Ask The Admin » Free Services

What The Hell is Mosio?

asktheadmin — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:28:00 +0000

I came across Mosio during my normal 6 hours-a-day surfing the web. I signed up for the service a few months ago and I don’t think I really grasped how cool Mosio was until I was at the bar.

A couple of my fraternity brothers were having a heated debate over the (ever so) political topic of whose breasts are bigger Pamela Anderson or Elvira. A light bulb flashed over my head and I said text that question to ask@mosio.com… No wait do it from my phone.

We did it while I was explaining that this site has a service where real live people can answer your questions via text message, and usually pretty quickly – did I mention it was Free? Yeah you knew that was coming right?!?

AskTheAdmin has covered Wikipedia’s sms app and a few others. None of them gives you that extra zing of being answered by a real live person and not a machine. The first time i hit it up I asked it if it could find a review of AskTheAdmin.com. Two people found me a review I had never seen before , and summarized it. I got back a text message that said AskTheAdmin.com is a great website there is a review about them on TechWag.com. 5 seconds later I got another one saying AtA is all over StumbleUpon. Almost makes me feel famous but back to my original question – the boobs…

We were drunk. So while I was explaining Mosio they had already forgotten about the boobs and were intent on asking Mosio all sorts of stupid questions! Then a text popped up on my phone…

Pamela of course have you seen her in a bathing suit?

BAM! As usual I was right but, this time the fight ended so much easier… And a lot more peaceful! Now you can’t put a price on that! Obviously you can use this for other things as well.

How about directions, movie listings, froogle prices anything you could have looked up in front of a computer – now someone else can look it up and text you! Sweet!

They also have a bunch of mobile apps here. As you can imagine the Chuck Noris Quote Generator was right up our alley but we pointed and stared at the Text reminders – another handy tool! Wow these mosio guys thought of everything!

Check it out, sign up, add them as a contact on your phone right next to goog411 and wikipedia. Hey they are free why not make use of them.

_TheDrunkAdmiN_

Web Stats 2.0: Me Likey Clicky

asktheadmin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:00:00 +0000

Take a look at the graph to the left. Does something look unusual about yesterdays traffic? It seems we are BLOWING UP all of a sudden and we love it! Thank you for all your continued support. Yes we are talking to you – our readers! It is great to know people want to hear what we have to say! And thank you (strangely) for you birthday wishes (it’s tomorrow – how did you guys know?? No that’s not strange @ all, just a little frightening!)

So in honor of us breaking the 24,000 hit mark in one day, (blowing our previous record of 14,000 to shreds) we will be reviewing a new (well new to us) web stats service that runs on web 2.0 aka Ajax. For the non-technically inclined that means its the bee’s knees.

In addition to being all purty like it handles a lot more data than StatCounter does (@ least for free). StatCounter caps us @ 500 lines (hits) to analyze at any given time. Don’t get me wrong it keeps a running total but thats about it. And I feel that we have seriously out grown their service. So now that we are consistently breaking 2,000 hits a day and have seen HUGE traffic days we need to be better prepared. Enter Clicky…

Clicky was just as simple to set up as StatCounter (just a few simple javascript lines to add) and we were on our way to improved stat looking. Sounds technical right? The first thing that caught my fancy was the SPY tab… This is awesome you watch in real-time what your users are doing on your site. The data scrolls on by showing you entry points, exit points, how many actions were taken and so much more. I was already hooked at this point and it just kept getting better.

It turns out they have rss feeds for your stats! How cool is that? Now we can create custom applications that digest the stats and spit them back @ me in prettier formats. Then we found the GOODIES! Widgets Galore… I now see a Google map on my iGoogle page with where my recent visitors came from, and full on live statistics coming from Clicky!

Damn we really love our numbers over @ AtA!! So here is a link to sign on up for this great free service and they have a PRO service as well but we have not seen what it does just yet! Anyone using Clicky? Got a better free solution? Hit us up in the comments!

_TheStatLovingAdmiN_

Connect with your partner in ways you never thought possible… With a FREE Exchange Server!

asktheadmin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:56:00 +0000

Hey boys and girls!

Have you ever been in a situation where you wished you could sync calendars with somebody who is seemingly unconnected? On top of that, you wished that somehow, by some magical force, those calendars can sync automatically, wirelessly and invisibly; involving no further effort beyond the initial configuration, and that this calendar should follow you wherever you go. Naturally (who wouldn’t, right?).

So here is my situation:
Fiance’ 1.5 wants to perform a systems upgrade to wife 2.0. Now we’ve teamed up towards common goals before. Planning a vacation, weekend getaway or even organizing a trip to the movies takes some collaboration right? After all, we’re busy people in 2007. We have our own agendas. But now we are faced with the largest team effort we have ever faced collectively, together. It’s not the vows I’m talking about, it’s not the commitment. It’s not the prospect that this is the person you will be staring at for the rest of your life. No. That doesn’t scare me one bit. What scares the holy crap out of me is planning the wedding. This big, monster of a team collaboration project. If you succeed, you win the reverence and admiration of over 150 guests, including family members, friends, coworkers, and possibly bosses. If you fail, FOR SHAME TO YOU (as my Russian family would say). Pure embarrassment. So basically, failure is not an option. So fiance’ 1.5 and I were faced with a conundrum. How do we stay in sync? How do we go about speaking to multitudes of wedding service providers and making appointments with these people simultaneously, while being able to see at a glance whether or not there are any appointment conflicts. So this is our problem – we need to stay connected, within a 10 minute lag time from one another – no more, no less. But who has the time to call each other every 5 minutes, and in between other phone calls, to make sure were not conflicting?

So first I’ll list what were working with:

A PC at home with Activesync and Outlook, synced nightly with:

An AT&T 8525 HTC Hermes with an unlimited internet plan – this is my phone.

An AT&T Samsung Blackjack – this is my fiance’s phone – never synced, EVER, WITH ANYTHING – she never even knew it could do that.

At first I started insisting that her and I come home at the end of each day, and enter any and all appointments into MY outlook, and then add herself as a meeting attendee. This creates an email which is sent by Outlook that automatically enters the appointment into her phone, and is updated on my phone when I sync via USB every night. This idea looks great on paper, but requires a bit of a commitment to come home every night and devote X amount of time transferring scribbled notes into outlook.

So at first I searched for a way to sync via IP address. No Dice. It seems M$ removed this after version 3.4 of Activesync . My only recourse was an Exchange server. Now I’ve never used Microsoft Exchange, and I’m only now becoming familiarized with what Exchange can do for a person, team, or organization. In my case, Exchange would allow my fiance’ to enter an appointment into her phone, real time and it syncs with my phone. Since Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition doesn’t allow you to add attendees to an appointment, and Windows Mobile 6 doesnt know what to do with vCal items in email, Exchange Server is a requiem for this to work. Considering we’re on a tight budget for time and money as it is, enter mail2web.

From the mail2web site:

“mail2web LIVE, our free Exchange Email solution goes beyond webmail to provide calendars, task management, contact lists, advanced rules for sorting messages, and even ActiveSync capability.”

mail2web LIVE is just one of the many services this site offers. You basically sign up for a FREE (love that) mail2web live account. A free live account comes with alot of task and personal management features. It’s no coincidence that it supports all the various PIM information types that Outlook supports such as Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Email, and others. For my purposes, I only wanted to use the calendar feature, since I didn’t want any of my fiance’s contacts, nor did she want any of mine. So of all the features mail2web LIVE offers, Calendar was the magic bullet.

I started off by opening the free mail2web account. This process entailed divulging practically no personally identifiable information about myself. Basically choosing a username, and the desired email address to which I’d like the account associated. As soon as that was complete, there appeared an interesting button with the words “configure your mobile device for this account”. Hmm sounds almost too tempting… could this be a trap? It’s just too convenient. Clicking this link yields a popup with links to downloading auto-configuration files. For some strange reason this config file didn’t work for me. However further digging revealed a “Control Panel” page with an “Activesync Settings” sub-panel. This page is dynamically generated to contain the exact settings for your mail account. Which is the main reason I can’t link you guys and girls straight to the page. This page contained all of the settings needed to manually set up my phone to Activesync via this Exchange server, which contains my personal account hosted by mail2web. At this stage I’m presented with a choice on my phone, by activesync, as to which points of information I’d like to have synced with this server. Since this mail2web account is strictly for the purposes of synchronizing my calendar with my fiance’s, I was very careful to be sure that only the “Calendar” checkbox is checked. If you’re using this service as your personal activesync server, that you and only you will be using, you can just as well check every box and have all your information conveniently backed up to mail2web’s servers. But I have a different evil scheme.

My scheme involves both mine, and my fiance’s phone, syncing to this account for the sole purpose of retrieving and synchronizing the calendar, and only the calendar. While this is not what the service was originally meant for it is technically possible, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t go against any of their policies or T’s & C’s, so I used it to my advantage.

When I was done setting up activesync on my 8525 to sync over the air every 10 minutes with my new mail2web account, I grabbed my fiance’s Blackjack and did the same with her phone. I set up her Activesync to connect to the server provided to me by the mail2web Account Control Panel’s Activesync Settings sub-panel. Now her phone and my phone are magically sharing 1 calendar. And this calendar updates the Exchange Server every 10 minutes when her phone syncs up. This information is grabbed by my phone every ten minutes when that syncs up, and this information is transferred to my home PC’s instance of Outlook when I hook up to USB to charge every night. This works perfectly vice-versa as well, when I enter a calendar item into my 8525.

It is now a seamless and invisible background task that her and my phone perform, and we are totally in sync. Now, when she makes an appointment with a florist for Wednesday of next week at 8:30 PM, My phone knows about it no more than 10 minutes later. And when I look at my calendar to make my own appointments with a Videographer, I’ll see instantly not to mess with Wednesday evening of next week, unless I want to be watching other peoples wedding videos at 10:30 PM on a weeknight, after spending 2 mind-numbing hours in a flower shop.

This is truly the closest I’ve ever felt to my girl, and we really are connecting in a way that not many other couples have connected in. My only gripe with this process is that I keep thinking I have a manicure appointment on Tuesday. She better hope I don’t show up and try to claim it.
I hope this helps some new couples get their schedules together, or some business partners sync their collective work schedules up. I’m positive this free service mail2web provides will help lots of people discover the benefits of collaboration, Windows Mobile style.

Peace
Commodore 64 (the one you used to paly Bruce Lee on)

Bloglines Beta Review + AtA asks Bloglines some Questions…

asktheadmin — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:31:00 +0000

We have been using the web based version of Bloglines for some time now. It is our favorite RSS reader for a bunch of reasons – no installation, saved searches, but namely speed. Our only gripes were lack of a specific view (3 paned) and the absence of a social network twist. Ask.com acquired Bloglines a little whiles back and it stood stagnate for some time. So when we heard about the new Bloglines Beta we were excited to say the least. 3 paned viewing was one of the thing we were hoping for and here it is…

We have been playing with the new Beta for a few weeks now and we are loving on it. The customizable home page is sweet. The new look and feel is slick and comfortable. The drag and drop Ajax functionality is nice and we jumped right in and didn’t look back. This is just the first phase in a complete make over of the site. The best part is even with all of these enhancements they have retained all their speed. Maybe it’s a little faster even, it does work faster than Google Reader. We were so smitten with the app AtA solicited a little Q & A with the good folks over @ Bloglines. AtA spoke with, the man with the plan, Eric Engleman earlier today:

AtA: Do you plan on adding share this or email this an option to posts?

Bloglines: We plan on offering comparable functionality in the new version of Bloglines. In the case of email, it was released September 5th. In regards to “share” functionality we will continue to offer shared Blog Rolls, a public profile and in the future we will also offer shared list of favorite “posts.”

AtA: . How about a browsable blog directory, is that something we could see?

Bloglines: There are several services which currently offer blog directories yet none of them have really broken through. At Bloglines we think this is because the average person doesn’t really think about just blogs. This is getting even more so with indie bloggers like Perez Hilton with millions of subscribers and major media companies like the N.Y. Times starting to offer their own blogs. As blogs expand from being just personal web journals to mini-media empires the distinction will get even less. At Bloglines, we offer a combined rankings of feeds and blogs because we don’t think the average person differentiates the two. Our general approach is to treat blogs as any other feed. This provides some interesting juxtaposition of large media companies and indie bloggers battling it out.

AtA: What about blog rankings or top ten subscribed feeds in different categories – does that sound like something that would go well with your service?

Bloglines: Bloglines currently offers a top 200 list and provides public subscriber data which is oftentimes used in rankings to judge blog popularity.

AtA: How many people use BlogLines? How about the Beta?

Bloglines: Bloglines was one of the first feed readers and continues to have a significant number of users. The Beta just started last week and to be honest, we haven’t been closely tracking the number of users. Instead, we’ve been closely monitoring the feedback from our Blogliners. We want to make sure our core users are happy before worrying about additional users.

AtA: What do you think about the idea that users’ opml files can be marked as shareable and people lists can be ranked?

Bloglines:That’s a great idea. Yet, a number of people have attempted or are attempting this with mixed results. So it appears there’s a little bit of magic required to make this idea of shareable OPML files truly useful for the average person.

Ata: We got one more for you Eric. Any chance in seeing a Bloglines for Windows Mobile Devices?

Bloglines: A WAP or XHTML interface is currently available for mobile devices including Windows. The Bloglines team is working on a new mobile version for the Beta which will be available shortly!

If you use a web based feed reader other than Bloglines now might be a good time to give it a shot. And if you don’t use one – You should start!

_TheAdmiN_

Is there such a thing as a Throw Away E-mail address?

asktheadmin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 13:00:00 +0000

How many times have you been asked online to provide your personal information, such as your name, number and e-mail address? If you are like me, thousands of times, almost everyday. Each time you do it too, you have this aching feeling in your stomach, because you know you are about to get about a thousand spam e-mails now.

So, what are you supposed to do? Give them a fake e-mail address? Perhaps, but what if they require verification. You know, they send you an e-mail and you have to open it up and click on some link. What are you supposed to do then?

I’ll tell you what I do, I go to a little website called 10 Minute Mail. The name says it all, they give you an e-mail address that is literally only good for 10 minutes. If you need additional time, there is a link that resets the timer. After the time is up, the e-mail address self destructs. No muss, no fuss, and more importantly, no spam!

This service is absolutely free. However, if you decide to use it, they ask for a small donation through paypal. The donation isn’t mandatory, but it is a nice gesture.

Originally Posted on Bauer-Power By El Di Pablo

Googles Free 411 service just got better with text messages and maps!

asktheadmin — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 10:59:00 +0000

We read about Googles free 411 service 1.800.goog.411. And its great as we have been using it for some time now. Now we see it has the ability to text you the address and phone number of your query as well as send you a link to a map! This is great to save to your phone book forward to someone else – whatever we like options! Below find Google’s info followed by the original article we read from a few months back. Thanks BoyGenius!

Welcome to Google Voice Local Search Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone. Using this service, you can:

search for a local business by name or category.You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”. get connected to the business, free of charge. get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.Just say “text message”. Dial from any phone1-800-GOOG-411(1-800-466-4411) And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider. Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings. To find out more about getting GOOG-411 and other Google products on your mobile device, visit

Google Mobile web site.

Google’s free 411 business search (Goog-411) is up, running, and receiving mass praise. A week later, Microsoft’s accusation, TellMe, has launched their own version of business search. Simply call 1.800.555.TELL to get business listings throughout the United States. You can also send a text message with the business information to “TELLM“, and receive the information back via SMS. Third, they have a mobile java-based client that will give you a map, and interface to search for the business listing. BlackBerry users have had a similar service, Beyond411 (formerly Berry411) for local searches for some time now. The war to deliver information via a mobile device is on. The good news is that TellMe and Goog-411 are both free services, saving you from spending money using your phone’s costly 411 service. Viva la 411!

_TheUpToEarlyAdmiN_

Do you want to know the answer to every question?

asktheadmin — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:30:00 +0000

of Course you do… Who wouldn’t right??

Well This is utterly amazing… I didn’t really grasp how cool it was until I used it… I dialed up 23907 and hit send text message and typed out my text query…ABOUT [topic]

about wikipedia

And I got back a link dumb quick which put me into wikipedia mobile with the word spelled out phonetically and quick links to more information. In a matter of seconds I now know as of August 1st 2007 Wikipedia has 7.9 million articles. 1.932 million are in English….

You can also do NEWS [topic] and pull links for recent headlines.

Wow now I too can be the life of the party… Winner of all things trivia… Geek of all geeks. Yeah the last one is probably the closest to reality. So geek out to yourself but have the option

SMS service GoLive! Mobile now offers a convenient text messaging interface to
the Wikipedia. Text the words about to short code

23907

and you’ll get back a link to a mobile-friendly, shortened Wikipedia page. This is fantastic for quick trivia look-ups on the go – but it does require that you can surf the web on your cell phone. (If only they texted you back the results…) Just beware of GoLive! Mobile’s homepage, which features an annoying “Chat with us!” box that floats back and forth across the screen. Also, your mobile plan’s regular SMS charges apply. [From Micro Persuasion via Lifehacker]

Search Wikipedia and RSS News Feeds via SMS

If your phone isn’t web ready then you can use this pure text message yahoo… quick read this here…AtA

Free Push Email For Any Device?

asktheadmin — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Straight out of the press release website Emoze offers free push service via a client installed on your mobile device. No more waiting 5 minutes for a sync or paying an extra thirty bucks a month for blackberry services. It sounds good. I am going to give it a try and report back. What about you guys – Anyone try it out yet?

Free service offers full synchronization to Google’s Gmail users by providing the highest level of security to fulfill personal and corporate user needs.

RANAANA, Israel, August 28, 2007 – The first true push mobile email service for Gmail™ users worldwide, including Google Mail™ users (as the service is formally known in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom), has been launched by emoze.

The free service, available for downloading directly to consumers’ mobile handsets at http://mobile.emoze.com/, or via a web-based wizard at http://www.emoze.com/, targets the millions of Gmail account holders (according to comScore Media Metrix) that would benefit from the automatic receipt of their emails on their wireless devices. emoze is committed to the democratization of mobile email by providing free push email service to the global wireless market that prefers to use any type of standard mobile device without the need for an expensive BlackBerry™ handset and monthly service.

Stay tuned for more information on this free service. Whatcha Guys Think?