Fixing Email: New Boxer iOS Email App Is All About Adding Features

What exactly is the position of email these days? Is it the rich relative everyone's trying to cozy up to in an effort to bankroll their dreams? Or the troubled friend in desperate need of an intervention? Either way, the market for "fixing" email - currently led by iOS app Mailbox, which wants to "put email in its place" - is one of the hottest targets for new apps and services.

The latest player is called Boxer, which employs the tag line "email isn't broken, it's just unfair." (Apparently its co-founders subscribe to the rich-relative theory).

The two apps share a lot more than clever marketing slogans. Like Mailbox, Boxer is also an iOS-exclusive app meant to replace your native email client with one that greatly expands the user experience. Through clean design, simple list making, and nifty swipe gestures, both apps try to help users take the hammer to their inbox count.  

But while Mailbox has thrived with its singular goal of daily "inbox zero," Boxer is more concerned with casting the widest net and arming itself to the teeth with features. 

Where Boxer Has The Edge

First and foremost, Boxer works with multiple iOS email clients, from Gmail and Yahoo to Outlook and iCloud. This is great for users who have been looking for the singular email app that can unify work and personal accounts. 

"Let's differentiate by being the most open client out there. One that could be used for serious business as well," Jason Shellen, a Boxer co-founder, tells ReadWrite. In fact, Boxer is the only iOS email app that currently handles both Exchange and Gmail accounts. 

Mailbox got a great deal of early buzz from its slow-paced waiting list, which founder Gentry Underwood says was imperative to keep the server-side components of Mailbox's delivery system up to speed. Boxer on the other hand, has adopted a more user-friendly approach: it is giving itself away for free until it racks up 100,000 downloads. After that, it'll be $4.99.

Swipe To Do... What?

Boxer's swiping features are now commonplace in nifty app design, and work especially well with email organization. A swipe to the left archives the message. A swipe to the right pulls up five functions: Like, Quick, To-Do, Request, and Done. 

Quick is a familiar feature that allows for a pre-written response to be sent with the touch of a button. Boxer crafted a list for common use, but it's customizable. The To-Do option let's you set a due date and a priority level for a message, and the Request button takes that feature a step further and let's you assign a person to the message, say if it involves a task, and follow-up later. Other Boxer users can see if they've been assigned to a message and when the task is due. 

This kind of Boxer-to-Boxer interaction is a key differentiator for the app, and the Like button is the best way to see that in action. With one tap, a Boxer user can send a message that notifies someone they've simply Liked the previous exchange.

"The same sort of action used to be: 'Okay, now I need to open, hit reply, tap out an "Okay, let's go."' Ours is swipe, tap and you're on your way," Shellen says. 

This could reduce a long-standing email time-waster: when message recipients feel obligated to respond, often with no more than a "Thanks" or "Sounds good," just to let someone know they've seen the message. While the Like button currently works only in the form of a pre-written email, Shellen said visual Boxer-to-Boxer interactions are in the works. 

Features, Features And More Features

If that's not enough, Boxer also integrates contact lists from Facebook and LinkedIn, and lets you send attachements direct to Dropbox. You can also see and organize with Gmail labels, a key feature Mailbox currently lacks, despite its Gmail-only functionality.  

That many features can be overwhelming, so Boxer's acceptance will depend on its ability to walk the line between its impressive functionality and the ability of users to remember and take advantage of all that power - especially when compared to the conscious simplicity of its competitors.

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Apple Should Think Differently About Wall Street

Apple can't win when it comes to Wall St. Today's Street is more about high-stakes betting on fast growth than investing in the long term, and Apple's piled up enough assets to take care of their own financial well-being for years to come. Apple has a responsibility to long-term investors that, conveniently enough, matches up nicely with their own corporate DNA. 

Profits aren't necessarily driving share prices and big money deals right now. But potential sure is. So what? Play the long game, Apple, and share price will take care of itself.

Apple has exhibited staggering growth over the past decade or so, blowing out its own revenue records quarter after quarter while amassing close to $200 billion in total assets according to March 2013 filings (see chart below). That's more than twice the value of Google's assets, in case you're keeping score. Both iPad and iPhone sales continued to show year-over-year growth last quarter, and both broke company sales records during the previous quarter, which included the 2012 holiday shopping season. As Brian Proffitt noted, tablets are hot right now and they're particularly hot for Apple; Q2 iPad sales were up 65% from the same quarter last year.

But shares of AAPL are still off more than 35% since peaking at 705 last September. Meanwhile, Tumblr - a company with revenues somewhere between minimal and "underreported" - just sold for $1.1B. Instagram can tell a similar story. Why? Instagram and Tumblr had both racked up tens of millions of users churning hundreds of millions of page impressions with hardly an ad in sight. That spells potential - boundless untapped monetization potential - in their suitors' eyes. 

Shares of Tesla have spiked nearly 400% over the past year and the electric car maker literally just posted its first-ever profitable quarter. To compare, Apple posted a $9.5 billion profit in Q1 2013; Tesla reported profits of $15 million for the same quarter.  And yet Apple's share prices tumble while Tesla's climb a hockey stick growth curve. Why? Tesla's just now showing the kind of traction that could really disrupt a big industry. Again, potential. Poor old Apple has already torn up the music and wireless businesses. Unless they make a serious push to tear another dinosaur of an industry apart, there's no high growth opportunity in AAPL stock.

So what's a shareholder-accountable Tim Cook to do? Keep his poker face steady and solider on towards Apple's next game changer while continuing to grow iPad and iPhone revenues in the meantime. Cook's already done the right things in giving Jony Ive the keys to the kingdom, readying iOS and OS X updates for WWDC, issuing dividends and stock buy-backs and managing expectations ahead of a slow summer for products.

Cook even teased major disruptions during an interview at D:11 earlier in the week, naming television and wearable technology as two big markets Apple is keenly interested in exploring further. Of course Apple's been talking TV for a while now, which is part of the investor frustration Cook also acknowledged Tuesday night. And then there's the $10 billion Apple plans to spend on capital expenditures this year: $1B is earmarked for retail stores, leaving $9B for "a variety of areas," including manufacturing equipment and data centers. 

In other words, any suggestion that Apple is adrift without a plan for the future is utterly unfounded. Apple may not be telling the public what it's next move is, but it's clearly got a big thing or two in the works. 

Whether an Apple led by Tim Cook and Sir Jonathan Ive can remake a company like Steve Jobs' Apple did remains to be seen. But with nearly $200 billion to work with, there's literally no need for Cook and company to rush or investors to panic. Yes, Apple should take a moonshot soon; iPad isn't (yet) the volume product iPhone is, and iPhone's epic success might not last forever in wake of the Samsung-led Android charge. Iteration will only serve the company for so long.

Apple execs will tell you that innovation is key to Apple's corporate culture. It's in their DNA. Perhaps Apple would do well to take a page from their arch-rival's playbook when it comes to public risk taking. Whatever you think of Google's Glass and self-driving car projects, nobody's accusing Larry Page and company of resting on their laurels. Google's got a million and one projects coming and going and dropping out of the sky at developer conferences. Apple and Google are very different companies with very different philosophies around developing and shipping products, but Google has gained mindshare - and driven up their share price - at least partly due to their brash, cutting-edge experiments in the future of human-computer interaction. 

Funny as it sounds, maybe Apple should look to Google as a source of inspiration. No, I don't expect Tim Cook to skydive into WWDC next month. But Google found its cash cow in optimizing ads against search and now it can afford to experiment with basically whatever it sees fit. iPod and iOS devices have given Apple unimaginable financial resources of its own, and Tim Cook's bunch should ignore the naysayers, keep refining iOS and swing for the fences when they're good and ready.

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What You Want to Know About Free Webcam Chat Services

Many younger people, recently of age or coming of age, can't actively remember a time when calling someone more than twenty miles away cost a significant amount of money, and therefore was not really a leisurely thing to engage in.

Telephones, traditional parcel mail, telegraphs, and fax machines were the only instantaneous communications systems that were available, easily, for the public for many decades. But, this changed rapidly when, in the years of 1995 and 1996, massive upgrades to public computer systems and computer networking made the internet an easy to use and widely available appliance for people out there.

Over night the concept of a chat room, email, or instant messenger became a household concept, just as much as the word processor or video game had been the decade prior, thanks again to the advances in computers. People embraced this technology, not only for its convenience over traditional telephones and older services, but because of the outreach it gave people ultimately.

Chat rooms and video chat are something that modern young people grew up with, and take for granted, but nobody really thinks to ask the important questions about it, such as how it actually works, and how to be safe with it as well as smart with money while using it.

Free webcam chat, in most peoples' eyes, is in fact something usually associated with a few mobile services and the now infamous program Skype. However, this program was not the first one to support video chat (the first widely-accepted public use of video chat outside offices was in fact Microsoft's NetMeeting), nor is it the only one out there that can serve a good purpose now.

First, it's best to understand what's involved in the operation of video chat systems, so that one can see how simple it actually is, and therefore how logical it is that there are a wide array of uses for it and ways to make it work.

Video chat is not really any different mechanically than a traditional chat room, with a video stream attached in sync with it. Video streams, popularized by Shoutcast, Hulu, and YouTube, is really just two sets of two objects called sockets, one on each end listening, and one on each end talking. Fragments of data are sent from one talker to another listener at a constant rate, and vice versa, which is reassembled into a video and audio movie on the other end, just like television and radio have collectively done for nearly a century now.

This is why free webcam chat services can in fact be free. It's not really that difficult to design one, and even web pages can do it now, as demonstrated by many websites. These services are useful in different ways from Skype. Where Skype is more like a dedicated land line, always able to be reached when on, these website-based video chat systems are more of an on-the-fly usage type of thing.

Given how easy it is to implement free webcam chat systems, it's no surprise that almost every piece of electronics, from game consoles and mobile phones, to things like PCs and cable boxes almost all offer it in some form or another now.

The only real danger is in any form of communication, making sure one knows the other party well enough to share private information (which one's voice and image constitute among other things), as well as being very careful to keep children off of things like Chat Roulette, which like any web service out there, can have unsavory people showing or saying unsavory things, often not even meaning to say them to children they did not expect to randomly be on said service.

Free webcam chat is a commonplace thing, and now, understanding how it works, and how uncomplicated it is to build and implement, it's no small wonder why the free services are every bit as reliable and powerful as the now-outdated expensive video chat systems that once dominated the field.

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Worry Less About the Signal With an Upgrade to WiMax

It's great to be able to roam about most cities and towns in the country, Wi-Fi enabled device in hand. After all, for those who are trying to freelance from laptops or simply check email without running up data charges on a cell phone, there are more and more places in urban and not-so-urban areas around the country. Whether an entire city gets with the program to offer free service to those in public libraries and parks or the usual spots, like bookish cafes and coffee places close to college campuses, are doing the job, finding wireless internet has never been a more simple process. And for those who are willing to live at the mercy of whatever network is in place, then there's no worrying. It's possible to just get online when there is something strong enough, meaning that those who are on a deadline--or anyone who wants something more reliable--should keep looking beyond the world of typical routers.

One of the best options for those who want to keep running around, rather than moving back to the typical desk approach to getting things done, is to look into the world of WiMax. Rather than being stuck with something that is location-based, customers who decide to embrace the nationwide network approach to surfing the web will be able to get a steady signal from anywhere. Think about it much in the same way that one's cell phone manages to power things while on the go. Rather than being in a situation where it's impossible to find signal, towers that criss-cross the country carry one's web signal back and forth, whether it's across a particular part of town, one's own apartment, or the entire country. And since WiMax is set up to be national, the purpose is to be able to not worry about the signal faltering. Unless one is going particularly off-grid, there should be no difference between a coffee table in New Jersey or a fast food joint in the middle of Nebraska.

With WiMax, it also becomes possible to enhance everything from the typical travel experience to the sensation of needing to take a business trip. Rather than spending a ton of time worried about whether or not it's even going to be possible to connect, all that needs to be done is to turn on the computer. This can also be a lifesaver for those who are always on the go and multitasking, since it means finishing up work while waiting to pick up the kids from soccer practice or being able to be productive while trapped in an airport.

So no matter the reason, and no matter the reasoning, there really is only one superior method towards staying connected: getting on board with something that is designed to make it possible everywhere, not just in a particular area. And instead of dealing with limited routers and concerns about signal, WiMax makes it possible for anyone to suddenly be moving around with a whole lot more ease.

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Understanding About Your Benefits From DS3 Technology

DS3 simply stands for Digital Signal 3. It is one of the signals that is used when it comes to having bulk internet speed on your own premises. And I don't mean an Internet connection intended for your own home. It is an Internet connection intended for your company. Your company must have lots of locations. In technical language, we call that collocation.

You need bulk Internet speed for rapid flow of data between your company's branches. That is why you need DS3. DS3 is offered by some of the leading master solution provider in the world today such as AT&T, Qwest, Covad and XO Communication through its XO Colo division, among others. They are the best not just here in North America but in major cities in almost 50 countries around the globe. And here in the United States, they are available in around 25 cities.

That is why many of these companies usually compete each year for the customer satisfaction survey. And then the quality of the products of these companies is also superb. That is why they are called master solution provider. They can provide home Internet connection to bulk Internet connection such as T1 and T3 running on DS3. They can also provide enterprise hosting. And they can also provide cheap business phone service running on VoIP. They will also loan to you their telephony systems powered by Cisco. That's really cool, right? Most of these firms waive the installation fee and will also waive the renewal fee the following year. It means they are very confident in their industry as business phone service providers.

So how does DS3 work? When you hook up with us, our technical support personnel will go to your office and install all the equipment you need. It will be much cheaper and will save on electricity and long distance rates if you bundle with cheap business phone service. Cheap business phone service doesn't run on conventional phone lines so you don't add up any cost if you decide to call a business partner in Ireland or any country across the Atlantic. Once all your equipment are installed, the company's technical support staff will train your MIS team on how to maintain your uber-sensitive DS3 line. We will likewise suggest that you also take advantage of our enterprise hosting suite. With that, there would be proper flow of data going out of your network.

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Chat Points You Want To Learn About

Online Speak is the modern language of today that surfaced on chat sites and online communication boards, and is currently being used by just about everyone across the world regardless of their own native language. It's really a foreign language that has been expanding for more than a decade and still maturing.

In this article I'm going to expose you to a number of common online acronyms or abbreviations that are used on the internet nowadays on chat sites as well as other web based communication systems. We shall begin with the more frequent acronyms like "lol", "btw", and then I am going to cover a few lesser known ones like "lmao".

. "LOL": "Laughing Out Loud"

In case you've conducted just about any online chatting at all, it's likely that you're already familiar with lol. This is because it's the most well-known and most commonly used acronym online today and it's the standard method of indicating that something is humorous. Keep in mind that even though it is short for "Laughing Out Loud" it could be employed in any kind of situation when a smile is warranted. If you've done video in addition to text chat, you would ofttimes be amazed by how many folks who are not even smiling when they type "lol". "lol" has developed over time to the level where it really is now the established acronym to use in the form of response to any funny comment made by other people online.

. "ROFL": "Rolling On The Floor Laughing"

This as you would likely have guessed, is the extreme variation of "lol", it can be justifiably made use of in especially funny contexts. "rofl" is usually less put to use than "lol", nevertheless it really does serve essentially the same functionality. The rule of thumb is, if something genuinely made you have a good laugh for real (not necessarily really loudly) then "rofl" is essentially the word to use. A lot of people choose to use a prolonged "lol" like "loool" as a substitute for "rofl", this is certainly practical too, at the end of the day everyone has his own preferences and you learn to make use of the acronyms that match well with your character and overall attitude. "lmao" is an additional alternative for "rofl" that we'll talk about later on in this article.

. "BTW": "By The Way"

Essentially self-explanatory, having said that it may be used liberally in online communication to basically talk about anything that branches from the key topic. In real life you cannot simply go into a place filled with strangers talking and say "btw, how can I do xyz?". Online you've gotten more freedom to utilize "btw" for different purposes.

Bare in mind that you shouldn't use it on a regular basis to switch the subject as it can certainly irritate some people, especially if whatever you happen to be saying isn't going to relate to the primary topic being discussed.

. "ATM": "At The Moment"

As you've probably have suspected, this has absolutely nothing to do with ATM machines, not likely as well known as the ones I've already stated, nevertheless it is definitely not uncommon online. Even in formal email interaction, you find "atm" utilized in the same way it is utilised in real life. Having said that, if you're going to make use of "atm" in an email ensure that the person obtaining your mail knows this acronym, you would be surprised by the amount of of people who are unaware of this word and would stop reading your email to make sense of what you're actually trying to say.

. "AFK": "Away From Keyboard"

This is a truly organic acronym, employed to convey the fact that you're simply not near your keyboard anymore, or more specifically, you are not available anymore to talk to other people. It's a good idea to use this word even if you may be going away for a brief amount of time, or else, people might continue chatting with you, thinking that you could be basically ignoring them. If you think that someone you happen to be communicating with is not really aware of exactly what "afk" implies, you can actually basically use the extended full version.

. "IMO": "In My Opinion"

Regularly used on web based boards to show that you're not revealing a fact, that it's merely an opinion. Additionally it is a smart way of politely disagreeing with others of different viewpoints. "imo" is fairly new compared to the other acronyms we've stated, nonetheless it is a very common one today, even in professional interaction.

. "LMAO": "Laughing My A** Out"

This is yet another way to convey the fact that a thing is humorous. It is actually less widely used than "lol" and "rofl" and is fairly new, however join just about any chat room and you'll see it utilized all over the place.

Lmao is almost certainly not the right phrase to utilize when you're replying to your boss's humorous email about you being late for work. It is actually much more commonly used by youngsters, rarely utilised in any kind of formal context.

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What You Should Realize About Gigabit Ethernet and GigE Bandwidth

Gigabit Ethernet is actually newer variation in the 10Mbps and also the 100 Mb per second Ethernet solutions. There are several benefits of this upgraded model that many homes and businesses are taking advantage of. The transfer of data is very fast and it is a very reliable system. This newer system can be implemented rapidly and it's quite easy to do. There is no need to make any additional purchases on extra tools.

This service presents many advantages that directly affect network capabilities for LAN services. It is used in homes and businesses and continually growing in use. It is deemed a very advanced variation of original Ethernet systems that offer reliable as well as fast data indication. This product offers very fast data transmission between various hosts along with mainframe computers. This specific overall technological innovation is definitely not new. Several business enterprises utilize this technology due to its many benefits.

A large amount of the increase in this system's popularity is due to all of the advantages. There are a number of benefits. In addition to the very fast data transmission that could be found on larger bandwidths, this specific brand-new system also enables online video and voice data signal transmission. This process is done simply and is very cost effective. The affordable costs and the simplicity regarding implementation makes this specific technology remarkably convenient to many users. This specific system is very easy for any user to utilize without the need to buy any more tools. All you need to do is some rewiring.

This specific new service tool works with the traditional Ethernet nodes. For businesses that want to improve their effectiveness by raising data transfer usage capacity, this brand-new strategy is the best option.

It is usually the most cost effective option given it removes the need to spend money on additional tools. Firms also save on staff training since migration for the new system is such a breeze. Consumers may experience a few minor disturbances in relation to the transition due to an overlap from the earlier plan but this does not last.

To acquire this innovative product you will first need to have all of the right equipment that is actually compatible with this specific technology. All computers and laptops that were put out in the last six years are compatible to this technology. For older computers, that are not compatible, all that is required is a network then there are plugs as well as network cards which were very affordable.

You do not have to acquire a brand-new router to have access to this product. All of that is required is introducing a compatible switch to your current router. You will be able to acquire entry to the network much faster. Launching this service will improve your internet connectivity and efficiency.

Gigabit Ethernet service is loaded with many benefits. It is fast and easy to arrange. But you should know that this system doesn't make your internet surfing any faster, nor will it make adding or perhaps downloading files any quicker. This depends on the velocity of your respective ISP. This specific new technological innovation works in cases where you have several models accessing the same network.

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Talking About Weather

It's what people who don't know each other talk about on elevators. And not about the weather at all. Chatting about the weather with strangers is about emotional comfort.

When someone says "Beautiful day today, isn't it," as you settle into that narrow elevator space, or at the bus stop, or waiting in line at the supermarket, the conversation is about feelings. The person speaking is looking to feel more comfortable with you and offering you a chance to feel more comfortable with him or her.

Being in close proximity with strangers creates interpersonal tension. We can't help it. Tension automatically seeks resolution. What do you do? Do you acknowledge the person now only a short distance away, or pretend not to notice? Avoidance is one strategy: never make eye contact and act as if nobody is there, even while your feelings tell you otherwise. In a supermarket checkout line you might leaf through a magazine. On elevators, we routinely avoid others by looking up at the floor numbers.

The other option is to break the tension by acknowledging the other person. It starts with eye contact. Then we have a choice: smile, nod, make a comment or strike up a conversation. If we choose to talk, the most non-controversial subject to talk about is the weather. Why risk offending, confusing, or generating even more tension by talking about anything else?

A comment about the weather evokes agreement and feelings of sympathy. "What a nice day!" shares a tiny sliver of happiness. "I wonder if this rain will ever end," shares compassion about a mutual source of malaise. Both ends of the mini-conversation feel a tiny bit more connected for experiencing this emotion of liking or disliking the weather at the same moment.

This is how the human emotional system works. It motivates us to move from feelings of upset or discomfort to more harmonious feelings. It is always operating, managing our emotions in an effort to keep us stable and balanced, which is the strongest position from which to face whatever comes next.

In the Boston area, where I'm from, people who meet talk about the Red Sox. They assume that everyone around here is a Sox fan, and they're usually right. The weather is an even safer topic. Wherever you go, when you want to break interpersonal tension at low risk, stick to the weather. When you do, recognize that you're not focused on the skies at all. You are focused on having a slightly warmer relationship with the person in front of you.

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Learn About MPLS In Telecommunications

MPLS stands for multiprotocol label switching. It was originally invented by engineers from Ipsilon Networks, but was not successful in the marketplace. It was later built upon by Cisco Systems and given to the IETF for standardization. With the help of several vendors, it became a leading telecommunication standard. Using labels to direct data from one network node to another, MPLS makes it easy to make what are known as "virtual links" between nodes that are far apart.

Used in high-performance telecommunications networks, MPLS works by putting what is known as a label stack in front of the transmitted data. This label stack contains four fields, a label value, a traffic class, a bottom of stack flag, and a time to live field. Data is transmitted in effective chunks directed by the information in these label stacks.

Because of its ability to integrate what is known as layer 2 information about network links into the layer 3 IP within a system, the standard can improve and simplify IP-packet communications. The standard gives those who operate a network a higher ability to route traffic around congestion and link failures.

Minimal packet loss and latency is possible using the standard, as networks can effectively route traffic to improve the quality of service for certain individuals. This ability to route traffic allows for a great deal of control over networks, allowing service providers to customize services for different priority levels and service plans.

When a packet enters an MPLS network, a label edge router (LER) gives it a unique identifier, or label. As stated above, this label contains transmission data and refers to the level 3 IP information, differentiated service, and layer 4 socket information. When this information has been classified and mapped, the packets are assigned to label switch paths (LSPs). It is on these paths that label switch routers (LSRs) put outgoing label information on the packets.

Multiprotocol label switching can be implemented along with any existing infrastructure to create efficient, scalable, secure networks that allow for highly customizable services. Originally proposed to increase the forwarding speed of routers, the technology has been shown to be better than current IP technology at traffic engineering and VPN support. With its use, network operators have heightened capabilities in efficiently and effectively routing data.

The label stacks used in an MPLS system act almost as a zip code, directing the traffic to its intended destination. While traditional network process IP information at every router, an MPLS network can use the label stacks to direct traffic with more precision, eliminating the need for such hop by hop routing. In addition to standard data, the standard is also fully capable of supporting voice data, making it ideal for more efficient VoIP networks.

MPLS is a technology that allows for many benefits over traditional IP networks, including the ability to more effectively route traffic and to customize quality of service (QoS) for different customers, as well as better support VPN access. Its use is ushering in new ways for the telecommunications industry to transmit data in an efficient, secure way over existing architecture.

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