Snippets from PC Magazine

November 6, 2007

Bullzip PDF Printer
-Pros: simple PDF creation. Advanced settings for security and display via dialog box or from command line.
-Cons: Can't set initial zoom level for PDF files or translate Word comments to PDF annotations.

Pownce
-send invites, share files and videos
-pros: good interface. options for lightweight desktop with notification, private sharing.
-cons: no mobile posting or notification. No public page of posts.

Totalidea TweakVI
-configure hard drive details, CPU settings, and boot manager.
-pros: installs intelligently, provides scads of system information, makes configuration highly accessible.
-cons: somewhat costly yearly subscription for advanced versions.

Top 100 Undiscovered Sites
Info, Reference, and Search
-Aftervote (www.aftervote.com): search aggregator that combines results from Google, Yahoo and MSN.
-Footnote (www.footnote.com): has a deal with the National Archives to digitize and upload every document it houses.
-Hard to Find 800 Numbers (www.hardtofind800numbers.com): organizes companies alphabetically and displays phone numbers and hours of operation.
-Ninjawords (www.ninjawords.com): faster dictionary site.
-Uncyclopedia (www.uncyclopedia.org): nonsense presented with a straight face.
-Wikisky.org (www.wikisky.org): draggable space model with constellations highlighted, learn about distant stars, or see a model of the stars above you.
-Wink (www.wink.com): people-search engine that culls results from social-networking sites, followed by results from other sites where users keep public profiles, followed by results from the Web at large.

Health and Food
-Cork'd (www.corkd.com): helps you organize your cellar, user-generated reviews and recommendations.
-ExtraTasty (www.extratasty.com): search for drink recipes, share drink recipes, and talk to friends about drink recipes.
-Lumosity (www.lumosity.com): play games that have been tested and shown to improve memory, attention, processing speed, and even cognitive control.
-Menupages (www.menupages.com): menus and reviews for thousands of restaurants in NY, SF, LA, PHI, BOS, CHI, DC, and South Florida.
-Top Secret Recipes (www.topsecretrecipes.com): clones the secret recipes of popular restaurants.
-Who Is Sick? (www.whoissick.org/sickness): maps out illnesses, showing you who's got what and where.
-The World's Healthiest Foods (www.whfoods.com): info on how foods affect our health and can boost energy.

Lifestyle & Entertainment
-Dethroner (www.dethroner.com): men's magazine with topics like beer, meat, and danger.
-EXPN (www.expn.com): photos and videos featuring skating, surfing, motocross and the X games.
-FirstShowing.net (www.firstshowing.net): movie blog keeps you up to date on the hot gossip.
-Going.com (www.going.com): search local events by location, popularity and time.
-I Can Has Cheezburger? (www.icanhascheezburger.com): collection of pictures of cats that are captioned to hilarious effect.
-iminlikewithyou (www.iminlikewithyou.com): online meet-and-greet but you must "bid" on a particular user.
-I Watch Stuff (www.iwatchstuff.com): posts about film news, trailers, and clips.
-MeeVee (www.meevee.com): TV listing with personalized recommendations.
-MyPunchBowl (www.mypunchbowl.com): online party invitations.
-Skeptic (www.skeptic.com): videos, articles, and podcasts on controversial subjects.

Money & Career
-BullPoo (www.bullpoo.com): swap tips or stocks and talk money.
-Indeed (www.indeed.com): checks job sites, newspapers, and company career pages by keyword and location to fit your needs.
-Kiva (www.kiva.org): make small loans to deserving entrepreneurs world-wide.
-Rentometer.com (www.rentometer.com): compares your rent with the rest of your neighborhood.
-Trulia (www.trulia.com): real-estate advice and extensive home listings.

Music
-AllHipHop.com (www.allhiphop.com): record reviews, industry rumors, and editorial content.
-Amie Street (www.amiestreet.com): tracks start off free and go up to $0.89 as they catch on.
-Beethere.net (www.beethere.net): track your favorite artists and their tour dates.
-Imeem (www.imeem.com): social-networking/music-discovery site.
-Musicovery (www.musicovery.com): free music players asks you to plot your mood on a spectrum and then creates a chart of songs to fit that mood.
-SingShot (www.singshot.com): record to karaoke tracks, rate others' recordings, and enter your songs into contests.
-Slacker (www.slacker.com): Internet radio service with station browser, "heart", skip and ban options.

News, Politics & Government
-Guerilla News Network (www.guerrillanews.com): independent news organization.
-MediaStorm (www.mediastorm.org): multimedia stories that incorporate video, audio, photography, and personal essays.
-Tech President (www.techpresident.com): keep tabs on campaign sites, YouTube postings, etc.
-Topix (www.topix.net): local sections for thousands of towns and communities.

Reading
-Act-i-vate (community.livejournal.com/act_i_vate): "serialized graphic novels" by some of underground comics' brightest stars, including Haspiel, Bertozzi, and Goldman.
-copyblogger (www.copyblogger.com): blog about online marketing, with excellent tips and practical advice for online writing and blogging.
-Goodreads (www.goodreads.com): combines nosy fun of snooping through friends' bookshelves with the antisocial, shut-in joy of not actually having to go to their homes.
-Ironic Sans (www.ironicsans.com): sharp and clever blog with great ideas and musings on design.
-Librivox (www.librivox.org): audiobooks for free, featuring a collection of public-domain books read by volunteers.
-The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (fakesteve.blogspot.com): a uniquely Jobsian perspective to the insane media coverage of the Apple empire.
-Verbotomy (www.verbotomy.com): create words from meanings with daily challenges. The site provides a definition and you invent a verb (or Verboticism).
-xkcd (www.xkcd.com): drawings are simple stick figures, but the jokes are a source of nerdy glee.

Shopping, Classifieds, and Travel
-The Bargainist (www.bargainist.com): scours the Web for the best bargains, coupons, and free offers.
-Do My Stuff (www.domystuff.com): send your chore into cyberspace where businesses and individuals place bids: the lowest bidder wins.
-EuroCheapo (www.eurocheapo.com): hotel reviewers show you how and where you can save a buck.
-Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com): definitive resource for kooky, nichey, and downright bizarre landmarks.
-TheThingsIWant.com (www.thethingsiwant.com): service for creating shopping and wish lists lets you make sure your friends and family pick out the perfect gift for you.
-Ugallery.com (www.ugallery.com): helps college artists find recognition.
-Wikitravel (www.wikitravel.org): for the sheer amount of info, no travel site touches the user-generated content of Wikitravel.
-Yapta (www.yapta.com): enter your flright ino and the price you paid for your tickets, it will track the ticket price for your flight(s) from that point on. If the fare drops before you leave on your trip, the site will let you know the price difference and how to claim a refund or vouchers from the airline.

Download and DIY
-afreeDLL (afreedll.com): makes finding, downloading and restoring DLLs a breeze and all of the downloads are free.
-DaFont (www.dafont.com): almost 7,500 fonts uploaded by various users worldwide.
-DZone (www.dzone.com): developer's dream and much more - a vast network of user-submitted links to message boards, news, coding tricks, and more.
-Infected or Not (www.infectedornot.com): excellent and free NanoScan tool to ascertain quickly whether there's malware on your machine.
-InviteShare (www.inviteshare.com): free service lets early beta users share their invites.
-MajorGeeks.com (www.majorgeeks.com): free and paid apps and utilities for your PC that have been tested to recover, repair, protect, back-up, etc.
-OldVersion.com (www.oldversion.com): roll back to the good old days of products like Quicktime and AIM.
-ProgrammableWeb (www.programmableweb.com): keeps tabs on mashups and open APIs across the Web.
-Website Grader (www.websitegrader.com): submit your URL and it will give you some basic feedback on how your site is doing and in what areas it can improve.

Gaming
-Armor Games (www.armorgames.com): home of countless free Flash-based games, all playable on the web.
-K2xl (www.k2xl.com): watch dots, place cursor on dot, click mouse, watch chain reaction as dots explode. Repeat. The game is Boomshine.
-Kongregate (www.kongregate.com): flash-video game site driven by user-generated content.
-LikeBetter (www.likebetter.com): presents you with two pictures and you click on the one you like better.
-Line Rider (www.official-linerider.com): send a fragile, scarf-clad man hurtling down a steep, crudely drawn slope on a sled.
-Shacknews (www.shacknes.com): go-to spot for all gaming news.

Hardware News and Blogs
-All Things Digital (www.allthingsd.com): uses both text and video to dish on the hottest tech news.
-Anything But iPod (www.anythingbutipod.com): tracks the market for non-Apple audio hardware, software, and accessories.
-Everything USB (www.everythingusb.com): gadget blog dedicated to the one-wired-connection wonders that are USB computer peripherals.
-GoodCleanTech (www.goodcleantech.com): keep apprised of all manner of environmentally conscientious technology in illustrated, user-friendly format.
-iLounge (www.ilounge.com): industry news, hands-on product reviews, tips, tricks, downloads - everything you want to know about the iPod and iPhone.
-Phone Scoop (www.phonescoop.com): resource for mobile-phone users and enthusiasts with emphasis on news, reviews, and building a mobile-phone community.
-TechMeme (www.techmeme.com): hottest tech news stories on the Web.

Software and Internet Blogs
-AppScout (www.appscout.com): great place to find software tips and tricks, cool or useful web sites and applications, and the latest news from the world of web technology.
-Download Squad (www.downloadsquad.com): Engadget for software and web apps (owned by the same company).
-eHub (www.emilychang.com/go/ehub): Emily Chang manages to get wind of every web 2.0 app before the rest of the blogging world does.
-MakeUseOf.com (www.makeuseof.com): quick but comprehensive roundups of apps and sites in a given space.
-Mashable (www.mashable.com): blog devoted to covering MySpace, Facebook and their ilk, reporting on the exploding world of social networking apps and features.
-Uncov (www.uncov.com): bizarro equivalent of TechCrunch, mercilessly reviewing start-ups.

Video
-Dabble (www.dabble.com): aggregates video clips from major services.
-ScienceHack (www.sciencehack.com): video-search engine dedicated to the world of science. Every indexed video is screened and approved by real scientists.
-uLinkx (www.ulinkx.com): finds the most popular videos from across the Web and makes aimless video browsing fun and easy.
-Ustream.tv (www.ustream.tv): makes it easy to stream your footage live, as it's being recorded.
-VideoJug (videojug.com): "encyclopedia of everything".

Web Apps
-Bubbl.us (www.bubbl.us): helps you organize your thoughts into readable and colorful mind maps to print and to share online.
-Eyejot (www.eyejot.com): combines elements of email, voice mail, and video chat into one free streamlined solution. Lets you record a video message and email a link to your friends, who can click ont he link at their leisure, view your message, and reply via their own video messages.
-Media Fire (www.mediafire.com): free file-sharing and storage service that lets users upload unlimited files and images.
-Meebo (www.meebo.com): log on to all of your IM accounts at once, without installing software.
-Only2Clicks (www.only2clicks.com): set up a customzed home page with instant access to the sites on which you spend the majority of your time, along with previews of what's on their home pages.
-Picnik (www.picnik.com): Upload or import photos (from Flickr, Picasa, etc.), then use online manipulation tools to crop, sharpen, adjust exposure and color, etc.
-Remember The Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com): handy online list-making app.
-Wetpaint (www.wetpaint.com): makes good-looking, easy-to-create wikis a reality.
-Zamzar (www.zamzar.com): convert anything (images, docs, YouTube videos) and have it emailed back to you in 4 quick steps without downloading anything.
-Zoho (www.zoho.com): typical stuff (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations) along with Creator DB, notebook, Wiki, and collaboration tool. Not all the modules are free (e.g. project manager and CRM).

Stuff from Inc., December 2007

Before launching an overseas charity, ask yourself these questions:

What do I want to achieve?
Identify your cause narrowly. Instead of trying to eradicate hunger in Africa, focus on a water project in one village.

Who else is doing it?
Don't hesitate to build on the work of others. Western philanthropists often undervalue local efforts already under way.

Where do I go?
Existing business contacts may make it easier to operate in some locations. If you worked with great lawyers and accountants in China on an outsourcing contract, for example, they may be willing to do pro bono work there.

Do I do this alone or with a partner?
You'll need help from someone on the ground. Sean Downs, CEO of technology start-up Enclarity, launched the Sumba Foundation to provide healthcare and education to residents of a small Indonesian island with help from Claude Graves, an American expat. Without Graves' help, Downs says, he couldn't have negotiated the maze of culture and bureaucracy.

How do I overcome distrust?
Don't discount the local culture. Villagers were reluctant to visit a Sumba Foundation-sponsored clinic until Downs and his partner recruited a local shaman to refer patients. "He gets paid a referral fee now," says Downs. "It's not unlike the US health care system."

At a time when products are being recalled and consumers are wary, managing your Chinese contractors is more important than ever. Here's how:

Meet your maker
Go to the factory. Meet the management. Tour the facilities.

Drive a hard bargain
Negotiate for copious product testing, and put together a written quality control and ethics agreement. Set the rules on subcontractors, and insist on a transparent supply chain. Use carrot and stick, rewarding factories that deliver high-quality goods, shunning those who don't.

Communicate clearly
Know the ethics and compliances standards for all your customers, and make sure your factory knows them, too. Let your contractors know that the penalty for failure will hurt not only you but them as well. Put all necessary documents in Chinese.

Diversify
If possible, have two primary suppliers. That can reduce the likelihood of supply interruptions should faulty products or recalls force a factory shutdown. If it's too expensive, spend more on testing to minimize the potential for problems.

Be prepared for delays
The spate of product recalls has thrown the entire China supply chain into a state of chaos. Testing labs are backed up. Big recalls can seriously affects container traffic and shipping schedules.

Understanding geeks: A field guide to your tech staff

Habitat
If there's one common characteristic of an ideal techie workplace, it's darkness. It's not that geeks are depressed. Multiple monitors bombard users with a lot of light already; adding overhead fluorescents or superbright halogens would be a recipe for migraines and madness. A small desk lamp, perhaps, is all the light most geeks can comfortably handle while at the keyboard. A dim, cavelike environment also helps programmers focus and tune out distractions; often, headphones are used to get even depeer into the zone.

Developers are particularly fastidious about their setup, but other techies also like their desks just so. Whether that means a pristine work surface or a desk that looks like the site of a bombinbing, non-techies should keep one thing in mind: do not touch anything.

Psychology: some common geek character traits
Perfectionism. "Good enough" really isn't for most geeks. The tendency is mostly a good one, but a well-oiled tech department needs a combination of perfectionists and "incrementalists", willing to crank out necessary improvements right now, even if they aren't perfect.

Lust for gadgets. The shinier, the better. Possessing the latest gizmo from Tokyo is a badge of honor.

Intellectual curiosity. Put a "regular" person in front of a computer, and he'll just sit there. A geek will dig in, figuring out what's inside and how he can tweak it. Not because it's his job, but for fun. This curiosity may manifest itself as NADD (nerd attention-deficit disorder), a compulsion to consume as many streams of information as possible at a seemingly impossible rate.

Systematic thinking. Geeks see nothing magic about technology, only problems to be broken down and solved.

Wrong? Never. Geeks often have a powerful intellectual vanity. That makes it hard for them to admit mistakes. Hence, the plethora of expressions that blame the victim.

Competitive nature. Being smarter than their peers is really important for geeks. Developers are constantly honing their skills with the aim of doing something that no one's been able to do.

Dos and Don'ts
DO try to gain a basic understanding of the technology. Though the techies will always know a ton more than you, you need to be able to evaluate the level of truth coming out of your team. Having a good translator (in the form of an IT project manager with strong communication skills) is a big plus.

DO provide context. Executives what short answers: "Is it going to work?" To an engineer, it's never that simple. What do you mean? Is it going to work here? Is it going to work for a million users? For 10 million users?

DON'T add a "little" last-minute feature and expect to hit your product deadline. Nontechnical people often don't understand the code-checking and debugging process that even small additions require.

DON'T let your employees bypass the proper channels for submitting IT requests. If you interrupt a programmer who's deep in the zone because you need help with your email, you deserve his wrath.

DO cross-pollinate IT with other departments. Going out on a sales call, for example, can be revelatory for a developer. Being reminded that there are real, human customers is also good for geeks, who don't deal with them often.

DON'T wait to befriend tech support. Sudden sucking up followed shortly by a request to help move your iTunes library to a new machine is transparent and will backfire.

Motivation
Geeks like money as much as everyone else, but there are other ways ot make sure they do a stellar job.

Give them props. Nerds like recognition for what they've done and want to talk about it. Take your tech stars to lunch and get them to tell youwhat they're up to. It's about the relationship and building trust.

Let them play. Giving geeks time to work on their own projects is another great incentive. Google's developers are allowed to spend 20% of their work time working on projects of their choosing - with the caveat that anything they produce belongs to the company. The tinkering is rewarding for the techies, and even if most of the work comes to nothing, the 10% that yields valuable new products makes it worthwhile.

Earning More From Your Website
Google AdSense (www.google.com/adsense): Best for making money with little effort
-Display text, image, and video ads based on your site's content
-Pays from 5 cents to $15 a click, depending on the content in the ad

AdBrite (adbrite.com): Best for selling ads to your customers
-Serves text ads, banner ads, and interstitials
-Expect 10 cents to $10 per 1,000 views

AuctionAds (auctionads.com): Best for keeping rivals at bay
-Delivers ads that feature random items being auctioned on eBay
-You get about half of the fee sellers shell out to eBay, which is typically from 3% to 4% of the sale price. You can also collect about $25 if someone clicks on your ad registers for the first time at eBay and bids on an auction within 30 days.

Chitika eMiniMalls (chitika.com/mm_overview.php): Best for promoting ancillary products
-Serves up image ads that hawk consumer products. Each ad contains up to four products as well as a short description, pricing and links to retailers.
-20 cents to $2 per click, depending on the product.

Vizu Answers (vizu.com): Best for keeping visitors on your site
-Conducts market research by placing polls on websites. You get paid when visitors see a poll on your site.
-For every 1,000 people who view the poll on your site, you get from 50 cents to $10.

ValueClick (valueclickmedia.com): Best for displaying banner ads
-Offers banner ads from national advertisers
-25 cents to $2 for every 1,00 people who see the ads.

Stuff from Esquire, November 2007

What can other countries teach us about eating right?

Costa Rica:
Fruit every day, especially papaya (contains enzymes that help break down food in the stomach and promotes growth of good bacteria in the gut)

Sardinia:
Sardinian wine from the Nuoro region contains 5-10 times the procyanidins (antioxidants with cardiovascular benefits) of most other wines.

India:
Curry spices (turmeric, chili, and cinnamon) help reduce everyting from inflammation and chronic pain to bacterial infections and cancer.

Japan:
Green tea contains the most antioxidants of all teas. Also, Hara hachi bu: eat only until you are 80% full. Calorie restriction is the single most potent anti-aging trick.

Turkey:
Kefir, a thin yogurt popular in Turkey, helps gut health with its live cultures (also kimchi and kombucha, a Russian health drink). All are probiotics, supplying good bacteria needed to absorb maximum nutrition from food.

Best New Restaurants of 2007

-23Hoyt Restaurant & Bar, Portland, OR (529 NW 23rd Ave., 23hoyt.com)
-Addison, San Digo, CA (5200 Grand Del Mar Way, addisondelmar.com)
-All'Angelo, Los Angeles, CA (7166 Melrose Ave., all-angelo.com)
-Fearing's, Dallas, TX (Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 2121 McKinney Ave., ritzcarlton.com/en/properties/dallas/dining)
-Brasserie Beck, Washington, DC (1101 K St., beckdc.com)
-Cafe Majestic, San Francisco, CA (Hotel Majestic, 1500 Sutter St., the-hotelmajestic.com/restaurant.html)
-Anthos, New York, NY (36 W 52nd St.)
-Catalan Food & Wine, Houston, TX (5555 Washington Ave., catalanfoodandwine.com)
-Dennis Foy, New York, NY (313 Church St., dennisfoynyc.com)
-Woodlands Resort & Inn, Summerville, SC (125 Parsons Rd., woodlandsinn.com/dining.cfm)
-NoMI, Chicago, IL (Park Hyatt Chicago, nomirestaurant.com)
-Adobe Restaurant & Lounge, Santa Monica, CA (1541 Ocean Ave., adoberestaurant.com)
-Oceana, New York, NY (55 E 54th St., oceanarestaurant.com)
-LarkCreekSteak, San Francisco, CA (845 Market St., larkcreek.com/larkcreek_steak)
-Meadowood, Napa Valley, CA (900 Meadowood Lane, St. Helena, meadowood.com)
-Michael's Genuine Food & Drink, Miami, FL (130 NE 40th St., michaelsgenuine.com)
-Oyamel, Washington, DC (401 7th St., oyamel.com)
-PorterHouse New York, New York, NY (10 Columbus Circle, porterhousenewyork.com)
-Rae, Philadelphia, PA (2929 Arch St., raerestaurant.com)
-Rialto, Cambridge, MA (1 Bennett St., rialto-restaurant.com)
-Rocca Kitchen & Bar, Boston, MA (500 Harrison Ave., roccaboston.com)
-Shaun's, Atlanta, GA (1029 Edgewood Ave., shaunsrestaurant.com)
-Table 45, Cleveland, OH (InterContinental Hotel, 9801 Carnegie Ave., tbl45.com)
-Trois, Atlanta, GA (1180 Peachtree St., trois3.com)

Legit ways to make $ online

Ejury.com and Onlineverdict.com: provide feedback on court cases

Cafepress.com and Zazzle.com: create and design and sell the goods

ProductionTranscripts.com and Tigerfish.com: transcribe speeches and interviews