Snapdragon Stadium!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Snapdragon by Qualcomm for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

For approximately 11 days this holiday season starting December 18th, Qualcomm Stadium will be renamed Snapdragon Stadium! The San Diego wireless chip giant, which has held the naming rights on the Mission Valley stadium since 1997, is temporarily changing the name from Qualcomm Stadium to Snapdragon Stadium.

Snapdragon processors, made by Qualcomm are inside mobile devices made by top manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Nokia, and HTC. It’s a great line of mobile processors and now it’s a football stadium where the Chargers will play a Sunday night game against Baltimore. Also the two college bowl games: the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (Dec. 21) and the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl (Dec. 28), will be played in Snapdragon Stadium.

Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm are the digital brains inside mobile devices made

Smartphones and tablets are what the Snapdragon Processors go in and Qualcomm is trying to raise awareness of the brand. This move will bring the chip line to the attention of many people that have never thought about what processor is running their mobile device. Football fans across the country will watch as the name of the stadium is mentions several times and the explanation given of what Snapdragon is.

This is an exciting moment in tech advertising. Can Qualcomm make Snapdragon a household name and make people shop around for the components they want in their phones. I hope so.

Double Text, Double Social

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LG DoublePlay™ for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I text about seven or eight hundred times a month, below average I know. I also don’t like social networks at all. But all my friends and family live within a 20 minute drive. But if you do these things as much as most people do you should look at the LG DoublePlay™ It may be the ultimate social networking tool.

The LG Doubleplay™ is a T-Mobile exclusive that has dual customizable touch screens, a 3.5-inch main display and 2.0-inch sub display. They can operate independently or in tandem and both have customizable home screens and capacitive touch control. It also has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard and Swype® for easy text input. The two screens can be used for separate activities at the same time. For example you could be updating your facebook with the main screen and texting a friend with the sub-display. It uses Android™ 2.3 (Gingerbread) with access to Android Market™

The LG DoublePlay™ also comes with a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recorder. You can capture and share pictures and videos via messaging, email or Facebook. It also offers multiple messaging options, including Cloud Text™ and Group Text™, giving users the ability to send and receive texts from a PC or tablet or create group chats on-the-go for faster, more efficient content sharing.

So check out The LG DoublePlay™ for yourself, it may be the best thing you do today. LG DoublePlay™

how many hours do you spend texting or engaging with their Social Networks on their phone?

How do you think The LG DoublePlay™ would change the way you text or interact with Social Networks.

Please answer in the comments section – and check out what everyone else has said, the answers to these questions will surprise you!

This is Kinda' Cool

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Contest Factory for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Pimp My Cube is searching for the worst, most pathetic and messy cubicle or office that may have bad furniture, old technology, messy, unorganized, noisy, dirty, dark and/or any other attributes that make it a bad space to work in . . .

You could win the grand prize of your cube being ‘pimped’ will be selected by CF judges based on various criteria including for the most votes, best (really worst) video and most compelling story.

they want people to upload a video showing their cube/office/workspace while they explain the details about why it is horrible and why it is so important that Contest Factory come in and ‘Pimp’ their cube. Once your video is entered, you invite your friends, family and coworkers to vote for your video.

You get sweepstakes entry points for registering, voting, commenting and inviting others to register for the contest.

A second sweepstakes prize of a $200 gift card will be awarded to the registered user chosen by random drawing at the end of the contest period.

So go and register and upload videos to enter in the contest. Once video is approved, have your friends and family vote on their video to enhance your chances of winning.

The contest period is from 12/5/11 at 12:00PM to 1/31/11 at 12:00PM. So begin video production now and get those videos in. this si a great way to have fun and maybe get some cool stuff. Pimp My Cube Contest

Internet security, don’t overpay

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Norton Small Business by Symantec for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Recent surveys of the owners of small business, almost one in three (28 percent) people said technology was one of their highest business priorities, which placed it ahead of reducing labor costs. It is not too surprising that almost six out of ten small business owners (59 percent) admitted to having encountered problems with some sort of malware on their computer systems in the past three years, more than half of those (51 percent) had to pay an ‘expert’ to resolve the problem. protect your Small Business from the latest online threats

The problem with internet security experts in the phone book is that they are profiting from the malware on the internet as much as the people that put that software out there. If not for the baddies putting malware out there they would be out of a job.

You don’t need to hire computer technicians from outside to take care of the basic needs of computer security. Most of these experts will just install something like Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security 2012, both just launched in September, charge a business owner there marked up vendor price, and for the time to install it. Just get it yourself and install it before you have major loss of data and protect yourself. And don't forget the 30% discount for Small Business owners that purchase Norton products (primarily the 5U/10U products).

protect your Small Business from the latest online threats

It is important to remember that just because you don’t use your office computers for anything but email, inventory tracking, and drafting documents, does not mean that you are safe from malware. The writers and purveyors of such stuff are interested in your money and find ever more ingenious ways to get it. You need some kind of internet security, but fly-by-night computer experts are also only interested in your money.

Norton is a large company that isn’t going anywhere. Many internet security companies are just one or two guys that just close up shop if they get too many customer complaints to continue. Norton has a vested interest in responding to the needs of there customers.

Norton Small Business by Symantec

Internet safety is kinda a misnomer. You can be perfectly safe from all risk of malware if you just never turn your computer on. Res ipsa loquitur you won’t be doing this. So go over to Norton, the industry leader in malware expertise, and see what they have that can keep you and your family and your data safer on the internet.

Please leave me a comment letting me know which Norton product would most benefit you and why!

You Want a Job? You Need a Suit.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Express for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

The simple truth is that most people don’t own suits like they once did. These days having a nice looking suit at a job interview can make all the difference. It can make you look relaxed and in control if you are comfortable in your suit. men's suits

The big problem with suits is not just that they are expensive but that so many styles exist that it is hard to know what you should get and in what kind of color. Add this to the embarrassment of going into a men’s clothing store and asking for help with something you have never done before and you have a recipe for disaster.

Enter Express Business Suits, an online retailer of suits that has only styles and colors that are cool and fashionable. The cuts of suit that they offer are designed to be comfortable to a non-suit wearer and they are very competitively priced. Most full suits not exceeding $400.

It gets better, right now they are giving everyone who likes them on Facebook a chance to win a $500 suiting makeover. That’s a shot at $500 worth of job interview confidence just for liking them. Express sweepstakes

They also offer a good deal of very sexy business suits for women. I am not a sound judge of what is hot in women’s fashion but these suits look quite good to me.

Take a look and think of what you could do with a new suit or two. Maybe you would get employer’s attention.

The reality of it is that a suit that you are comfortable in is better than one that you are not sure about. Get a suit and hit the street.

Comments in the comments section on which suits you like would be much appreciated by readers with poor fashion since. 

This could be the start of something

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Untitled Jersey City Project for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I would like to start by saying that I don’t really care for the kind of show that is FX’s new “Untitled Jersey City Project”. However I am a massive proponent of innovation in all media, and this could be a big one.

From the trailer and the first episode that I watched online Untitled Jersey City Project is a typical, if well filmed and acted, television crime drama. The cast is pretty and the acting is good. The camera work I quite liked, it took its time and served the story well. I am always a fan of good camera work.

The innovation of the show is none of those things but the way it is being marketed and distributed. It is being produced in three to five minute episodes that have many of the same characters but they are non-linier in time and make no effort to connect themselves together. Each episode is part of a larger storyline but the nature of that story is open to interpretation.

This is cool because it could be a new way of marketing television. Lots of series have short webisodes but this is different I think. I suspect that this is just small pieces of the shooting scripts for the first few episodes of a proposed series on FX and instead of commissioning a pilot and making the decision to order further episodes from that alone they have produced these few little snippets of episodes that encapsulate tiny storylines on their own and put them out for us to decide if we like it or not. In essence this is the power of decision whether this will be a produced series on the network is given to the people that will watch the series.

I love the idea of the viewers deciding what they want to watch over the networks trying to tell us what we want to watch.

Give this a look because it could be the start of something very big. Let me know what you think in the comments section. did you like it? do you think this is a good idea?

STRAIGHT TALK about pre-paid phones

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Straight Talk for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have said before that I only use pre-paid cell phones. I hate contracts.

If however you have a contract now imagine being able to say this; ”I love the idea that I feel richer with Straight Talk because I cut my cell phone bill in half. You have to be crazy to be on a contract these days when you can get everything you need without one.” Android on Straight Talk

Now engage in a little thought experiment. Imagine the amount of money you could save switching to Straight Talk. There are no contracts, no surprise bills and no credit checks. They have great nationwide coverage and excellent reception/connectivity. Now what would you buy with the extra money you save?Hook, line and sinker

There are no contracts, no surprise bills and no credit checks. Great nationwide coverage and excellent reception/connectivity. Finally, Straight Talk only uses trusted phone manufacturers like LG, Motorola, Kyocera, Nokia and Samsung. Free from activation, reactivation, or termination fees

Monthly Plans:

·         The “All You Need Plan” meets even the needs of heavy phone users with 1,000 minutes, Call a friend1,000 texts and 30 MB of web data.

·         Unlimited Monthly service is only $45, and includes calls, text, picture messaging, and web.

·         Imagine unlimited calls, text, picture messaging and web for a whole year, for only $499.00!

·         411 calls are included at no extra charge.

·         International Long Distance:

Straight Talk International Long Distance Service is a flexible prepaid calling service that enables you to make international calls from your home, cell or office phone at low rates. Call a friend

Phone Selection is one of the things that I like best bout Straight Talk. Reconditioned phones are available from $10.00 with camera, mp3 player, mobile web access, and blue-tooth capability. Great for young users! Amazing smart phones; touch screen phones, and app capable phones with features like voice navigation, camera, video recorder, music player, instant messaging, and Bluetooth®Android on Straight Talk

To Reiterate; Contracts bad. Pay-as-you-go good. Straight Talk is a good option. Everything you need

Take another look at Net-10

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Net10 for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have talked about Net-10 before but you should really check it out.

I don’t like not really owning my phone and I don’t like contracts. For this reason I use only pre-paid phones. If you are looking for a new phone and carrier I suggest looking at Net-10 they have some cool stuff.     

Cute NET10 commercial

It works like any prepaid phone, you buy a phone that you like, put minutes on it and talk and text till they run out. Or buy a monthly plan (no contract just pay for what you get) and talk or text. Their unlimited plan is only $50 and you get unlimited talk and text and data! No contracts, no surprise bills, no credit checks. Tell me the last time AT&T was that low. Never, that’s when.

Check it out.

The first thing about Net-10 that I like is nation wide coverage not some local fly-by-night company that only covers the city that you live in. they also only use manufacturers of phones that I have heard of like LG, Motorola, Kyocera, Nokia and Samsung. No Shinzen knockoffs.

The phones are reasonably priced too. The simplest is only $15 but can still send and receive texts. They have phones with great features like camera, video recorder, blue tooth capability, mobile web and more for under $40.00. They even have full qwerty and touch screens for under $60.00. Real NET10 customer

National coverage means that anyone inside the United States can be called from your Net-10 phone for the same price. But with the International Neighbors program, currently available to Canada and Mexico, you get a special phone number that your family and friends can use to reach you at your NET10 number. What Rob has to say

To review; With Pay-As-You-Go Plans, your minutes carry over with active service. The Easy Minutes Plus plan is an automatic minutes plan that starts at $15.00 for 200 minutes. Unlimited Minutes, Text and Web for $50.00/month. Switch between plans each month to suit your budget and airtime needs, without penalties or fees. Airtime can be purchased online, at a nearby store, or directly from your phone.

To Reiterate; Contracts bad. Pay-as-you-go good. Net-10 is a great option. See the Light

Sprint to Sprint’s limited time offer

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Sprint for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have never lost my cell phone but I have known people that have. The insecurity that they went through was difficult to witness. They had no idea if they had just dropped it somewhere or if someone had stolen it when they set it down for a minute. We keep so much on our phones now, schedules, contacts, pictures, so much stuff. If it getsw lost how do you find it?

If you are a Sprint subscriber you are in luck. They have a program called Total Equipment Protection (TEP), and even if you did not sign up for it when you got your phone you can do it now. But HURRY, if you got your phone a few months ago you only have till August 30^th to get in on this great program.

TEP costs $8.00 per month. A Protection App is available for Android, Blackberry and select feature phones is included with TEP with no added cost provides the ability to find a misplaced phone with an audible alarm, locate your phone on a map using network integrated GPS technology, remotely lock a missing phone, as well as wirelessly sync and manage and restore your contacts.

If you need to file a claim a deductible of either $50 or $100 is required for approved claims. If you think the deductible is a bummer, check out the non contract price of that EVO –$449! Or even that LG Optimus you thought was free -- $299 is the full retail! 50 bucks is real money but $449 is a kick in the bad place.

If you do lose your phone with TEP you can recover your contacts, make it sound an alarm so you can find it, and even lock it so no one can use it.

Sprint is holding an Open Enrollment from August 1-30, 2011. This means any Sprint customer can add the Total Equipment Protection feature. In addition to the new App features, TEP provides Sprint customers with a quick and convenient way to receive a replacement if their phone is ever lost, stolen, damaged or malfunctions after the warranty expires. Hey it’s summertime, this feature even covers accidental dips by your phone into the pool or lake!

If you have Sprint you should have this feature. Eight bucks is what, two cups of coffee and a donut? Go take a look. Sprint Total Equipment Protection App

Win Free Pepsi, Or Corndogs, Or an iPad!!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of ampm for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

ampm is giving stuff away, good stuff. Just go to facebook.com/ampm and have a look. They are running the "Too Much Good Stuff Giveaway" right now and it is quite neat.The slot machine instant win is really quite cool. You go through the registration and then you get to try and win one of 15,000 free bottles of Pepsi Max, or 10,000 free Corndogs from ampm. After you play the instant win slot machine you are automatically entered in the periodic sweepstakes where you can win an iPod, an iPad, and the grand prize is a trip to Vegas. Too Much Good Stuff

I used to have a friend that worked at an ampm. That was the single best convenience store I have ever been in. It was during the time when they instituted the Thirst Oasis, a giant fountain drink dispensary that was extra cool because this particular store was on Oasis road. My friend told me that it was maid special for there store but soon I went into another ampm and saw the same thing breaking my delusion.

They also had the best snacks. I used to eat their double cheese burgers two or three times a week. I love fresh condiments that I can put on myself, getting what I want instead of what someone else want s to give me.

Be sure to "Like" their page and go through the steps to register to win! It's really fun - you'll be happy you did.

The game is fun. Go play it. Free stuff is good stuff and Pepsi is sweetest free.

Free Automatic Carbonite

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Carbonite for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I generate a lot of documents. Most are for work, or school, but I write for pleasure as well. All those are stored on my hard drive. I back them up in various ways but I am still worried about what would happen if there was a fire or flood. I could lose some things that have taken me months and even years to complete.

Off site backup is the obvious solution. Carbonite provides just such a service and it is automatic. That’s right it automatically backs up your files with out any hassle. For just $59 per year. The data stored with them can be accessed anywhere you have access to the internet. And with free apps for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android it can be assessed on your Smartphone.

Carbonite takes the worry out of backup by securely and automatically backing up the files on your PC or Mac to one of Carbonite’s highly secure, state-of-the-art data centers. It works continually in the background, automatically backing up your files whenever your computer is connected to the internet.
It is completely automatic, secure, simple, and unlimited.Once your files are backed up by Carbonite, you can access them anytime, anywhere, from virtually any Internet connected device.  computer backup

What‘s more it has a free 15 day trial that doesn’t even require a credit card. online backup

Imagine how you would feel if your hard drive failed tomorrow. All your hard work lost. Carbonite is the answer.

So take a look. And use the code BLOGAD and get two free months with purchase. Keep your data even when life conspires to try and take it away. Carbonite

Take a new look at Net-10

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Net10 for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I use only pre-paid phones. I don’t like contracts and I don’t like not really owning my phone. I haven’t looked at new ones for a while but I was just looking at Net-10 and they have some cool stuff.

The first thing about Net-10 that I like is nation wide coverage not some local fly-by-night company that only covers the city that you live in. they also only use manufacturers of phones that I have heard of like LG, Motorola, Kyocera, Nokia and Samsung. No Shinzen knockoffs.

It works like any prepaid phone, you buy a phone that you like, put minutes on it and talk and text till they run out. Or buy a monthly plan (no contract just pay for what you get) and talk or text. Their unlimited plan is only $50 and you get unlimited talk and text and data! No contracts, no surprise bills, no credit checks. Tell me the last time AT&T was that low. Never, that’s when.

If your curious you should look at what a real costumer has to say about it. Real NET10 customer

The phones are reasonably priced too. The simplest is only $15 but can still send and receive texts. They have phones with great features like camera, video recorder, blue tooth capability, mobile web and more for under $40.00. They even have full qwerty and touch screens for under $60.00.

National coverage means that anyone inside the United States can be called from your Net-10 phone for the same price. But with the International Neighbors program, currently available to Canada and Mexico, you get a special phone number that your family and friends can use to reach you at your Net-10 number.

To review; With Pay-As-You-Go Plans, your minutes carry over with active service. The Easy Minutes Plus plan is an automatic minutes plan that starts at $15.00 for 200 minutes. Unlimited Minutes, Text and Web for $50.00/month. Switch between plans each month to suit your budget and airtime needs, without penalties or fees. Airtime can be purchased online, at a nearby store, or directly from your phone.

Contracts bad. Pay-as-you-go good. Net-10 is a great way to go. Take a look here. Cute NET10 commercial

Here's what some other people had to say:

OpenSource Textbooks?

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Flat World Knowledge for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. If you attend a university or college you know that tuition and textbooks keep getting more expensive. Sometimes this causes instructors to try to pick a cheaper book over a better but more expensive one, or to cut down the number of books for a course because of expense. They are trying to help their students but it is hard not to wonder if they are sacrificing the future for help now. A solution would be a revolution in text book publishing and access.

That solution is Flat World Knowledge. It’s an open license publisher that allows publication of licensed texts to a web server that students can access but that protects the copyright of the author.

Along with it’s open licensing approach Flat World Knowledge has implemented a textbook personalization and rendering tool, change the textbook from a boring object to a living, dynamic learning platform. You get professionally published textbooks published under a Creative Commons open license, transferring legal control to faculty.
Flat World’s breakthrough “Make It Your Own” (MIYO) Platform enables faculty to drag and drop chapters and sections to reorder the book, delete material, edit anything in the book down to the sentence level, and insert new content including audio and video multi-media from sources like YouTube and BlipTV.
Flat World’s open licensing and textbook customization with a radical pricing model gives a formula for disrupting an $8.5bil U.S. textbook market. Books are free online, while offline books cost around $35 for print, and $25 for other formats. For the first time, students can choose the format and price point best for them
I truly believe that this is the future of text books. The expense of books is mostly from the publishers and the giant and expensive printing operations that are required. They have raised over $27mil over the last 2 years in venture capital from investors including Bessemer and BDMI, so I’m not the only one that believes in them. Flat World Knowledge gives the students access inexpensively and gets the profits to the author instead of the publisher. You should get all your instructors to check it out.

Switching OS's Again

Well recently I've switched from Linux to Mac. Gasp. It's actually not too bad, and if you want to do any iPhone or iPad development you have to have so I figured I might as well get used to it. I have to say OS X is probably the nicest OS I've ever used. I find I don't need to customize much, as the default stuff works just like I want it to.
So hopefully I'll be posting a lot more stuff on the following topics:

• iPad programming
• MonoTouch
• MonoMac
• MonoDroid

And maybe some other misc stuff. More updates coming soon.

Affiliate Marketing

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of ClickBooth. All opinions are 100% mine.

I've been reading a lot about affiliate marketing lately and I think it's a subject that's gotten a pretty bad rap of late. Besides, who doesn't use Adblock nowadays anyway you might say, but in my experience as an IT Technician I can tell you, not a lot of people know of or use Adblock. I've seen a few sites that won't let you browse them if you have Adblock on, but those are very few and usually crappy anyway.

The truth is there's a pretty good amount of money to be made in Affiliate Marketing if you've got a good site, with a fair amount of traffic. The latter is probably more important than the former. Once you have those two though you need a descent Affiliate program membership, and that's where Clickbooth CPC comes in.

It's pretty easy to join, and rated the #1 Affiliate Network in the World by Website Magazine. A lot of Affiliate programs I've used all have pretty much the same offers, but Clickbooth actually has exclusive stuff that the others don't, and the payouts are awesome. They have tools on their site to help you create your campaigns and ads, and if you run WordPress it's stupidly easy to add the content to your site.

Most of the other Affiliate Networks I've used have some kind of rep you can email if you need to, but Clickbooth has 24/7 tech support. As far as I can see Clickbooth is one of the major networks out there that will provide this additional service to their publishers, providing more diversity. We're not talking porn banners here people, they have Dish Network, Gevalia, and other real, reputable company's so Google AdWords, Meet Your Competition: Clickbooth