Cost of Pennies

Growing up with depression-era parents, being thrifty (and picking up pennies) was always drilled into me. When you consider the actual value of a penny, my parents’ advice in this regard is getting sketchy. Today What If? sets the record straight.

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The GroovBoard

I get a lot of work done on my iPad. In addition to using it to manage my life, I also find it a great place to get serious writing done. One trouble I do have, however, is getting comfortable with it while sitting on the couch or in bed. I had pretty much given up on being able to use my Apple Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad in these situations until I received my GroovBoard ($119). The GroovBoard is a piece of milled lumber with grooves cut in it for holding the iPad, Apple Bluetooth keyboard, and a stylus. It is manufactured so you can hold in a variety of positions.


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For example, while sitting on a couch, you can set a Apple Bluetooth keyboard on it and have it prop up the iPad and go to town.


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If you work with your knees bent, you can lay the iPad against your knees and set the GroovBoard underneath it, where the GroovBoard will hold a Bluetooth keyboard so you can start typing.


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The device also has a series of holes in it to hold a stylus. I don’t use those very often since I’m not a big stylus user. I find it just as easy to tap screen commands with my finger and that’s one less thing for me to lose. However, if you’re an artist, I can see how this would be handy.

The GroovBoard actually comes in two pieces. They are connected with a series of strong magnets and pins to keep everything in line. I generally use the whole thing put together. However, if you’re not using the keyboard and simply want to use it as an iPad holder, remove the extender.

The GroovBoard is manufactured in a small shop in Germany. They come in a variety of woods including alder, apple (Yes, I know), ash, cherry, maple, oak, plum, and walnut. (I like the walnut. It’s no secret that I do a bit of woodworking myself and I really like my GroovBoard.

Sponsor: Sendy


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My thanks to Sendy for sponsoring MacSparky.com this week.

Sendy is a self hosted email newsletter application that delivers your emails via Amazon Simple Email Service (SES).

Compared to hosted newsletter services, Sendy is an app you can install on your own server. That means, you don’t have to pay monthly fees just to maintain your account. As Sendy uses Amazon SES as the sending engine, deliverability is high at a very low cost.

Sendy uses multi-threading to deliver your emails to Amazon SES, Amazon in turn enable your emails to pass SPF & Sender ID policy checks enforced by many ISPs & DKIM-sign all outgoing emails to ensure high deliverablity rate.

The features you get with Sendy are what you’re familiar with other hosted services, like lists & subscriber management, giving your client access, beautiful reports, custom fields, autoresponders and so on.

Find out more about Sendy or get your copy at sendy.co.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

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