Miguel Carrasco's Real World

Linkedin

Linkedin is a social networking site with a business spin.  The main idea of the site is to try and let people "connect" with each other and build a great online profile for themselves that can be used in the business world.  Users create profiles that are geared towards their careers, schooling, and business life, and then try and create connections with other people.  The site has a feature that automatically downloads your outlook contacts, and tells you who is on Linkedin from your address book.  If they are, you can easily request they be added to your connections pool.

All in all Linkedin is a great social networking site for the professional and career oriented world.  I recommend you give it a try and start building your network!  You would be supervised who you will find and "link up" with!  While you are there, feel free to add me!

iPhone - Will It Transform Your Life?

The iPhone is finally coming out!  Steve Jobs unveiled this amazing new device at Macworld today, along with the new name for Apple Computers, Apple Inc.  The iPhone combined a phone, with its phenomenally popular iPod.  You should have seen the cult of Steve Jobs outside Macworld sleeping in sleeping bags waiting to get in.  "Today Apple is going to re-invent the phone", and he wasn't kidding.  Why get into cell phones?  There are a billion reasons for Apple to do this, mainly, the billion cell phones sold a year.

As a road warrior myself, I hate having to carry a laptop, blackberry, iPod, headphones, camera, etc... it just weighs me down so much.  Just keeping track of all these items, including magazines, snacks, passport, wallet, and plane tickets is a nightmare!  If Apple releases the product they have shown, they will be laying the foundation finally for the merger of great mobile products.  Look how far the iPod has gone!  Imagine the possibilities as Apple combines a cell phone, PDA applications, camera, and an iPod!  I can't wait to buy an iPhone!

Another beauty of this device is it will make customers leave their current cell phone providers, to whatever provider provides the iPhone.  If I was a PDA maker, cell phone maker, or RIM (Blackberry), I would be sweating bullets right now as apple prepares to release such a powerful device that will allow users to watch movies on a wider screen than currently extremely popular iPods, act as a cell phone, find where you are and where you are and help you get where you’re going via GPS and integrated Google Maps technology, and play your favorite music all wrapped in an amazingly simple interface!

What does Wall Street think of the iPhone?  RIM, the company that makes the extremely popular Blackberry device fell nearly 8%, while Apple Inc, rose nearly 9%.

And the specs of the iPhone? It weight less that 5 ounces, has a 3 1/2 inch screen, and comes with a 2 megapixel camera.  Storage will be handled via a 8GB storage device.  The iPhone will be released in June.

Download Google Pack Now

Google keeps getting closer and closer to Microsoft's turf, if you have not tried Google Pack yet, make sure to get your copy today.  It includes Google Desktop, Google Picasa, and Skype.  You can optionally remove software packages.  For example, if you wanted to only install Google Desktop and Picasa, then you can select the two products, and a custom installer is made for you to only download those two applications.

Google Desktop is an amazing tool that lets you find all your emails, files, web history, and so much more so easy!  Although Microsoft has the equivalent capabilities in their new operating system, Vista, Google Desktop is still my preferred file searching mechanism hands down.  It is much more responsive than Vista search, and is extremely fast compared to the searching ability in Microsoft's Desktop Search.  If you have ever had trouble finding you files on your computer, this is the tool for you!  Absolutely amazing I wish I had this years ago!

Picasa lets you edit and share your images very easily!  I don't know if you have heard of iPhoto, the Macintosh photo management and editing tool, but it's amazing!  Picasa is one of those must have applications for anybody that might own a digital camera, or has hundreds of images on their machine.

Skype is included in the Google Pack, and allows users to communicate with one another using their microphones instead of the typical text chatting.  Skype also allows you to call any normal telephone line using your Skype account, for a small fee.  Their rates are great and for a limited time, unlimited calling for one year in Canada and USA is only $14.95.

Conclusion

Google Pack has evolved over the last year, and now has a very powerful slew of software, all absolutely free.  Google Desktop Search now even includes the ability to search networked computers, so you can find files anywhere!

Sunday Night Comedy Relief - John Pinete

John Pinete is on my list for top comedians I'd love to see live now.  My brother-in-law was over for Christmas dinner a few weeks ago and introduced to me to John via this YouTube video clip.  My favorite saying now is "That's a Nay Nay".  Watch the video below and prepare to laugh out loud!  John Pinete has to be one of the funniest comedians around right now; I think I'll go pick up his DVD tomorrow at best by to watch on the plane ride to Phoenix next week.  The DVD is called "I Say Nay Nay". 

John Pinete on YouTube - Just for Laughs Comedy Festival

If you find John Pinete funny, you might want to check out Russell Peters!

Sign Up for eBay!

In case you haven't heard yet, eBay is going to start charging a fee when users sign up!  Right now its totally free and there is so much great stuff on there to buy (or sell if you want to try your hand at selling!).  I'm not sure if this is completely true or not, but I thought I'd post it anyway.  So in case for some reason you do not have an account yet, now might be a good time to sign up for one before they start charging the nominal sign up fees.  You can sign up here for eBay.  Another thing I just did is registered 5 different accounts, in case they do start charging I can give a few of the accounts away as gifts to friends :) 

Get an eBay account here.

Alright I'm tired and going to bed.

Conference Calling

Wondering how to choose a conference calling system? Need some tips on how to pick conference calling equipment for yourself? How many of you have have experienced a conference calling system?  Over the next few posts, we will focus on conference calling services that are free, as well as how to pick a conference calling system should you have money to spend!  Some of the systems can work extremely well, where as some work very badly.  I remember the first system we used almost 10 years ago at a previous employer. You would get some voice over extremely expensive Internet lines, and have to dial into a central conference call phone network for the voice.  The video was blurry at best, and most times choppy, but at the time, it was amazing to be able to see people almost live, and hear them over the phone at the same time.  At our current company we had a conference calling system set up years ago over ISDN lines, and it proved to work extremely well for us.  The new technologies for conference calling now enabled us to send video, as well as audio over the conference calling system.

A few months ago we decided it was time to upgrade our conference calling equipment with a state of the art Sony system.  The imaging and voice capabilities are amazing!  The clarity was insane!  The ability to zoom into such detail was fantastic!  The best part was we hadn't even upgraded our other satellite offices conference calling equipment and noticed a dramatic increase in quality instantly on our end!

But what about conference calling for the rest of us?  Wouldn't it be great if we could get free conference calling right from the comfort of our living rooms, giving you the ability to conference with family and friends around the world?  There are hundreds of sites out there that give you that functionality and I'm compiling a huge list of these services as we speak.  If you have any conference calling services you really like, please post a comment and I will make sure to add it in!