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Trillian
October 31, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A piece of software, Free, ProductivityTrillian: Per the website: Cerulean Studios I'm a Professional Virtual Assistant, and maintaining contact with
my clients, and potential clients visiting my site, is critical to my
success. Trillian is an easy-to-use piece of software which
allows me to manage all of my chat systems via one sleek
interface. No more multiple multiple windows and logins to Yahoo!
Messenger, AIM, MSN & ICQ--Trillian handles everything for me! Free - one of my favorite 4-letter words! Reviewed by Lori DavisWhat is it?
"Trillian is a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that
supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. It provides
capabilities not possible with original network clients, while
supporting standard features such as audio chat, file transfers, group
chats, chat rooms, buddy icons, multiple simultaneous connections to
the same network, server-side contact importing, typing notification,
direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ),
SMS support, and privacy settings.
Without stealing your home
page and with no other included software, pop-ups, or spyware, Trillian
provides unique functionality such as contact message history, a
powerful skinning language, tabbed messaging, global status changes
(set all networks away at once), Instant Lookup (automatic Wikipedia
integration), contact alerts, an advanced automation system to trigger
events based on anything happening in the client, docking, hundreds of
emoticons, emotisounds, shell extensions for file transfers, and
systray notifications."
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
When I'm "away," I can change my Trillian status message to show that
I'm away on all of my chat systems. Trillian also shows me the
status of my e-mail accounts, and allows me to rename the screen names
of my contacts.
A gorgeous piece of free software that helps me kill, every day!How much does it cost?
Rating?
Jewelboxing
October 26, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A product, DesignJewelboxing: A spiffy jewel case you can use to house your next masterpiece on a CD or DVD. Think software, your latest album, your portfolio, or your next proposal. Coudal Partners This case is pure rugged quality. Most of the garbage out there passing itself off as a CD or DVD case is wimpy, flimsy and decidedly unimpressive. With Jewelboxing cases you stand out immediately. Packaging and design are often what separate the winners from the losers. With these, you'll never be a loser.
Jim Coudal personally shepherded my order through and was responsive, friendly, and efficient. After you order you'll get a digital design template for the case you selected in PDF/Illustrator/Freehand/Quark/InDesign/Pagemaker/Photoshop format, so you can quickly get after the task of creating top-notch innards for your Jewelboxing case. And to make it even easier the blank innards come with them too. And this is top notch paper, perfectly designed for consumer grade printers, the end result is radiant. So yeah, pre-perforated and scored trayliners, insert books and disc labels (with a few extras in case you screw up).
These guys are easy to order from and have thought of everything.
Here's what some other industrious folks have done with their Jewelboxing cases. Starting at $54 for a 20 pack of Kings, or 30 pack of Standards. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
How much does it cost?
Rating?
Happy Links
October 19, 2005 in Happy Links- Venture Voice interviews Jason Fried on this podcast. For those of us not suffering Jason Fried fatigue yet (boo to those who are), this is a great interview. Slow at first, but Jason hits his stride toward the end and says some great stuff. As I was listening and quoting parts of this to my friend over IM (he asked me to pause so he could hurl half way through), I figured out why I enjoy following JF: His success gives me permission to follow my gut, even (and especially) when it bucks conventional wisdom. He does so himself (almost with blinders on) and it's hard to argue with his success. Kudos to him for sharing his formulas for success so freely.
- This presentation by Steve Jobs where he announced the new iPod, iTunes and iMac was the most inspiring thing I've witnessed in months. Yes it's Apple koolaid in liberal doses, but I don't own a mac, or an iPod or even iTunes. What's amazing about this presentation is watching Jobs as he conveys the energy of Apple's success. (75% market share with mp3 players, 85% market share of legal music downloads). Witnessing him in action, his passion, his excitement, and his innovative spirit -- he personifies what it means to matter in this new economy. He is a glimpse into the future, and it is exciting. I bet you can't watch this without contracting insomnia.
- Due diligence and light bulbs, a post by yours truly (sorry) where I talk a bit about the nerdy charge that comes from playing with spreadsheets as part of due diligence. "This is the moment I hadn't expected. This was the sweet side effect of doing due diligence. I'd had a stroke of genius looking at those rows and columns. And so it began. I started tweaking, get rid of these expenses, add this new one, take that one out. Run it again. And there it was..."
- Ideas for Startups, another brilliant essay by Paul Graham. "I think people believe that coming up with ideas for startups is very hard-- that it must be very hard-- and so they don't try do to it. They assume ideas are like miracles: they either pop into your head or they don't. I also have a theory about why people think this. They overvalue ideas."
- PC Magazine reviews a bunch of free resources, office suites, anti spyware, firewalls, etc. The navigation through this mess is almost too cumbersome to bother with, but there are some helpful reviews here.
- Top 10 places to find free images for your blog (or anything else for that matter).
- Jakob Nielson talks about blog usability -- top 10 design mistakes.
- The Flip 2K5 where Anil Dash compares his take on 1.0 vs 2.0 "built to flip" companies.
- Entrepreneur's-Journey guide Yaro Starak bought one of those 10px pieces on the million dollar homepage, and reports on the results.
YouSendIt
October 17, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A service, File uploading services, Free YouSendIt: Similar to Dropload (send large files to anyone without using email), but you can send larger files (1GB), and you don't need to register. YouSendIt Inc. Easy to use. No need to register. Send files up to 1GB. You can also
send stuff securely (over SSL). SSL transfer is bound to have some
performance issues for huge files, but secure transfer is sometimes
needed and this does it. They also claim to virus scan every file
sent. Wired likes em (although how Wired thinks these guys are in the same camp as bit torrent is beyond me, that's just ridiculous). It also appears they keep the file around for 7 days, or a "limited
number of downloads" (they don't say how many) even after the recipient
has picked it up (unlike DropLoad which nukes it after right after the
recip picks it up). They also give the sender the link to download the file if they wish (DropLoad does not). They've got a few other services like a way to send "photo albums" and some website integration stuff where you can allow visitors to send you a file, and it links them to a YouSendIt page where when they send the file, it comes to you. It doesn't send the sender a confirmation email once the file is
picked up (like DropLoad does). This is a big omission in my mind. I'm always intrigued when outfits like this, without any discernible
revenue model (except a Google AdSense ad on the confirmation page
after an upload, and on the download page), are hiring,
offering something completely free, and seem to have a whole business
around what they do (YouSendIt Inc?). They claim they want to become
"the FedEx of Digital" and they must have some grandiose plans (and
funding) far beyond what this offers. They also have an open source piece of software that claims to help you resume broken downloads (I didn't try it). It doesn't allow secure (SSL) downloads however. Free Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
What could be improved?
How much does it cost?
Rating?
Happy Quote
October 14, 2005 in Happy Quotes
"Put one dumb foot in front of the other and
course-correct as you go."
Happy Links
October 7, 2005 in Happy Links- Seth Godin finally reveals what he's been working on for the last few months with his skunk team. We knew it was called Squidoo, now we know what it does with his new ebook. And thus starts the meme of the lens!
- Rob offers some great advice on how to hire like a startup. "In an ideal world you would take as long as you want to fill a position... But sometimes you don't have the luxury of spending four or five months to fill a position. There may come a time in the life of your company when... you need to hire people in a hurry."
- Problogger Darren Rowse interviews fellow "six figure blogger" Manolo. Some great tips in there about building a lucrative blog.
- The real 7 Habits of highly successful people.
Writeboard
October 7, 2005 in 3 out of 5 stars, Free, Hosted softwareWriteboard: Shareable, web-based text documents that let you save every edit, roll back to any version, and easily compare changes. 37signals Writeboard does just what it says it does, and does it well. It isn't a wiki, it isn't Writely,
it isn't even fancy, it's just a simple way to collaborate with someone
(or alone if you want versioning) on some bit of text, and keep track of
any changes you make. There's no formatting, no fancy Word integration,
just simple collaborative content editing.
I used it at length yesterday with a client. We were proofing
an outline for a project, we both contributed to it, we could track
changes, it was spiff.
I also like that I can compare 2 versions and see what changes have been made. Quite cool.
It's super simple to sign up and use. No accounts required, just
create the board, invite your friend to collaborate with you (through
the in-page invitation sender) and craft your masterpiece together.
It also keeps you from writing over each other's work by letting you know if someone is currently editing it.
You can integrate your writeboards as pages in Backpack (and integration with Basecamp is coming).
You can subscribe to a writeboard and track changes through RSS.
You can export your final documents (or any version) to an HTML or text file.
They've thought of lots of little details that make it a pleasure to use. A tight, simple, small, well done little application.
(Sounds like 37signals doesn't it?) Part of it's redeeming value introduces a pain. Because you don't create an "account," if you wish to have multiple writeboards you've got this
hodge-podge of scary URLs and no way (except with Backpack, which is actually pretty cool) to tie them
together, edit them with a single login, etc. It gets kind of messy. Note: here's a hidden feature to help you retrieve all writeboards associated with your email address. The neat freak in me would also like the ability to delete certain versions for good. Free like pumpkins at midnight. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
(WorkHappy.net interview with 37signals founder Jason Fried here)Why is it the killerest?
What could be improved?
How much does it cost?
Rating?
Jot Spot
October 6, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, Hosted softwareJot Spot: A hosted wiki service. They are to wikis what TypePad is to blogging. JotSpot (headed by the brilliant Joe Kraus) Note: I won't go be doing a comprehensive overview of the
features of every wiki (which are super cool) instead I'll focus on
what JotSpot specifically does well.
JotSpot is aimed directly at businesses. Think of it as Intranet 2.0.
Each page in a wiki (hence JotSpot wiki) is editable by any reader,
keeps track of versions, is searchable, etc. and JotSpot makes all of
these things quite painless and fairly intuitive.
JotSpot also offers full WYSIWYG
editing, allows users to set specific permissions on content, insert
widgets like calendars and drop downs, insert RSS feeds to syndicate
external content, send emails to and from any page and invite others to
participate and collaborate.
They also have spiffy "starter kits" that allow you to get up and running quickly with common functionality. I'm going to be kind of hard on JotSpot here, but it's only out of
love. I love what they've done, I think the application is extremely
well done, and I think Joe Kraus sliced the first loaf of bread, but
here's what I think they can improve:
I'm worried about their business model. Specifically that they are
essentially targeting businesses-only. I'm worried because the adoption
rate among businesses is very slow (resistant to change and new stuff,
clueless, slow adopters, etc). Typically something technical like this
takes off in the business-to-consumer area, and then those consumers
are employees, so they set it up at work and get their companies to use
the product. Jot has basically tossed this whole method of marketing. I think they ought to rethink that.
My other beef with JotSpot is that they are as ugly as a two year old Yugo. I
know wikis are kinda ugly anyway, but if Jot were to pioneer making
the wiki more accessible and less intimidating, more of an everyman
tool, etc. they'd be able to break the wiki out of the "hard core users
only" base that use it now. (And I think they desperately need that
given the above stated marketing challenge.)
The best way to do that is to make the interface inviting, easy to use,
attractive, familiar/friendly. Right now anyone that's not a Linux
weenie is probably reluctant to give it a whirl. Jot need a top notch designer to help them with everything, from branding, logo, and site design, to the application interface and default templates.
Take Odeo, they hired Dan Cederholm to do the design, and while still functional, it's also inviting,
well done, unintimidating. Plus it doesn't look amateurish, which
JotSpot really does. (Note: I think Odeo has some business model
problems, just talking about their interface).
Blogger.com is another superb interface that makes something fairly complex, quite accessible. They hired Doug Bowman to put the lipstick on, and it is the best signup flow on the whole Internet.
I think JotSpot should spring for a designer and do more for marketing than any feature set ever could.
Note, with JotLive they appear
to have a designer who is heavily influenced by popular web
applications, borrowing design ideas. Which isn't necessarily a bad
thing mind you, but I think they could (and should) lead instead of
following.
Examples:
JotLive screenshots I may be stretching it a bit, and I'm not saying it's a horrible
thing to draw obvious "inspiration" from other apps that work, but
like I said, I think Jot should lead instead. Starts at free for 5 users, and progresses to $49 for unlimited users. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
What could be improved?
JotLive signup screen
Look familiar?
Look familiar?
How much does it cost?
Rating?
Cartoon Bank
October 5, 2005 in 3 out of 5 stars, A serviceCartoon Bank: An impressive searchable database of 85,000 single pane cartoons pulled from New Yorker Magazine archives, including including all the cartoons ever published in The New Yorker. The Cartoon Bank, a New Yorker Magazine company Entrepreneurs seeking, for instance, to emotionally connect with an audience in a presentation--through humor, can use the site to search among tens of thousands of New Yorker cartoons, download one for $20, and immediately insert it into a powerpoint presentation.
Entrepreneurs can also commission New Yorker artists to create original cartoons for them--cartoons that can be used in all media: web sites, emails, brochures, etc.
It really is a massive collection, and nearly every search I've performed comes up with something. Varies: a cartoon for a presentation is $20, license for 500 printed is $50, several hundred dollars if you want to put one in your next book. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
Who makes it?
Why is it the killerest?
Companies seeking to do better than a desk set as an executive gift can have an entire cartoon book created just for them. Every page, every cartoon, is selected individually to correspond to the client's business.
How much does it cost?
Rating?