OpenTable

Every Christmas, my dad and I take a trip to NYC for a couple of days. He is always in charge of the plane tickets, the hotel reservations, the theater tickets, etc... while I am in charge of one thing – the restaurant reservations. Deciding on just 3 or 4 out of the thousands of fabulous restaurants in New York City is the hardest part. Actually making the reservations has been easy since I started using OpenTable a couple of years ago.

If you are not aware, OpenTable is a Web site that enables you to make your restaurant reservations online. You simply choose which restaurant, which date, what time you wish to eat, and how many people will be in your party. The site then shows you the available dining times and you simply confirm the reservation! OpenTable sends you reminder e-mails, which is helpful for me when planning this NY trip. It is easy to forget which day and which time each reservation is. You also accumulate points on OpenTable, and once you reach a certain level you may receive a gift card! The site also offers basic information and sample menus from the restaurants featured on the site.

Many restaurant's Web sites are now starting to direct those seeking reservations directly to OpenTable. If any restaurant that takes reservations is not on OpenTable, it should be! It is such a convenience for both parties.

World AIDS Day

Did you know that 10% of the world population is in Africa. However, 67% of all HIV cases are there?

Today is World AIDS Day 2009 and micro-blogging site Twitter is helping to spread the word. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness and generate funds for AIDS projects throughout the world. Twitter users who tweet the hashtag #red will automatically turn their tweets the color red to stand out against the normal black tweets. This will help draw attention to the tweets regarding World AIDS Day and AIDS in general. Users can also add a virtual red ribbon to their profile picture. The ribbon is actually called a "twibbon" and it is displayed on top of the user's profile picture appearing in all of the user's tweets.

Currently, "World AIDS Day", "AIDS", "Africa" and "HIV" are all top trending topics. Obviously, this (RED) strategy has proven to be a success.

Follow @joinred on Twitter to show your support!

Beat Profile: Jennifer Christy

I recently interviewed a professional who works in the technology field at Infor Global Solutions, Jennifer Christy. Infor is a US software company that specializes in enterprise software. Christy is a Professional Services Account Executive who is responsible for growing Professional Services business via new and existing accounts for the entire US and Canada region for Infor’s Enterprise Asset Management product line. She is responsible for fulfilling a $4 million dollar quota of new business each fiscal year. She is a graduate of Bob Jones University, where she double majored in Graphic Design and Art Education.

She first started working in the technology field 11 years ago. She started at Infor in 1999 as a consultant. This job later transitioned into a sales position within the last two years.

She provides the following advice for any college student who is planning to pursue a career in the technology industry:

1. Think like a professional- Get out of the “I’m just a student” mentality and realize that the minute you walk out the door, people don’t think of you as a student. Get out of it now … even before you graduate. Ask yourself “what do professionals do?” Answer: They network. Build relationships. When someone comes in as a guest lecturer, think about how to develop a professional relationship with them. Same thing goes for professors … who should (hopefully) have industry contacts.

2. Figure out your marketing material (AKA your resume)- What makes you marketable? What makes you special? And what makes you the right person for the position?

3. Help Others- Help. Help. Help. When you give leads, make introductions, etc. There is more value for you in helping others than in helping yourself. It’s personally rewarding, and it will come back to you. This is also a means of getting yourself out there ­ – tattooing some grounds

4. Realize you are going to be in career management mode for the rest of your career- You already know this, pergaps, but just to hammer it home. Umemployment and job search cannot be treated as the pink elephant that you only face when you are looking for a job. Always, always always do career management stuff. Always nurture professional realtionships.

5. Stay sharp! Quite possible one of the most important pieces of advice, especially for someone pursuing a career in IT is to STAY SHARP, STAY CURRENT. Technology is ever-changing … and while your resume may be impressive today ­– one year from now it won't be as impressive if there is nothing to update. The more current your resume is as it relates to today’s technology, the more valuable you are.

I found her advice very helpful to not only to students pursuing technolog careers, but to all college students in general. I also asked Christy if she followed any technology blogs. Her response was "never." She believes that she can learn better by exposure, and blogging can sometimes be quite opinionated and "geared toward specific verticals." Therefore, some blogs are misleading. Christy agrees that technology blogs can be beneficial in some circumstances, but she wouldn't use them as a source to get the truth on the latest innovations in technology.

Dry Out Your Waterlogged Electronics

Save Your Wet Gadgets: A new product pulls the water out of your drenched electronic gadget. This would have come in handy when I dropped my old phone in a drink.

Recently Independent Skype Deals with Executive Shakeup

Skype Shakeup: Skype, which recently split from its parent company, eBay, is now dealing with internal executive reorganization. The chief operating officer plans to leave the company, while the rest of the company scrambles for restructure.

Mac-Cloner Psystar loses Apple Lawsuit

Apple wins Lawsuit: Mac cloning company, Psystar, who sold PCs that ran Apple's OS X software, has lost a copyright-infringement claimed by Apple. Psystar was selling the software for less than the cost of the Apple software.

Nook Delay

Nook Arrival Postponed AGAIN: The ship date of the Barnes & Noble's Nook has been postponed to January 11, 2010. Supply chain managers are not happy, and neither are those with the Nook on their Christmas List.

Email and Facebook Relationship Etiquette

Internet Etiquette: A NY Time Technology reporter writes a technology etiquette column that tackles how to deal with "relationship status" updates. Check out her post.

Happy Cyber Monday!

So you thought Black Friday was over? False. In this digital era, online retailers have created "Cyber Monday" – it takes place the Monday after Thanksgiving (today) when online shoppers are offered free shipping, free gift cards, and other big discounts throughout the day. My blackberry has been blowing up today with e-mails from Neiman Marcus, Barnes & Noble, William-Sonoma, and David Yurman – each notifying me of discounts and free shipping offers. Even though these offers are enticing, I prefer to do my holiday shopping face-to-face in the physical stores. Nevertheless, many avid shoppers are all over these special deals.

According to a CNN article, By 11:15 this morning, more than 270 retailing Web sites tracked by Akamai, an Internet monitoring firm, were attracting more than 4 million visitors per minute.

Some of the specials offered include a $10 free gift card from LLBean for every $25 spent on the site. Also, Macy's is offering free shipping on purchases over $75.

So if you still have some holiday shopping to do and if you prefer the online route, take advantage of these deals today!

Will the Holiday Shopping Continue?

Online Sales Up, But for How Long? According to comScore, which measures e-commerce sales, shoppers sent $913 million online on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, which is a 10% increase from last year. However, it is too early to tell whether the sales will continue throughout the Holiday season.

More Christmas Wishes for the Amazon Kindle

Kindle #1 Seller: The Kindle e-Reader is the number one bestseller among all other categories on amazon.com. It is also the most wished for and most gifted item at Amazon.

MP3J- Remixing Lives

This past semester, I have been taking an Intro to New Media course, in which we have studied not only the history of media, but also the application of new media today and in the future. A portion of our final grade is determined by our group projects. Each group is assigned to create some new technology, such as a gadget or an iPhone application, and then present your product to the rest of the class. Each of the 15 groups came up with some really innovative ideas. Quite of few of the projects were environmentally focused and offered ways to conserve energy. Others were more focused on international interactions and worked to break down language barriers. My favorite idea presented was based on music.

According the application's website, the MP3J is an application that integrates with iTunes creating a "fluid DJ interface." The MP3J gives the user a chance to fade, blend, scratch, and basically distort any two songs to create a song totally new and different. So basically this application gives you the opportunity to create remixes of any of your favorite songs.

Here is what the application on your iPhone would look like:

Another reason that I was attracted to this project idea was because portions of MP3J's profits go to the Save the Children Foundation, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music education in public schools across the country. Even though I am not a musician myself, I do believe that music education should always be integrated into a student's curriculum. It is important to give children access to musical instruments because of the likelihood that many of them will develop a passion for music, and this is something that should not be deprived from them.

Hopefully this proposed idea of the MP3J will one day be transformed into a real application that you and I can buy!

Charge your Phone by Walking

Wonder if you could charge your cell phone without ever having to plug it in? Tremont Electric's Aaron Lemieux has developed a gadget that generates energy as you walk.

The device is called a personal energy generator, or PEG, and simply attaches to your waist or belt. It is about the size of a small flashlight. The PEG captures kinetic energy by magnets that bounce back and forth off springs inside of the device. The device will not become mainstream until it is easily and cheaply able to be integrated into devices that we already own, including cell phones.

The company has mentioned building buoy-sized versions of the PEG to put in the ocean. These devices would generate energy from the waves. However, right now, Lemieux is focusing on selling the PEG for $149.00 this holiday season.

Cell phone providers should definitely consider integrating this device into their products. Not only is the PEG energy saving and convenient, but it also promotes exercise. Who doesn't need another reason to go to the gym or to walk to class? I hope to see more of this product in the future.

Landing a Tech Job

Tech Support: Layoffs are occurring across the country, even in the tech industry. Here are 12 helpful resources to help you find a tech job.

eBay's Wishes for Affluent Shoppers this Christmas

eBay's Holiday Wish: eBay is opening up a temporary pop-up store in New York City next to department store Bergdorf Goodman. The store is part of the company's marketing plan to generate more sails at this store.

SizzlingKeys: An Easier Way to Control iTunes

iSizzle: SizzleKeys is a new, free way to use "hotkeys" on your keyboard to navigate around iTunes without the click of a mouse. A combination of option, command, and the arrow keys can initiate basic controls on the program.

Holiday Gadget Shopping Made Simple

The Best Gadgets: Are you wondering if you should ask for the iPhone or the Motorola Droid this Christmas? Or maybe you are confused which laptop is the best to buy? Or maybe the best HDTV? Gizmodo has compiled a list of their picks for the best gadgets of the year.

YouTube Now Available for Hearing Impaired

Auto-Captions on YouTube: Some of the videos posted on YouTube now feature captions to help the deaf and hearing impaired gain access to the online content. The captions are machine generated and use the same speech to tech technology as Google Voice.

E-Reader Shipments May Come After Holidays

E-Reader Shortage: Pre-orders on Barnes & Noble's Nook have exceeded initial estimations, causing deliveries to be postponed until the first week of January. Sony is also not guaranteeing that their version of the e-reader will be available for delivery on Christmas Day. Amazon's Kindle, on the other hand, will be available to delivery the day after it is purchased online.

Black Friday Mayhem

Technology Helps You Find Deals: Finding the stores with the best deals on the day after Thanksgiving can be a challenge, but this year new technologies are making the process much easier. Mobile applications, twitter, and facebook are all helping to make this shopping process much more manageable.

Future of the PC

Chrome vs. Fusion: When envisioning the future of the PC, Google is focusing on simplicity while AMD emphasizes performance. For example, Google wants the PC to turn on the same way that a TV turns on – by simply pressing a button, instead of taking nearly a minute to boot up. AMD is recommending smoother high definition video and higher quality rich media.

Virgin to Monitor File Sharing in UK

Trouble for File Sharing: Virgin Media has announced plans to track illegal file-sharing activities in the United Kingdom. The company will use deep packet inspection technology to track about 40% of its UK users, without their knowledge or even consent of being monitored.

Discounts on Apple Products

Happy Black Friday: Apple is offering deals on their products, including the Macbook, iPod, iMac, iTouch and iPod Nano, today. Discounts on products are available online (www.apple.com).

Digitizing the World, one word at a time

reCAPTCHA.... what a great idea!

reCAPTCHA is a free web-based service that helps digitize books and newspapers. You have probably seen a CAPTCHA before. It is the warped word that you must decipher when completing web registration forms. The CAPTCHAS are used to prevent spam and abuse on the internet. No computer program has the capability to read these words, only humans can.

As the world moves from leather bound books and paperbacks to Kindles and Nooks, there is an increasing need to digitize physical books that were written before the computer age. OCR, or "Optical Character Recognition", is a program that photographically scans pages of book and transforms the text into a downloadable format. There is one problem though. OCR is not perfect.

To explain reCAPTCHA's role in the digitization of books, their website explains:

"reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly. But if a computer can't read such a CAPTCHA, how does the system know the correct answer to the puzzle? Here's how: Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one. The system then gives the new image to a number of other people to determine, with higher confidence, whether the original answer was correct."

You can help digitize books by visiting their website at www.recaptcha.net. Also, if you run a website, you can add the reCAPTCHA application to your registration web form to protect your site from spam.

Which eReader is the best?

eReader Race: Compare eReader devices based on price, screen size, storage space, content availability, and other criteria. How will Barnes & Noble's Nook stack up?

In the "Nook" of time

A new electronic reader, the Nook, enters the market: Barnes & Noble has produced a credible alternative to the Amazon Kindle, the Nook, which will start shipping in late November. The Nook is priced at $259.

Blackberry vs. iPhone

Ever since its introduction in 2007, I have wanted an iPhone. You have seen the commercials. You know, the ones showing how iPhone apps can solve pretty much any problem you might face, from traffic reports and weather updates to movie times and where to find the cheapest gas. Hey, there's an app for everything!

My dad and I use/are bound to a seemingly never ending contract with Verizon Wireless, but we have been trying to switch to AT&T for over a year now, just so we can have iPhones.

However... this past weekend I joined Team BlackBerry.

After my last phone, the LG voyager, took a dive into a drink on Friday night (and after a failed attempt at removing the water in the phone by submerging it in rice), I headed to the Verizon store in hopes that I could finally end my contract and get an iPhone. Well, surprise surprise, that was not really an option. I reluctantly started browsing through the phones that Verizon offers. The sales guy suggested the new BlackBerry Tour, which provides internet access, streams a maximum of 10 email address into your message inbox, features Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr applications, provides a high quality video camera, and offers many other useful tools.

Lets just say I bought the phone on Saturday-- Its Tuesday, and I have not put the thing down.

I love having my emails, facebook notifications, and messages streamed into ONE place. I prefer the Blackberry keyboard as opposed to the iPhone touchscreen. Yes, the iPhone has an unlimited number of applications that could provide hours of entertainment, but the BlackBerry is more reliable. The iPhone may be a great toy, but the BlackBerry is a better phone. One of my best friends has been through 7 iPhones in the past year due to broken screens and/or problems with dialing phone calls and texting. My dad has had his BlackBerry for over a year now with zero problems. I am thrilled with my new BlackBerry and I think I can finally say that I can live without an iPhone... I can always ask for a iPod Touch for Christmas, right? haha!

What do you think? BlackBerry or iPhone??