This Saturday Innovative Technoloy's Robert Wray went down to check out the Crisis Commons.  The event was a mind blowing collaboration of over 1,000 technical volunteers on three continents.   Crowd-sourced community-generated maps have become the official on the ground map resource in Haiti.  In this video, Fortiusone's CTO Andrew Turner explains how you can start helping Haiti in 10 minutes with no cash, just some of your time. Links talked about in the video are ushahidi - Haiti SMS disaster relief collaboration, Crisis Commons ,and ImapHaiti. How you get started in less than 10 minutes: http://imaphaiti.com The event was also covered by internal media organizations such as CNN, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times,  Wired and O'Reilly Media.

We have suggested to many of you to buy a wireless connection to fill your need for constant connectivity. This could be for connectivity on the go or for a backup internet connection when your cable or DSL line goes down. XOHM has merged with clearwire. As part of this merger, all the XOHM hardware is getting deactivated and "Clear" hardware has been sent out as a replacement. We got our new Clear hardware today for our XOHM monthly account. XOHM Promised on November 11th to upgrade our "pay as you go" equipment, but has since backed down on that promise. The XOHM pay as you go plan allowed for people that travel heavily like I do, or only occasionally need on the go access to have a service option by the day or by the week without subscribing to an expensive monthly plan or having long term commitments. Here is a photo of their desktop hardware.

After two hours on the phone it has been determined that our first modem clear sent was defective.   More later.

image: 

Have we done so much remote work and preventative maintenance for your office that you forgot what we look like?  Check out our current group photo shot.   We also plan to do a winter party soon, so please come see us there too.  We expect the party to happen in January or February.  Check back here soon or follow us on twitter.  @innov8usa.

image: 

Robert Wray Interviewed on MPT's Direct Connection from Robert Wray on Vimeo.

MPT's Jeff Salkin has Innovative Technology's founder, Robert Wray, on his show tonight to discus Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Mac OS. Tune in or call to ask questions at 7:30 Direct Connection with Jeff Salkin



On today's MPT show we plan to talk about Windows 7 and it's true value beyond the marketing glitz. We also might talk a little bit about the forever raging debate of a mac vs. a PC. Here are some of my thoughts on both:

Windows 7 upgrade? My thoughts can be broken down into a few points.

• If it ain' t broken, don't fix it.
• Windows 7 is certainly not worth more than 50$
• If you love the latest and greatest buy it! Consider the family pack discount for 150$. This upgrades up to 3 computers @ 50$ each.
• If you qualify, take advantage of the 29$ student discount before January 3, 2010.
• Consider the 50$ upgrade for your old PC if you buy a second PC

Mac Vs. PC

• You almost always get an amazing product with Apple. They have great customer service and stand behind their work.
• Apple upgrades and repairs are often prohibitively expensive out of warranty.
• If you buy an apple, the decision is greatly simplified
• With proper research and hunting, a PC can offer an amazing value.
• PC World did a great side by side comparison of the two operating systems
• Apple only charged 29$ for their OS upgrade called "Snow Leopard"
• Take a look at a side by side comparison of a current PC deal vs. an Apple mac book which never go on sale

Do you want to make your computer run twice as fast? Robert Wray, Innovative Technology's founder talks about one of the greatest products in computing over the last serveral years . This could speed up your computer from 2-20 times faster. Watch the video below to find out more.

Innovative Technology Founder Talks about SSD from Robert Wray on Vimeo.

If you want more technical detail, you can watch a prior video interview Robert Wray did with one of the creators of the Intel SSD (transcript) or read a great article done over at anandtech. E-mail us to get a quote on an upgrade price.

Welcome to the blog of Innovative Technology Consulting! Stay tuned for PC / network related news items and tips.