I had received a letter in the mail from our electricity company a few weeks earlier notifying me that the power would be turned off all day today and so I was prepared to spend the day offline but still keen to get some work done.

Fully Charged is Fully Prepared

It was important that the iPad was fully charged the night before to ensure they’d not run out during the day. I’d loaded it with the latest podcasts I had yet to listen to as well as some recently added music from Soundcloud, Jamendo and Free Audio Archive.

Humans Need Recharging Too

I knew I could use the gas stove to boil any water required for cups of tea and coffee but I soon realised that I had forgotten to grind extra coffee. I rummaged around and found the hand grinder though so all was not lost.

Sure enough, as predicted the power went off bringing with it a pleasant calm to the neighborhood. The only sounds to be heard was the occasional bird call and the gentle jingle of the wind chimes.

Getting Out of the Office

Considering it was a beautifully sunny day outside I decided to set up the mobile office, consisting of just the iPad, a stand, bluetooth keyboard and table & chair. I’ve used the ‘outdoor office’ a few times before and found that it is actually preferable to the desktop, especially when any writing tasks need to be done that don’t require internet access. I had a few client proposals to write up as well as some tweaks to some website manuals so this was the perfect opportunity to get those jobs done.

The ‘Outdoor Office’ requires no electricity

Screen glare was easily avoided by orientating the screen in such as a way that it didn’t reflect. Another consideration is that leaving your iPad in the sun can decrease the life of your battery.

My WorkFlow on the iPad

Being a Mac user I primarily write in Notes or Pages as these reliably sync with the iPad.

The iPad’s Office folder

Notes is part of Mac Mail and I use it heavily to jot down any thoughts as they come to mind. I have a folder on the launch bar of my iPad named ‘Office’, inside which, are all the main Office related apps. The Notes app lives in this folder, which is accessible from anywhere on the iPad and it is similarly used to jot down any thoughts. These Notes then get turned into Calendar entries and sometimes get moved into Pages as the idea is developed. Each time the iOS devices are synced all Notes are updated on the Mac and devices.

Though not a heavy user of iCloud I uploaded a batch of Pages documents to iCloud and synced (‘synched’, ‘sanc’?) them with my iPad the night before. It worked flawlessly. The proposals I had to write for clients and manuals were there in Pages on the iPad and I was able to continue working on them during the blackout.

Saving Electricity = More Productivity

Being offline meant that I was able to work with out the myriad of distractions interrupting me throughout the day.  To be honest, I felt as though I achieved more today with these restrictions than I do on a normal day with electricity and the Internet.

It was such a nice change from the usual office desk to the sunny outdoors that I think I may have to make this blackout thing a weekly occurrence!

The post Working Without Electricity appeared first on Vintuitive.

With the addition of a free scanning app your phone can be turned into a scanner using the phone’s built-in camera.

Now QR codes are being developed to show consumers how individual food items are being produced.

US consumer analyst Phil Lempert says the shift to the new barcodes is being driven by consumers’ desire to know more about where their food comes from.

“Certain ingredients or GMOs, people want to know, but also it’s going deeper,” he said.

“They way to know whether or not the company that they’re purchasing their food from stands by the standards that they stand by.

“Whether it’s about sustainability, whether it’s contributions to different charities, we want to know just about everything.”

It sure would be handy to be able to wave your phone over food items to perhaps load a short video describing how each item is produced.

Imagine the commercial benefit of being able to place small adverts on items that consumers can view with a wave of their hand!

Listen to Flint Duxfield speak with supermarket analyst Phil Lempert: New barcodes provide further information about how food is produced

Source: ABC Rural

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QR and the Mobile Web

With the increasing number of people accessing the web from mobile devices, QR Codes provide a much easier way to access things on the web while on the move. With traditional printed advertising the visitor has to pull up the mini keyboard on their phone, type in the address hoping that no spelling mistakes or accidental typos are made, which, they inevitably are, meaning a second or third attempt is often necessary.

With a QR code, you simply bring up the QR reader app and wave your phone over object – it’s that easy!

Taking QR Codes to the Next Dimension

Introducing the QR Cube, by Vintuitive.

These three-dimensional promotional devices are a combination of two ideas – the desire to make QR codes recognisable by humans, and a real, interactive physical object made out of QR codes that provides easier access to a business in several ways instead of a simple single link to their website.

Going Social with Human-Readable QR Codes

QR codes are traditionally designed solely for the eyes of electronic devices and made up of black & white blocks that make no visual sense and have no appeal to the human eye. The QR Cube, however, combines the colourful and easily recognisable social media logos with the otherwise boring machine codes, and provides easy access to the business’s social media accounts.

This enables human observers to visually discern the faces of the QR Cube to determine which QR code links to what account. A person could, for example, pick up the cube, twist it around to find the Twitter logo, point their phone at it to load the business’s Twitter page.

Imagine that, QR codes that are also human-readable!

Your own QR Cube acts as a functional ‘dice’ with your branding that makes a great marketing object that visitors can pick up, manipulate and interact with using their smart phone.

QR Cubes on Demand

Your business QR Cube can easily be made available for download from your website, which could be printed out and folded. Made from a single paper print out, QR Cubes can be hung in the business premises like a mobile or placed on counter for visitors to play with or even offer them as free give aways.

Print out several in different sizes and use them as building blocks on a counter, behind glass or elsewhere out of reach.

The six sides of the QR Cube can contain links to individual pages of your website (or five pages plus one for your company logo), or to menus, brochures, or even to make a call to you directly.

Order your own QR Cube from Vintuitive today!

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This year Vintuitive is proud to join the Shop in SA team. See today’s Advertiser for your free coupon to receive a special from Vintuitive, along with 8 pages of coupons from other South Australian businesses. The digital version will be online Tuesday.

Adelaide Arcade, supporting SA businesses since 1885

Photo by Amanda Slater CC By SA.

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Self Portrait, 1839 – Colonel William Light

586 Artworks, 359 Artists
Founded in 1881, the Art Gallery of South Australia is home to one of Australia’s great art collections. This outstanding collection of over 38,000 works of art comprises Australian, European, North American and Asian works and includes one of the most important collections of Indigenous art as well as the only dedicated Islamic gallery space in Australia.

The collection spans the period from ancient Rome to the present day, and includes paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery, and furniture. Works of art are displayed by both culture and medium, providing visitors with an historical and cultural framework with which to view them.

The mission of the Gallery is to serve the South Australian and wider communities by providing access to original works of art of the highest quality. Through its permanent collections, temporary exhibitions and other public programs, the Art Gallery seeks to foster, promote and enhance understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts.

Visit the Art Gallery of South Australia in the Google Art Project
Visit the Google Art Project on GooglePlus
Visit the Art Gallery of South Australia Website

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