Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

This afternoon at 2:00 CST Chris Goforth and I will be kicking off a new syndicated radio show called Living Digital.

Many of you know that I currently do a 1 hour show every Saturday at 10 AM CST called Compute This. Living Digital will be similar in concept to Compute This, but will differ in some important ways.

Compute This is designed to be live and local. It is specifically designed to service the people of Lincoln and the current and future customers of Schrock Innovations.

Living Digital is designed to have a more widespread focus and cover areas that are influenced by technology, but are not necessarily computers.

For example, Living Digital will cover televisions, cell phones, gaming systems, digital cameras and more. With all of the new technologies coming out it is easy to become overwhelmed. The Living Digital Show is designed to make your technology work for you and be more of a help than a headache.

You can listen to Living Digital every Saturday afternoon in Lincoln, NE on http://kfor1240.com (KFOR 1240 AM). This week the show will be slightly shorter in Lincoln because of Nebraska Weslyean Basketball coverage, but I promise it will be a blast!

There has been a lot of chatter all over the web regarding Apple’s expected announcement of the iSlate tablet device on or around January 26, 2010.

There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas about what the iSlate tablet is, what product niche it is designed to fill in Apple’s product line, what its features will be, and how much it will cost. While no one knows the specifics yet, I believe a lot of the rumors are slightly off-base.

Everyone is wrapped up in what Apple has ordered from suppliers, what the iPhone can do, Apple’s supposed need to compete with netbooks, and pure desire for something new from Steve Jobs.

Many of the people turning the crank on the rumor machine are fogetting some of the known Apple quantities:

1. Steve Jobs doesn’t chase market niches – he redefines them
2. Steve jobs has publicly stated that netbooks are substandard hardware
3. Apple risks cheapening its brand by selling a sub-$1000 computing device
4. This is a lifestyle device – people will not buy it because the need it. People will need it because they want it

Rather than getting all caught up in the expected specifications, whether or not it has an OLED screen, or attempting to decode vague requests to iPhone application developers for more high-resolution apps, I am going to make three general Thorstradamus predictions:

1. There is a distinct possibility that the late January announcement is about an improvement in the iPhone. I peg this at a 60% chance. Apple is about the software & apps, and they’re just not there yet.
2. If the announcement is about an Apple tablet, it will cost more than $1200. It may be re-released later at a lower cost as Apple did with the iPhone
3. I do not think Apple will launch a device designed to compete with $400 netbooks EVER

What do you think? Post a comment below to go on the record. Let’s see who is right on this one!

Last week Schrock Innovations received a letter from the City of Lincoln regarding our support of America Recycles Day.

Each year students and businesses across Lincoln pledge to commit themselves to recycle more in the coming year. Each pledge is placed in a box and a drawing is conducted.

As we have done in the past, we donated a computer system to this year’s pledge winner. Here is the text from the letter we received from Gene Hanlon, Lancaster County’s Recycling Coordinator:

Dear Thor:

I’m writing to express our sincere appreciation to you for your support of America Recycles Day and donating one of your computers for our Community Grand Prize Drawing. Your donation of the computer provided a valuable incentive for people to take the time to complete a pledge to increase their recycling efforts or buy recycled products.

This year we received over 1,900 pledges from Lincoln and Lancaster County residents to step up their recycling efforts. I don’t believe this would have been possible without your support. I hope you found your involvement in the America Recycles Day campaign beneficial.

Best wishes to you and your family during this holiday season. I hope that the New Year brings much happiness to you and your family.

Schrock Innovations received a letter last week that our Lincoln Service Center has been selected as one of 100,000 “Favorite Places” on Google.

The selection was based on how many people have sought out information about Schrock Innovations on Google. That information includes reviews, requests for driving directions, and general search data.

Contained within the letter was a window decal for our Service Center as well as some statistics about how local Lincoln, Nebraska Google users were seeking out Schrock Innovations over the past 6 months:

• An average of 14 people a month request driving directions to Schrock Innovations (pretty nice considering we are on one of the busiest intersections in Lincoln)
• There were 942 requests for specific information about Schrock Innovations (coupons, reviews, etc.)
• The majority of users who look into Schrock Innovations are looking for computer repair services

Gooogle Favorite Places is a sub component of Google Local Business Center. I was unaware of this program until Google contacted us to let us know we had been selected.

If your business has not been selected, you can apply for consideration by signing up for and completing an entry in Google Local Business Center.