In just a matter of a couple of weeks, I’ve discovered three different screenshot capturing tools, each one better than the next… and my new favorite is ScreenCatch. A tiny 193KB tool.
Captures the entire screen with a single click and then allows for cropping before uploading the image and hosting it for free.
Most definitely the easiest way to install all your basic apps after a fresh install of Windows is using Ninite. You simply go to the website, select some popular apps you would install anyways (like Winamp, iTunes, Firefox, Adobe Acrobat Reader, uTorrent, WinRar) and the site checks for the latests version of those apps and then gives you a package to download of all of those apps, and then runs all their default installations disabling all the annoying installation options like ad-ware, toolbars, etc. And done!
Great topic over at reddit.com asking “What’s your favorite software that no one has heard of“. I’m discovering and discovering a lot of gems as we speak.
In trying to help out my friends that were promoting some events (with 300-1,000 attendees and tickets ranging from $15 to $25), I did some research to compare the various online ticket service alternatives.
Of course all these services provide you with the basic ticketing process, email collection, and credit card processing through internal or external integrates merchant accounts from PayPal or Google Checkout. And then most of them also have the “cool” features social networking integration (like links to help promote your event on Facebook).
Eventbrite seems to be the most popular service right now, but maybe it’s just because their custom subdomain URLs like ‘[yourevent].eventbrite.com’ are just so noticeable when people promote them. They do have a lot of features, if you really need them all.
But in the end, it comes down to total commission rates and/or fees, and when you are doing a few hundred tickets that might be $500 in extra savings or profit to you or your attendees.
So here’s a quick summary of the pricing schemes of March 2010 (in many cases, doing the simple math on the number of attendees you have and your ticket price will make one of these choices stand out as a superior choice for your event).
The above are great for simple events like concerts, shows or raves, and not necessarily something like a trade show, conference or seminar (where you might be collecting more user information, have many tiers of pricing or be sending out regular communications; for that there are better alternatives like RegOnline).
I run this site on Wordpress but a small project came up where I wanted to research some database-less CMS / blogging alternatives (still need PHP, just no databases to store the content).
After researching this a bit, the two I’ll be trying first are:
And some others I came across and may try next:
I use Gmail Notifier on my desktop PC so that Gmail handles all mailto: links, but I don’t really care for it as a notifier. But if you do install it and get the error message ”Cannot connect to your mailbox”, it may be because you’ve set your Gmail account to only use https, which the notifier is incompatible. So Google has a Windows registry fix/patch for that. Problem solved.
If you have a site or blog site, don’t forget to add a custom favicon. Go to the web-based favicon.cc, draw your icon in a 16×16 grid, preview in real time, and export your finished favicon.ico. Or search the pre-existing database for some icon that fits your site’s topic. Then just upload it to your site’s root directory. In most cases, your browser will automatically find the favicon.ico. Otherwise you can just add this line of code to your site’s <head>: <link rel=”Shortcut Icon” href=”favicon.ico”>. Done!
Here’s a few tools I’ve found the most useful when trying to think of domain names:
But one of the most useful things I’ve done is kept an excel file (or text file also works) of cool sounding words and ideas that I’ve been brainstorming with for over five years now. Unfortunately for you, I consider that document too ripe with fresh ideas to give away.
“Sign up for Mint to help track your finances” — This is one of the most “successful” recommendations that I’ve been making in the last couple of years, ever since Mint.com came out of beta. By that I mean, almost every one I’ve recommended it to absolutely loves it, especially if they were too lazy to do so in the first place. It’s definitely been the best single tool for making me more financially responsible. So consider this post as a nagging reminder in the hopes of getting a couple of you to finally get around to signing up.
I had previously mentioned Foxit Reader as a recommended alternative to Adobe Acrobat for viewing PDFs, and while that still stands, I would also recommend the Google Docs Viewer for viewing PDFs through your web browser. A couple of plug-ins do a very nice job of seamlessly integrating the Google’s Viewer into your Firefox or Chrome browsers as plugins. Plug-in download links below: