Travel alot? try iPass

Travel alot? need to connect to WiFi hotspots but don’t want to pay a $10 day rate? Well I might be able to help you … since you have to be careful with your data cost on those silly Canadian data plans .. tethering your laptop to your brand new iPhone may not be a viable option.

Tethering is a way of connecting your laptop to the internet over a GSM cell phone signal. Most phones that are 3G can act almost like a modem when connected to your laptop with a USB cable so theoretically you can connect ANYWHERE! … however most mobile providers don’t provide data plans that can support the heavy amount of data being transferred by a laptop so it could be a very expensive way to stay online.

However, I wanted to share iPass with you…

Facebook – Windows Mobile Integration

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could relate all your facebook friends to everyone in your outlook contacts and then download up-to-date information to your phone? Well we’re nearly there! There is a great app call Fonebook available to download for free.

The app is installed on your computer and it can automatically download Birthdays, Photos and Status updates directly into your contacts in your Outlook. As far as I can figure out it matches facebook friends to outlook contacts by email but the app allows you to filter all the unmatched friends and assocaite them to Contacts manually. I just found out that you can keep it running in the background and it will automatically run every 10 minutes if you so wish.

Once all your contacts are updated in your outlook you can then sync your phone with your computer to get all the photos and birthday reminders on your phone … pretty cool eh? I haven’t has any issues with the app yet.

Google Documents

One of my favourite Google applications is Google Docs. Its still in beta but it works just fine and haven’t had any  bad experiences with it.

I use it to share documents and collaborate information. Great for To Do lists, Planning Projects/Vacations, Organisations and general business use.

The best thing about it is you can create documents online and work on the document at the same time with any user with an internet connection. If both people update the same data it prompt you to resolve the conflict with no data loss. You can create Spreadsheets, Documents and Presentations. (I was deliberate not to mention any of the Microsoft office products as these work quite differently!!).