Happy Quote

July 24, 2006 in Happy Quotes

"Life is really simple as far as I'm concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you're successful."
- Jason Calacanis (founder of Weblogs, Inc. (Engadget, etc), which he sold to AOL for ~$30 million).

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OOo Label Templates

July 24, 2006 in 3 out of 5 stars, Free

What is it?


OOo Label Templates: Free blank label templates, many same sizes needed for  Avery Labels. Set-up site is very quick, designing and creating labels is pretty simple. Most business use all types of labels and the types offered here cover all needs. Since the ISO has approved the Opendocument format and  lot of Governments and intuitions are adopting the ODF format, these templates are extremely useful in the work place.

Label_templates

Who makes it?

WorldLabel.com

Why is it the killerest?

They are free for download and save a lot of time and energy trying to find or create a template from scratch. They also correspond with Worldlabel products and you can save enormous amount of money buying their "generic Avery labels".

What could be improved?

They could include some instruction on how to use the templates for  beginners.

How much does it cost?

Free

Rating?

Reviewed by Patrick Paroline

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Hamachi

July 20, 2006 in 5 out of 5 stars, A piece of software, Technology

What is it?


Hamachi: It's a zero-configuration virtual private networking (VPN) application. It essentially gives you a LAN over the Internet.

(Warning: This is a more technical one, but for you entrepreneurs with remote associates this is solid gold).

Hamachi

Who makes it?

Applied Networking Inc.

Why is it the killerest?

Hamachi is to VPN what Skype is to VOIP. It's a simple, clean, VPN application, that just works. Astounding really especially when you compare it to the horrible commercial VPN alternatives out there.

Solid support for Windows, passable versions for Linux and Mac (OS X).

Best of all - Hamachi is free.

What could be improved?

In the vast majority of cases this does indeed work (worked perfectly for me) but the support forums do have some pleas for help. With 3,000,000 users though - that's to be expected. (Incidentally, the support forums really do appear to be helpful.) Mac version doesn't have a GUI (yet).

How much does it cost?

Astoundingly Free

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

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Wall Street Journal Daily Summary

July 19, 2006 in 4 out of 5 stars, A service, Free

What is it?


Wall Street Journal Daily Summary: A free, quickly digestible, daily summary of the Wall Street Journal. Think of it as the Cliff Notes for today's WSJ.

Wallstjournal

Who makes it?

Seeking Alpha, Ltd.

Why is it the killerest?

Lifehacker posted this a couple weeks ago, I subscribed to the RSS feed and have been very impressed by it. They do a quick summary of the WSJ headlines, and a blurb for each on the stock/ETF implications of the news behind story. It's really quite well done and I'm surprised it's free as it's quality and obviously takes hours to compose. This is a great way to stay apprised of top stories in the business world.

How much does it cost?

Free

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

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Happy Links

July 18, 2006 in Happy Links

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Happy Quote

July 14, 2006 in Happy Quotes

"All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible."

- Charles Hamilton (1876–1961), English writer

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Simplybill

July 11, 2006 in 3 out of 5 stars, Hosted software, Invoicing

What is it?


Simplybill: An online invoicing tool/service

Simplybill

Who makes it?

Simplybill

Why is it the killerest?

Very simple to use, plus inexpensive (starting at free). It allows you to email invoices, or print them for snail mailing. Has a time tracking desktop widget (paying accounts only) that synchs with Simplybill (PC only right now, a Mac one coming in the next few days). Sends reminders and thank yous. It alerts you when invoices are overdue. Supports recurring invoices.

What could be improved?

An API might be nice.

How much does it cost?

From Free to $25 a month

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

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Dabble DB

July 10, 2006 in 4 out of 5 stars, Hosted "Office", Hosted software

What is it?


Dabbledb Dabble DB: A hosted web application replacement for desktop "consumer" level database software.

Who makes it?

Smallthought Systems, Inc.

Why is it the killerest?

It's a nice, simple, and quite impressive, hosted spreadsheet/database solution. It has a clean and simple interface, but it's also very powerful. It's obvious that a great deal of thought, work, and refinement has gone into this product.

What could be improved?

I'm not sure how much sensitive or critical information I'd want to trust to a hosted environment like this.

A novice will still have a learning curve (as they would with any solution).

How much does it cost?

From $10 to $150/mo. Starts with a free 1 month trial.

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

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Yahoo! Music Unlimited

July 7, 2006 in 5 out of 5 stars, Fun, Technology

What is it?


Yahoo! Music Unlimited[*]: A flat out, too-good-to-be-true, $60/yr, all you can eat, on demand, music candy store.

Yahoo! Music Unlimited

Who makes it?

Yahoo!

Why is it the killerest?

If you are tethered to your desk for most of the day and enjoy music, this service is a life-changer. I reviewed Yahoo's Launchcast music service a year ago. A month ago, I finally upgraded to Unlimited and haven't accomplished a single thing since.

Not really, but here's what I love:

  1. You have to use a special Yahoo! player. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of another media player on my computer, but this thing is amazing. I don't use it to catalog my music (still use iTunes for that) but I do use it with this service, and it's positively amazing. It uses Windows Media Player as it's guts (transparently) and it is very impressive. It's polished and does a brilliant job of reading my mind and making it easy to run around like a wildman inside the candy store.
  2. It keeps all your ratings from Launch and lets you use them to find music you like.
  3. You can share a song you like via link with a friend (fellow subscriber) over email or IM.
  4. It still has the Launch radio built in as part of it. And the best part? You hear a song you like - 2 clicks later you're on the song or album page. Listen to the song again, or the whole album. Any time.
  5. If you want to buy a song, (a la iTunes) it's only $0.79.
  6. You can put any music locally on your machine.
  7. You can make playlists.
  8. You can run it on up to three computers at a time.
  9. I've finally, almost, after repeated, near-intravenous listening - gotten enough of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy. (Does that make me craaazzaay?)

What could be improved?

It doesn't work with the iPod. But this isn't Yahoo's fault, it's Apple's.

It doesn't have every single song ever created. Again, not Yahoo's fault (it's typically the label's fault) but it's a bummer. That said: with over a million songs, 90% of what I look for, I find. It's amazing really.

You can't burn CDs without paying (duh) or take it with you (although they have a service ("take it to go" tab) that allows that too, for $10/mo).

How much does it cost?

$60/yr or $7/mo - start with a free trial .

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

[*] The links above are affiliate links. Should you wish to follow them without supporting this site (fine!), or if it just makes you feel yucky, please use this direct link instead:  http://music.yahoo.com/ymu

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Interview with Scott Lake of Shopify

July 5, 2006 in An interview

Shopifylogo I followed some of the pre-launch buzz behind Shopify and everything I saw led me to believe these guys were doing it right. There's such a tremendous need for well done, simple, affordable, clean ecommerce solutions for small businesses. Yahoo stores and a few other players have tried to make this work - but no one that I've seen really seemed to "get it" from a functionality, pricing or usability standpoint, and none of the players is at the level that innovative web development is today. Well, Shopify finally launched a few weeks ago and it looks to me like they're delivering on the hype. It was my privilege to shoot a few questions at Scott Lake, co-founder of Jaded Pixel, the company behind Shopify.

Continue reading "Interview with Scott Lake of Shopify"

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