The Raging Tech

Entrepreneurs: Custom Plastic Shopping Bags

Is your new business some sort of retail store? Do you interact with customers directly and in person? Or maybe you do online or mail-order sales and you need plastic bags for wrapping up goods to mail to customers?

Any dime-store marketing, small business, or entrepreneurship book will tell you that brand awareness is the easiest way to supplant your company’s name in the customer’s mind in the category of product you sell. People can often be trained like animals - repetition is key. Why not, then, plaster your name all over your shipping materials, your shopping bags, your box liners, and Retail Trade Show Bags?

International Plastics is a company that specializes in making custom-ordered polyethylene film and bags for various companies and manufacturers. They offer all you could need in plastic bags for your business.

Imagine a customer walking into your store, purchasing their items, and upon checking out their merchandise is placed in a specially created plastic shopping bag. Instead of looking small-time with a generic plastic bag, you could look like a much larger business by having your business name and logo imprinted on every bag.

Then imagine at the same time, somewhere online a customer is placing an order, and you’re going to pack their order in your own custom-logo plastic packing materials. That’s the kind of professionalism that brings customers back for repeat business.

Sexy Geek Toys: Apple Macbook Air Ad

So, even though I’m only mildly impressed with the specs and it seems more gimmick than gadget, the Macbook Air which Apple announced at MacWorld Expo 2008 last week just looks incredibly sexy (in a geeky sort of way). I didn’t quite have a way to wrap my mind around its thinness before seeing the commercial on TV. I had seen it in pictures and heard them say it’s thin enough to fit inside a manila envelope, but for some reason still didn’t grasp it’s awesomeness.

So here it is, for your viewing perusal, the television ad for the new Macbook Air from Apple:

MacWorld 2008: AppleTV Software Upgrade

With the announcement of the AppleTV upgrade to allow for iTunes movie rentals also came some exciting news: a complete redesign of the user interface. Another issue some people are up-in-arms about is the fact that the HD movie rentals will only be available for the AppleTV. Which is fine with me - standard definition looks great on my widescreen LCD monitor.

The new user interface keeps all the major features on one screen without a lot of scrolling. Apple has made over 50 million YouTube videos available for viewing now.  Overall, the new UI has the slick hotness of OS X Leopard’s Front Row program.

Oh, and as for the movie rentals: Apparently the deal is you get 30 days to begin watching your rental. Then, you will have 24 hours within that time period to watch it as many times as you’d like. Some sources are saying you won’t be able to copy these rentals to your iPod or iPhone, but I think they’re confusing that with just the HD rentals which, as I said earlier, are only available on the AppleTV. Also, the price on the AppleTV is dropping down to $229 - making it a very affordable network-connected media center.

MacWorld 2008: Updates, Movies, and Macbook Air

Steve Jobs came onto the stage to the cheers and clapping of all the major tech blogs and magazines and attendees at MacWorld today. Among the excitement of the keynote address were four major announcements. I’ll give Steve credit, he’s succinct in his keynotes. The four major announcements are:

1) iPhone Apps on the iPod Touch (or iTouch). Those of you with iPod Touches who know people with iPhones have probably been pretty jealous of the missing apps that were previously available only on the iPhone, unless you used the hack to get them on there already. The bad news: unless you’re buying a new one now, you’ll have to pay $20 for an upgrade to get the new features. WTF, Apple?

2) iTunes Movie Rentals. Apple knows no one wants to rent their music - that’s why they chose a different business model than Napster or Real Rhapsody. But movies - consumers often rent movies, and are doing it in so many ways these days. So Apple has now made movie rentals available via iTunes. $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. Fox was among the major studios to partner with Apple to bring movie rentals to iTunes. Also, Warner, Universal, Paramount, and others were on board.

3) Free Software Update. With Apple’s new movie rental system on iTunes, you will now be able to (thanks to a free software update coming in about two weeks) watch those movies on your AppleTV, iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, and your Mac. For new purchases, the software should already be included effective today. Also, the UI for the AppleTV has been completely redone and looks amazing.

4) Macbook Air. As if end users didn’t have enough name and brand-recognition to deal with, the MacBook Air seeks to fill the Apple void in the thin notebook market by being less than an inch thick at either end. It’s so small you can fit it in a manila envelope and weighs less than 3 pounds. It’s touch pad also has multi-touch sensing, and uses patented gesture technology like the iPhone and iPod touch to let you use two fingers to navigate, zoom, and manipulate photos, documents, and more. Main downside: no optical drive, but Apple has new software to let you share optical drives from another Mac for installation. Of course, at the conclusion of the MacWorld Expo 2008 keynote address, tutorials and videos appeared on the Apple website.

MacWorld 2008 Keynote Address Today at Noon

Hello there, sports fans! If your head hasn’t been under a rock or you own a TV, you’ve either been converted to the cult of Apple, or been watching the company with enthralled anticipation.

Since the age of iPod came upon us, Apple has been blowing up the scene with newer, hotter desktops and portables than almost any other company. There are flame wars upon flame wars about the specs of certain manufacturer’s Windows PCs being better - but bar none, Apple is a software-hardware synergy dynamo with no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Today at Noon (12pm Eastern Standard Time), Steve Jobs will give Apple’s MacWorld Expo keynote address. Rumors abound everywhere, but every year we get a treat with new software to play with, or a new line of iPod, or major OS upgrades, or announcements of new partnerships that bring cool stuff to us Mac users.

Who knows exactly what to expect today? I’m going to be tuning in at Apple’s website, and then after the keynote is over I’ll go ahead and post here later this afternoon with the major points of interest, so come back!

Trade Shows and Vendor Fairs

Earlier this month, I was at (and incidentally, blogged from) the UNC CAUSE conference in Asheville, NC. There was a great deal of hoopla in the vendor display area. They all had tables set up, freebies to give out, and contests to win iPod shuffles or GPS units or Direct TV DVRs. My official title is “Technology Support Analyst,” which is great because no one knows what that means. Therefore, to every vendor, I was just as important as anyone who could be the right-hand man of a CIO or someone with purchasing power.

Several of my coworkers have been to other such vendor fairs where companies all vie for contracts with corporations and educational institutions. The display really seems to be the important part of the presentation. Sales people are great, and freebies are even better, but when it comes to actually making sales your booth says a lot about your company. If it looks like you made no effort, people will probably walk on by without taking a second look. But with an awesome set of Table Top Displays, you can show off statistics about your company, pictures of people enjoying your product, your contact information, and more! These things can really make or break your trade show visit.

The Godfrey group makes table top displays in a variety of shapes and sizes, and they will beat any competitor’s pricing on display packages by 10%. Since you’re spending money to make money, the less you have to spend, the better! You also can purchase throws or table runners to match your display package to give your booth the complete look for your business. What’s equally important is that these table top displays are light and easy to setup, so you don’t have to break your back setting up for your booth!

Get into the trade show habit - some of the most important contacts you can make are with people who are ready to buy at trade shows. Your rate of success is going to be enormously higher than what you’d normally experience from just fishing around and doing sales presentations to people who may not even be ready to buy.