WorkHappy.net: killer resources for entrepreneurs

ReviewBasics

October 16, 2007 in 4 out of 5 stars, Collaboration, Design, Free, Hosted software, Productivity, Project management

What is it?

ReviewBasics: Hosted software that allows you to submit, for review by others, a website, an image, a document (Word, PDF, Powerpoint), or a flash video. Others can add comments, drawings, emoticons, text, etc.

Who makes it?

SharpStyle Labs, Inc.

Why is it the killerest?

It's an impressive technical accomplishment. It's polished and easy to use.

Plus, it offers nice controls for the author: You can have comments visible just to the author, or to all reviewers. You can you write up a set of instructions for your reviewers. It offers a comments history. When done, you can filter all your stuff by date, by reviewer, and by files which have reviewer comments on them.

If you need to do asynchronous reviews, and/or if you have a geographically distributed team, this is a great resource.

What could be improved?

It feels a bit slow (which is probably because it's so rich, so that's forgivable).

If you want to submit a website for review, you can't do it as you are creating the workspace (like you can with everything else), you have to create the workspace, then dig around for it (they tell me this is going to be addressed soon).

How much does it cost?

Free

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

FAMFAMFAM Icons

December 13, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, Design, Free

What is it?

FAMFAMFAM.com Icons: Icon images for use in personal or commercial projects. (Every online-oriented entrepreneur needs a good set of icons!) FAMFAMFAM.com Icons contains 3 icon sets:

Flags: 239 countries
Mini: ~140 small icons
Silk: 700+ general purpose icons

Who makes it?

Mark James

Why is it the killerest?

The icons are professionally made, yet free even for commercial use. The Silk set is quite complete (with 700+ icons) to cover the needs of a demo or even a commercial application.

Mark James, the designer, continues to create new icons and new sets (Bitsy is a new set to be released soon).

Everything is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

What could be improved?

Not much really. On the other hand there are commercial icon sets that are both better made and more complete.

How much does it cost?

Free

Rating?

Reviewed by Dimitris Giannitsaros

Jewelboxing

October 26, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A product, Design

What is it?

Jewelboxing: 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.

Who makes it?

Coudal Partners

Why is it the killerest?

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.

How much does it cost?

Starting at $54 for a 20 pack of Kings, or 30 pack of Standards.

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas

Stock.xchng

June 24, 2005 in 5 out of 5 stars, A website, Design, Free

What is it?

Stock.xchng: Free online stock photo site. It's awesome.

Who makes it?

Stock.xchng makes it, everyone contributes.

Why is it the killerest?

This site has great photography, contributed by anyone/everyone. There's excellent quality control so just about every photo is professional quality. And the price is right - free! Think p2p meets Getty. The most any photographer will ever ask of you is that you credit them (and not all of them ask that, plus it's all voluntary).

What could be improved?

Some of the search results could be more relevant. That's a pretty small quibble though.

How much does it cost?

All images are free

Rating?

Reviewed by Carson McComas