RSA Conference: Find out what the Mobile App can do!

Today marks the first day of the RSA Conference! This yearly event began in 1991 and has become as a forum for cryptographers to gather and share the latest knowledge and advancements in the area of Internet security. The conference is taking place at the Moscone Center and the week will be filled with live keynote sessions, seminars, tutorials, networking and more! Here at ABCey, we are so excited to be producing FireEye’s Guardians of the Galaxy themed event this Wednesday in conjunction with RSA.

With so many opportunities to take advantage of this week, how will you build your schedule? The RSA Conference Mobile App is a great solution! This mobile app allows you to:

View agenda items and explore sessions
Build your personal schedule and manage meetings with fellow attendees
Access speaker profiles, sponsor information, and find networking opportunities
View interactive maps of the Moscone Center and of the expo floor
Participate in the conversation on Twitter through the #RSAC stream

In addition to all the unique things this app allows you to do, let’s check out some of its awesome features:

Update – a quick way to share photos, comments, where you are, and which session you’re attending
Activity – see what other people are doing, view photos of the event, find trending sessions and topics, and “like” and comment on other attendee check-ins
Agenda – view the full agenda and related information (session time, room number, etc.)
Attendees – see who is at the event and connect with them through the app
Sponsors – find sponsors, check-in to leave comments and feedback
Profile – you have an official app profile which highlights your name, profile photo, title, and company

This mobile app has tons of great features that can help you decide how to spend your time at the week long event! Its also another great example of how mobile apps can amplify the event experience. You can download it for Android or iOS here! Will you be using the RSA Conference mobile app this week? Which sessions will you be attending?! Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!

Startup Monday: Education

Silicon Valley’s biggest event of the year is finally here! Tonight, we find out which companies will win Tech Crunchies Awards. Here at ABCey, we decided to dive into those nominated for Best Education Startup. We think each company in this category has made valuable contributions to changing the face of education. Let’s take a look at the nominees!

1. Code.org: This non-profit organization is committed to growing computer programming education. This startup believes every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science, and the subject should be included in the core curriculum of U.S. education. Code.org’s mission is to spread the word that there is a worldwide shortage of computer programmers, and that it is much easier to learn to program than you think. Online courses, brick + mortar schools, and summer camps can provide students with computer programming education!

2. CreativeLIVE: The world’s leading live, online classroom is designed for creative entrepreneurs. This startup is transforming the $100 billion continuing education market by offering complete access to the brightest teachers in the world via a social and interactive video platform. Anyone in the world can watch the live-streamed classes for free. Copies of the courses are available to purchase at any time. Since the company was founded in 2010, more than one million students from over 200 countries have utilized the platform, and popular classes have attracted more than 150,000 students!

3. Duolingo: This free language learning service is fun and user-friendly! While you are learning a new language, the users help translate the web, completing sentences, and rating other users’ translations. This startup offers courses in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese! An independent study was conducted that proves Duolingo trumps university-level language learning. The app is also available for iPhones and Androids so you can be productive on the go!

4. Khan Academy: A free world-class education is available for anyone anywhere. This educational non-profit produces a collection of free online micro lectures on various subjects such as mathematics, finance, physics, computer science, history, astronomy, economics, chemistry, and biology. Game mechanics are also incorporated to reward students with badges for reaching certain skill levels. Khan Academy’s resources and materials are available to anyone and it is free of charge. Stats are available to track what you’ve been learning and whether or not you are hitting your goals.

5. Treehouse: Affordable technology education is available for people everywhere! In order to help subscribers learn web design, development, and iOS development, Treehouse uses short videos, quizzes, and badges. The service comes at a cost of $29 to $49 dollars per month. You are guided each step of the way. To start, just hop onto a track. Tracks offer guided pathways through the content. Content is structured in a way that makes it quite simple for you to learn skills within a specific role.

Technology is truly changing the dynamic of education and educational resources are readily available for professors and students with access to the web. Each of these startups are helping people achieve their dreams. Which one do you think should win an award? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!

Startup Monday: Good Eggs

Startups, startups, startups! 2013 was booming as more and more startups hit the market! Have you checked out who is up for nomination at the 7th Annual Crunchies Awards? There are tons of great companies being recognized for their amazing work, and we would like to acknowledge one that is truly applicable to our everyday lives.

Good Eggs originated in the San Francisco Bay Area, and connects you to local farmers and foodmakers. You can shop for local and fresh groceries of your choice, and it will be delivered right to your door. As a recent newcomer to the Bay Area, I don’t always know the best places to do my grocery shopping and want farmer’s market quality food. Aside from their excellent products, great delivery, do-able pick-up hours, and fantastic service, the prices are affordable.

Here are a few of the awesome things Good Eggs has to offer:

1. Good Eggs city marketplaces support independent local farmers and foodmakers. These producers use sustainable practices and make their food with care. You can see who made your food, learn more about them, and contact them directly if you’d like.

2. Good Eggs carries food you can’t find anywhere else. Meals come from top independent chefs, you can find gluten-free anything, and baby food is made to order! This startup is able to support smaller foodmakers who can’t sell into grocery stores because their food is too fresh to live among the grocery store inventory.

3. Local food is better for everybody. The Good Eggs producers are using fair labor practices on their lands, caring for their animals, and producing food that is significantly healthier for you to eat. As more money goes towards locally-owned businesses, the more local food will become easily accessible.

4. Good Eggs Gifting is now available. Gift cards, boxes, and orders are great ways to share with friends and families. Allow your loved ones to pick out foods of their own, or send a box or care package that will be made for them!

How convenient is it to have your food delivered right to your door? It’s cheaper than the chain natural food supermarkets, and the local and fresh food is sure to be a hit! This startup provides a win-win for shoppers, local economies, and the environment.

It’s great for personal grocery shopping and shopping for a group! If your planning an event and need a few last minute items, don’t fret! You can order directly from Good Eggs and they will provide you with what you need.

Here at ABCey, we absolutely love what Good Eggs has to offer! Give it a try, and if you love it as much as we do, spread the word! Let us know what you think of Good Eggs, nominated in the Best E-Commerce Application category, in the comments section below or on Facebook & Twitter!

Thumbtack To The Rescue!

How many hours have you spent online, researching a local service? What if, instead of finding a few possible places, looking up their numbers, calling and leaving a few messages and hopefully hearing back from them in a few days, you could get up to 5 quotes from interested, qualified professionals within 24 hours?! Cue Thumbtack.

Thumbtack is a San Francisco based company (yay!) that offers a free program that allows you to find professionals in your area – and quickly! Thumbtack verifies all of it’s professionals to ensure you are getting the quality of service you deserve AND they receive no advertising money from service professionals, so there is no room for bias. Each provider is qualified through a rigorous checkpoint system, guaranteeing your selection of a safe and qualified professional. All you have to do is send out a request with your needs and within 24 hours you will have interested experts ready to review and choose from!

This website is great for personal use as well as for businesses! Event planning is all about bringing together so many different services and putting on a seamless event that incorporates them all. This group is great, because they do the background work for you and you are guaranteed experienced professionals that will get the job done – well! It takes the guesswork out of hiring someone which can make the difference between a good event and a great event!

How cool is that?! At ABCey, we love almost anything that saves us time! We’d love to hear some of your experiences with Thumbtack or similar groups! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter & Facebook!

Startup Monday: Sevenlogics

Startup Monday is ABCey’s weekly post that features some of the best and brightest companies in the Bay Area. They are often companies that we have our eye on or have worked with in the past that we would like to share with the friends and followers of ABCey Events.

When you’re planning for the big day, you need all the help you can get! That’s why we love Sevenlogics‘ wedding planning apps.

This LA-based company has been filling the Android and Apple app markets with its products since 2009! Sevenlogics focuses on problem-solving apps in categories including baby, lifestyle, finance, and (of course!) wedding prep. Since every app is free, there’s no excuse not to take them out for a spin!

Our favorite apps are the wedding-themed ones, like Wedding To-Do and Wedding Budget. Although these are obviously marketed towards brides and grooms, these apps are great for any upcoming project you have on your hands. Wedding Budget is our hands-down favorite because keeping track of the budget is always a huge concern, no matter the size! Set up strict allocations for each phase of the event planning process, including venue and catering costs. The clear calculations and graphics make it easy to see what’s consuming too much money and which areas came in under budget.

Would you use a Sevenlogics app for your next big project? Let us know in a comment or on Facebook & Twitter!

Tech Tuesday: What’s Shakin’?

Tech Tuesday highlights the best and brightest ideas in the tech world. ABCey would like to recognize these up and coming companies for their innovative ideas and ability to think outside the box!

Hey all, What’s Shakin’? For us, it’s an awesome new social media app for all of us on the go!

We know, you’ve seen too many social media apps come and go before returning to the Facebook & Twitter mainstays. But What’s Shakin’ is definitely catching our eye and keeping us interested in events across the country! Sometimes, sifting through all the junk on your homepage (and there are a LOT of ridiculous posts!) is just too much. You want to hear what people are saying about a concert in Texas or a college football game in New York. That’s when you use What’s Shakin’!

Just type in or pinpoint a location on your map, select a radius, and you’ll instantly see what other users in that area are saying! Become part of the conversation about your favorite show’s season finale in your hometown and it’s almost like you’re there. That’s because you’re not following people- you’re following places!

Do you think What’s Shakin’ could catch on? Would you use this app? Tell us in a comment and on Facebook & Twitter!

Tech Tuesday: The 10 Best Disruptive Apps

So many innovative ideas in the tech world come in the form of disruptive services, meaning they show up an existing service by presenting a better version. Think of them as tech life hacks!

1. PaperKarma | You can FINALLY stop getting catalogs from that weird store you bought from 5 years ago! With the PaperKarma app, just take a picture of the unwanted mail and they take care of the rest.

2. Sidecar | Ride-share companies connecting the car haves and have-nots are incredibly popular cab alternatives, but Sidecar is our favorite. It was born and raised in San Francisco, the cars are nice and the people friendly, and we’ve never had to wait more than 3 minutes for a ride!

3. Fantastical | This event calendar for Mac lets users customize the language in their event details so it’s easier for them to read. Plus, Fantastical recognizes the event’s location and can invite your contacts to join you!

4. SwiftKey | It is so nice to stop saying, “damn you, autocorrect!” Swiftkey for Android, iPhone, and tablet learns how you type so it can better predict your next word. Their newest feature, Flow, allows the user to send messages by swiping their finger over the letters.

5. Sparrow | By incorporating Dropbox and drag-and-drop attachments into e-mail, Sparrow became the highest grossing app less than a day on the market! Since its acquisition by Google, we expect to see some awesome changes to our gmail mailbox!

6. Dark Sky | While you can never really trust the weather reports for the Bay Area, technology is getting close! Dark Sky tells you the weather report in your specific GPS location with up-to-the-minute accuracy.

7. Robin for Android | Watch out Siri, there’s a new girl on the road! Navigating traffic can be tough, but Robin handles your social media, navigation, music, parking, and texting for you! Just tell her what you want with hands-free voice control and let her take on the tasks while you’re at the wheel.

8. Camera + | This app makes Instagram’s filters look like the dark ages! Unlike the iPhone camera, this app allows you to manage brightness, focus, and exposure with separate taps before you take your picture. The incredible editing features will turn your snaps into works of art!

9. Spotify |Instead of making the uncomfortable decision between buying every song on iTunes and stealing songs online, Spotify showed us a new way to enjoy music. Live streaming Spotify radio on your phone kills your battery but it’s completely worth it!

10. Dropbox | The world breathed a collective sigh of relief when Dropbox freed us from flash-drives. Now, we can’t imagine a time before sharing files wasn’t as easy as clicking “upload” and “share!”

Do you use these apps? Tell us what you think of them and our list in the comments section or on Facebook and Twitter!

Startup Monday: TaskRabbit

Let’s face it: in any given day, you have 100 things to do and no time to do them. That’s where TaskRabbit and its team come in!

TaskRabbit is a service connecting those with extra time on their hands and busy people in need of a helping hand. First, post your task on the site and state the maximum amount you would pay someone to do it for you. Each task is performed by a skilled and trustworthy TaskRabbit that you choose to most adequately perform your task. The TaskRabbits can do just about any chore or errand from doing your grocery shopping, assembling tricky Ikea furniture, or picking up a couch you bought on Craigslist.

In February of 2013, TaskRabbit launched an official dashboard for businesses, which account for roughly 35% of its business. This service focuses on temporarily staffing companies to do odd jobs in an efficient and reliable way. The site also has a mobile edition for iPhone and iPad that allows you to add instructions with a voice recording, attach images, and pinpoint your location with ease. Just imagine how much this service would come in handy while you’re planning an event!

Would you use TaskRabbit to help you with your errands? Let us know in a comment or catch up with us on Facebook and Twitter!

The 10 Dating Apps You Definitely Don’t Want

We’re told that online dating leads to 1 in every 5 relationships. If these were the only dating apps out there, that probably wouldn’t be the case! ABCey brings you the funniest, creepiest, and downright bizarre dating apps out there for some Friday fun!

1. LuLu | Also known as the most terrifying app to men, LuLu lets you describe men you’ve seen with a series of hashtags. Some of the ones you’ll want to avoid are #CheaperThanABigMac, #WanderingEye, and #OwnsCrocs. Ouch!

2. On the Rebound | This app links to Facebook and notifies you if anyone becomes single. Because the only thing better than being “Facebook Official” is being Facebook Unofficial.

3. Flavor Connect | What’s your dating flavor: strawberry fling, lemon fancy, or vanilla fidelity? Something tells us that vanilla isn’t very popular!

4. Hot or Not | This app promises to answer the age-old question, “How do I tell someone if I like them?” Rating them on a scale of 1-10 is sure to get you a first date!

5. Cloud Girlfriend | In this dating realm, nobody expects you to be yourself! Dubbed as virtual fake dating, this site lets you create an avatar that flirts with other anonymous users’ avatars.

6. InstaDo | This exactly is what it sounds like. Through this app, you can invite someone to coffee, dinner, or to “do it.” Somehow, we don’t think you’ll even get the coffee!

7. Haloo | You will immediately be dubbed “stalker” when you walk up to someone with this opener: “Hey, I saw through my phone’s GPS that you were near me and read that you like red wine and country music. Are you free later?”

8. SpeedDate | This app gives you coins every time you chat with someone that helps you unlock “special flirting powers.” Who said dating isn’t a game?

9. KimYe | Pretend you’re the proud parents of baby North in this game to woo Kim’s heart. Avoid Reggie Bush, Ray J, and her other exes while you battle to beat the 72-day clock- or else you’re “Humphried!” We’re thinking Kim will want to sit this one out.

10. GothicMatch | Dubbed the “best underground community site for Gothic and Vampire people.” I’m in if Edward’s in!

What do you think of these dating apps? Which is the best, worst, or funniest? Let us know in a comment, on Twitter, or on Facebook!

Your Ultimate Guide to SF Pride!

As LGBT Pride month comes to a close, the 43rd Annual San Francisco Pride Celebration is just beginning! ABCey put together the ultimate guide to help you make the most out of one of our city’s biggest events of the year.

1. Download | The San Francisco Pride 2013 App is available for download on most smartphones. Put Pride in your pocket with schedules, event information, maps, and even where to find bathrooms throughout the weekend!

2. Ride | The easiest way to get to Pride is to take BART to Civic Center Plaza. However, BART workers are deciding whether or not to go on strike this weekend, which would severely impact transit all across the bay. Visit BART’s website or download the Embark iBart app for train schedules.

3. Tweet | For any and all Pride updates in real-time, make sure to follow SFPride and SFPrideLive! SFPride is the official account for the Pride Parade and Celebration, while SFPrideLive handles the festivities’ televised and online broadcasts. Either way, your Twitter feed won’t miss a beat!

4. Party | The best thing about Pride is the celebrating! There will be so many fun LGBT events this weekend, so keep track of them with Wsup Now. This app isn’t only a calendar: it shows you what events are near you, shows you how to get to them, and lets you post pictures if you’re there! The official Pride calendar can be found on SF Pride’s Official Website.

5. Know | This year, the LGBT community faces many high-profile issues locally and globally. Stay educated by keeping up with the controversy surrounding Bradley Manning and the Prop 8 and DOMA Supreme Court decisions.

The Pride Celebration runs from 12:00 p.m.- 6p.m. on Saturday, June 29th and 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 30th. Sunday’s parade kicks off at 10:30 a.m. from Beale Street along Market and ends at Market and 8th St. in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

Will you be participating in any San Francisco Pride celebrations? Tell us about it and let us know if our tips helped you! Shoot us a comment or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook!