If you’re using both hands to play a musical instrument, the last thing you want to worry about is turning the pages of sheet-music as you play. The traditional solution was to make somebody do it for you, or to quickly reach up and do it yourself.

Tech has helped. These days a laptop with a USB foot-pedal is the way to go, but there have been all manner of spring-loaded and hydraulic contraptions invented to turn actual paper pages. These were, as you might expect, less than reliable.

Airturn, maker of sheet-music-reading software and hardware, has come up with a solution for the iPad. Apple’s tablet would seem to be the perfect device for reading music: it’s big enough to replace a piece of paper, whilst still slim and light enough to put on a music stand. Combined with Airturn’s new Bluetooth foot-switch, it makes a reliable, wire-free and practical solution.

The BT-105, as it is called, has a pair of switches, one to page forward, and one to page back. The switch doesn’t just work with the company’s own software, either. The video demo shows it controlling a third-party app with a zoom feature. In this case, the switch can tell the app to flip half a page at a time or, more accurately, to show the second half of the page before it flips to the next one.

The switch is in development right now, but should be available in the last quarter of this year.

iPad Bluetooth page turner footswitch prototype [Airturn. Thanks, Hugh!]

•By Charlie Sorrel

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ipad-sheet-music-foot-switch-is-a-real-page-turner/#ixzz0uvVK0V15

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ipad-sheet-music-foot-switch-is-a-real-page-turner/#ixzz0uvV6hfEn

Via: http://www.wired.com

Bluetooth Desktop Speaker Phone connects Cisco 7925G

zAdapter® CI925ZDS Bluetooth Speaker Phone with desktop dual charger is the only Bluetooth Speaker Phone for the Cisco 7925G Unified Wireless IP Phone and is fully compliant with environment and safety standards. zCover is Cisco’s exclusive choice of 3rd party desktop chargers for the Cisco 7925G Unified Wireless IP Phone.

CI925ZDS Bluetooth Speaker Phone Retail Pack SRP is $249.99USD, includes:

1x Portable Dual Connection Bluetooth Speaker (Car) Phone
1x Desktop three bay chargers for Dock-in-Case Cisco 7925G Phone, Battery and Bluetooth
1x Cisco 7925G IP Phone docking adapter CUP
1x zBattery CI925ALT Li-ion Battery with power indicator
1x Car / Truck 12/24V 2A Charger, 8 feet USB mini cable & an extra USB port
1x Universal Sun Visor Clip
1x Tech Lanyard
1x AC Adapter

CI925ZDS Bluetooth Speaker Phone with desktop dual charger and Additional accessories can be purchased online at www.zcover.com.

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- ONLY Desktop Dual Charger for Cisco 7925G / 7925G-EX Unified Wireless IP Phones
- ONLY Winner of MacWorld Awards in Protection Case, Accessory Category
- Exclusive Designer and Supplier of Toshiba Keyboard Skins
- ZCOVER iPhone cases and iPod cases are available at Apple Stores
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zCover® is a leading protective covers and cases solution provider. We designs, develops and distributes carrying cases, Dock-in-Case™ chargers, Unified multi-Chargers and function-added devices with a focus in Healthcare, Government, Enterprises and Education End-users. zCover incorporates leading-edge technology and independent IP rights to produce outstanding functionality and quality products.

Selected zCover, zBattery and zAdapter accessories for iPad, iPhone, iPod, mobile phones and handheld consumer products, computer keyboard cover and notebook/netbook body protectors are available at Ingram Micro, Apple Stores and other retail stores. zCover® iPhone, iPad and iPod cases were the Winner of Macworld Awards 2008 Best iPhone Accessory and nominated as the Best iPad Accessory in 2010, the Best iPod Accessory in 2007 and 2006.
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zCover has direct business partnership with Apple, Ascom, Cisco, Honeywell, Intermec, Linksys, Motorola, Polycom, Siemens, Toshiba and other top 500 companies.

zCover, zBattery, zCapacity and zAdapter are registered word trademarks in USA and other countries. Dock-in-Case and Unified multi-charger are filed patents in USA and other countries. All other products, services and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Information in media advisories including, without limitation, product prices, specification, content of services, and contact information, is current on the date of the press announcement, but is subject to change without notice.

Contact
Sean Sa, VP Business Development
zCover, Inc.
Phone (604) 812-1022
E-mail: sean@zcover.com
Website: www.zcover.com
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ZCOVER, INC.
100-13551 Verdun Place,
Richmond, BC, Canada V6V 1W5
Tel: +1-604-273-3003
Fax: +1-604-273-3023

http://www.zcover.com

SANTA ANA, Calif. July 21, 2010 – Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) today announced its 2009 Data Capture/POS Division Partner of the Year Award winners, recognizing seven IT channel partners throughout North America for their outstanding achievements in the areas of sales, commitment to customer service excellence, and expertise in Data Capture/POS solutions. Justin Scopaz, vice president, general manager of the Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS Division, presented the awards at the sixth annual Partner Invitational at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.

The 2009 Data Capture/POS Division Partner of the Year award winners included:

Canadian Partner of the Year – OCR Canada Ltd.
Central Region Partner of the Year – Cardinal Tracking, Inc.
Mid-Atlantic Region Partner of the Year – Barcoding Inc.
Midwest Region Partner of the Year – Emkat, Inc.
Northeast Region Partner of the Year – Something Digital
Southeast Region Partner of the Year – BarCode ID Systems
Western Region Partner of the Year – DecisionPoint Systems, Inc.
According to Scopaz, these partners demonstrated exceptional business-building capabilities in vertical markets such as education, healthcare, hospitality, government and retail where demand for data capture and POS solutions is growing at an impressive rate. “The remarkable achievements exhibited by these seven Ingram Micro partners in a challenging economic climate are impressive and demonstrate the growing sales and service revenue opportunities that exist for our solution providers,” says Scopaz. “We want to thank each of these award winners for their continued partnership and congratulate them on their success.”

For more information about the Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS Division, visit dcpos.ingrammicro.com.

About the Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS Division

The Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS Division is a leading value-added distributor of auto ID/data capture (AIDC), point-of-sale (POS), radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless solution products and services. In addition to these technologies, the division also offers partners access to the complete suite of Ingram Micro products and services. With offices and distribution centers across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia, the Ingram Micro Data Capture/POS Division delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products and services to technology integrators around the world. For more information, visit dcpos.ingrammicro.com.

Press Contact:
Marie Rourke
WhiteFox Marketing (for Ingram Micro)
(714) 292-2199
marie@whitefoxpr.com

Via: http://phx.corporate-ir.net

Jodi Honore, Anne Wilcox and Holly Garcia Awarded for Channel Leadership and Ongoing Contributions to the IT Industry

Download image SANTA ANA, Calif., July 26 /PRNewswire/ — Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) today announced that Everything Channel’s CRN Magazine has recognized three of its U.S. executives in this year’s annual Top Women of the Channel listing which honors key customer-facing female business leaders across vendors’ channel organizations, distributors and solution providers.

Ingram Micro’s Jodi Honore, Vice President, Software, Vendor Management, U.S., Anne Wilcox, Vice President Customer and Solutions Marketing, U.S. and Holly Garcia, Senior Director, Vendor Management, U.S. were each selected for their professional contributions and accomplishments over the past year and the far-reaching impact their influence is having on the technology industry.

In addition, Jodi Honore and Anne Wilcox were named as two of the elite CRN Power 100 list, which recognizes those female channel executives who have reached the highest levels of the corporate ladder based on their professional achievements and influence wielded over the technology industry. Recipients of this year’s Women of the Channel and Power 100 lists were chosen by the editors of CRN Magazine and will be featured within the July 26th issue of the channel publication.

This is the second consecutive year that Honore, a 29-year IT channel veteran, has been named as one of the Top Women of the Channel. She is once again recognized for maintaining Ingram Micro’s strong leadership position in the IT software category. In the past year, Honore has maintained, managed and grown the distributor’s exclusive agreements with a number of leading IT vendors including Google, Citrix, CA and Websense. She has also furthered channel partners’ success with both emerging and high profile software vendors, and continues to play an important role as a channel advocate for the move to Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing.

With 12 years of IT channel experience, Wilcox is recognized for her leadership and ability to create and execute key customer and solutions marketing initiatives and vertical campaigns aimed at enabling channel partners to extend their technology knowledge and skill set to sell a wider, yet more targeted portfolio of products, solutions and services. In the last 12 months, Wilcox has increased Ingram Micro’s partner enablement resources with the addition of new training and education programs, as well as enhancements to the distributor’s bi-coastal Solution Centers. Under her leadership, Wilcox’s team has also hosted two highly successful Partner Connections Summits and introduced the company’s new IMHealth Campaign.

Garcia’s 14 years in the IT channel have enabled her to maintain Ingram Micro’s top market share position with Cisco in both product and services categories. She spearheads the Ingram Micro U.S. Cisco Division which is focused on initiatives tied to Cisco’s four architectures: data center, collaboration, borderless networks and small business. Garcia’s leadership and team efforts contributed significantly to Ingram Micro being named Cisco’s worldwide Distribution Partner of the Year and receiving the worldwide Services Innovation Award at Cisco’s Partner Summit 2010.

“Women hold many prominent executive positions at vendor organizations, distributors and solution provider organizations, providing critical insight and influence when it comes to technology and the channel. We want to honor and congratulate these women for their contributions to the industry and their respective organizations,” says Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel.

“Through the impressive leadership of all three of these female executives, Ingram Micro has strengthened its commitment to the IT industry and its value to our vast network of U.S. channel partners,” says Keith Bradley, Senior Executive Vice President and President, Ingram Micro North America. “We’re very proud to see their dedication to excellence honored by Everything Channel.”

A special feature of the Women of the Channel is in the July issue of CRN Magazine and expanded coverage will be featured online at www.crn.com.

About Ingram Micro Inc.

As a vital link in the technology value chain, Ingram Micro creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, outsourced logistics services, technical support, financial services, and product aggregation and distribution. The company serves more than 150 countries and is the only global broad-based IT distributor with operations in Asia. Visit http://www.ingrammicro.com/.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100107/IMLOGO)

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100107/IMLOGO)

Via: http://www.prnewswire.com/

mStand review

Nick Spence

Via: http://www.macworld.co.uk/

Does you company need a printer? Do you want to start using employee ID cards? Maybe you also need to make gift cards and membership cards also. There are printers that can do these things for you and so much more. In this article we are going to talk to you about an Evolis printer and what they can do for you and your company.

There are several different kinds of these cards printers. There is one called the Evolis Tattoo RW. This printer will make one sided printed cards that are rewritable. These rewritable cards can be used for different reasons. They can be used for transit passes, travel cards, student ID’s, membership cards and loyalty cards. This printer allows someone to have flexibility on this card. They can make a new card every time that you need one. It will quickly erase, encode, and reprint new data.

Another one of the Evolis printer is called the Dualys. These make two sided ID cards. They are used for employee cards, student ID’s, access control cards, payment cards and much more. This printer has several features. It can make smart cards. It can add security cards. It can also add magnetic strips or bar codes on the cards.

Another one of these cards printers is called the Evolis Pebble 4. This printer can also make all of the cards like employee cards. ID student cards and so on. There is a three year warranty on this printer. This one can make 24 cards in a second. It also has its own set of features.

There are also a few more printers made by Evolis. They are can do different kinds of printing. It depends on what kind of printing that you need to done.

This brings us to the subject of knowing what you need in cards printers. It is important for you to decide all that you want the printer to do. Do you want the cards to have photos on them? This is a important thing to decide on because if you go and buy one that does not do photos and you decide later that you want to use them than you will have to go out and buy more and this will be a added expense.

Also you must decide if you want the cards to be printed just on one side or on both cards. Not all printers do both of these. So deciding how you want them will help you get the right printer.

Next you must decide if you want the cards to have security features on them. There are several features that you can add to cards. These can be security that will allow or deny access to rooms. They can also be things like watermarks and holograms. These marks will keep the cards from being altered.

Whether you buy a printer from Evolis or another one just make sure that it will do all you want it to do.

Via: http://hookeruk.com/

Tensilica DPUs in Networking and Data Center Applications

Tensilica’s DPUs have long been key ingredients in many network infrastructure applications and network access devices. A combination of Xtensa DPU features — including the ability to customize interfaces and signal processing for high-performance and low-power optimization — make the Xtensa DPU cores an optimal fit for the compute intensive functions found in high-speed networks.

About Chelsio Communications, Inc.

Chelsio Communications is leading the convergence of networking, storage and clustering interconnects with its robust, high-performance and proven unified wire, storage software and appliance technology. Featuring a highly scalable and programmable architecture, Chelsio is shipping 10-Gigabit Ethernet and multi-port Gigabit Ethernet adapter cards, delivering the low latency and superior throughput required for high-performance computing applications. For more information, visit the company online at www.chelsio.com.

About Tensilica

Tensilica, Inc. is the leader in customizable dataplane processor IP cores. Dataplane Processor Units (DPUs) combine the best capabilities of CPUs and DSPs while delivering 10 to 100x the performance because they can be customized using Tensilica’s automated design tools to meet specific signal processing performance targets. Tensilica’s DPUs power SOC designs at system OEMs and six out of the top 10 semiconductor companies for products including mobile phones, consumer electronics devices (including digital TV, Blu-ray Disc players, broadband set top boxes, digital still cameras and portable media players), computers, and storage, networking and communications equipment. For more information on Tensilica’s patented, benchmark-proven DPUs visit www.tensilica.com.

Via: http://www.design-reuse.com

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Price: $9.99

Ergoguys Metallic Ear Bud Headset

Via: http://www.mobilereviewers.com

This post is part of our ReadWriteCloud channel, which is dedicated to covering virtualization and cloud computing. The channel is sponsored by Intel and VMware. What is the future of cloud computing? Learn more in this ReadWriteWeb special report, made possible by Intel and VMware: The Future of the Cloud: Cloud Platform APIs are the Business of Cloud Computing.

Getting paying subscribers – that is by far the biggest expense for any SaaS provider. And so that means a SaaS company has to be pretty careful about the way it spends its money.

So what are the three deadly SaaS marketing mistakes? According to the blog, Practical Advice on SaaS Marketing, they are as follows:

Spending Money to Lose Money
Drew Houston of Dropbox learned the hard way what can happen when he decided to do an AdWords campaign. It cost Dropbox $233 to $388 to attract customers. But the product sold for $99. Houston had one word to describe the experience:

“Fail!”

But what he came away with is a handy equation for the SaaS company thinking about its costs:

CAC>CLV

CAC stands for “customer acquisition costs.” CLV is defined as “customer lifetime value.”

As Peter Cohen explains, on the CAC side it may be big events, high priced events and clever but way too expensive giveaways. CLV issues may be not turning free subscribers into paying ones.

Houston provides an insightful story about the failure of best practices and the success that comes when you invest in your own community.

Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned

Racing Against the Clock
You can try to make up for the CAC by trying to make up in the long run for your short term losses. This approach means that the SaaS provider has to reduce the CAC costs and make lots of money before the cash gets all burned up

This can be a deadly game but it can work. SucessFactors did it. According to Cohen:

“CAC/annual revenue reached 112% at one point, but over time has come down to a more sustainable 53%. They out-grew the cash burn.”
Bailing with a Tea Cup
This is a problem of underspending. Sales and especially, marketing, can be seen as a hindrance. We see it way too often. Antipathy for marketing leads to cynicism and sometimes outright hostility. But it is the sales and marketing who do the heavy lifting. They are responsible for getting the leads and making the sales.

But if there is always the pressure to do it on the cheap then it can lead to problems. The company doesn’t have the resources in sales and marketing to get the job done.

Cohen:

“SaaS companies will typically spend much more on sales and marketing as a percentage of revenues than their licensed software brethren. Concur, for example, spends 31% of its annual subscription revenues on sales and marketing, and Salesforce.com spends 54%. For nearly all companies, customer acquisition costs will be the single largest expense on the income statement.”
Running a SaaS service is not for the faint of heart. But the geeks in us feel that Dropbox is the best example of a company that built on the loyalty of its early adopters. Word of mouth helped them reach 1 million subscribers – that’s something most services never achieve.

Via: http://www.readwriteweb.com

Why VARs Need A Partnering Plan
July 12, 2010

Michael Giambanco, Manager of Services Business Development for Ingram Micro, talks with Jameson Publishing and Business Solutions magazine President Jim Roddy in this exclusive Executive-To-Executive interview. In this interview, Giambanco discusses common reseller fears about partnering, reveals recent partnering trends, and talks about the future of VAR partnerships.

“I think you would be hard pressed to find a reseller out there who’s not partnering in some way,” Giambanco says. “If they’re not doing any kind of partnership … they’re actually turning away business. The real decision comes down to how will they deliver that service. Is it going to be through another partner via one of the many networks out there or social networking? Or are they going to look through a headhunter service with a 1099 contracted employee?”

Via: http://www.bsminfo.com