What You Need to Know About Droplet, IP Ratings and E-Mail Tracking
John Vrooman | March 12, 2018
I recently came across a Smartphone/tablet mount that’s called a “Droplet” mount. Droplets are primarily targeted for installation and use in the shower or on a bathroom mirror (but it could be used just about anywhere). If you’ve ever wanted to bring your Smartphone or tablet into the shower I would encourage you to see if a Droplet mount is something that might be useful to you. If you end up getting a Droplet, you’ll likely end up having some additional time available to be able to listen to podcasts, music and make/take calls. To learn more about Droplet mounts, simply visit the products homepage at…www.buydroplet.com
How Resistant to Dust and Water Are Your Electronic Devices
Are you familiar with “Ingress Protection Ratings” (a.k.a. “IP Ratings”)? If not, what you should know is that when buying electronic devices, you may come across an IP Rating on the product’s packaging. The IP Rating that you may find on the product packaging is intended to help you better understand just how resistant the electronic device is to solids (dust) and liquids (water) ingress. To help you understand how to interpret a product’s IP Rating, I encourage you to watch a short YouTube.com video (by Bob Taylor of the www.askbobtaylor.com website) titled “IP Dust & Water Device and Gadget Ratings — Explained!” Here’s a courtesy link to the video…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l9Fb9sB1BY.
Additionally, an article titled “Water Resistant Phones: The Essential Do’s and Don’ts” may also be worth a quick review as it shows you how to decipher the simple IP Ratings coding system. Here’s a link to the article…www.tinyurl.com/y94ksul7.
E-mail Tracking
At the AdEspresso.com blog by Hootsuite, I came across a blog post/article titled “The 5 (+ 5) Best Email Tracking Services of 2017” that efficiently covers the topic of e-mail tracking. The blog post covers 1) why you might want to consider using an e-mail tracking product/service, 2) how they work, and 3) reviews of some e-mail tracking services. If the topic of e-mail tracking interests you, and you decide to review the blog post/article mentioned above, please also pay attention to the comments section that follows the article as additional tips and information can be found there. Personally, I’ve been resistant to using e-mail tracking products/services, but more recently I’ve been warming up to them. Here’s a courtesy link to get you started…https://adespresso.com/blog/5-best-email-tracking-services-know-when-your-email-has-been-opened/
Google My Business
Are you familiar with Google’s free “Google My Business” service? If not, I would encourage you to invest some time to learn more about it. The introductory paragraph at the Google My Business web page says, “Show up when customers search for your business or businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Google My Business lets you post updates to showcase what’s new, respond to reviews to build loyalty and add photos to highlight what makes your business special. That brief description just scratches the surface of the service. If you’re interested in obtaining more business exposure on Google, please visit and explore what’s available from the main Google My Business web page. Here’s where to get started…www.google.com/business.
Suggestion: When you get to the Google My Business web page, please look around and follow the links you’ll find at the top of the services’ web page. The links you’ll see will lead you to additional information about the features and service(s) that are part of the Google My Business program.
Tip: If you decide to participate in the Google My Business service/program, I think you’ll find the “Google Posts” capability to be quite interesting. Here’s a courtesy link to a web page that offers more information about Google Posts…www.tinyurl.com/y88zsz7w. Basically, what Google Posts allow you to do is to post information quickly, easily and directly onto your Google My Business listing
Some Google Add-Ons to Consider
(For Gmail/Google Apps Users)
If you use Gmail and other Google Apps I would encourage you to review and evaluate the Google add-ons that are available at the Digital Inspiration website. The following add-ons are the ones that I think are likely to interest Gmail/Google Apps users the most…Mail Merge (for Gmail and Inbox), Gmail Autoresponder, E-mail Address Extractor, E-mail Scheduler (for Gmail and Inbox) and Document Studio. Overall, all the add-ons are powerful tools and I’m confident that one or more of them will interest many Gmail/Google Apps users. To learn more, please visit…www.tinyurl.com/y88yd9c4.
If you have comments, suggestions, tips, questions or just want to say “Hi,” you are invited to contact me at john@johnvrooman.com. I always enjoy hearing from you!
John Vrooman keeps an eye out for cool new hardware, software, apps, gadgets; SaaS solutions; social media developments, trends as well as personal/SMB productivity and related solutions. He gathers information for his column from a diverse range of resources and he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has been authoring this column since August 2000 and welcomes feedback from his readers.