BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

It’s no secret that I am somewhat a gadget junkie. If I was working for some of the blogs that review gadgets constantly, I would probably forget the paycheck now and then. However, I don’t work for any such place, therefore experience a gadget hunger once in a while.

However, as I go along with many of them, I tend to realize that half of the gadgets are useless in 99% of cases. Depending on the work flow, a different set of gadgets is needed, so here’s mine:

• Lenovo W701 laptop – my main power horse. Despite being exactly what I wanted I regret the purchase from time to time, thinking I should have opted for a smaller machine that would not take up a whole table at Starbucks.
• Lenovo X61s laptop – the opposite extremity. While I wanted the lightest laptop possible, I didn’t quite realized, until later of course, that 12 inch screen with 1024×768 resolution is a little too small, especially for meetings with clients.
• Droid/iPhone – or any smart phone for that matter. Surprisingly, I find myself more and more demanding only one thing from my phone – that is making/receiving calls. E-mails, notes, web, news, books and everything else from “on the go” menu has gone to iPad that is just as easy to flip out but has a lot more screen real estate.
• Four 1TB USB-connected hard drives – too many connections, too slow a speed. I might only need one out of those four (or is it five?) drives, yet they are constantly connected for that “just in case” moment.
• IBM T42p Windows XP based file server – this would have been a disgrace all by itself, especially given how many Linux servers we are running at Zealus, if not for this: despite all the rumors of Windows being a buggy unstable system and all, it’s been running without reinstall for OVER 2 YEARS straight! OF course, I don’t install a lot of software on it, and, of course, I keep up with patches. And the hardware is amazing too.
• Gateway FHD 24 inch monitor – it’s like every acid junkie’s wet dream, the colors are so over saturated that my color calibrator gave up. Seriously.

So what am I replacing this zoo with in the course of a next year or so?

• Lenovo W701 laptop – not going anywhere. It’s a solid performer and I doubt I will be replacing it any time soon. Given its 17 inch screen and 8 GB RAM – it hasn’t exhausted all its capabilities yet
• Lenovo X61s laptop – I was thinking about Macbook Air, given how slim it is, but by the time Apple will have decided to update the hardware it will again be obsolete, so I wouldn’t even bother. Currently looking at ASUS UL80-J series, the one with 14 inch screen and Core i3 CPU. Alternatively, I just might go for Lenovo’s T410 series.
• Droid/iPhone – I am keeping my iPhone 3GS at least until the end of the contract anyway, since that’s in February I guess I will be able to see all the offers of this year. But my primary urge is for Motorola Razor, so if you have one laying around – send it my way.
• Four 1TB USB-connected hard drives + IBM T42p Windows XP based file server – will have to be combined into consumer NAS. There is no other way around this, unless I opt out for entry level server box.
• Gateway FHD 24 inch monitor – being replaced with new IPS-based Apple Cinema display. Given how hard I am hitting photography now there is little, if any, alternatives left.

Have your own idea? Send it to me before Christmas shopping hits my wallet!

This poll appeared on one of the most popular Russian IT social blogs – Habrahabr. The question was simple – now that Windows 7 RC has expired as of March 1, what is your next move? 47% of respondents answered that they already run a stolen (pirated) copy of Windows 7 or will do so now. Below is a screenshot of the poll with English translation. If you want Russian wordings (although dimmed out) hit the cut.

50% of Russian IT Workers Admit They Are Thieves

Ever since the beginning this blog was about technology. Only recently did I change it to cover first marketing, then small business as a whole. But almost all the posts of past decade are one way or another are about technology and its applications. So here’s my own little list of technologies – tools, services and gadgets that I loved using in that past decade and still using to this day.

Gmail – beats everything I have been using so far. So much so that I am slowly abandoning Outlook and converting to 100% Gmail user. In fact, any work related e-mail I send from Outlook gets CC-ed to Gmail account.

WordPress – again, slowly but surely this becomes the platform of choice for blogs I write for, as well as web sites we are still building from time to time. One of the main reasons is the automatic upgrade feature – when you take care of number of web sites, manual upgrading is too cumbersome.

Joomla – an excellent choice for content management system for any medium to large size web sites. Was our platform of choice before WordPress. Still works the best when paired with VirtueMart e-Commerce system.

HTC – as a provider of smartphones’ hardware. I’ve been using HTC devices for almost 5 years now, if not more. Starting from HTC’s BlueAngel to TyTN every single piece of hardware was awesome.

IBM / Lenovo ThinkPad T series line – my first two laptops were from Compaq and they were both horrible. So horrible, that I stopped using laptops for some time. At some point later I tried IBM’s ThinkPad T line and never looked back. Lenovo, after IBM shrugged their laptop manufacturing off their shoulders, aren’t dropping the ball with T line either, so I am looking forward to my next purchase of their T510 that’s due some time in February.

iPhone – as an entertainment center that allows you to make and receive phone calls it beats anything else. The phone part is still stuck somewhere back in 90s, but with the help of either Google Voice or Ribbit I am sure one day I’ll be able to sort it out.

Google Reader – my first source of news. Honestly, I am subscribed to a bit more feeds than I have time to read, but still it does a great job of keeping me up with anything I might want to know.

Pandora – hands down the best online radio you could imagine. I remember how much I was upset when Pandora was only working on iPhone of all the AT&T handsets. I also remember how pleased my wife was when I showed her how it works and how she can listen to the music of her choice and never get bored again.

Firefox – remains my primary browser since version 1.0.3, if not earlier. I am using Chrome or Flock (which is also based on Firefox code) as secondary browsers when I need to be logged into two Gmail accounts simultaneously, but main tool always was the Firefox.

UltraEdit – the default text editor for anything text or web related. Syntax highlighting, tabbed windows and anything you might ever want. Been using it for way too many years, each time I tried to use some kind of alternative I just kept coming back to UE.

Photoshop – it’s the only tool that still makes me feel like I have no idea on what I am doing. The more I learn it the more I discover things that just seem alien to me. Yet, it’s the only image editing software that does all I need to do – from photo editing to overly complex 100+ layers PSD files with custom web design we give to our clients.

Trillian – the all-in-one messenger solution. I used Trillian since their version 2, then moved on to Miranda (which is like Lego for messengers), but once Astra was out I switched to it immediately. For some reason this piece of software is so pleasing aesthetically that it makes me want to work more.

Skype – I purchased phone number in my area code, and using it for any conversation that is longer than 15 minutes. Just a note – between 12:15am and 12:45am this New Year AT&T’s network wasn’t letting me place any calls at all (I actually had zero bars on my iPhone at that moment). At the same time, calls placed through Skype went through just fine. Simply indispensable tool for both business and personal use.

RoboForm – an excellent password keeping tool. Unfortunately since I am using too many computers, keeping RoboForm gets prohibitively expensive, so I moved on to LastPass recently. It’s a bit more annoying than RoboForm, but does the job and is free.

Nikon D70s – I own this camera since it was released and just can’t force myself to upgrade to anything else. It just feels right. As of right now I probably shot over hundred thousand images with it – and that is given the fact that I am not a professional photographer.

Canon A series cameras – the love started with Canon A95 and carried over to A720IS I currently own. It fits in any pocket perfectly and is pretty good for the cases when full DSLR is an overkill. I am yet to see a better camera line that’s both affordable, portable and gives results of such quality.

Netflix – I’ve been a member for a few years and it’s been another great source of entertainment. Their shipping times have greatly improved recently, sometimes I am able to fit two shipments within a week.

Google Docs – I was a slow adopter mainly due to other people not getting the concept. But once I started using Docs with internet savvy business owners, they proved to be one of the most valuable tools.

Let’s see how many of these will survive in 2010.