tekgems on February 8th, 2010

For any online retail business, having an efficient order manager and shipping system is key, especially a volume business. If you frequently ship US Postal for your products, using something like Endicia Professional may have save on labor cost and time.

SCAN THE BARCODE—OUT COMES THE LABEL!

Looking for a way to easily print USPS labels with postage by simply typing or scanning an order number? Endicia Professional can communicate with your database to streamline your USPS shipping.

After an order or invoice number is scanned or typed, Endicia Professional retrieves the shipping address from your database and automatically performs a ZIP+4 verification. Place the package on the scale, choose the mail class and additional services, and you'll see the shipping cost displayed. When you're ready to print the label, click Print. Endicia Professional starts DAZzle, our label and postage printing software, and within seconds a label will print, ready to stick on the package. You're ready to move on to the next order!

via Endicia Support – Harrys Hints – Database Integration.

tekgems on February 5th, 2010

Nice review of the upcoming game We Rule. Farmville on FaceBook really had no depth nor much social interactivity. They introduced the fertilizing and gift giving for the Christmas tree. I stopped playing in Dec 2009, so I don’t know what they’ve done past that, but it was just a clicking nightmare. I think it’ll remain a casual game due to its Facebook roots. We Rule, on the other hand, seems like a great mix of social and strategic. I’m glad NewToy has is creating to a different niche, namely that of the more serious social gamer.

Now, the casual iPhone gamer is likely already curious. But why should hardcore gamers care about We Rule? Well, consider that We Rule is being developed by New Toy, which is a small studio of former Ensemble employees. Yes, the Ensemble that made Halo Wars and Age of Empires, so think of the pedigree before dismissing We Rule. Besides, the rest of us would like to have you as a neighbor, too. Especially if we need to place an order for cupcakes and you're the only person awake with a bakery.

via We Rule Preview – iPhone Preview at IGN.

tekgems on February 5th, 2010

As a long time user of Firefox, I was very excited to use Google Chrome. As I used Google Chrome more every day for its simplicity and sheer performance, I wanted to see how many I really needed Firefox. One of my biggest issue was extensions (AdBlock, Roboform) and Bookmarks. I used Foxmarks (now Xmarks) to sync all my computers using Firefox. But once I got to Chrome, the transition was a little more difficult. I tried installing Chrome Bookmark sync and Xmarks on one machine. It had very negative results and duplicated many bookmarks over and over again. If you are transitioning from Firefox to Google Chrome, or plan on using both, use Xmarks to perform all your synchronizing. I think that will produce the best results, as other methods I’ve tried are not causing some undesired results.

For those of you who use several computers — for example, a laptop at work and a desktop at home — youve asked for a way to keep your Google Chrome bookmarks in sync across multiple computers. Todays new beta release allows you to do just that! You can keep your Google Chrome bookmarks synchronized and up-to-date across the multiple computers you use, without needing to manually recreate your bookmarks every time you use a different computer.

via Google Chrome Blog: Bookmark sync and more speed in the latest beta release.

tekgems on February 5th, 2010

sometimes hange is hard, especially if you don’t see it as an improvement. our local bank changed the paint stripes to have cars park a new way. unfortunately the new painted signs are not working.

This is a great invention for anyone needing mobile credit card authorizations. Whether it be restaurants, flea market sellers, etc. Any time you are at a restaurant, you don’t want your credit card to wander off too far. Now they don’t have to. On second thought, since you can’t tip with this thing, it might be a big cumbersome. But for flea market and roadside shows, this is awesome.

VeriFone PAYware iPhone Credit Card System Ships – www.slashgear.com.

VeriFone has announced that the system is now shipping. The PAYware Mobile App required for the hardware to work is available for free on the App Store now. The hardware sleeve called the card encryption sleeve peripheral will work on the iPhone 3G and 3GS smartphones and is available through authorized VeriFone distributors.

If you don’t mind “tinny sounding” call quality and want free, there are ways to use a free service. These things tend to disappoint me as I look for quality over cost when it comes to call quality, but for quick conversations, this is an economical solution in today’s environment:

In a test, iCall was a breeze to use, if a bit tinny sounding. The app is free, as are the calls it makes, but with a few catches. People on the free calling plan will have to listen to an ad before a call is connected, and calls are limited to five minutes. A $10 monthly subscription saves you from hearing ads, gives you voicemail and other services like call forwarding and allows calls to go on indefinitely.

via App of the Week: Free Calls, if You Don’t Mind Ads – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com.

Its nice to see that there are buyers out there that are still honest and are willing to work with sellers when a mistake happens.

Seller can’t understand me! HELP!! in Community Help Boards in Community. :

“I explained that an item was shipped to me twice and that I have wanted to pay the seller for the second item.”

tekgems on February 1st, 2010

Thunderbird – It’s All Yours: “Thunderbird 3

Now with tabs, better search, and email archiving.”

ThunderBird 3.0’s index and search feature is very usable now. I’m glad you listened to feedback and made the changes. As others have said, calendar and contacts is not great, but a strong e-mail client perhaps as a backup client on other machines.

IMAP is not usable for many reasons, especially if you use Outlook. I’ve been using POP3 and only allowing the main workstation to delete from server, while all the other backup machines (one laptop and iPhone Mail) just download e-mails. Its been working out very well and works a lot better for me than IMAP. If Outlook did a better job of IMAP support, I would try it again, but Outlook did a terrible job with Rules Wizard and IMAP. So much so, I gave us IMAP on Outlook.

tekgems on January 28th, 2010

>iOoops

From The New York Times:

IPad? That’s So 2002, Fujitsu Says

Fujitsu, which applied for an iPad trademark in 2003, is claiming
first dibs, setting up a fight with Apple over the catchy name of its
new tablet device.

http://s.nyt.com/u/tFs

tekgems on January 28th, 2010

>Ioops

from The New York Times:

IPad? That's So 2002, Fujitsu Says

Fujitsu, which applied for an iPad trademark in 2003, is claiming
first dibs, setting up a fight with Apple over the catchy name of its
new tablet device.

http://s.nyt.com/u/tFs

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes

Sent from iPhone.