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Showing posts from July, 2011

Ric's system for delegating email to his PA using screen recording

Just thought Id let you in on a little experiment I am running at my office with my PA Danielle. Since our work times don't coincide I've been looking for ways to allow her to help me as much as possible without having to spend much time face to face. Besides my penchant for hanging a voice recorder around my neck an uploading the voice messages to Evernote  for her to work on, the next best thing we have done is using screen recorders. Here is how it works: I have a screen recording app running all the time. It is set to record only the window I am working in.  When an email comes in I work out if I can handle it immediately or if not I quickly summarize in my mind what I want to do and then hot record. While looking at the actual email (I use GMail) I record my instructions using my voice while highlighting things on the screen so that Danielle can see exactly what I'm talking about. When I click the stop button the file is recorded to a time stamped video file

Collaborative shipping–an Amazon book should cost 6 cents

When I moved home from the States in 2009 we brought all our stuff over from the US in a 40ft container fro $3500. Two lounge suites, California king, motorbike, side tables, everything. But for me to get some books from Amazon cost me $75… Whaaaa? At the same rate as I paid it should have cost me $0.06 cents! Are my facts wrong? Don’t think so. So what do we do about it… this is my idea: Get a consignment quote for one container to be shipped to your neighbourhood. In my case it would be consignment at an address in LA (where we have our stuff sent to). Then get a quote for customs handling (every package must be under $1,000 AUD in value. And a shipping truck rate from the port to your location ($300 from Brisbane to Byron Bay) Then get your neighbours to put the dimensions of the products they want onto a website that calculates the total volume and as soon as it makes sense everyone puts in their orders and waits for the shipment to arrive… Yeah. Go the Aussie dollar. Wha

Cool keyboard invention

I met with a Byron local who had one of those wake up epiphanies… literally…. and ended up with a new approach to the way a computer keyboard works. Today we sat in one of my favourite Byron Cafes and discussed, then drew, then dictated the nuts and bolts of a provisional patent over the course of a bit over an hour and a really nice Fettuccini. I cant go into details of Paul Nicholls patent as he may want to have some filing options but when he  is ready I’d love to share with you this great idea. For me its so much fun to sit with an inventor who has a simple well thought out idea that is also new and practical… congratulations Paul.

Writing patents for others… disappointment

Some time back an acquaintance approached me about the patentability of their invention and I helped them brainstorm on what was patentable and what was not. After all, I do have a bit of experience on these things. As I recall they were having trouble getting their head around working out if anything they were doing was patentable. They also said they didn’t have money and when I offered to help draft their patent my invitation was enthusiastically accepted. They really did have a cool idea. As always, I offered my help for FREE. However I don’t like being used as a transcriptionist or a technical drawing expert. When I write patents I like to make notes, record audio transcriptions and do hand drawings… its fast spontaneous and allows me to capture the essence of the idea at the time it is most fresh… the moment the idea hits me on how to handle the patent… in many cases the inventor I am helping is sitting across from me at a Cafe and the drawings and the outline of the patent

The latest on Uniloc vs Microsoft

In case you have lost track of where the case between Uniloc and Microsoft is at these days here is the latest: We won the appeal that reversed the judges decision to ignore the Jury's $388 million win in 2009. But the appeal judges made us go back to court to review the settlement amount. Uniloc tried to have the appeal judges consider just letting us go with the original $388 but they were persistent. Note this does not mean a LOWER figure... just a figure based on a calculation that does not use the 25% rule... a bit confusing. Uniloc is waiting to hear when it will have a court date to go after a damages amount, but this time we do it with the courts ruling that Microsoft IS GUILTY. So there it is... that's the latest Note: The 25% rule has been used a lot to determine what percentage of the product should be paid in damages if someone uses a patented technology illegally.

VoiceTING... text messaging but with your voice!

Whats this? Imagine texting.... ....BUT WITH YOUR VOICE! Yes I'm dubbing it Voice ting ... as in texting but with your voice... what do you think? Ive put a form below so you can give me some feedback... It's really important to me so please make the effort. Here is how it works. You go to the Voicy messaging app like you would the standard text messaging app on your phone and you choose a recipient from your phone book but instead of typing a message you hold a little record button and speak your message. Then SEND. The  recipient  gets a message notification saying XXX has sent you a message and you can choose to play or cancel and play later. They see who sent the message then here your message and then can reply by... voice. How cool. When you get their response back you can hear the last few seconds of the  message  you first sent and then their response is played back to you, and the conversation goes on as needed... back and forth. In the example above I am
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