brooke07t7: Making Money With Options

The Business Travel Series is supported by Philips ChargeOn, a wire-free mobile phone charging system that gives you up to 4 hours of additional talk time when you’re on the go. To learn more about Philips ChargeOn, visit its website here.

Business travelers know better than anybody that time is money. Every second you spend fumbling around trying to find directions, losing receipts or trying to communicate in a language you don’t understand could mean the difference between making the big meeting or being out of a job.

If you own an Androidclass="blippr-nobr">Android smartphone though, you can make your life a lot easier with apps that enhance your business productivity while you’re on the go.

From collaboration to expensing, we’ve chosen six Android apps we believe are essential to any business trip. They will help keep you organized and focused on the business you need to take care of, no matter where you are.

Here are our six essential Android apps for business travelers.

1. Expensify

The expense report is one of the most essential but annoying components of business travel. You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.

Expensify makes this process easier to manage by importing your receipts directly from your credit card and turning them into easy-to-send PDF reports. The Android application makes it dead-simple to add cash expenses, log mileage and upload images of your receipts while you’re on the go.

Plus, how can you hate an application with “expense reports that don’t suck” as its tagline?

2. Talk to Me

Talk to Me is a simple application that translates what you’re saying into another language in real time. If you need to ask for directions in French, need to dictate complicated commands in Italian or just want to impress your friends with Spanish translations, this is the app to have. We think it’s mind-blowing.

This app is essential for the international business traveler in a time crunch. It can even be set as a widget for easy home screen access.

3. TripItclass="blippr-nobr">TripIt

We’re big fans of TripIt here at class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable. It’s a master dashboard for all of your travel plans, tracking you and your network’s movements, points, miles, itineraries and more. It’s an essential for business travelers who want to organize and share their travel plans with the rest of their team.

The Android app extends that functionality to your smartphone so that you can access all of your team’s itineraries while in the airport or in the cab. It provides maps and directions. Pro users get two added bonuses: flight alerts and alternate flight options.

There are several great trip organization apps, but TripIt is the cream of the crop.

4. Box.net for Android

Say you have a presentation to give in Berlin in two hours, and your team calls you to tell you that they needed to make last-minute changes to your presentation, plus they want to send you info on the people you’re meeting. You’re not able to get your laptop out to review the new information, so what do you do?

Simple: You whip out your Android phone and launch Box.net to pull up the presentation and the files while you’re in the hotel, in the cab or in the waiting room. Box.net gives businesses the ability to easily share documents, and Box.net for Android lets you search and access them no matter where you are.

Having access to your company’s database of documents could mean the difference between being prepared on the road and being a bust at that big meeting.

5. Aloqa

Aloqa is a must-have for any business traveler that doesn’t want to waste time trying to figure out the best hotspots in the cities he or she visits. Unlike other location apps like Yelpclass="blippr-nobr">Yelp, Aloqa automatically notifies you of the interesting restaurants, events and places near you.

Once you set up your interests (“channels”), the notifications become killer. It’s not just “top restaurants near you,” but “top rated night clubs according to Yelp within walking distance.” There are a lot of customization options that ensure you always pick the best café for that impromptu business meeting near your hotel.

6. FlightTrack

For most business travelers, nothing is worse than arriving at the airport only to have your flight canceled or delayed overnight. It’s just as painful trying to check the status of your flight with the airline.

FlightTrack from Mobiata is an app that tracks flight times, gates, delays and more so that you know when you need to be at the airport and when you need to be booking a different flight to get back home.

For those willing to pay a bit extra, there is also a Pro version of FlightTrack, complete with TripIt integration, and thousands of airport listings.

Series Supported by Philips ChargeOn/>

More Travel Resources from Mashable:

- 6 Free iPad Apps for Planning Your Next Vacation/> - 4 Social Web Apps for Making and Sharing Your Travel Plans/> - 7 Ways Mobile Apps are Enriching Historical Tourism/> - 10 Social Media Travel Resources You May Have Missed/> - How the Resort Industry is Using Social Media

Photo courtesy of Flickrclass="blippr-nobr">Flickr, laihiu

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The Yankees and Derek Jeter are making a big mistake with the way they are handling the negotiations for a new deal. After Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, referred to the Yankees negotiating position as “baffling”, GM Brian Cashman responded with this gem of a quote:

"We've encouraged him to test the market and see if there's something he would prefer other than this. If he can, fine. That's the way it works."

It wasn’t exactly a “thank you for all you’ve done, Derek” and it made the Yankees look small. But, not to be outdone, word leaked from Jeter’s camp that the shortstop was seeking a six-year/$150 million deal. That was later amended down to somewhere around four or five years for “only” $23 or $24 million. Pretty good money for a guy coming off a year where he hit .270/.340/.370.

The fact is the Yankees need Derek Jeter at shortstop in 2011. There are no in-house candidates, Eduardo Nunez didn’t exactly set the world on fire at AAA this year, and the free agent pool is weak. Throw in the fact that barring injury, Jeter will become the first Yankee to get 3,000 hits in 2011 and his return should be assured.

But the Yankees’ problem is beyond 2011. Maybe Jeter’s 2010 campaign was an aberration and he will return to his prolific hitting ways next year, but what if he doesn’t. What if he is like 99% of the shortstops who came before him and plays progressively worse after age 36?

And Jeter is rightfully looking at all the mega-deals the Yankees have handed out and wondering why he isn’t worthy of one. He has always played hard, played hurt and he has never embarrassed the franchise. For fifteen seasons, Jeter has been a great ballplayer on the field and a great ambassador off of it.

What the two sides need to do is find the middle ground. A series of team and player options, triggered by certain performance levels would make the most sense. That followed by a personal services contract after Jeter’s playing days have ended would also probably ease the turmoil. Whatever approach they take, they would be smart to erect a “cone of silence” and keep everything out of the press from this point forward. Neither side will look very good if the current rhetoric continues.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Making Money With Options