Thursday the 25th of May, 2006 | Tools | Web Apps |
I’ve been using Google Calendar a lot lately and love it. I can log in and edit my schedule from any computer. I also receive email or text notifications at a preset time before a scheduled event. It works with the iCal standard, which means most local calendars on your computer can be updated automatically by subscribing to your Google Calendar feed.
Thursday the 27th of April, 2006 | Ideas | Resources | Tech | Web Apps |
I believe this is the way the internet is going. My friends have been calling me out for always having to be on the internet, whether I’m doing something productive or not. I feel I have to be constantly available to the people that need to communicate with me.
Unlike most people, I work all day every day in very short spurts. I have developers and clients all over the world and they need to contact me at different times during the day. Not having access to my email or chat for more than a few hours slows down my developers if they have a question or run into a snag. I’m also one man that has to provide customer service to my clients whenever they need it via the forums.
What’s the solution?
Within the coming months, I will make the switch to a PDA/Smartphone. With a mini computer platform with internet access like this I’ll be able to:
- send and recieve emails
- be able to check Posima’s signup and visitor stats
- access my Blinksale account to see what my cashflow is like
- answer support requests via the forums
- check on updates to projects in development via my Basecamp account
...and I’ll be able to do this whenever, wherever.
The only problem is, now my friends and family will REALLY think I don’t do anything all day.
Friday the 31st of March, 2006 | Business | Marketing | Tools | Web Apps |
Ever thought about advertising on television but thought it was too expensive or too difficult? Allow me to introduce you to Spotrunner. This is an all-in-one service that does everything from producing your commercial to media buying and finally distribution of the ads. First, create a 30 second commercial from a professional template. Second, tell the site how much you’d like to spend, for how long the ad should run and what cities or towns the ad should run in. A few seconds later you have a full campaign running on multiple channels. Don’t like a few of the channels your ad will be running on? Simply take them out of the mix.
Monday the 20th of March, 2006 | Web Apps |
This is a truly incredible web application. It takes any podcast, audio or video, and translates the sound to text. When you find the part of the podcast you were looking for, double click the word to start playing from there. There are an incredible amount of potential uses for this type of application.
Friday the 17th of March, 2006 | Marketing | Resources | Web Apps |
AdBrite is a site that allows you to advertise your site based on categories rather than keywords. You can pick and choose the actual sites that your ads get run on by day, 7 day or month. I find this helpful because it gives me more control over my ads rather than just trusting Google to place them right.
Friday the 10th of March, 2006 | Articles | Business | News | Web Apps |
Welcome to 2006, the year Web 2.0 grew up to be just like his bigger, dumber brother. What the hell am I talking about? Google has just purchased yet another web app that still resides in beta. While it may not be exactly the same as a VC pumping gobs of cash into a young company, it is creating an atmosphere for build to flip companies. Because of Google’s apparent need to spend, spend, spend, we will now begin seeing more VC money being pumped into half-baked ideas. Companies, Applications and Services will be built to cater to those with the bling before they get a chance to learn to survive on their own.
These types of acquisitions are hurting our tech economy. Instead of masses of early adopters being able to use apps like Measure Map and Writely, Google is going to have them in beta, under development and unreleased until their engineers can tinker under the hood for a while and launch them as a Google Apps. Why is this a bad thing? A new app needs to be out in the open to allow users to play with it and manipulate it for their uses. The app needs time to grow and have features tweaked post launch to streamline usage. A big fat blob of a company like Google will not allow that to happen. Only the group of passionate developers that gave the app life can do these things properly.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a proponent of larger companies purchasing successful smaller ones that can benefit their core business. Delicious, Blogger, Skype, Myspace, Keyhole, Urchin and Flickr were all proven apps with a strong user base. Measure Map and Writely never saw the light of day. Google is going to send these two apps into the world and have a billion users sign up the day they release with atrophied muscles. I’m disgusted…
Monday the 27th of February, 2006 | Business | Marketing | Posima | Web Apps |
I found this interesting web application that helps people raise money for various things. Here’s how it works:
What I like about this and other very simple tools is the lack of restriction. The website allows you to raise money, that’s it. It can be for a charity, a concert for a small band, an indie film, selling products to a group of people… etc. I see a lot of potential for this site from a business standpoint.
Say I want to start a business selling a new local publication (a magazine). I could create a simple website with Posima explaining the mission, target demographic, content, and show example mockups of the magazine. I can discuss how much it will cost to get the magazine off the ground and ask for money from advertisers for the first x amount of issues and link to my Fundable account. I pound the pavement and make calls to businesses that might be interested and give them the address to my website that will describe more. If they are interested, they give money to Fundable. If I raise enough money from advertisers, I can get off the ground. If I don’t, the money is never charged.
I’m interested in hearing other ideas on how Posima and Fundable may be used together… any ideas?
Thursday the 26th of January, 2006 | Business | Tech | Tools | Web Apps |
While choosing a restaurant for Valentine’s Day last night, I found a website called OpenTable.com. With a few clicks I had reservations at a very desirable establishment for Feb 14th. I was intrigued by the ease of the process and wasn’t sure it was real. After some investigating I found the website is an added benefit for purchasing the company’s reservation software.
OpenTable.com’s software automates all the steps involved in taking reservations (online or on the fly), seating patrons, figuring average turnover time of a table, and laying out which tables belong to which servers. Here’s a list of features from their site:
Reservation Management
Easily enter or modify reservations while viewing guest histories
Capture phone numbers, email and mailing addresses
Allow management blocking and VIP pre-assignments
Reduce no-shows with enhanced customer tracking
Take reservations from your website or OpenTable 24 hours a dayTable Management
Maximize seat utilization with walk-in and waitlist functionality
Instantly track covers for more efficient kitchen and server management
Increase table turns by tracking party status
Store multiple reservation sheets for holidays and special events
Hold and combine tables for large parties
Record and view shift notes for each dayGuest Management
Identify regulars and VIPs
Track customer preferences to meet and anticipate special requests
View customer reservation histories at-a-glance
Track special occasions such as guest birthdays and anniversariesMarketing Management
Conduct powerful email marketing campaigns to increase repeat business
Print mailing labels to reach select target audiences
Track and reward concierge businessIncrease control
Manage reservations from the back-office or any other location simultaneously
Control multiple restaurants from key centralized locations
Leverage the power of Microsoft’s reliable SQL Server 2000 software architecture
Share guest data across sister restaurants
If you’re a restaurant that relies heavily on reservations or has frequent wait-lists, I would definitely take a closer look into their offerings.
Wednesday the 4th of January, 2006 | Business | Ideas | Marketing | Resources | Tools | Web Apps |
I just recently sold two tickets to the Rose Bowl via Ebay. This was my first ebay experience and I must say I was pleased with my transaction. The site is a little hard to use at times, but the idea that you can sell unwanted items to the highest bidder sounds good to me.
I was intrigued to find how many office supplies were available on ebay. It seems to me that small businesses could utilize ebay to trade office equipment. Say you have an old office chair you need to get rid of, ebay it. What if you need a new desk, chair and cubicle for an incoming employee? Run a search on ebay.
Why stop there? The way the site is set up, you could promote your business services on ebay as well. So mosey on over to ebay and brainstorm a little on how you can utilize their tools to make some money or at least find some useful stuff for your small business.
Wednesday the 21st of December, 2005 | Tools | Web Apps |
Not many people stop to think about what they would do if their hard drive crashed and they lost all of their data. For many, it would be devastating. Personally, I’d curl up into a fetal position and sob for many many hours. There is a very easy way to prevent a disaster like this from happening to you.
Backup your data
Sounds easy enough, but who has the time? My recommendation is to invest in some remote data backup. For relatively inexpensive, you can hire a company that will “tap” into your computer at a specified time every day and backup your data onto one of their servers. Set the system up for 4 am every day and you can sleep soundly.
I’m including some companies I found through Google that provide this service below:
Monday the 12th of December, 2005 | Articles | Business | Personal | Posima | Tools | Web Apps |
After 13 months and 2 days of torture we are finally launching this application. “But Chad, I thought you were joking this whole time about actually having a website in production. You mean it wasn’t a cover and you’re still living with your parents at 24 for a reason?” I can understand your skepticism, I have been planning on launching next week for what seems like forever. I have to say that even though the past year has had its ups and downs, this process has taught me more than what I learned in all my years of schooling. Call it a Masters from the University of Hard Knocks. Anywho, I’d like to thank all my friends and family that helped me from point A to point B. I’d like to name names, but there are too many and you all know who you are.
Without further ado… Welcome to Posima. We are an all in one website management system. We provide the design, content management tools and if needed a free domain name while using the service. From what I understand, this is the first service of its kind. No one else has ever provided everything a user needs to go from nothing to a fully functional website in mere hours without having to know any code. Sure there are blogging tools out there, but people/businesses who want a website want it to look like a website...not a blog.
Bits and pieces of the posima.com site are still not quite finished. The application is done and fully functional, but the features and support sections of the site are still works in progress. The gallery page will come into its own once we obtain clients, so check back from time to time to see what people are creating. I’ve setup a demo account for everyone to play with and see how the site works. Comment and let me know what you think. Here are the login details:
username: demo
password: demouser
More goodness to come soon,
Chad
Monday the 5th of December, 2005 | Web Apps |
I stumbled across this interesting web service today, it’s called ClockWork Time Manager. If you are in an industry that requires you to keep track of your time on various tasks you may find this very useful.