Buffalo walking the car Custer State Park SD

Black hills South Dakota Custer State Park Mountain climbing

Duro-Last Cool White roofs and Solar PV

Well you need a new roof and don't know what to get. Well maybe go on the energy star webs site and look around for what will save you some money. One thing you will discover is that the government and many local power companies will pay you to put on a white roof and solar PV. Why is this you may think? Well for one a white roof will save you money on power by lowering your cooling bill in the summer and your heating bill in the winter. It does this by reflecting heat in the summer and by not melting snow pack in the winter, then the snow pack acts as extra insulation. Well then you have solar, it's free power from the sun once you have it set up. All power suppliers are mandated by the Federal government to get a higher level of renewable energy over the next 10 years. So for you this means many power suppliers will help pay for a renewable power system and power saving home upgrades, which in turn helps them.  If you generate more power than you use you will also get a check back at then end of every month. Solar power costs more than traditional power  so you get more money back for the power you generate than the power you might use on a non peak supply month. The best white roof on the market today is Duro-Last and when paired with solar PV you can really save or make some money. Remember you are also doing a great deal to help the environment in the process.

Grand Parents 60th Wedding Party Mansion

Hootsuite Friendly Skimmer Twhirl Ping.FM Twitter APPS for BUSINESS

Well I was thinking while at a meeting the other day about a new app I was using for one of the companies I work with. Recently someone in marketing told me about Hootsuite, I loved it from the second I started using it. There seem to be so many apps out there to access social media that its hard to figure out what to use, so ill give you a short review of what I use.

     One of the first apps I used was Skimmer produced by Fallon. I love Fallon and in fact I ran into an employee's wife at McDonald's the other day and asked her what she did simply because she was wearing a vest that had the words "We are Fallon" across the back. She said her husband was in the print side of Fallon. They really are a neat firm and one of the first groups I met over 2 years ago at Social Media Breakfast MSP. Skimmer is a neat app esp for the people who work at Fallon. It runs on Adobe AIR and is very visually stunning.

     The second App I started using was Twhirl, which I still use today daily. I love being able to open 10 twitter streams at one time on my Mac and see all that is going on. I also set up Ping.FM with my Twhirl so I can send anything I say to many social media sites at one time.
     Ping is a cool site and you can use it on it's own or with  other apps like Twhirl. You can update Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Freindster, Bebo, Blogger, Linkedin and about a million other sites with one post.

     I have a Mac, Ipad, and Ipod touch 4th gen. I love all the apps on my Mac but there are some I use only on my mobile devices. For instance I love the simple Facebook app for the Ipod and Iphone I can easily take a picture and  set my location in an update with one button. I also like the same options that come with the Twitter made app for Twitter on the Ipod and Iphone.
     On my Ipad I use the Twitter main app and Friendly for Facebook. I love Friendly and the user interface. It gives you the ability to download and save facebook pictures to show people on your Ipad. I also use the Yelp app and the Merchant Circle app to update work accounts from my Ipad. Recently I installed Hootsuite for Ipad and I really like it.

     Currently my biggest beef with apps for social media is Linkedin. They don't seem to have a really good app.  I have the old one that was designed for Linkedin by Linkedin and let me tell you it needs some updates.
     I also do a lot of video.  I love the auto upload to Youtube from the Ipod touch. I also used Ustream mobile and Justin.TV on my Ipod where there is  wifi for streaming.

    There are tons of apps I use for work but those are the main ones I use for social media.   For work I use my Imac, Ipod, Ipad, a  Fujitsu tablet PC,  a  PC running windows XP and another running Vista. If you have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them. Or ask me any questions at biggabber@aim.com or tweet me @GabrielSkelly