Cool Tech Tools

Completely off topic from SQL Server, but cool nevertheless.

I have been using Skype to communicate with Red Gate on a regular basis for video calls every week. It’s been over a year, and I’ve always had to get my laptop ready for weekly calls. I often take them in another room when my wife has a call scheduled at the same time, and it’s a slight pain. It also means that I sometimes interrupt what I’m doing on the desktop when I have a call, which is annoying.

I downloaded the Skype app on my iPhone awhile back, and I’ve used it for calls with family, but never for work. It didn’t buy my anything since I’d need to hold the iPhone up, which defeats some of the purpose as I can’t look something up on the call, which I often do as we refer to data, prototypes, or something else.

I have had a GorillaPod for sometime that I’ve carried in my laptop bag for use with my camera

I decided to search around and see if I could find some mount for the iPhone. I have one that lets me use it as a teleprompter, but it isn’t very portable. I ended up finding a snapmount for the iPhone. They make a bunch of other ones for various phones as well.

It arrived recently and I hooked them together. I had a call with Andrew Clarke last week, and I decided to use Skype on my phone, rather than tracking down the laptop. It worked out pretty well, allowing me to see Andrew, and he to see me, as well as letting me still use the computer and send him a couple emails while we were chatting.

Not the neatest desk, but it worked well.

I paired this with my wired headphones from Body Glove, which worked well, but the cord is a little short. I like to lean back to talk when I don’t need to type, and this one is a little restricting. However it’s my favorite for traveling.

however I’m really looking forward to next week when I’ll use my Gogroove bluetooth headset. That will be really cool.