Agloves help Maui girl make transition to Seattle

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Sara B.

What’s a Maui girl to do when she has to leave paradise for the cold and dark of Seattle?

Agloves makes germaphobe gloves, travel gloves, subway gloves, sun protection gloves, gloves for sun protection

Jenn of Jenn's Adventures models her Agloves bamboo gloves.

Well, write a blog of course. At least that’s what Jenn of Jenn’s Adventures decided to do when she had to relocate to the Pacific Northwest to help during a family medical emergency.

But she didn’t like the cold. Her boyfriend tried to help by buying her a pair of winter touchscreen gloves, but those gloves limited her to just her thumb and index finger on each hand and that wasn’t good enough.

The Jenn discovered Agloves, America’s top-rated iPhone gloves. “I didn’t realize how important every finger was until I tried Agloves,” she wrote. “Particularly when you’re trying to take a picture from your iPhone.”

Jenn wears her gloves alone and as a glove liner.

Agloves are iPhone gloves, iPad gloves, Android gloves, winter touchscreen gloves.

Jenn gives her Agloves Sport gloves a workout at Mount Baker.

She gave them a good tryout during a trip to Mount Baker for the Legendary Banked Slalom Pro Snowboardering Contest Finals.

“During the entire trek up the mountain which probably took an hour or so, I was perfectly comfortable with just my Agloves Sport,” she wrote.

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New iPad with retina display debuts today

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Sara B.

The new iPad is available today and is expected to break sales records.

Apple's newest iPad boasts a dazzling retina display of 264 pixels per inch.

Analysts predict that Apple will sell at least 55 million iPads by the end of 2012, bringing total iPad sales up to 100 million, Hayley Tsukayama writes in the Washington Post.

The reviews of Apple’s newest product are glowing.

Jason Snell with MacWorld writes that the retina display on the new iPad eclipses its predecessors.

“Of course, the display on previous iPads was no slouch,” he writes. “But the moment you pick up a third-generation iPad, you can tell the difference. All the slight jagginess and oddly misshappen characters we take for granted on lower-resolution displays just vanish on the retina display, and you’re left with the same sort of typographic excellence you’d expect in a printed book.”

“The new iPad doesn’t introduce anything that we haven’t seen before, either in the iPhone or in rival tablets,” New York Times reporter David Pogue notes in his review. “Apple just took its white-hot iPad and added the latest screen, battery and cellular technologies. For the same price as before, you can now get an updated iPad that’s still better-looking, better integrated and more consistently designed than any of its rivals.”

If you’re lucky enough to score a new iPad today, you can keep its screen clean, shiny and fingerprint-free by using it with a pair of Agloves.

America’s top-rated winter touchscreen gloves make perfect iPad gloves and will let you use your new iPad out in the sunshine even if the temperature is a bit chilly.

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ATPM blogger uses Agloves to stay warm and connected at hockey rink

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Sara B.

Christopher Turner, a blogger for At This Particular Macintosh, put Agloves to the test at a hockey rink.

Mary Lapp Raynaud's patient uses Agloves

Mary Lapp uses her Agloves while watching a hockey game.

“Spending two to four hours a week at hockey rinks means I have time on my hands to play with my iPhone” Turner wrote. During games, my wife expects to receive scoring updates via text message. The Agloves sounded like a solution to keeping my hands warm during these moments. And, indeed, they have.”

Read Turner’s full review here.

Enterprising mom builds business out of fighting dry hands

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Sara B.

For years Renee Harris lived with having dry, cracked hands. But she got tired of putting on Band-Aids just so she could work in her kitchen or make soap.

Using lotion and sleeping with gloves at night did little to solve her problem, so the mother of 8 turned to the Internet. Her Google search turned up several recipes for hard lotion bars.

Renee Harris turned her quest for healthy hands into a family business.

Being a do-it-yourselfer, she decided to try the simplest one with just three ingredients: coconut oil, shea butter and beeswax.

“I didn’t want to invest in something that wouldn’t work,” she said.

Her hands were dry and covered in cuts when she made her first lotion bar. Within a day, her hands were healed. She then decided to try the bar on her son’s seasonal eczema. After about a week, the bar had cleared that up, too.

“I found a solution to the problem of dry skin so I started making the bars and giving them to relatives and friends. I was getting lots of good feedback, so I decided to try it out as a business.”

She started small and took her bars to a farmers market near her home in Cottonwood, CA.

The MadeOn: Skin Care business grew quickly. She got the attention of some bloggers and used Facebook to promote the business. After her husband was laid off from Hewlett-Packard, he joined the company and helped it continue to thrive.

“We decided to go all out,” Harris said. “We knew it was make it or break it. For my husband to have to switch jobs would mean we’d have to move and we didn’t want to do that. We love where we live.”

In addition to her hard lotion bars, Harris also sells soap, hair butter, rash cream and a collection of e-books filled with simple recipes for skin care products. She’s also experimenting with creating a zit stick to fight pimples and a zinc stick to protect people from sunburn.

Agloves President Jennifer Spencer discovered Harris and the MadeOn hard lotion bars while looking for photos of dry hands for a project she was working on.

The women share a mission to keep busy hands happy and healthy. “It’s the job of the Beesilk bar to clear up cuts and wounds, and get your hands soft and ready to do the work you need to get done,” Harris wrote in her blog.

“But what the Beesilk bar can’t do is keep your hands warm while out in the cold. That’s when I recommend Agloves because they not only ward off the nip, but they keep you connected when using your iPhone or iPad.”

Newly revamped magazine caters to locum tenens physicians

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Sara B.

Many doctors no longer dream of owning their own practices.

Instead, more are joining the ranks of locum tenens (Latin for place holder) health care providers.

Rising malpractice insurance rates and other costs have led many doctors to become locum tenens or mobile physicians rather than settle into their own practices.

Rather than being locked into their own practice or work permanently at one hospital, locum tenens providers take short or long term contracts to provide care where its needed most, said Bobbi Harrison, editor of LocumLife, a newly relaunched online magazine designed to cater to the locum tenens lifestyle.

The magazine started in 2005, but ceased print and digital publication in 2010. Now it’s back as a digital only publication and is focused on providing lifestyle information for locum tenens physicians.

Because malpractice insurance and other costs make it prohibitive for many doctors to establish their own practices, more are being drawn to working with staffing agencies that provide physicians in areas that sometimes struggle to attract doctors.

Some doctors take on full-time contracts and go on staff permanently while others may take only two- or three-week assignments, Harrison said.

“It can be as short as a weekend or as long as six months to a year,” she said. “Some of the physicians are on the road and traveling and the magazine is designed to help them get the most out of that lifestyle and really succeed with it.”

In every issue, the magazine will focus on must-have gadgets for on-the-go physicians.

And Harrison is committed to adding more bells and whistles — including slideshows and videos — to the magazine’s website.

“We know people want different ways to get their news,” she said. “We want to provide something more comprehensive so people can tailor it to what they want to get from the experience.

The magazine will celebrate its relaunch from 2-5 p.m. EST Feb. 22 with a virtual party. To join the celebration, hop on Twitter and use #LocumLaunch.

There won’t be champagne and canapes, but the party will offer giveaways and the opportunity for locum tenens professionals to share their experiences, ask questions and get advice — particularly tax advice from Joseph Smith owner of traveltax.com, a company that caters to mobile professionals.

Groundhog day forecast: 6 more weeks of winter?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Sara B.

If you trust your weather forecast to animals, then we may have another month and a half of winter.

Boo! I saw my shadow. That means 6 more weeks of winter.

Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog, saw his shadow this morning. And that means six more weeks of winter.

But apparently there are other groundhogs trying to horn in on Phil’s action.

And Staten Island Chuck of the Staten Island Zoo in New York City didn’t see his shadow today. His keepers say that means spring is just around the corner.

At Agloves headquarters in Boulder today it’s 45 and sunny. We want to think spring is nearly here, but the National Weather Service says a blast of winter weather is headed our way.

The forecast calls for the snow to start tonight and we are supposed to end up with 10 to 16 inches.

That means I’ll need to keep my Agloves handy so I can keep my fingers toasty and ready to dial the number for someone to come shovel my driveway.

Which touchscreen gloves are best? Agloves

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Sara B.

Inc. Magazine compares Agloves Sport gloves to Grandoe Sensor Touch and Kombi 4-Way Stretch Gloves with Grip in a review out this week.

The magazine gave its only 3 of 3 stars rating to Agloves, calling them,“The most touch-friendly offering in our test group.”

“Dialing phone numbers and scrolling through photos, Google Maps, and stories on the New York Times’s app were a breeze. Even better, the lack of buky seams on the fingertips made it easy to type text messages and e-mails.”

Read the full review here.

Agloves: a winter wardrobe staple

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Sara B.

Every woman needs a little black dress, a sexy pair of black pumps and a pair of winter touchscreen gloves.

Agloves are the ultimate fusion of fashion and technology.

Traditional winter gloves don’t work with touchscreens, forcing smartphone users to freeze their fingers when they answer their phones, post to Facebook or send a text or tweet.

But Agloves®, America’s best winter touchscreen gloves and the ultimate fusion of fashion and technology, work with all touchscreen devices and allow fashionistas to stay connected while being both warm and trendy. The gloves, made with patent-pending technology, provide full 10-finger access to all smartphones, tablets and touchscreen interfaces as accurately as a bare hand. The gloves have a snug, comfortable fit providing optimum dexterity and precision for texting, scrolling or swiping.

Agloves Sport, knit with a blend of acrylic, spandex and silver yarn, are black with silver flecks to produce a charcoal grey color. Because the gloves are primarily made with acrylic, they are breathable and help draw moisture away from the body.

Agloves Bamboo, knit with a lightweight blend of silver yarn and bamboo, are made with a total of 87 percent antimicrobial fibers. The cream-colored winter gloves can be worn alone or as glove liners.

Both styles are attractive and affordable at $23.99 and are available online at agloves.com and at selected retailers, including Best Buy and Verizon Wireless.

Touchscreen glove companies vie to be category leader

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Sara B.

LAS VEGAS, 10 Jan. 2012 @ CES — In 2011, the touchscreen glove market flooded with new brands, new flavors and new ways of crafting the touchscreen glove.

But which touchscreen gloves will be remembered as the iPod of the MP3 players? Hopefully 2012 will tell, as consumers sift through many choices and decide which glove to buy.

Bobby Thompson, senior manager at Bivouac in Ann Arbor, Mich., said his store carries five brands of touchscreen gloves – including Agloves® – and has trouble keeping them on the shelf. About 60 percent of Bivouac’s customers buy the gloves as a gift for someone who owns a smartphone.

Unlike other touchscreen gloves, Agloves – twice named Best New Product 2011 (Stevie Awards, BCBR IQ) and Audience Choice Winner (IFA, 2011) – are not “retrofitted” with conductive patches or stitching. Instead, Agloves put patent-pending technology directly into the glove resulting in uncompromised performance, effortless accuracy and agility. With Agloves, you can mimic the intuitive motions of your bare hand and text, swipe and scroll like normal.

Thompson of Bivouac said when customers first look at touchscreen gloves they think only being able to use a finger and thumb will be OK.

“Most people don’t think about how helpful it would be to have the ability to scroll and read email while using the palm of your hand because you’re trying to juggle your phone, coffee, car keys and the paper,” he said.

Gloves. Who knew. Smartphones skyrocket, and now one of the hottest gadget accessories are gloves. Strange how technology infiltrates even our winter clothing.

What sets Agloves apart? We implore you to try them yourself. But here is what we think:

· The best ingredients. Agloves are made with real silver, the most conductive metal on the periodic table. We spend the extra dime, to give you better quality

· Thoughtful technology. Patent-pending technology makes Agloves the most accurate touchscreen glove on the market

· Elegant look. Agloves technology is built into the glove, avoiding clunky patches, or a robotic look.

Agloves sell at a rate of about 2.4 pairs per minute on their online store in the US alone. That’s nearly a quarter of a million people who now don touchscreen gloves.

Smartphones create jobs

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Sara B.

In today’s job market, you rarely hear the words hot or lucrative.

But in 2012, as reliance on smartphone technology intensifies, an entire sub-culture of jobs and industries continue to fatten at least this one technology sector job market.

Smartphones have created a demand for protective cases, Bluetooth headsets, interactive apps and winter touchscreen gloves.

According to a July 2011 survey by freelancer.com, the number of smartphone development jobs grew 12 percent from the first quarter of 2011 to the second. Jobs ranging from software engineers to marketing positions for the Android, iPhone and iPad all saw double-digit growth rates over the two quarters. Technical support also comprises a large share of the new jobs.

And because while smartphones have become so fully incorporated into our lives, they also have created some new needs that developers and business professionals are now making money by fulfilling.

Who knew you needed a device charger everyday, at least once a day, or maybe several chargers conveniently located at home, in the car and at work? Or a Bluetooth earpiece to make it easier to actually use your smartphone to make calls? Or a rugged cell phone cover to protect your device?

Fort Collins, CO-based Otterbox, which manufactures smartphone cases, added 240 employees from 2007 to 2010 and saw its revenue skyrocket from $5.1 million to $168.9 million during that time frame, according to Inc. Magazine.

Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking website, inspired an “App Economy” that created as many as 235,644 jobs and spent $15.71 billion in wages and benefits through September 2011, according to a study from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

But it’s not just the development of technology that is growing, some analysts said.

“People need to be attuned to the use of technology,” said Woodson Martin, Salesforce.com’s senior vice president for employee success, according to a Dice article.

For example, the touchscreen glove market is a relatively new winter apparel industry that revolutionizes winter gloves to be touchscreen-friendly.

Agloves, warm winter gloves knitted with silver that work effectively with all 10 fingers on all touchscreen devices, were created by Boulder, CO mother-daughter duo Jennifer and Jean Spencer when they discovered two years ago that their normal gloves wouldn’t work with their iPhones.

The pair experimented with several products, before deciding to use silver, to create Agloves.

Initially launched as an online only e-commerce store, Agloves sold 43,000 pairs into 43 countries in 2010. In 2011, the company sold 173,000 pairs. During the 2011 holiday season, the gloves sold at a rate of 2.4 pairs per minute on the Agloves online store.