Wayne Schulz – Page 3 – Schulz Consulting

Google Wave Guide Is Available Online

November 1, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Have you started to explore Google Wave?

Google Wave is a new web-based tool that is still in early testing. Ultimately it’s hoped that Wave will become an easy-to-use tool that enables collaboration between teams of people.

From the Google site:

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. If you have spent any amount of time with Google Wave you’ll know that a big part of the initial experience is confusing.

Without any formal user guide to provide information on Google Wave’s unique collaboration features work – most users are initially left to wonder aloud “what do we do next”.

Gina Trapani and Adam Pash have created an online manual titled The Complete Guide to Google Wave. This free manual is available now. You will be able to purchase a PDF copy starting in November.

The Complete Guide To Google Wave

Chapter 1 – Meet Google Wave
Find out what Google Wave is and what problems it solves

Chapter 2 – Get Started With Wave
Set up your Wave account and create your first wave

Chapter 3 – Manage Your Wave Contacts
Find and add people and groups to collaborate with in Wave

Chapter 4 – Find and Organize Waves
Tag, file, search and filter waves

Chapter 5 – Dive Deeper into Wave
Add rich content to your waves like maps and photo slide shows

Chapter 6 – Master Wave’s Interface
Navigate Wave from the keyboard and customize your Wave interface

Chapter 7 – Wave Gadgets
Add interactive content to your waves with gadgets

Chapter 8 – Wave Bots
Automatically update the contents of your waves with bots

Appendix A – What Wave Can’t Do
It’s not just you. See what’s NOT working in the current version of Wave, and what features the Wave team has promised are coming.

Appendix B – Contribute to The Complete Guide to Google Wave
In the spirit of Google Wave, this guide is a collaborative effort. We need you (yes, you) to help revise and expand this guide as Wave evolves.

One observation is the manual itself is in an open sourced MediaWiki online format rather than being created in Google Wave itself – perhaps an indication of how far Google still has to go in order for Google Wave to be truly useful for group collaboration.

[The Complete Guide to Google Wave] via [Download Squad]

Business Card Reader for iPhone is A Must Have – $5.99

November 1, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

If you’re like most people you have top desk drawer chock full of business cards that you’ve collected at conferences and other business meetings.

Of course you’ve collected them with the best intentions of manually entering them one-after-another into your computer – but somehow they sit unentered in that top drawer. Someday when you have extra time you’ll sit down and enter them all into your computer.

At last there’s a cheap and easy solution to automatically enter the information on most business cards to your computer.

If you have an iPhone 3GS there’s a new inexpensive software application called Business Card Reader from Shape Services that you should try.

business card reader shape services iphone.jpg

For only $5.99 you can download it to your iPhone 3GS (other versions are supported but because the 3GS has a higher resolution auto-focus camera this is the preferred model).

Use the application to take a picture of a business card.

Here’s a really lousy sample of a business card from a prospective client that I collected about a year ago. I took this picture with my iPhone 3GS in the dim light of my kitchen.

And unbelievably this $5.99 program transcribed the business card perfectly.

In this instance the contact phone, address and email were all exactly as they should have been – despite having been capture off a dimly lit photograph of a business card. Total time from image to transcription? About a minute.

Certainly in many instances you might have to tweak the final address if the program doesn’t read the information perfectly.

Total time from taking the image to having a new contact in my iPhone? About a minute.

Because I use Google Apps for my email and contact management I am also able to use the free iPhone GoogleSync program to automatically synchronize contacts off the iPhone directly to my Google Apps account.

The end result is a business card accurately scanned from any iPhone 3GS into your iPhone contact database. If you are synchronizing that data to Google Apps then the contact information will also synchronize in real time.

Recommended.
[Business Card Reader] (iTunes link)

Schulz Consulting providing MAS 90 and MAS 200 support and collaboration via Google Wave

October 14, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Schulz Consulting is now active on the new Google Wave service that’s presently in a limited preview release.

Google Wave is the next step beyond email. It allows for real time group conversations where every participant can view a complete history of the discussions. Simple email exchanges often omit large parts of conversations to anyone not on the email distribution list.

Future uses of Google Wave may involve collaborating on workarounds for software issues, real time seminars where participants can comment and add to the topics as well as technical support tracking where more than one company contact could have access to a complete history of the items that have been discussed.

Because Google Wave is in a limited testing preview you must first request an invitation from Google to participate (request).

If you are already on Google Wave you may connect to Wayne Schulz via wayneschulzct@googlewave.com

Service Update 14 replaced with new version that restores Paperless Office features

October 6, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

Did you update and apply the MAS 90 or MAS 200 Service Update 14 released on 9/29/09? If you did, and you’re a Paperless Office user, then run and grab the latest service update.

Confusingly named with the same version (SU 14) but released on 10/2/09 this fix to the fix re-enables printing of paperless office forms.

Apparently the latest 10/2 fix corrects an issue (Resolution ID 514877 Details Here) where the original SU14 caused all forms in the business framework to print as blanks if they were sent to paperless.

Service Update 14 10/2/09 via Beth Bowers

What’s new in MAS 90 3.50 through 4.2?

September 8, 2009 by Wayne Schulz

One question that we’ve heard time and time again as MAS 90 upgrades are released is “what’s new?”.

Often this can be a difficult list to remember – especially if the person asking is several release levels back on the software. It’s easy to remember what has been added from version 4.1 to 4.2 — but how about from 3.50 to 4.2?

If you’re curious about all the enhancements that Sage has made to MAS 90 and MAS 200 since version 3.5 then you may wish to review this handy list on their site.

A detailed list of every change is available on a release by release basis. The chronology starts at version 3.5 and extends to 4.2. There is no login required – simply click away at the link below.

What’s New in MAS 90 – Version 3.5 to 4.2

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