I’ve been playing around with the publisher tools for 4INFO.net and have put together a convenient way to search the “twit-o-sphere” for a keyword via your cell phone using a text message.
4INFO is a text messaging information service that lets you request and subscribe to a wide range of information from various publishers via your cell phone. I’ve signed up as a publisher and have reserved the keyword: TSCAN.
Here’s how it works:
Send an SMS/text message to 44636 in this format: TSCAN <keyword>
For example, if I sent a text message to 44636 with the message:
TSCAN obama
I would get back a short menu of the most recent “tweets” with the name “obama” in them. I could then reply to that message with the corresponding menu number to see the entire “tweet.” Seem confusing? Give it a try! It really works.
I have no idea if this is useful to anyone, but just thought it was a fun way to learn about 4INFO’s publisher services.
While I love Firefox, I’ve lately been using Safari (for PC) and finding it to be a guilty pleasure. For one, it sure seems to load pages much faster. It also displays text in a way that is very pleasing to the eye (ie. websites just look and read better). However, there is one simple difference that I’m really starting to take advantage of and it can really save time: default feed rendering. 
Default Feed Rendering, you say?
It likely won’t show up on anyone’s top 10 list of killer features for ANY browser. However, I’m finding the simple and useful way that Safari handles feeds to be very satisfying. I’m talking about how your browser displays an RSS or ATOM feed when you load it directly in your browser (as opposed to a seperate feed reader). An example of how this can save you time is by visiting the Smaller Indiana homepage. If you wanted to get a quick overview of the most recent activity on the site without spending a lot of time clicking around, just click the blue RSS button on the far-right side of the browser’s URL box. This will give you a dropdown list of all available feeds to view. If you click on “Forum – Smaller Indiana” you’ll see a nicely formated view of recent forum posts with some very nice filtering features.
As you can see in the above animated graphic, you’ll see a cleanly formated listing of recent posts. You’ll also get a very handy set of tools on the right to search and filter the feed dynamically. One of my favorite tools is the ability to reduce the amount of information displayed in the feed. For example, sliding the “Article Length” slider over to the left (as the animation demonstrates) will give you an email inbox-like view of the forum posts. This is an excellent and fast way to see what’s new on any website.
While feed readers are very effective at allowing you to subscribe and consume many different websites. This integrated feed display in Safari allows you to quickly and easily cut right to the latest content on any website or blog at supports feeds. Both Internet Explorer and FireFox also provide default views of feeds. However, neither are as robust as Safari (oddly, IE comes closest).
I’ve often played with various to do list incarnations and usually can never find one that works exactly as I want. The problem is a to do list is a rather simple concept, yet most online to do lists are either overly simple or overly complicated. I need something that is in between. Or rather, lets me easily pick how complex I want it to be.
Today I discovered Todoist and I think I’ve found my last to do list app. The basic version (which covers most all you’d need) is free, with some extra features thrown in for a small fee. Things I love about Todoist:
- Nested groups and to do lists
- Tons of keyboard shortcuts to make list entry and management easy
- Built-in calendar system with intelligent date entry (I can type “every Saturday” and it knows what I mean)
- Full export of all your lists via XML
- iGoogle widget is awesome if you use iGoogle as your start page
- Easily customizable views
If I use this service enough over the next month, I might just spring the few extra bucks to get more features such as email reminders. Check it out at todoist.com.
Brian Gardner is holding a contest to give away 3 free copies of his exceptionally designed “Revolution” WordPress theme. The theme is one of the more expensive and well designed themes available. Designed primarily for a newsy kind of website, there is also a sports variation that appears to work quite well.
This post serves as my entry into the contest. Upon discovering this theme, I was immediately interested in using it for my back-burner hobby website LaserRocketArm.com. While I’m still tossing around ideas for the site, the original concept was for it to be a fan site for Peyton Manning. Having the Revolution theme to build upon, I could put together a professional-looking site in short order. There is no shortage of news and interest surrounding Manning. And as it appears the Colts are an even better team this year than last, this fan site could quickly gain traction with the right look, content, and fan connection.
One of the more time consuming (and annoying) parts of doing freelance work is keeping track of time and money. For a long time, I had a large Excel spreadsheet that was broken up by client and project. At first, it worked fine. But, as I added more clients and more jobs, it became a nightmare to keep updated and organized.
For a while, I started using Side Job Track for free. It was leaps and bounds above my Quicken and Excel solution. While I still recommend Side Job Track for people to try, the latest project tracking service I’m using is almost perfect.
FreshBooks is awesome. It automatically does many things I was doing manually in the past. I’ll list my 3 favorite features that keep me a loyal customer.
1. Time tracking and invoicing
Plain and simple, time tracking saves me time and money. Create clients, add projects and then launch the time tracking tool to record your time as you work. When you’re done, the time is logged in the right place. You can even log time directly by telling FreshBooks how much time you spent on any specific project or item. What really makes this feature a time and money saver is the ability to generate an invoice automatically using any unbilled hours for a specific project.
2. Paypal integration and recurring billing
Actually getting paid can often times be a hassle. Especially if you are billing monthly or yearly. FreshBooks makes this easy. For example, if I charge a client $120 per year for web hosting I can set up an recurring invoice that will automatically generate and send that client an invoice. This is a lifesaver considering how forgetful I am. In addition to this, you can link FreshBooks to your Paypal account (or other service) and let your clients pay you online via Paypal.
3. Reports
Having access to all my activity over the past year is quite helpful. I can see where my money came from, how much time I spent on each project, etc. This can also be useful for tax purposes and learning how long it takes you to complete certain tasks, on average.
There are plenty of other great features that make FreshBooks worthwhile. I highly suggest it to anyone who is looking to simplify time tracking and invoicing for their freelancing business. And the best part is you can use it for free (up to 3 clients).
If so, you’ll probably be interested in a website that has just launched called BetaJunkie.com. The basic premise of the site is to connect startup web companies who need people to beta test new web apps with people who enjoy being “early adopters” and beta testing.
The site is still new and building up a list of interested beta testers. After signing up and logging in, you are asked to complete a very short profile page that gives some basic demographic information. That information will be used to help companies better target potential beta testers of their products. The privacy policy for BetaJunkie.com specifies that the info collected is not used to personally identify anyone, but only used in summary or aggregate. The site never asks for your name–or anything more personally identifiable than your email address. Everything else is like gender, household income, technical ability, etc.
I love getting to be one of the first to try out new programs and web apps, so this would be a great service if it could hook people up with quality, undiscovered web startups. And, as a web developer, having a centralized website where I could get a few hundred beta testers to try out my new web app would be a godsend. My guess is there are plenty of small or part-time web developers out there that can’t afford “real” testing or much advertising. Something like this would really help their development process.
Check it out and see what you think: BetaJunkie.com
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