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Common sense is not so common. 

It's true, Google is growing up

You may or may not have heard the news but Google is coming out of beta.  I know what you're thinking -- Haven't I been using Google's products for years now?  Don't they stay up most of the time?  Aren't they the end-all-be-all of email, document collaboration and calendaring (okay, maybe that's a long shot)?

While yes, all of those are true, they are just now coming out of beta with Gmail, Calendar, Chat and Documents.  You can read all about it on Google's blog or over at Mashable.  No, I won't bore you with all of the details -- I just want to share this great news with you.

Go Google!

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Dancing in the square today. Cool stuff.

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Sharing @lusiouslou22's guitar skillz with you.

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Chefame was a great success!

Chefame has shared the thank you letter with the world and with your help we can make it so much better!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You guys all made this a fantastic first Open Chef-A-Me night and we were so happy to have had the chance to share it with you guys and gals. We had a turn out of over 40 people which was way more than we expected for the first event and you showed us just how much you enjoyed the evening. We are in the midst of planning the next Open Chef-A-Me night which we hope will be even bigger and better than the first. Many of the ideas and a lot of the feedback that you all passed along to us will be incorporated into the next event. 

You can read the rest over at the Chefame site

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The first Open Chef-A-Me night is sold out!

The Philadelphia CityPaper's Mealt Ticket blog writes:

Open Chef-A-Me (like “sesame”) is an “open mic night for local chefs” dreamed up by IT professional Jesse Middleton, his brother Louis and friends Evan Kaplowitz and Bart Mroz. The concept: The team finds amateur chefs who think they have what it takes to prepare a meal in a real restaurant kitchen, and round up diners who pay a mere $25 to sit for hors d’oeuvres and a three-course dinner.

Though it’s already sold out, the first chef will be co-founder Mroz, who actually has some pro experience behind the stove: His parents owned a catering company. The native Pole, who runs round3media, will offer fare like a spring green salad, a Polish cauliflower dish with browned butter and breadcrumbs and beef braised in Victory Baltic Thunder Porter (they’ve secured the Downingtown Brewery as a beverage sponsor).

We are all very excited for the first night of Open Chef-A-Me and we hope that it turns into a regular event where local talent can show off their skills in the kitchen.  We know it will be filled with fun, food, drinks and friends and that sounds great to us.  How about you?

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PSL EExpo - Be there or be square

entrepreneur expo

This event is a celebration of the entrepreneur; the spirit, the passion and of course the idea. We aim to put on display the creative talent of Philadelphia across a broad range of disciplines. Entrepreneurs are invited to demonstrate their projects in a trade-show setting. Best of all, The Entrepreneur Expo is free and open to the public.

Event Details
Thursday April 2, 2009
6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
University City Science Center
3711 Market Street, Philadelphia

Roman (@romez) always has great, insightful things to say and now he's working on a great event for the Philadelphia entrepreneur scene. The Entrepreneur Expo is going to be big hit my mind. They are bringing together hundreds of people from all walks of life to not only talk about what they're working on to better our lives but also to listen to what others are doing.

I know that I'll be making it there (thought probably a bit late) just to see some of my favorite faces of the area. People from Fortune 100 companies to itty, bitty start-ups will be walking and talking all over the University City Science Center. I hope that you can make it out to check out what the latest and greatest in Philadelphia is. I say, be there or be square -- Or at least not there.

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Appirio Secures $10 Million in Series C Funding

In an economy where many IT budgets are flat or declining, industry analysts believe cloud computing to be counter-cyclical. In fact, IDC recently increased its SaaS growth projection for 2009 from 36 percent growth to 40.5 percent growth over 2008, and predicts that cloud computing will increase 260 percent by 2010.

"The business case for cloud computing is strong, and we're seeing the pace of investment from investors and customers growing as a result," said Chris Barbin, CEO of Appirio. "The lower up-front costs, the ability to scale usage up or down and pay only for what you need, and the chance to remove depreciating hardware assets from the balance sheet are always attractive. In these conditions they are top of mind. GGV's investment and expertise can help us significantly advance our offerings and continue growing the company to meet the high demand we're seeing."


The economy may be down and jobs may be getting tougher and tougher to find but there is one thing that is going up and that's the cloud computing trend. SaaS providers and products are on the rise -- and for good reason.

There is a much lower cost of entry, lower annual costs (normally) and features and service levels that can only be provided by a company that can focus their efforts on one product (or line of products as is the case with Google).

Forrester and others have some great information on the TCO for this growing SaaS market. Have you checked it out yet for your organization? It could be a huge cost saver.

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Zumbox Helps You (Start) Throttling Back on Snail Mail

Zumbox aims to be like email with a street address. It could actually free you up from at least some of your annoying snail mail, too, if enough junk-mailing partners sign up.


There have been a number of startups over the last year or two that are focusing on helping make the environment greener. They are doing this through new web services that allow you to connect with others without hopping on a plane, share cars so there are less on the road at one time and now, send letters without ever lifting a finger (to seal the envelope).

Zumbox is a great idea. They are taking email and making it a little bit easier to get people in the game. If you have a mailing address, you are ready to go. (And honestly if you don't have one, you should probably be more worried about that than reading up on my blog).

I setup my Zumbox account and within a couple of days, I got my PIN number mailed to me so that they could verify that I actually lived where I said I did. Now, if you know my mailing address, you can send me letters, post cards, bills and almost anything else you could think to mail via Zumbox.

Go ahead, and give it a shot. You can save the environment one letter at a time -- Save trees, the ozone layer and the mail man's feet -- all from the comfort of your couch.

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TrapCall - Unmask Blocked Calls

I've been using TrapCall for a whole 24 hours now and I'm impressed. The service is streamlined, easy to setup, and saves me a whole host of headaches from telemarketers and others who call me with numbers blocked.

The thing that I love about this service is the fact that I didn't have to really install or change anything but the forwarding number on my TMobile service. No software, no hardware, didn't even have to give access to my cell phone account.

On top of the ease of setup, it's easy to use too. When a number comes through that's blocked, simply hit the "End" button on your phone and the call stops ringing for a second and then comes back through decoded. Don't want to take it, simply hit "End" again and it goes straight to voice mail.

Speaking of voice mail-- At least with TMobile, when a caller goes to voice mail they leave their message just as they normally did except TrapCall puts their voice mail online for you to retrieve as well as on your cell phone. Handy if you don't have your phone with you or you just happen to find it easier to listen through your computer speakers instead.

I recommend you give TrapCall a try. Let me know what you think about it. Will it help you be more productive?

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Overview : Signing in with Google Accounts - Mobile Help

Overview: Signing in with Google Accounts

To use Google Latitude and accept location sharing requests, you must sign into Latitude using a Google Account. Google Accounts include Gmail usernames, Google Accounts you've created for other email addresses, and Google Apps accounts*.

You can create a Google Account for an existing email account (see steps below) or create a new Gmail account. Currently, Google Accounts can only be created from computers or full HTML browsers such as those on iPhone and Android-powered devices.

Note: On Android-powered devices like the G1, you must use the Google Account you've synced with your device.


Creating a Google Account for your email address
1. Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount.

I'm sure this may not be news to other people but it was to me and I consider myself a pretty strong Google-proponent. If you're trying to use some of the other great Google services -- Maps, Reader, Latitude, and much more -- with your GAFYD email account you have to register for a Google Account.

While this seems a bit backwards, it seems to be the way that Google designed their system so we have to live with it. Go ahead and use the link above to create your new Google Account.

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