Last year I came across a post by Sharif Shaalan on his blog Salesforce.com Tips, Tricks, Solutions, and Thoughts talking about his favorite Salesforce Tools he uses quite often and I really enjoyed his posting, so I thought I would share my favorite tools. Salesforce.com prides it’s self as a “No Software” company meaning everything you need to get up and running is in the product and platform. Well you may not need software to get up and running on Salesforce but it takes great tools to keep to running smooth and efficient. This week I wanted to share with you my favorite tools that make my daily Salesforce administration and development easy.

I live outside of Chicago so there are a lot of options for mobile high speed internet. My cellular carrier is Sprint which has amazing LTE service and I’m getting on average 24Mbps down but there tethering plan is not worth the monthly cost for my usage. I first heard about Freedompop via a podcast called Tech News Today a couple of years ago so I started to get familiar with it back then but really didn’t have a need for it at the time. I would use mobile internet when I need too, which is mainly during commute to and from work to work while on the local rail service. I tried tethered to my phone in the beginning but founded it stupid to pay so much to use so little of my mobile data plan. I tried did from November until January and then I figured I would pick up a Freedompop online for a great deal. I was leery at first with the fact that runs on the Sprint WIMAX network which use to be owned by Clear Wireless but I figured let’s give it a ride and see it was a small investment oppose to keeping on paying Sprint. The cost of hardware was 25 bucks which included shipping, first month of service, what they call Freedompop premier, and 2GB of data for the plan. After that all that would cost me 20 bucks. But I figure I would cancel and drop down to the free plan of 500mb of data after the first month. The first thing that impressed with the quick time to delivery, I ordered my unit on a Monday afternoon and received it by Thursday via FedEx oppose to UPS Mail Innovation or UPS Sure post or some other hybrid with the USPS.

One of the challenges I face within Salesforce is noticing performance issues before my users do. It doesn’t happen to often but when it does my users notice. Like any other system Salesforce is only as weak as its weakest link. To help me stay ahead without constantly having to look at trust.salesforce.com I’ve created a zap using Zapier to monitor the rss feed for my server and send me a email when an incident is reported though the rss feed. Check out my zap below.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a #tsql2sday post, but thought that this month’s topic was worthy of me hoping into the pool with the #sqlfamily. This month the subject is “Automation”. chosen by Hemanth D. (Blog | @SqlChow). If you want to read the opening post, please click the image above. I’m lover of software automation and been a fan since writing my first macro in Excel when I was in high school. I loved anything that makes it easier for you to get more done with less. Back in the 2000’s I got introduced to SQL 2000 and DTS and it changed my world. My first package I created was awesome and so exciting it took data from database and put it into another one and then truncated the table, once I scheduled it to run I was able to not worry about handling that task anymore and sleep peacefully. Since then I’ve found my passion and made a living improving businesses through process improvement using automation.

I love to learn and talk SQL all day everyday which gave me the inspiration for my blog post about my favorite SSIS Reference Points and my Favorite Business Intelligence Blogs in the past. So without further adieu I present to my list of what I blogs I commonly read in the Salesforce area and of course there in no particular order. I’ve built on the platform and written functions around it off and on over the last 4 years. So when I want to learn a little something something I check out these cool blogs they’re cross products and industries and all wholesome goodness.

Each I give my time and money to many causes. The way I handle giving my time and money to causes is simple. Through the Jaycees I’m able to give my time to many causes in the way of service to my local community and of course my favorite is Hospital Care-a-van which was run by the Mount Prospect Jaycees. Now as for money, each year I pick a different organization I’m interested in and give my money to them and I ask my friends to join in and support me in making an impact in that organizations cause. Last year I picked the United Nations Nothing But Nets organization which help prevents Malaria by providing bed nets around the world. This year I’ve chosen St. Judes Children’s Hospital. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. St. Jude is the first and only pediatric cancer center to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute and we all know cancer sucks. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering research and treatment of children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. You can help out by making a donation to www.mystjudeevent.org/rlewis.