Now that Vlingo has lowered the price of their Android Voice Keyboard to the low low price of free the default keyboard from Google has some serious competition.  Take a look below as we show you how they both work in the real world.  Keep in mind, if your phone is running Android 2.0 to 2.1 Vlingo is your only option for now.  Google’s Voice Keyboard only runs on Froyo (Android 2.2). Unfortunately, this means if your phone is still on Android 1.6 you’re out of luck for now.

Until today the free Google Voice service had been available by invitation only.  Now that the flood-gates have opened and an invitation isn’t required we expect Google Voice usage to skyrocket.  In short, Google Voice gives you a telephone number which can be forwarded anywhere, free transcription of voicemails (which we’ve had moderate success with), cheap international calling and a whole host of other features which you can read about by clicking on the picture above.  Small businesses can benefit greatly through this free service (especially in conjunction with the Google Apps Suite) since it means your incoming calls can be screened and routed to the appropriate place (cell phone, office line) without the expensive setup most companies pay for.  Additionally, the service works great with all four major smartphone platforms (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry) so you can access everything on the go.  Sorry international crowd, this is U.S. only for now.

As of right now you can walk right into a Radio Shack, Sprint Store, or purchase online an EVO 4G, the world’s first 4G phone available only on Sprint.  This Android powered smartphone is a no-brainer for current Sprint customers looking to upgrade to a new device and features a 1GHz processor, a 4.3″ touchscreen, and a mobile hotpot app which will let you share your 4G connection with up to 8 other devices*.  Coming right before the launch of the fourth generation iPhone Sprint picked the perfect time to make their new flagship phone available.  The question remains, is this smartphone going to bring any new subscribers to “The Now Network”?  For a quick video review from Engadget watch the clip below.

* 4G is currently available in 13 states, click here to see if you live inside a coverage area.

We’ve partnered with Full Circle Marketing here in Denver, CO to bring fully customized business card printing to all of our clients.  Now you can ditch that old @yahoo.com or @aol.com email address in favor of something more professional while stocking up on high quality cards to advertise what you do best.  Feel free to call or email us for more details and take advantage of this deal while it lasts.  Our introductory pricing of $69 for 1,000 business cards ends on June 15th, 2010.

From Engadget.com

For years BlackBerry BIS users have had to put up with a very sub-par experience with their Gmail.  Read / unread status didn’t sync between your Gmail and your phone, deleted emails could take hours to sync (if they synced at all) and you couldn’t use labels to organize your email.  Well rejoice BlackBerry fans, your time has come!  As of now you’ll be able to do nearly everything with your Gmail account that iPhone, Windows Phone, Android, and Palm WebOS users currently enjoy.  Many BlackBerry users have been using the Google Mobile App (from m.google.com) to check their Gmail on their phone of choice, but now that the built-in email client has made these changes you can expect a much better experience than you’re used to.  There is one big caveat, this update did not apply to BES users, which means most corporate issued BlackBerry phones are going to be left out in the cold for now.  We’ll let you know when that changes, for now just enjoy the long overdue update from Waterloo.

Over the weekend we got news of a very quiet product release by Microsoft, the free Fixit Center application.  We’ve given it a try and think this program may serve a lot of our clients well as a first line of support.  After being installed Fixit Center automatically grabs all of the relevant details about your computer and looks for any problems you may have been having.  From there you must sign in with a Windows Live ID (don’t worry if you don’t know what that is, it’s just a free account with Microsoft and doesn’t automatically share any of your personal information) before the troubleshooter opens.  After that you’re presented with a list of automated troubleshooters which did fix a couple small problems on our test machine.  However, even if the Fixit Center doesn’t solve your problems it does record all the relevant details about your issue and give you the option to forward that to a professional technician.  It’s free, works pretty well and even if it can’t solve your problem it will assist a real person in getting your computer back to normal.  We like it and will be recommending it to all of our clients.

Previously available only on T-Mobile in the United States the Nexus One made its debut on AT&T this morning.  The only other smartphone running Google’s Android Operating System on the nation’s fastest network is the Motorola Backflip which saw the default search engine changed from Google to Yahoo, confusing a lot of people in the process.  Price wise the Nexus One is sold unlocked from Google at www.google.com/phone for $529, whereas the Motorola Backflip can be purchased on contract with AT&T for $99.99.  For most people the price of an unlocked phone is exorbitant,  but for some of our small and medium business clients adopting the Nexus One in conjunction with other Google services can save their business thousands of dollars per year.  Next up to receive the Nexus One unlocked is Verizon in the United States later this spring.

SEO Tool from Microsoft

There are literally thousands of companies out there who will charge you or your business an arm and a leg for better results in Bing, Google, or Yahoo!.  And while we wouldn’t discourage any of our clients from using those services, a few minutes and a free tool from Microsoft could save your organization a lot of money.  Enter the free Microsoft SEO Toolkit, a powerful and very easy to use program which will tell you exactly what can be done to improve your website.  We’ve tested it here on the official TechMinds site and were pleasantly surprised at the productive feedback it creates.  You don’t need any real knowledge about how your website works to get results, to give it a try click on the picture above or follow the link after this post.

http://www.iis.net/expand/SEOToolkit

No More Duplicates in Gmail

While not quite as popular as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail a lot of you rely on Google for your email needs.  Most of our small business clients use Google Apps (free or paid) to manage their email. calendar, contacts and tasks for up to 50 people.  So you can imagine how important it is to have only one “contact” for each person you’re in touch with.  A contact list can easily get out of hand when you have different entries for someone’s email, home/work address and multiple phone numbers.  After listening to enough complaints Google has now made it easy to merge duplicate entries with the touch of a button.  Just click on “Contacts” when you sign into your Gmail or Google Apps Account and then click “Find Duplicates” in the center of the page.  That’s it!

Whether your web browser of choice is Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari there’s a quick and easy way to make sure all of your bookmarks are the same on every computer you use.  Over the years we’ve seen homes without a computer dwindle,  now it’s not surprising for a family to have two or more (Macs or PCs) in the house.  This creates a problem most people haven’t had to face until now, how do you manage all of the bookmarks you’ve accumulated over the years?  And why can’t these software companies make it easy to sync your bookmarks across different computers.  We’ve done the legwork for you by testing out each of the free solutions on the market, and we’ve compiled a short list of recommendations depending on which browser you prefer.

Internet Explorer - Xmarks the spot (please forgive us, we couldn’t resist) when it comes to most of the popular web browsers on the market and Microsoft’s is no exception.  In return for signing up for a free account with the Xmarks crew you’ll use your username and password to sign into their secure servers (once for each computer you use) and then follow the prompts to sync your bookmarks across computers.  It’s secure, easy to use and will automatically update your information as soon as a new bookmark is entered, making it easier to just enjoy your time online.

Mozilla Firefox - Originally named FoxMarks, Xmarks began as a very humble Firefox extension which let users sync bookmarks between computers.  Where the Firefox version sets itself apart is that not only will your bookmarks remain in sync, but you can choose to do the same with your password as well.  The Xmarks servers are very secure and this is a great feature for those of us with a thousand different online passwords and no method for remembering them.  If your use Firefox then Xmarks is a must have add-on.

Google Chrome - With a very colorful advertising campaign and the fastest browser on the market Google Chrome had developed a devoted following in short order.  Over the coming months it’s quite possible that we’ll recommend Xmarks here.  However, Chrome itself is still pretty closed to the outside world for the time being and we’re not comfortable with this version of Xmarks as it stands today.  To Google’s credit they acknowledged this shortcoming with a feature of their own creatively called “Google Chrome Bookmark Sync.”  By downloading the newest version of Chrome here you can use this new feature to sync your bookmarks instantly.  Google has posted a helpful video here (Windows only for now).

Apple Safari - Fear not Mac users, your bookmarks aren’t left out in the cold.  Xmarks also provides a version of their software which will sync with Safari (whether you use Leopard or Snow Leopard).  By clicking here you can compare the Mac version of Xmarks to the others and pick the one that’s right for you.  The standout feature for the Mac is that you can use Xmarks to keep your bookmarks in sync with all of your computers, and your iPhone or iPod Touch.  This is perfect for everyone who uses these devices to suf the web on the go and hates entering your favorite sites over and over again.

Hot off the presses and ready to impress.

Our copies of Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional just arrived in the mail and we’re ready to get to work upgrading all of those old Windows XP computers to the newest from Microsoft.   Click on the picture above to head over to the official Microsoft website with details about what’s new in Windows 7 and keep our expert consultants in mind when it comes to your upgrade.

Great Deals await those with a .edu email address

Microsoft has always had a good relationship with institutions of higher education, and now that can translate into significant savings for anyone with a .edu email address.

The Ultimate Steal – This one has been going for a while now, but I’m constantly surprised at how few people know about it.  For $59.95 you can purchase the FULL package of Office Ultimate Software including Word 2007, Excel 2007, Outlook 2007, PowerPoint 2007, OneNote 2007, Groove 2007, Access 2007, Publisher 2007 and InfoPath 2007.  That is a lot of software. Retail is $680.

Windows 7 – The launch is scheduled for October 22nd, and all of us here at TechMinds are very excited.  We’ve been using Windows 7 for a few months now and we’re confident that you’re going to love it to!  Especially at $29.99!  Jump on this one folks, because we don’t know how long it will last. Retail is $119.99.