 2 GBs of FREE internet storage to start and everytime you recommend someone and they install it, Dropbox will give you another 250 MB free up to 8 GB.  If you go to the Dropbox website and login, Dropbox makes it easy for you to recommend all your friends, coworkers, relatives, church members, etc.  Just click on the Get extra free space link and fill in e-mail addresses.  They even have an option that will allow you to invite all your friends on Facebook or Twitter.  Hurry up and do it before someone you send the link to beats you to it!!!

So anyway, I’ve taken Dropbox for granted all these years until I recently installed Dropbox on my iPhone.  I did it to solve a problem all iPhone users have who take a lot of pictures with their iPhone – sending them.  You can only send pictures one at a time and it is very slow.

With Dropbox, you have an Upload Photos option built in that makes it very simple to send as many photos to a folder on Dropbox as you want.  You tap the Uploads button in Dropbox, it takes you to your Photo Albums, you tap/tag any photos you want to Upload and then tap the Upload button.  Then just set back and watch the progress bars scroll across your screen as it does them one after the other, en masse!

Even if you don’t have anyone to send your pictures to, it sure is nice to know they are safely backed up on the Dropbox website.

After tapping the Upload button, your photo(s) are uploaded to your Dropbox.  The photos are then available from anywhere you have an internet connection.

For Road Warriors/Mobile Users Dropbox is a must have!

All iPhone users should download the Dropbox app.  Get it for your iPhone at:  https://www.dropbox.com/iphoneapp

Get it for your desktop/laptop at: https://www.dropbox.com

If you are lucky/cool enough (or don’t have a wife and 3 daughters to support) to own an iPad, get it at:  https://www.dropbox.com/ipad

Of course Dropbox works with Macs, iPads, Windows, Android, Blackberry and Linux too.  Also, it is very inexpensive to buy more diskspace if you need it.

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The problem with using PowerPoint is twofold:

(1) PowerPoint files are typically just too large to view online making them very slooo000ow to load and;

(2) not all users have PowerPoint.  Of course most business users do have PowerPoint you say and if they don’t they can download the PowerPoint Viewer but that is getting too technical.  Also, the real problem is the large file size/slow loading time of a typical PowerPoint presentation.

A better way is to use iSpring Free (http://free.ispringsolutions.com/) from iSpring Solutions, Inc.  It installs as an Add-In right into PowerPoint.  As a bonus, it also makes it very easy to insert a Flash Object or YouTube video into a presentation.  After completing your PowerPoint presentation you simply Publish it as a Flash video (.swf).  Flash is a better choice anyday.

As an example, this client’s PowerPoint presentation was only 18 slides and was about 13.5 MB in size.  After converting it to Flash, it was about 1 MB in size.  The difference was very noticeable on the website too.  The Flash presentation loaded essentially immediately.  The PowerPoint presentation took so long some people thought their web browser was hung!

Using iSpring Free saves you a bundle over buying Adobe Flash (http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html) and is way easier to use for the typical business end-user who already “knows” PowerPoint.

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At the end of another long brutal day at the office (well brutal is not entirely true since I am self-employed and I’m my own boss , but I can be really hard on myself sometimes), I just don’t feel like relaxing or doing anything on my laptop.

However, I recently installed the Kindle App on our iPhones and realized that, despite the small screen size, I now find Kindle much more practicle to use and so use it more often.  It would even be better/perfect on an iPad which I am going to get just as soon as I first get one for my wife and 3 daughters.  I’m 5th in line just like I always am for an iPhone like the one now using now (one of my daughters’ hand-me-downs).

Anyway, I wouldn’t want to lug around a Kindle and an iPhone.  I may (in the unlikely case she sees this post I didn’t say for sure I was going to) buy my wife a Kindle as a “surprise” birthday present so I will get to really check on out then.

However, I think I would still tend to actually prefer to read books on my trusty ol’ iPhone since I tend to always have it with me anyway.  Also, you sure can’t beat the price of the Kindle App vs. the Kindle!

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If you subscribe to eFax the eFax Mobile App is free so why not give it a try?

eFax now talks about eFax Next on their website.  I can hardly imagine a more useful software applications that is so cheap and a must have for any business no matter how small.  I can’t think of any situation where a fax machine has an advantage.  I could list all the advantages efax offers, but since they are NOT paying me to do so, I don’t have the patience to carry on and on although I would make a good spokesperson for them (hint).

If you are still stuck using fax machines, I’d advise you to switch to eFax ASAP and finally enter the 21st century.

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http://www.virtualbox.org/

VirtualBox allows you to run multiple operating systems on your desktop/laptop at the same time in what is called a virtual machine (VM).  It sounds really techie but it is dumb simple to install, setup and use.  It works great with all versions of Windows, many versions of Linux, Solaris (of course) Apple/Mac OS X, IBM O/S 2, etc., operating systems and the most amazing part is that it is free.  Of course you still have to buy the operating systems, etc., but that is still cheaper than also buying additional laptops and desktops, etc.

I have been using it for many years now and have never had even the slightest problem.

I run Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista and soon will be running Mac OS X – all on my laptop.  This makes it easy to develop applications, provide technical support, learn new operating systems, test products, etc.

I can have my Windows 7/Office 2010/Visual Studio 2010, etc., running on my laptop and get a call from some poor soul using Vista Home Edition and Office 2003 and immediately switch to that VM to provide support.  Then minimize it when I am done and go back to work on whatever I was doing.

I don’t know how I ever lived without it after I started using it.  It is so good and convenient to have I would probably even PAY for it if I had to.

It also makes it easy to develop applications running on different operating systems without having to have half a dozen or so PCs or laptops.  They all run on whatever laptop you happen to already have.  Obviously this saves you money on equipment and your electric bill, etc.

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This and all the mobile phone/mobile website things I never have enough time to check out.  I wish I could  just quit my job for a month and do a complete reevaluation of everything because I am definitely missing the boat on all things mobile, among other things.

I also spent some non-billing hours checking out: http://mobiforge.com/.

Of course I can’t quit my job because I’m self-employed (or self-unemployed as my wife so sweetly calls it, especially when there is no income at times – ok most of the time!).

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I was surpised when I got there, however, and found out the camera was for inspecting the inside of wells dug around landfills (not sure why they need this but it involves geology and maybe chemistry) as was at the end of a long cable on a spool.  The problem was they couldn’t get it to work when connecting to a laptop.  It worked fine connected to a portable video device but they neeed to take snapshots and to record video which couldn’t be done on the portable device that came with the camera.

I quickly determined the problem was no software/drivers, no documentation, no cable/connection method between camera and laptop – no problem.

The solution involved Pinnace Dazzle (available at Radio Shack), the proper cable connectors between camera and Dazzle (from RadioShack), VLC Media Player from www.VideoLAN.org and brute force trial and error (since the camera documentation left this detail out) selection of the streaming video protocol to use (fortunately there are only a few hundred (just kidding!) until we got it to work on only our 4th attempt.  Be sure you look for VideoLAN.org and not VideoLAN.com as they are 2 entirely different things.  One is software the other hardware.

I was introduced to VLC Media Player a number of years ago by some of my Bulgarian friends (of course former spys now since living in the US and members of sleeper cells so I can’t divulge their names and the real heros of this blog post).

The amazing thing is VLC Media Player is free and open source meaning it will always be free – check it out.   The engineer I was working with asked me why anyone would develop such a great program and then give it away for free.

I told him that hatred and distrust of big corporations such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc., that operate on the profit motive (capitalism) runs deep with some (subversive) people (“communists” in polite circles).  Just kidding of course, VideoLAN.org is NOT a communist organization!  I’m just glad there are open source people out there for practically any software you can imagine so the punchline is to be sure to first check open source (free) before running to CompUSA to buy something.

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Follow @RussSoftware