A new service called NutshellMail aims to be the Mr. Clean of your email inbox! With it, you can add all your social accounts, even other Webmail providers such as Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail. And instead of getting hit with a barrage of notifications you get one sleek email that gives you a daily rundown of social happenings from all your accounts!

I’ve been using NutshellMail for a couple of weeks now, and I find it to be a very useful way to consolidate all my email notifications. Which honestly reduces the distractions, stress, and organizational efforts I once dealt with.

So, exactly how does NutshellMail work?

Well, according to one of the founders, Mark Schmulen, it’s so easy to use…his grandma signed herself up and customized her account in 3 minutes! So to get started, visit NutshellMail to sign up for free. You will be prompted to add the accounts you maintain on the Web. In fact, there is really no limit to the number of accounts you can add.

When it comes to adding your Facebook account, you have several options to customize. You can set it up to receive general notifications for new friends, birthdays and events. But you can also add Fan Pages you wish to monitor more closely. You even focus on particular friends by creating a list of targets or influencers inside Facebook, and then add that list within the Nutshell Facebook account settings.

As for Twitter, you can modify the Nutshell settings to receive new followers, most recent DM’s, and the most recent tweets from your Twitter Lists. And what I think is pretty cool is the fact that I can accept new friends, reply and even retweet right from my email inbox. So basically, I have all the functionality of Twitter.com from my ONE daily NutshellMail!

Once you have added all your social profiles and email accounts, you can choose how often you want to get notified (days & times during the week). I’m a daily kind of gal…and I’ve also selected an AM and PM delivery! But 2 daily email notifications are far better than…well, I don’t want to tell you how many I was getting before…but it was more than 100!

MyTechOpinion

NutshellMail is a simple way to consolidate the notification craziness you may be experiencing in your inbox. From casual users to those of us that manage multiple profiles and accounts…you can turn off information overload, and turn on NutshellMail! Woohoo!

Luckily NikNik got the iPhone at the same time!

Luckily for me, NikNik and I got our phones at the same time.  Although mine had terrible reception from the start.  But the issue was strange; I would go from 5 bars to no service very quickly.  When I compared it with NikNik’s, the difference was night and day. Her iPhone had great reception.  I immediately went to AT&T to let them know that I had a defective phone. However the salesman at the counter told me it was a bad SIM card. So he added a new SIM card and sent me off on my way. Within 5 minutes I knew my iPhone was not fixed. I still had “NO SERVICE!”  So now I’m back at AT&T for the 3^rd time in as many days so we could take a closer look at my iPhone reception problems. This time the sales associate tells me that I will need to purchase another iPhone and I can get reimbursed when it arrives. They’ll simply swap devices. But because of the current demand it may take 21 days. This got me a little annoyed, so I asked the sales guy to do something for me since I was without a reasonable working phone.   He replied that I could buy another phone and return it when the iPhone arrived. (Great…let me buy 3 phones so 1 can have one working?! ) I didn’t like this suggestion much. I decided instead to get through the next few weeks without a properly working phone. It was challenging, to say the least. Many calls went to voicemail. But that all changed late last week when my new iPhone arrived; now I’m happy to say the iPhone works perfectly. I now have great reception.

Although with my phone working, my immediate thoughts went out to other consumers who may have a similarly defective phone and not even know it. If I could not have compared my phone with Nik’s I would have thought the iPhone reception was weak in general!  But that’s not the case, once working the iPhone has been an amazing and innovative change in mobile smartphone technology.  Which brings me to my last thought, is it right for you?

Do I recommend iPhone or Blackberry technology for real estate agents?

This is a tough question because of so many different personality types out there.  To start if you are a teckie real estate agent there is probably no stopping you…as a matter of fact you probably already own the smartphone. Although if you are looking for stability and time tested solution the blackberry is still a great vehicle for you. You may want to wait a few more months for demand to die out and then you can easily move into the device. And if the unfortunate should happen like you purchase a defective phone at least you will not being waiting 21 days for a new one to be shipped to you.

Things I love about the iPhone:

1. It’s beautiful
2. Huge screen w/ accelerometer
3. Real Internet with 3G (where available…seriously)
4. Push email with Microsoft Exchange support (crucial)
5. Convergence of multiple devices (laptop, camera, iPod, phone)
6. Multi-Touch….LOVE THIS!
7. Wi-Fi
8. The app store
9. Perfect convergence between work life and personal

Things I loved about my Blackberry Curve:

1. Keyboard
2. Durable case
3. Camera w/Flash
4. Light-weight
5. Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES)

Below is a basic matrix for comparison between the iPhone and the Curve.
(Note soon Blackberry will release their BOLD which would be a better comparison.)

Price w/Contract	$299	$99
Dimensions (W x D x H)	2.4 in x 0.5 in x 4.6 in	2.4 in x 0.6 in x 4.2 in
Weight	4.7 oz	3.9 oz
Display type	3.5 in	2.5 in TFT active matrix
Max resolution	480 x 320	320 x 240
Talk time	Up to 600 min	Up to 240 min  (Varies by Model)
Memory	16 GB	64 MB Flash
Service provider	AT&T	T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon1
Data services	SMS, E-Mail, Voice mail	MMS, SMS, WWW, E-Mail
Wireless Interface	IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR	Varies by carrier. See below.
Built-in devices	Camera, Digital Player	Camera, Digital Player 2
GPS	GPS receiver	GPS receiver 3
Messaging / Data Features	PDF support, Microsoft Word support, Microsoft Excel support	Microsoft Office basic

¹ T-Mobile Curve 8320, AT&T Curve 8310, Sprint Curve 8330, Verizon Curve 8330.

² T-Mobile Curve 8320 offers IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0 while the AT&T Curve 8310, Verizon Curve 8330 and Sprint Curve 8330 offer only Bluetooth 2.0.

³ Curve 8310 offers GPS receiver.  The T-Mobile Curve 8320, Verizon Curve 8330 and Sprint Curve 8330 do not offer GPS.

How do I get started?
To start, Jott for Blackberry supports series 8800, 8300 (Curve), and 8100 (Pearl) models. If you are using one of these devices, simply visit www.jott.com/bb on your mobile phone and download the application. Note that once Jott for Blackberry is installed you will need an active Jott account to use the service. Easily get an account by visiting Jott online or from your mobile device after downloading the application.

Once Jott for Blackberry has been installed, you are ready to start sending emails by voice. Locate an email you would like to reply to and choose “Reply with Jott” or “Reply to All with Jott” from the top of the reply menu. Next Jott will speak a welcome message and ask you to press any key (except hang up) to begin recording. Then speak your email and keep it to less than 30 seconds in length.  Once finished speaking your email, simply hold down any button to send. You will also have an option to preview the recorded audio before sending the message. You’ll notice that within a few minutes of sending the voice message it will be converted to text and your recipients(s) will have been emailed from you. The email will contain the text version of your audio, a message saying “sent with Jott” and the audio file. You will also receive a copy of the email for your records.

If you are looking for audit trails of sent and received Jott emails for your real estate business, consider using the Jott Gadget for your iGoogle homepage. With this gadget you’ll be able to easily view the last 7 Jott’s sent and last 7 Jotts received right on your homepage. Learn more about iGoogle Gadget for Jott here.

*Keep in mind that once Jott for Blackberry gets out of beta it will turn into a paid service. But for now this technology is free to use.