Vonage Mobile® is a free downloadable app that lets users talk and text worldwide for free with anyone else who uses the app (data rates may apply). It also provides ultra low-cost calling to friends and family who don’t have the app. It’s a combination of the best free and paid communications apps, all rolled into one.

The new app is the latest offering from Vonage, a provider of communications services connecting individuals through mobile and broadband devices worldwide. Users don’t have to be a Vonage home phone customer to use the app—just download it for free from iTunes® or Android™ Market.

Significant Cost Savings
When calling friends and family who don’t have the app, users can make calls globally with per-minute rates that are on average 70 percent less than major mobile carriers and 30 percent less than Skype. Rates start at .016 cents/min., and calling credit is available in $4.99 and $9.99 increments, making it one of the most cost-effective solutions for international calling.

A Free Global Network
Users can instantly build a free global calling and texting network using the app’s multi-invite system from their existing contacts. Even more exciting, Vonage Mobile uses the phone’s existing mobile number and contact list, eliminating the need for unique user names and duplicate identities for contacts. It’s incredibly easy to use, allowing users to take full advantage of the features without the hassle of having to leave the app.

A Comprehensive Solution
“Vonage Mobile consolidates the best features of our prior applications, while adding important functionality, better value and improved ease of use,” said Marc Lefar, CEO of Vonage. “It combines the best of free high-def voice and messaging along with incredible value for traditional international calls, all while using the existing mobile number and address book for unsurpassed ease of use.”

Vonage Mobile works over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G wireless data networks, worldwide. In addition to iPhone and Android smartphones, the app also works on iPad®, iPod Touch® and Android™ Tablets.

For more information on Vonage Mobile, please go to iTunes, Android Market or http://www.vonagemobile.com.

“More and more, it seems the daily routine is anything but,” said Alisa Swann, productivity solution specialist at Microsoft. “While we can’t always anticipate what might come along and derail our day, we can be prepared for it. With tools from Office, it’s easy to stay connected to people and information, anytime, anywhere.”

Swann recommends the following 10 tips to stay productive no matter what:

1. Be a packrat. Store important documents for free on the Web so you can access them over the Internet or from a computer, iOS device or Windows Phone.
2. Let Office be with you. Create, view, and edit documents from any Mac or PC connected to the Internet, with the free Microsoft Office Web Apps.
3. Seize the moment. Make a quick list, capture images and audio, in Microsoft OneNote on a Windows Phone or iOS device, then access and edit those notes on the Web.
4. Be as good as there. Use Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Broadcast on the Mac or PC to present ideas to people in different locations. Participants can even view on their mobile phone.
5. Work together when you’re not together. Make revisions with others at the same time using co-authoring in Microsoft Word 2010 and the Word Web App on the Mac or PC.
6. Take people with you. Store contact information for all the important people you know in your Microsoft Outlook Address Book—so you’ll never be without a number, email or address.
7. Mind your time. Manage your calendar and setup, move or cancel appointments on the Windows Phone with confidence.
8. Don’t make them wait. Set an automatic reply from Outlook on your PC or Windows Phone to let people know you’re out.
9. Turn information around on the go. Receive, read, edit and send Office documents from virtually anywhere on a Windows Phone.
10. Enhance your blog. Publish your “marooned manuscript” in a blog and enrich your story by embedding a PowerPoint slideshow.

Now it’s time to gear up, settle in and prepare to keep life moving. For more tips and resources, visit http://www.office.com/snoworshine.

Introduced by Tanner Research, ClearSync’s app is now available for download in the Android market and makes calendar sharing simple.

“ClearSync has the most flexible calendar sharing model in the mobile calendaring space,” says John Tanner, chief executive officer of both ClearSync and Tanner Research. “There is nothing in the app world that handles multiple-calendar events the way ClearSync does. ClearSync allows users to share across multiple Outlook, Google and ClearSync calendars, and a change anywhere is propagated everywhere.”

The app is ideal for busy individuals, families, small businesses and organizations — and enables users to juggle all aspects of life including professional, social, church, charity work, school and children’s activities via its unlimited color-coded calendars and contacts categories.

The ClearSync app offers five levels of service:

Free: Ideal for simple sharing, offers one sharing group, two members of groups, sync with Google, forum tech support and a free trial for sync with Microsoft Outlook. This app is supported by occasional advertising popups.

Individual: Allows greater sharing with four people and everything included in the free application. This app sells for $4.99 and has no advertising.

Outlook: Ideal for someone who wants simply to connect their Outlook Calendar data to their phone. Includes all the features of the Individual App, plus allows the user to sync with an unlimited number of Outlook calendars and installations for $9.95/year.

Silver:  Perfect for families, small organizations and offices, offers unlimited sharing groups and members of groups, email tech support, text messaging, and sync with Google and Microsoft Outlook for $19.95/year.

Gold: Designed for power users, midsize companies and professionals, offers encrypted communications, unlimited sharing groups, members of groups, phone technical support, text messaging, sync with Google and Microsoft Outlook for $59.95/year.

Advantages of ClearSync for Android:

• Keep contact information and calendar data safe. Because ClearSync’s data is “mirrored in the cloud,” the information is stored via the web. If users accidentally drop their phone into the pool, the calendar and contacts are protected

• Make appointments quickly with the integrated contacts manager that creates events with contact data preloaded

• Synchronize ClearSync calendars and contacts on your PC and/or laptop

• Link or embed calendars to websites

• Publish a web widget for calendar events to keep a group’s website up-to-date automatically

In conjunction with the launch of the calendar app, ClearSync announces the “Win a Motorola Zoom” sweepstakes, giving Facebook fans the chance to win a Motorola Zoom, a Samsung Galaxy and other prizes. Starting Nov. 1, consumers are able to enter for a chance to win a Motorola Zoom by “liking” the ClearSync Facebook page and filling out the basic entry form. For additional information, visit http://www.facebook.com/ClearSync.

ClearSync’s app is available for all Android (Google) phones v.2.2 and higher, including the HTC Amaze and the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic. It also works on tablets running Android 3.0 and higher, such as the Motorola XOOM™. Android users can download the free ClearSync app by going to http://www.clearsync.com/home/android or by visiting the Android Market on their smartphone and searching for ClearSync. While the ClearSync phone app currently only works on the Android platform, ClearSync calendars can be viewed in any standard, contemporary, phone browsers including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows 7 and 8.

Editor’s Note: October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. You can download a free Mobile Safety Tip Sheet here.

For many consumers, using a smartphone or a similar device can be a convenient way to handle much of their banking and shopping.

To help protect your phone or device from scam artists and increase your awareness of cyber security, here are a few tips designed to keep you and your money safer:

Sync mobile devices. Essentially, mobile devices are small computers with software that needs to be kept up to date, just like a PC, laptop or tablet. Make sure all the mobile devices in your house have the latest security protections. This may require syncing your devices with a computer.

Guard your personal information. Protect your phone just as you would your computer. Secure your mobile device by using a strong passcode and be cautious about the sites you visit and the information you release.

Think before you app. Before you download applications (apps) on your devices, review the privacy policy and understand what data an app can access.

Protect your money. When banking and shopping on your mobile device, check to be sure the sites are security enabled. Look for web addresses with https://, which means the site takes extra measures to help secure your information.

Bank of America executive Keith Gordon, who specializes in security, explained: “Bank of America’s security systems analyze millions of transactions a day, looking for patterns to help identify and help stop fraud and identity theft from happening. The company has more than 50 alerts, helping customers detect possible fraud and keep track of their accounts.”

When in doubt, don’t respond. Fraudulent texting, calling and voice mails are on the rise. As with e-mail, requests for personal information or calls for immediate action are almost always a scam.

As an added precaution, Gordon recommends that consumers choose a bank that offers its customers protection from such scams. Bank of America customers who are victims of fraud are protected with their $0 Liability Guarantee and are not liable for such transactions.

Should fraudulent activity originate from a transaction on your consumer deposit or credit card account, the losses will be covered by the guarantee.

Stay current. Keep pace with new ways to stay safe online. Check trusted websites for the latest information, share with friends, family and colleagues, and encourage them to be Web wise.

To learn more, visit http://bankofamerica.com/security.

Recently, however, high-profile security breaches have caused a lot of people to think a little more carefully about the safety of personal data on their phone.

Attackers are deploying a variety of increasingly sophisticated techniques to take control of your contacts, personal data and money through your mobile device. According to a recent report (Lookout Mobile Security Threat Report, August 2011), three out of 10 Android owners are likely to encounter a Web-based threat on their mobile device each year. App-based threats are also on the rise. There were over 400 Android apps infected with malware in June 2011, up from 80 infected apps in January.

Protecting your phone with a password is always a good idea, but may not be enough. Here are more ways to protect yourself from smartphone security threats:

Treat your phone like your PC and get protection. Most people protect their PC from malware and viruses and now the phone needs the same level of protection. Protect yourself and your private data from malware, spyware, phishing attacks and malicious apps by downloading a security app like Lookout Mobile Security. Lookout can even help you locate a lost or stolen phone.

Download the updates for your phone and mobile apps. Hackers are always looking for new ways to attack a device and vulnerabilities in the phone software can provide that opportunity. Often, these updates include patches to security flaws recently found in the software that can put your information at risk.

Use discretion when downloading apps. Download apps only from sites you trust, check the app’s rating and read the reviews to make sure it’s widely used and respected.

Use discretion when clicking links from your phone. On a smartphone, because of the small-form factor, people are three times more likely to submit their personal login info on a phishing site than if they were using a PC. When you surf the Web, e-mail, text and enjoy social networking from your phone, you can be exposed to some of the same malware and phishing scams found on the PC. Lookout Mobile Security will examine every link in real time and automatically warn against phishing attempts and unsafe sites-guarding users from identity theft, financial fraud or malware.

For more information on the security issues on your phone, go to http://www.mylookout.com.

There are many reasons why email marketing has proven to be a successful sales tactic for retailers. A few are:

• Email marketing offers practical, cost-effective and results-driven solutions that enable retailers to promote merchandise and hot sales.

• The ability to segment a list enables a business to target its email marketing campaigns by key demographics, including age, buying patterns and location.

• Email marketing allows for campaign optimization and increased efficiencies by testing the effectiveness of an email distribution mid-campaign and making corrections as needed.

Campaigner®, a popular email marketing service that offers segmenting and a user-friendly interface, suggests the following tips to retailers who would like to try email marketing but don’t know where to begin:

Target your customers. A good email service can segment your list by past purchases to match your subject line and product links to what the customer wants to buy.

Segment your lists. Segmenting a customer list based on typical order size can help you create targeted emails for low, average and high spenders.

Using these sublists can help you personalize offers for each group with the right incentives to entice potential customers to fill their carts a bit fuller this year.

Make geography an asset. If you’re near a college campus, sort your list by state or zip code to identify customers who are out of the area. For example, by segmenting the list, you can target students with “move-in” specials for dorm room essentials and parents for hotels and restaurants.

Connect with your customers. Identify the most loyal customers and personalize campaigns to make them aware of your latest offers. For example, you can include a loyalty promotion, like free shipping or presale notices.

Keep it simple. Skip the need to learn layout and photo manipulation software by using a service like Campaigner that offers a complete, user-friendly interface and good back-end reporting.

Keep in mind, these tips can work throughout the year. Done correctly, email marketing allows you to become (and remain) visible to customers and prospects with highly targeted messages, at a minimal cost, that deliver measurable results.

To learn more, visit http://www.campaigner.com.

Smartphones, such as BlackBerry, are used today for much more than phone calls and text messaging – small and large businesses alike rely upon them every day for everything from email and browsing the Web, organizing calendars and scheduling appointments, to editing documents and tracking orders and customer activity. They’re essentially pocket-sized computers that have, arguably, led to a new generation of mobile workers, new ways of doing business and the emergence of a new type of office – the mobile office.

The mobile office is about cutting the ties to physical office space and making all the tools and technologies available to employees wherever they may be. The traditional office technologies – the desk phone, the desktop computer, the printer, the video camera and even whole business systems – are connected into today’s smartphones. The recent introduction of tablet computers is further accelerating the trend toward the mobile office.

In fact, a growing number of small businesses are embracing the mobile office as a permanent measure to drastically reduce telephone, computer and office space costs. The concept also meshes well with today’s emerging workforce – smart, eco-friendly and always-connected people who are highly agile, driven, and can work anywhere.

While the idea of ditching the office may seem intimidating, a few guidelines can make the mobile office an affordable reality.

Step 1: Ditch the old landline for a smartphone
With cellphones came the concept of being accessible from virtually anywhere. This convenience, and the realization that the desk phone was being neglected back at the office, led to people replacing the desk phone with the cellphone altogether in some cases.

But the idea of ditching the desk phone hasn’t yet taken off in a big way, in part because cellphone costs remain higher than landline calls. Enter the smartphone with Wi-Fi and the ability to make free phone calls over Wi-Fi, and the prospect of replacing the landline phone becomes even more appealing.

Step 2: Replace laptop computers with ultra-portable tablet computers, and wow your clients
Tablet computers like the BlackBerry PlayBook are relatively new to the business world, and they’re attracting a lot of attention. They’re sleek, powerful, affordable, light-weight and portable, and they’re becoming the new laptop for anyone needing to work on the go. Capabilities like output to a projector or large display in HD quality for showing presentations direct from the tablet make these new devices an essential part of a road warrior’s toolkit.

Step 3: Get free instant messaging – the next best thing to chatting face-to-face
Day-to-day wireless communication with co-workers, customers and business partners can take on many forms, but perhaps none is as instant or helpful as the advent of modern text messaging.  The free BlackBerry Messenger or BBM app is one example.  With BBM, text messages are free and can be used to exchange not only brief messages, but photos, videos, documents, games, and even your location.

Step 4: Get your desktop programs on your smartphone or tablet and stay productive on the go
There’s a mobile app for just about everything these days. Many of them come at a minimal cost or are even free. Many come pre-loaded on smartphones or tablets, some of which ship with free travel, maps and navigation, and productivity apps like Documents To Go for viewing and editing Microsoft Office documents.

Step 5: Secure, back up and protect smartphones just as you would a desktop or laptop computer
Smartphones have evolved into powerful computing devices and need to be managed and secured, perhaps even more so than their desktop and laptop predecessors. They’re small enough to fit in a pocket and people carry them everywhere, making them more prone to loss or theft.

Free online services like the new BlackBerry Management Center  for small businesses help locate, automatically back up, restore, remotely lock or erase contents from a lost or stolen smartphone to protect company and customer information, and help mobile workers get back to business quickly.

Just as you’d change the plugs and filters to increase fuel efficiency and have your car run at peak performance, you can tune up your business to run better in any economy.

For one thing, you can tune in to the advantages of cloud computing and VoIP with a service especially for small-business success.

With just a broadband connection and a computer—equipment you probably already have—you can now sound, react and run your business communications with the efficacy of a Fortune 500 firm.

What You Can Have
Your phone system can feature such services as:

• Auto Attendant
• Voicemail-to-text
• A dashboard to show workers real-time status
• Integration with your company calendar
• Reports for all incoming and outgoing calls in the system
• The ability to literally link dozens of phones in dozens of places
• A dial-by-name directory
• Command and control functionality from your smartphone
• Ability to pick your phones, then plug and play with confidence.
• You can even take things one step further and let your business phone service integrate with existing software to control your inventory and sales force.

The startup costs are low and the monthly fees are reasonable and there’s never a contract to sign. All this can be done with help from a company called Vocalocity. Unlike most VoIP suppliers, it specializes in small businesses: Most of its customers have 25 employees or less and it’s entirely focused on helping small businesses succeed and grow. It has no residential accounts. The startup costs are low and the monthly fees are both reasonable and predictable. There’s no long-term contract.

The company’s Hosted PBX solution is simple and easy to set up. In fact, you can be up and running in about 15 minutes after receiving your phones.

More Ways To Grow
Eight other things you can do to help your company grow, the experts at the Small Business Administration advise, include:

• Open at another location.
• Offer your business as a franchise or business opportunity.
• License your product.
• Form an alliance with a similar type of business.
• Diversify to have multiple streams of income that can fill seasonal voids.
• Sell complementary products or services.
• Import or export your or others’ products.
• Get a government contract.

Free Information And Advice
You can learn more and get a free quote at http://www.vocalocity.com.

Faxing remains a vital tool for many businesses, but you no longer need to have an actual fax machine or phone line to send and receive faxes. Businesses and individuals are discovering that it is far more efficient and cost effective to use an Internet fax service.

There are several advantages to faxing online. To begin with, it can make a business greener by eliminating the need to ever print received, sent or signed docs. It also saves money as it eliminates fax equipment and supplies, extra phone lines, upkeep and paper costs.

Getting rid of the finicky fax machine creates room in the office by reducing physical cabinet space. And online faxing makes document management a snap as important faxes can be stored “in the cloud,” then searched and retrieved using keywords and/or tags. Companies like eFax® offer unlimited storage of sent and received faxes, providing an excellent online backup solution for important documents.

And now, a digitized signature can be used to sign and authorize a document without ever having to put pen to paper. Digitized signatures will save costs while eliminating the time involved in printing, signing, scanning and sending. All you need is a computer or smartphone and an Internet connection.

An online fax service enables companies and individuals to cut the cord to the fax machine by allowing faxes to be sent and received via email, anywhere an Internet connection exists. Some companies, like eFax, offer an iPhone app that uses the iPhone’s built-in camera and wireless connection to point, shoot and fax.

“eFax makes faxing move as smoothly as email. It’s simple, easy to manage our workflow, saves us time and, most importantly, doesn’t let anything fall through the cracks,” said Todd Morris, CEO, BrickHouse Security, New York City.

eFax is a registered trademark of j2 Global Communications, Inc. You can go to http://www.eFax.com and sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Quick to Install
Currently available only for Windows users (a Mac version will be released later this month), the iTwin enables users to share and transfer files via a sleek USB device that offers AES-256 level encryption. To use, the primary computer needs to plug the entire device (both “twins” attached) to its USB port. The device is compatible with both older and 2.0 USB ports.

After a quick installation of the iTwin program on the primary computer, you’ll be prompted to provide an email address so that iTwin can provide you with a method to remotely disable the device in the event it is lost or stolen.

Users can easily drag-and-drop files to the iTwin’s shared folder. Only those items placed in the shared folder will be accessible via the twin. Once you’ve moved the shared items into the folder, you can remove the twin, and plug it into the remote computer to gain access to the shared files.

Either user will be able to access and make changes to the files; but you won’t be locked out of the file if you both have it open at the same time. Should one user make changes while the other user still has the document open, they will be alerted that a change was made. They will have the option to overwrite the file or rename it.

Once you unplug the devices, if you plug it in again, it will need to reactivate itself. It doesn’t retain a memory of the last device it was plugged into, a feature that will appeal to the data-safety conscious user.

Perfect for Road Warriors
This device is perfect for the frequent traveler that needs the ability to access data remotely. The iTwin prevents the potential loss of sensitive information — nothing is stored on the device itself. Further, it will not be hindered by file size as a USB thumb drive would, as the storage is done by the primary computer. For those businesses that have sales teams that could benefit from this technology, a multi-user version will be available as early as September. Devices that are compatible with Android and iOS tablets will follow.

Additional Safety Features
If you should happen to lose half of the device, you can disable it remotely using the unique link you are provided by iTwin when you initially install the device on the primary computer. If you later locate the missing twin, it can be reactivated with ease. If you need a replacement for the lost twin, the company will provide one for a small replacement fee.

It should be noted that in order for the device to work, both computers must be on and connected to the Internet. If the primary computer is off, the remote user will be unable to access the shared files.

Bottom Line
This device offers a simple and solid solution to data sharing challenges faced by users who prefer not to use the cloud. At a one-time cost of just $99, the device is well within the budget of small business owners. No word yet on what the multi-user packages will run.

iTwin is available at http://iTwin.com, as well as Amazon.