Shelly Palmer

The only thing more powerful and important than a college education and college degree is the level of debt that many college graduates face when heading into the real world: the average four-year graduate leaves school with $26,600 in student debt. MassMutual is doing its part to relieve one grad’s loan burden, as the company launched a “Down With Debt” Facebook campaign on Monday, which will award one Facebook user $20,000 for debt relief. To enter the contest, all you need to do is like the campaign’s page and write a killer 140-character explanation of how you plan to reduce your debt. It’s a win-win-win all around: Mass Mutual gets great advice, the winner gets a nice check, and we all remember tips to stay debt free: paying with cash rather than credit, avoiding luxury items and proper budgeting. The contest runs through Valentine’s Day, so get working on an ... (more)

Staying Dry With Office 365: How the Cloud Beat Sandy

We have a saying here at ‘wichcraft: Make people happy while being proud of what you do. We’re in the retail food business. Our job is to feed our customers, and our customers are at the core of everything we do. As Director of Technology for a sandwich company spanning 15 locations and three states, it can be easy to forget this simple fact. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the daily grind of maintaining servers and networks just so we can keep our business humming along. When we made the jump to Office 365 earlier this year, we were able to take our existing on-premise ... (more)

AT&T Now Allows FaceTime over 3G to All Customers

After several months from Apple announcing FaceTime over cellular, AT&T; is finally rolling the feature out to all of its tiered data customers. AT&T; cites that its testing phase for FaceTime over cellular is complete, and will be enabled for all of its customers, including those on tiered data plans at no additional cost. Previously, FaceTime was only available over cellular to customers with LTE or Mobile Share plans, and now, those who own the iPhone 4S and are on any tiered data plan can now use the carrier’s HSPA+ network to use Apple’s video chat tool. There’s no word on whe... (more)

Facebook Begins Offering Free Calling in US Via Messenger App

Earlier this month word got out that Facebook was trialing a free voice calling feature in Canada. We said that, if those tests went well, the company would expand to the US. Well, things must have gone swimmingly because, just two weeks later, American customers are starting to see the same feature turn up in the Messenger app. Just tap the “i” icon in the top right hand corner while viewing a conversation with a person and you’ll see a button for a “free call.” The voice call needs to be made over WiFi, however, so don’t expect to completely replace your contact list and dial... (more)

Facebook Graph Search: Check These Security Settings Now

Tweaking your Activity Log just became a necessary and tedious new part of being a Facebook user. Thanks to the service’s new Graph Search feature, all that profile info you’ve painstakingly updated over the years (employer, home town, relationship status, movie likes, etc) and all the photos you’ve added over time, are now to become data in a database of the social network’s trillion connections between a billion users. Before Facebook rolls out this new search engine to the masses, it is rolling it out in a very limited beta to select users. And while those guinea pigs test it ... (more)