Today, after hearing all the Kindle announcements, I thought to call Amazon and see if I was still on warranty. I called them at 12:59pm and by 1:02pm I was off the phone with a tracking number, my replacement Kindle on the way.

With that kind of customer service, I’m reminded of friends who’ve tried to replace their iPhone screen with Apple (same service with iPad). Nothing but complaints.

Now that people weigh Kindle Fire against the Apple iPad, customer service will increasingly become part of the war. And right now, Amazon is definitely winning that battle.

• #25 EcoScraps – compost systems
• #24 bambooHR – simplifies HR process
• #23 izatt – iPhone and iPad apps / milebug is a top seller
• #22 Zylun – provide access to offshore work force
• #21 Launch Leads – gets leads for other businesses
• #20 Bluehouse Ski company – sponsor local skiers
• #19 Omnia Alliance – marketing management tools
• #18 Avantar – local mobile search – Pay for Performance
• #17 ClearCenter – IT of distributed teams in small company environments.
• #16 DrivingSales.com – collect business intelligence and market data across the automotive industry
• #15 Professional Cable – data connections for the Internet?
• #14 Orabrush – that’s us
• #13 Job Match – iApplicants solutions
• #12 SweetToothFairy – nailed QVC
• #11 CFOWise – ton of clients
• #10 BizVision – creating, managing and delivering webcasts for corporations
• #9 KT Tape – for treating and supporting sports injuries.
• #8 mediaFORGE – transforming online advertising based on previous browsing and shopping behavior
• #7 Fiftyfilms, LLC – My girlfriend’s boyfriend
• #6 Experience Dental Studio – great smiles.
• #5 SEO.com – was #6 last year.
• #4 Campus Book Rentals – 50-80 percent discount on textbook rentals. Saving students millions.
• #3 qivana – dietary system to stabilize and revitalize their health. All natural products.
• #2 simply mac – apple specialist
• #1 Orange Soda – online marketing with a fiz

Last time I attended this an MLM called Xango won.

On a day when, at UVEF, we celebrate the triumphs of 25 Utah companies and their growth, it is healthy perspective for us to remember a few excerpts (emphasized below) and lessons from this famous poem.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

To those of you who are new, or disaster stricken or veteran entrepreneurs (and I suspect each of us has or will or will again be part of all three groups), as we navigate triumph and disaster, may we not let either imposter change our “will…to…hold on,” and may we “fill [every single] minute with 60 seconds ‘worth of distance run.”

I thought it would be slick to do it with Prezi (our favorite presentation software at Orabrush), but the videos didn’t seem to embed with Prezi (probably because Prezi.com doesn’t encode the video during the file creation process, just includes whatever video you give it).

Then I tried adding the mp4 videos via iTunes. Nope. They wouldn’t transfer because they wouldn’t play on the iPad.

I almost had to buy Wondershare’s convertor for $40, but the video team told me that Final Cut files would work. I tried to use the mp4’s from Final Cut rather than from YouTube downloads. Nope.

Our editor showed me how to use Final Cut to create an mp4 with iPad settings. I did that (took hours to encode 5 videos) and then installed the videos onto the iPad.

I downloaded Keynote and created my presentation. When I tried to add the videos to the Keynote, it would only allow me to select from the photo album. So, I went back to the Mac and discovered that I would need to add the videos to iPhoto (that’s intuitive) and sync the iPad again.

Then the videos were available, but as I added them to my presentation, Keynote had to encode them again! More time waiting.

Finally, I had to deploy them to 4 iPads, a couple iPad 2’s and a couple iPad 1’s. Because the file was huge, I had to track down the computer that each iPad syncs to and use a thumbdrive to sync the file. One guy had never synced with iTunes and so his iPad software and iTunes were out of date.

Two days later, I have the slickest presentation that will be at NACDS

Would have taken me two hours to do with a regular computer and Prezi.

iTunes is a bloated mess and the shackles of syncing for file deployment make me want to pull my hair out. There has got to be a better way to do this Apple!

That’s one of my favorite quotes from Ron Paul’s book Liberty Defined that I just finished.

Thank you Ron Paul for your tireless effort to reeducate the country on liberty.

www.realclearpolitics.com

The power to kill without a trial (and without the apprehenders’ lives in danger) is a scary thing to play around with, no matter out terrible the accused crime. What a precedent!

I recently heard a Mother say, “I did not know how to respond when my little daughter asked me: ‘Why did Saddam get a trial but Bin Laden didn’t?” Very insightful question from the mouth of a child.

Zions Bank helped us collect a whole bunch of $1 bills for the shoot. We called four banks and it took 25 minutes to recount the money with automated machines when we returned it to the bank. What was fascinating to me, was that there were $2 missing after all that cash was thrown around.

It’s wonderful to work around such trustworthy people. Makes it so much easier to do business when you trust those you work with.

Watch the video below…

Filthy Rich Tongue – Orabrush Series A-1 Funding

Thanks to Susan at Zions Bank for collecting and counting all those $1 bills!