With this difficult economy that the whole world is trying to contend with, it’s no wonder penny-pinching has become a way of life. Online resources suggesting ways how to save money on this and that have become valuable tools for a lot of entities – individuals and businesses alike.
Then came the emergence of collective buying websites like Groupon, LivingSocial and a whole host of others. For a lot of people who aim to get the most bang for their buck, deal of the day is here to stay. But did you know there are smaller niche websites that can help you save money, too? Here are 5 of those sites:
1. Bitrix24.com
For a business to survive a competitive marketplace, communication among its employees is of paramount importance. Problem is, corporate intranets usually cost thousands of dollars, and most small businesses may not have enough operating budget to afford them.
Bitrix24 provides a solution to that problem. If your business has 12 employees or less, Bitrix24 offers a basic package that is absolutely free. Yes, you heard that right. The basic package is absolutely free. And the package comes with a fully functional CRM, activity streaming where every team member gets updates as events unfold, calendar, activity planner, sales funnel and a whole host of other features. If your company is comprised of more than 12 employees, the service costs just about $99 per month.
2. Logaster.com
Online or not, if it’s a business you’re running, you need a logo. Unfortunately, professional logo designers command a high price – hundreds of dollars at the very least. And even with crowdsourcing sites, getting the logo you desire may render you at least $100 poorer.
Logaster.com lets you create your logo free of charge, and with a $4.99 subscription per month, you get other valuable features like business cards, letterheads and envelopes.
3. PickyDomains.com
Some people think it odd to pay somebody to come up with a name for his company or a domain for his website. Then again, branding can make or break your business. What’s worse, with millions and millions of top-level domains registered already, coming up with a domain that hasn’t been registered yet may be harder than you think it is.
PickyDomains.com is a site of over 55,000 namer contributors. All a client needs to do is register, pay the required $50 downpayment for a domain, brand or name (or $75 for a slogan), specify his parameters, then wait for suggestions to start pouring in. If none of the suggestions are to his liking, he may ask for a refund.
4. JetRadar.com
Expedia, CheapFlights and Orbitz are just three of several niche sites that have changed the way the securing-cheap-air-fare game is played forever. If you’re a businessman constantly on the go or somebody who simply likes to travel, with JetRadar.com, you can search for tickets that are even cheaper.
Cheaper than cheap? How’s that for a cool deal? JetRadar.com is a meta search engine that searches through every travel agency, major flight site and through registers of 728 individual airlines. Some deals from airline companies are made known only through their own websites and not anywhere else to ensure traffic to their sites. JetRadar makes these deals publicly available.
If you’re a business owner, you want to know what your competitor is up to. With iSpionage, you get to manage client campaigns, save valuable time monitoring affiliates and paid search competition, manage through search engine gaps, view the ads your competitor is running and a whole lot more.
And instead of you collating all the information you need from various searches, iSpionage sends you e-mail alerts every time a competitor activity is detected. iSpionage subscription starts at $59 per month.
Author: Maricel Rivera of www.careermomonline.com
Bare Bones Software today announced the release and immediate availability of TextWrangler(tm) 4.0.1, an update to its high performance, general purpose text editor for Mac OS X.
The TextWrangler 4.0.1 update includes fixes for specific reported issues in this popular text editor.
Crafted in Bare Bones Software’s best traditions as a leading Mac software developer, TextWrangler is a powerful general purpose text editor. It features a clean and easy-to-use interface and a rich set of features for composing and manipulating text.
TextWrangler supports working with both plain-text and Unicode files (with the exception of files written using right-to-left writing systems, such as Hebrew or Arabic).
Detailed information on all of the changes implemented in TextWrangler 4.0.1 can be found at:
http://www.barebones.com/support/textwrangler/current_notes.html
For more information on TextWrangler, visit the company’s web site:
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
TextWrangler 4 requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher (10.6.8, or 10.7.3 or later recommended). All Mac OS X users may download TextWrangler 4 free of charge from the Mac App Store or the Bare Bones Software
web site:
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html
Tags: barebones, mac software, textwrangler
If you’re new to a computer, maybe just new to digital photos or graphics in general, or if you find that Photoshop, Acorn, or Pixelmator are all just too difficult to understand or expensive, then I have an alternative Mac app for you to try. iMage Tools from IcyBlaze. At $9.95 retail and now FREE on the Mac App Store, it’s an app that you might want to download and try.
Let’s not pull any punches here, I’m no Photoshop guru by any stretch of the imagination. I get by with basic digital photo editing and graphic design skills, but I’m still beyond the basic functionality found in iMage Tools. It does beginning graphic work for beginners, period. iMage Tools works to take an image and resize it, rotate it, rename it, watermark it, add a border, a reflection, a curve and a shadow to it. iMage Tools can open and edit all the main image formats and convert them into other main image formats. (.jpg,.png, .tiff, and .gif)
The application is Lion capable and can handle images as large as 50 megs. iMage Tools can handle multiple images and is quite fast. Download it free for now from the Mac App Store and see what you think about it. Maybe a simple, fast and basic graphic app is just what you’re looking for…
Tags: icyblaze, image doctor, image editing
The last week I’ve been testing a business card scanning and cataloging app called WorldCard Mobile. The app is part of the entire WorldCard family of business card scanners and software including, WorldCard Pro, WorldCard Color, WorldCard Office, and the software, WorldCard License. WorldCard also makes document scanners and the iPhone app, Snap2PDF.
The idea behind WorldCard Mobile is simple, scan business cards, recognize the card’s details and export them to your address book or another database application. The cost is $6.99 from the app store. Now let’s look at the operation itself.
You use the iPhone to scan in a business card through the iPhone camera, or through a photo available in your albums, or from an e-mail signature, in cloud spaces or from QR codes. After you take the photo of the card you can edit and then “recognize it”. WorldCard Mobile can recognize many different languages from your business cards. Once you go into the recognition portion of the app you’ll be able to change any information in the specific fields and you also able to go back to the card image and highlight specific areas or lines in the image and designate the highlighted area as a company name, address, phone number, etc. Once all the fields are filled to your specifications, you can either export it to your address book as a new contact or amend it to an existing contact. It also goes into the card holder for future uses such as text messaging, sharing the contact, sending it to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
If you have any other WorldCard products you can export the cards you scan in your Mobile app to them, you can send the contact cards to iTunes, in fact, the amount of different formats that you can export your cards into from WorldCard is absolutely amazing.
Although I had to do a lot of manual entering when the business cards were dark in color or when the name and addresses were high graphics, the cards I had with regular type print on them were recognized and filed very accurately every time. The scanning process is blazingly fast and generally quite simple. The app allows you to keep your contacts in iCloud or Dropbox. It really is a powerful and full-featured business card application for your iPhone. If you’re the type of person or business that relys on business cards for meeting and organizing and maintaining your contact list, WorldCard Mobile is a must have iPhone app for you.
Tags: business cards, iphone, scanning, software. mac, wordldcard
I am still patiently waiting for my new iPad to make it’s long journey across the Pacific to my door. As I wait, I decided to “borrow” a friend’s iPad and check out a couple new iPad cases that I received for review from Uniea.
The first one is called the Rebelution Straightedge Back Cover. It’s an ultra-slim back cover with a built-in stand. The list price is $39.95 and it comes in black, yellow and purple. The StraightEdge is made from a tough ABS plastic shell with nylon appointments and it snaps snugly on the back of your iPad, protecting its rear from scratches, dings, and drops, while a fold-out kick stand lets you set up your iPad for ideal typing and video watching.
The Straightedge gives you full access to the camera, buttons, and dock, while still retaining the look and feel of the iPad on the front. The whole idea behind the Straightedge is to leave as much of your iPad out in the open while protecting the important stuff and giving you the features you need. The material makes the Straightedge very light and you still have a sense of security with it on your iPad. Although, the iPad glass front is still open and can be damaged if dropped or roughed-up. If you have a sleeve that you use with your iPad, this is a perfect solution for added protection.
Their second case is called the Uniea Rebelution Skidboard Folio Case. It’s an ultra slim flip nylon hard case with auto on/off function. The retail price is only $44.95 and it comes in black, purple, yellow and red. Although the case is lightweight and minimalistic in appearance, the Skidboard is a solid choice for the price point. The folio adds an unmatched level of protection to your iPad’s screen, and doubles as a versatile folding stand so that you can put your iPad in the most ergonomic position for typing, watching videos, and more. And for as tough as the Skidboard is on the outside, a soft, velvet style interior lining won’t ever scratch your iPad. Custom cut-outs give you access to the dock, buttons, and camera sensor while providing maximum coverage and protection.
The Skidboard’s folio cover stays tightly shut, thanks to a durable latch, while the inner lining is incredibly soft and scratchproof, ensuring that all the rough stuff stays on the outside of your iPad. The folio cover doubles as a stand and the nylon strap will hold it sturdy when closed or opened and working in one of two positions available.
As I mentioned earlier, I love the lightweight and protection it gave me and the folio was my favorite, especially for the price point. Take a look at all the colors and styles along with all the cases Uniea designs and sells at Uniea.com.
Tags: cases, hardware mac, ipad, uniea
I received an email from my dear friend, Allison Sheridan this week. She wanted to tell me about a great free Menubar app she found called NoMenuBar. It’s from Jeb-Soft. NoMenuBar is a simple application with only one (left) menu bar item. It let lots of space for the right side menu bar item to be displayed (like time, airport status, and any other add-ons). It will be very useful if you have a small screen (like on a laptop) or lots of right side items. So when your menu bar icons go so far across the bar that you can’t see them all, you simply command-tab to NoMenuBar and the whole area clears up so you can see all of your menu bar icons!
I then told her about another free Menubar app I was using called AccessMenuBarApps from Ortisoft Software. It gives the user instant access to all menubar apps that reside in the right side of the Mac menubar. What it does is with a hotkey combo or with a flick of the mouse, it makes the hot application’s menu (File, Edit, Format, Window, Help, etc) disappear and allows all your MenuBar apps from the right side of the screen to overtake as much real estate as they need. Very handy and free.
Then here’s another free alternative to Menubar clutter that I never shared with Allison. It’s called Broomstick from a young developer by the name of Sebastian Hallum. Broomstick is the easiest way to hide menubar icons that you don’t like. While most apps that create a menubar icon allow you to hide it, some apps don’t provide this option. Broomstick lets you take back control of your menubar. Broomstick works by changing the permissions of the application’s files so that the application cannot display its icon. Some apps, such as Dropbox, do not display anything in the menubar, however other apps just display a blank space. To get around this, you can use the menubar order customization feature of Broomstick to ensure that your menubar remains beautiful. Broomstick can currently hide the following apps: Air Video Server, Avira, BetterTouchTool, Boom, CPU Speed Accelerator, Caffeine, Chronicle Mini, ChronoSync, Click.to, CloudApp, CrashPlan, Dimmer, DropCopy, Dropbox, Droplr, Evernote, Flutter, Flux, FullControlHelper, Garmin ANT Agent, Google Drive, GrabBox, GrabBox2, Growl, GrowlTunes, Hiss, Insync, Kuvva, Last.fm, LogMeIn, LogMeIn, Hamach, Memeo Backup, MiddleClick, MuteCon, NoSleepHelper, Nocturne, OpenDNS Updater, PleaseSleep, PuntoSwitcher, Quiet Read, RemotelessHelper, Seamless, SnagIt, Splashtop Streamer, Spotlight, ToDoHelper, Wakoopa Tracker, Wallpaper Clocks, iTeleport Connect.
So if your Menubar is getting cluttered up, try one or all of these alternatives. After all, they are free.
Tags: Accesmenubarapps, allison sheridan, broomstick, nomenubar, software. mac
B&H has done it again ! (They are also an affiliate of Surfbits.com)
Introducing the New Canon DOUBLE rebate page. Expiring June 2nd 2012
How it Works:
1. You click on the link below
2. Choose a camera body and then choose a lens or speedlight (or both)
3. Start jumping up and down in utter ecstasy as your instant rebate doubles.
B&H Video Double Rebates on Cameras Link.
Examples:
Canon EOS 7D SLR Digital Camera (Body Only) $ 1,699.00 – $150 instant savings $1,549.00
Then get Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens $2,499.00 – Instant savings of $200 which Doubles to an instant savings of $400 Final price $2,099.00
You Just saved $550
Price Drops:
Pentax Q drops from $749.00 to $499.00
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 Digital Camera (Black) See price in cart
Huge rebates on Panasonic lenses Expiring May 5th
Hot Lenses in Stock:
Fujifilm 60mm f/2.4 XF Macro Lens
Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 DI VC USD Lens for Canon Cameras
Available For Pre-Order:
Sony NEX-FS700U Super 35 Camcorder (Body Only)
We all know that having a Gmail account has some wonderful advantages. The searching capabilities, the tagging, the archiving, and the ability to send and receive large attachments. But, the problem arises that your online mail history is at the mercy of Google. A very scary thought indeed.
The solution is to have a backup of your Gmail on your hard drive. You can accomplish this by using IMAP with your favorite Mail application and download all your Gmail emails. That can be a long and painful process. Plus, it may slow your Mail application down to a crawl. But, the positive aspect to using this method is the cost is free.
If you want another solution, one that costs only $1.99 from the Mac App Store, BackUp Gmail is the answer. It’s a lightweight Menu Bar App that works in background, connecting automatically with your account and it backs up any new emails. You can access your data whenever and wherever you want. All emails are in plain text (.eml format) and the relationships are stored in a SQLite DB. You can personalize how the backup is performed and set-up your destination folders as you wish. You decide if you want an hourly or daily backup of your account and set the times yourself.
BackUp Gmail is a fairly new application and the developer is working hard to add features to the app and make it more and more user friendly. Davide Gullo is receptive to feedback and seems to be committed to keep the app a simple and cheap solution to backing up your Gmail account. It’s working well for me.
The developer sent me some links for free and shareware SQLite Database programs that you can download and use to work with your backup. Of course, you can also just open the .eml text files in your current Mail app to read them or import them into your email.
“For now, If you want to open SQLite database you can use a simple firefox add-on (free):
https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/
or
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/or any other app that allow access to SQLite db as (not free):
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14140/sqlitemanager
http://www.razorsql.com/articles/sqlite_mac.html
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/29654/base “
Tags: backup, gmail, mac software
When it comes right down to it, most Mac users spend more time, (then should be necessary), finding software to make the OSX Finder handle basic file operations. You know what I mean, copying, moving, collecting, separating or organizing files. We search for methods to open multiple Finder windows, arrange these windows, tab the windows, decorate these windows, etc. Don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful shareware and freeware apps that help you accomplish these chores, but for the last five years I’ve never needed to use them. That’s because I’ve been using Path Finder from Cocoatech.
Over the years we’ve reviewed many different versions of Path Finder as it’s matured. I wrote this article on Path Finder 4, David Sparks looked at Path Finder for us in this article, and Chris Marshall looked at Path Finder 5 in this post. We’ll try not to repeat ourselves, but with all the great features in Path Finder 6, you don’t want to miss any of them.
Path Finder is first and foremost a file manager for OSX. With it’s dual browser windows you can easily compare, move, copy, rename, compress, preview, email, get info or burn any file or folder on your Mac. The toolbar is fully customizable to allow you to pick and choose the file operations you need for fast access. I love the idea of a customizable contextual menu so that I can right click on a file and achieve the same results as going to the toolbar or menubar. Finally, you can add and change keyboard shortcuts to suit your needs. As you can see, Path Finder allows you to choose it’s look, design and function. It can be as simple or as complex as you want it or need it to be.
What other features does Path Finder offer? The list is just too long, but let’s hit a few of the main feature set. Some of the new features is version 6 are:
File Transfer Queue: Access current file operations from either a toolbar item or a separate unified window.
ACL Editor: Create and modify Access Control Lists, an advanced alternative to OS X’s standard Unix permissions.
File Tagging: Leverage the power of OpenMeta to tag your files and share tags between apps.
Batch Renaming: Apply filename changes to a group of files simultaneously.
Hex Editor: Low-level file editing without ever leaving your browser.
Some of the great features that have been with Path Finder since earlier versions are:
Drop Stack: Freeze drag-and-drop operations by placing files into a temporary stack.
Dual-pane Browser: View the contents of two folders side-by-side in one window.
Tabs & Bookmarks: Bring your web browser workflow into your file browser.
File List Filtering: Quickly filter a list of files by name, extension, or kind.
Smart Sorting: Sort by folders, packages, or files first. Then sort by date, name, modification, type or any attribute.
Quick Look & Cover Flow:: Quickly preview files, and display Cover Flow alongside any other view type.
Integrated Terminal: Embed a terminal window directly into your graphical file browser window.
Command Line Tools: Execute common command line tools directly from the Path Finder GUI.
Application Launcher: Access your apps with the press of a key.
Archives: Work with a variety of archive types including zip, gzip, dmg, sit, and more.
Text & Image Editors: Create and edit text. Crop and scale your images.
I love the idea that when I need one of the drawers on the right side, left side or bottom of the browser window to pop out and let me use a specific function, I can press a button for it to appear and press a button for it to disappear. I love the preview pane built right into the browser window and the built in text editor makes simple text edits fast and easy. I guess I just love Path Finder, period. When I read reviews about this application or that application that allows you to change this function or that function in the Finder, I just smile. I already can do all that, plus a lot more, with Path Finder 6 from Cocoatech.
The new Path Finder 6 is only $40 new and $20 for an upgrade.
Tags: cocoatech, mac software, path finder, shareware
Last week I sang the praises of a new application in development for searching your Mac and your cloud called Found. The problem is that Found is still in a beta stage and to even use the application you have to get on a waiting list. I was contacted by another developer that told me about his application called CloudMagic. After a week using it on my iPhone and my Mac, I have to say that it does a great job at a great price. Free!
CloudMagic is a search engine for all your personal online data. It lets you search across all your data (emails, tweets, docs, contacts, calendar, etc.) through one simple search box. You could also install the Chrome extension, Firefox extension or Safari extension which will show up as a floating CloudMagic search bar. You can download the CloudMagic iOS App or download the Android App available on app stores.
CloudMagic currently supports the following services: (You can add any number of accounts for any service.)
- Gmail
- Google Apps Email
- Google Chat, Docs, Calendar and Contacts
- Microsoft Exchange Email, Calendar and Contacts (Exchange Server 2007 and 2010)
- Microsoft Office 365 Email, Calendar and Contacts
Once indexed, I found CloudMagic to be lightning fast and you see results as you’re typing the search query. Quick Preview allows you to quickly preview and take common actions like Reply, Retweet, etc. The iOS app works well and, like the OSX client, is very fast.
CloudMagic is simple, fast and free. What more can you ask for from a search app?
Tags: cloudmagic, ios, ipad, iphone, osx, software. mac
In case you’ve been locked away in some Apple-less environment for the last few months, you’ve probably heard about Scanner Pro from Readdle. This iOS app allows you to scan any document, receipt, whiteboard or paper note with your new iPad or iPhone. Then upload your scans, saved as PDF files, to Dropbox and Google Docs, or email them. Otherwise send scans directly to your online Evernote account. You can scan multi-page documents, meeting memos and more. You can add, move, delete and even combine pages in landscape or portrait modes.
Some of it’s more notable features include:
- Automatic edge detection and advanced image processing help you to get great scans blazingly fast. You can adjust the crop area manually by tapping on the screen.
- Custom page size is supported to fit physical size of the original document. It is very handy for scanning receipts.
- All scanned document are produced as industry-standard PDF files.
- Scanner Pro allows you to set a password for PDF files you have created. Only people who know the password will be able to open the documents
- Mount Scanner Pro as a shared network drive over the Wi-Fi network to any computer and copy the scanned PDF files from your iOS device. No additional software is required
- A built-in PDF viewer allows to preview your scans exactly in a way they will look on a desktop computer
- Scanner Pro allows you to use Google Docs OCR to convert scans into editable text files on your Google account
“With the large iPad screen in mind, the new Scanner Pro 4 was completely redesigned to streamline scanning and provide full control over the scans and sharing process. Automatic page border detection and instant image processing are combined with outstanding ease of use.
The iPad version of Scanner Pro is a great opportunity to address the basics, the roots of how you can use the camera on the mobile device”, said Igor Zhadanov, Readdle CEO. “Since 2009 Scanner Pro has got a tremendous feedback from our customers and now it is time to apply the best of the things we’ve learned during these years.”
A quick workflow would look like this: You can add a page from the camera or straight from the Photo Album. You can then set the size of the paper or manually move the corners to the edge of the paper. But the best bet is to hit “find borders” and let Scanner Pro size your scan edges. You can also rotate to correct vertical documents which may have been scanned horizontally to match the iPad screen, as well as contrast and brightness corrections to make the document more readable. When you tap the share arrow in the upper right corner the documents can be shared via email, Photos (Camera Roll), Print, Upload To, Open In as well as password-protected and even sent by Fax for an additional fee. You can upload your scan to Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox or a WebDAV server. You can also choose to open in many different iOS apps on your device in either .jpg or .pdf formats.
I found that the scans were all very legible PDF files when finished and the document edge detection worked quite well. The key to Scanner Pro, as it is with any app like this, is to take a good picture to begin with. I think that Readdle has spent several years perfecting the application and with the 5 meg camera in the new Apple devices, the scanning capabilities of Scanner Pro will make anyone happy. I like the speed, functionality and looks of this app.
The one downside may be in the pricing. Scanner Pro is $6.99 in the app store and while I realize that $6.99 is a cheap investment for a business application like Scanner Pro, I used a comparable scanning app called Jotnot Scanner Pro for the last year and it’s price is $1.99 in the app store.
This week’s deal is for today only. B&H (Affiliate of Surfbits.com) is having a 50% off sale on Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements. Check it out at $49.95 and the two apps together for only $69.95. Please click thru on the link below. Thank you.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 for Mac & Windows
Tags: adobe after effects, deals, elements, sale
I’ve been playing with the beta of a new Mac app called Found. I first found out about it on Twitter a few weeks ago and placed my name on the waiting list as soon as I could. Now that I have it on my Macs, I can say it wasn’t soon enough. Let me explain.
First, Found is in beta and not all the features are working yet, but the feedback I received from my first bug report impressed me and told me that this was an application that had a solid team behind it.
In case you have not heard about the application, let me do a quick explanation of what it does. It lives in the background of your desktop and with a double control key tap it pops out from the left side of your screen. You can set up your Google Docs and your Gmail accounts to be searches along with your Mac and your Dropbox folder. As of this beta, the Mac search is only setup for the main folders, or primary folders such as applications, documents, photos, music, movies, desktop and downloads. The edit button is already in place and ready for you to add more folders for searching in the later beta stages. In other words, you get search results from all four places at one time, broken down into categories so you know where the results are coming from and you can launch any of the results rights from the application and you can preview the results in a preview window if you desire.
The Found Web site has a great set of screen grabs to get your mouth watering for the application right now, but you’ll have to sign up and wait for the invitation to arrive.
Found’s CEO, Stephen Brady told me, “As for our plans for Found going forward, we plan on doing a public release sometime next month. We are currently working on incorporating Evernote as the next service. Looking further out, we will be working on two fronts:
1. More services which will come out in groups as they make sense, such as messages, events, contacts, photos/images, etc.
2. More ways to access Found, in particular an iOS appFound reflects three key design goals that are pulled together to make one coherent experience.
The first is that today’s reality is that your files, documents, photos, and much of your personal data are spread across many devices and cloud services. Found embraces that reality and presents the user with results from their most important personal cloud services. At the same time, the stuff on the hard drive is also very important to most users and so Found indexes locally as well.
The second is that personal/desktop search ought to be fast and intuitive. The search technology that powers Found is new and custom designed to deliver results extremely quickly. The search experience is character by character in order to give the user immediate feedback about the progress of her search. Often, the user will be able to find her file with only a few characters. Moreover, there are no special command words or fields for the user to memorize. For example, filtering results by file type can be done by just typing “pdf” or “doc”.
Also part of making search fast and intuitive is to provide immediate feedback. Found generates instant previews alongside the search results to provide the user with the final visual cue/confirmation about what she was looking for. Whereas many other apps generate only thumbnail previews (or none) that can be difficult to make out, Found presents large, readable previews, which has the added benefit of allowing the user to simply read or look at the content in place without having to open the file or a new browser page.
The final goal was to seamlessly integrate into what users do on their computer. For the user, searching and retrieving her stuff is simply a means to an end. That may be emailing a colleague a presentation, posting photos to Facebook, or just wanting to read a PDF that was downloaded yesterday. With that in mind, we designed Found to keep the user in that context as much as possible, which led us to develop a custom UI, which we call the Palette. The Palette UI is a metaphor for a painter’s palette, where a painter uses a palette to make a variety of paint accessible to him without interrupting his focus on the canvas. Similarly, Found is designed to be always there when you need it and out of your way when you don’t. The control-control hotkey to call up Found then completes that accessibility and keeps the user focused on what they were doing.”
Found Software was founded in 2010 by Stephen Brady (CEO) and Vijay Sundaram (Chief Product Officer) and joined by John Mitchell (CTO) in 2011.
Stephen and Vijay started the company out of their passion for but also their personal frustration with multiple devices and cloud services. Adopting each additional device and service meant more and more fragmentation and therefore more work to get back to their data. The two started developing technology prototypes before crystalizing Found. The company, currently a team of five, is based in San Francisco.
“Ultimately, we think that a user should be able to choose as many and whichever devices and services she likes but not have to think about where her stuff is, and Found is the first step in bringing that about for users.”
I look forward to working with the Found developers in this beta and we will have an interview with Stephen when the app is ready for release. Until then, sign up for a preview at their Web site, www.foundapp.com and I hope you’re lucky enough to preview this wonderful new app.
Tags: found, mac and cheese, search, software. mac
A Guest Post from John Page:
Family, work and daily routine may become a challenge by messing up time perception and destroying all plans if you got used to be involved in few activities simultaneously. However, if you life is too busy to let you actually live you should take an advantage of popular time management iPhone applications. These small neat programs were developed in order to make your routine tasks’ fulfillment more productive by saving time for things that actually matter – friends and family.
If you are desperately trying to figure out where your time flies with the speed of light, use one of the following applications on your iPhone to get back the control over your lifetime:
Price: Free
This is one of the most popular time management programs for iPhone/iPad in the AppStore. Having a minimalistic but yet eye-catching interface and a number of personalized settings to use, Wunderlist is considered as one of the best virtual to-do lists’ makers. You can fill in your daily tasks and using this app check all fulfilled items throughout a day in few simple taps. The best thing about this app is that it is very effective and absolutely free, unlikely most iPhone apps in the category “Productivity”.
Price: Free
Evernote is a must-have app for any workaholic who needs to control all data on all his devices. Giving an opportunity to sync all your PC and mobile devices Evernote also provides the simple-to-use mode of remote access to all connected devices and flawlessly serves as a manager of files, videos and photos that are kept in different places. Evernote allows you to track all your activities and gives an access to all your files letting you save memory and space of an iPhone. It is also free like Wunderlist and is offered through the AppStore with limited monthly 60MB to store your data (but for additional $4 per month this limit can be increased to 1GB).
Price: $9.99
In cases when your boss demands from you to be prepared for active brainstorming at work or you need to put down your ideas due to your writing career it will be wise to take an advantage of MindNode that was developed especially as a mind-map tool. Using the simple intuitive interface of MindNode you will be able to create, manage, edit and save your thoughts and ideas expressed via text files, images and graphs. If you prefer to use DropBox for saving your files, you will be glad to find out that the app supports the complete integration with the popular “cloud” storage service.
Price: $9.99
Overwhelmed with tasks? Use this small but productive application that makes complex schedule easier to follow working as an email inbox service. This tool will help to manage all your to-do lists and current activities in a quick way. Train yourself to check your Things inbox like you got used to check your email inbox and you will turn into the God of time management.
Price: $0.99
This cheap but highly productive application will help all those people who got used to plan their lifetime using to-do lists. Being a sophisticated to-do-list checker this application for iPhone owners is equally good when you need to buy stuff in a supermarket or fulfill a number of office tasks. Giving an ability to create and check daily, weekly and even yearly to-do lists this IPhone application also has a neat UI with a number of free templates to use. Great app for workaholics and busy housewives.
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Press Release:
WellRedApps today announces the immediate availability of DropKey, a new utility for Mac OS X Lion that allows users to quickly and easily encrypt sensitive documents. Building upon the nearly 40 year-old foundation of Public-Key Cryptography, DropKey’s encryption method is reliable, secure and stable.
Public-Key Cryptography, created in the 1970s, is a matched-pair encryption/decryption standard. Using this method, the sender and recipient share public encryption keys, thereby establishing a relationship of trust. After that occurs, files can be encrypted by one and decrypted by the other without using passwords. While Public-Key Cryptography can use a variety of levels of security, DropKey uses the 256-bit method, a well-established industry standard. More information can be found on the Public-Key Cryptography page at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography
“We’re amazed at how many people send sensitive documents without any security methods whatsoever,” said Ian Schray, WellRedApps Co-founder and CEO. “When we took a look at the complexity of encryption tools available, we quickly understood why. We created DropKey to make it so simple to protect your data, it’d be ridiculous to skip the step.”
DropKey, now available for Mac OS X Lion, can be found at http://www.getdropkey.com . The regular price is $29.99, but it can be purchased for $19.99 for a limited time. A free 30-day trial is available from the website. Additionally, all direct purchases of DropKey will include a coupon for a free second license to be shared with a friend, family member or colleague. Customers who purchase DropKey from the Mac App Store can send a copy of their purchase receipt to support@wellredapps.com to receive the coupon for a free license.
Key features of DropKey include:
Simple, drag-and-drop interface.
Address Book integration: Public keys are stored right in Mac OS X’s Address Book.
Universal file support: DropKey will encrypt any kind of file.
Multiple file support: Encrypt any number of files into a single encrypted archive.
Multiple recipient support: Files can be encrypted so they can be opened by any number of individual recipients.
Tags: DropKey, Encryption, wellredapps
