• Contxts.com
  Business cards are so 2007. What with the environment in shambles do you really want to be that guy who is handing out chopped up pieces of bleached trees? Contxts.com lets you share your information via SMS!
• Mozy.com
  An online backup service for consumers and small businesses. Back up all of your personal files, photos, music, etc. automatically online. Worry free!
• SnapaBug.com
  Help widget for customer service chat on web sites.
• RealTime Inline Validation article on GetElastic
  Realtime in-line form validation to improve conversions and avoid shopping cart abandonment.
• Pixlr.com
  Free photo editing right in your browser!
• HitMeLater.com
  When you’re too busy to respond to an email right away, just forward it to 24@hitmelater.com and we’ll resend it to you 24 hours later.
• XFruits.com
  Site with tools for combining and/or manipulating RSS feeds in many different ways.
• SupportDetails.com
  A one-stop resource for the kinds of tech details an online customer support representative will need to address a user’s web-related issues… ID10T errors excluded.
• 10MinuteMail.com
  Surfing a site that requires registration? Beat spam with this quick easy email generation service.

Found a Web site that you just can’t live without? Let us know in the comments section!

This collection comes from the TruckingAccident.org Blog. Truckers without question, are passionate lovers of gadgets. From GPS units for navigation, satellite radio, various calculators for measuring fuel, mileage, and freight to cameras, smartphones, laptops, wifi hookups, DVD players, radar detectors… these road warriors know all of the various productivity tools to stay connected with loved ones back home.

“Traveling is generally a productivity killer: it’s pretty obvious that shuttling around in unfamiliar locations with limited power and Internet access can make getting work done extremely difficult. However, there are a number of resources that can make it easier. We’ve collected 100 of the best tools for staying connected, keeping in touch, and getting things done while traveling.”

I’ve talked with several truckers at electronics stores and tech user group gatherings. Most are well versed in using web 2.0 tools like Flickr, Twitter, Jott, Remember the Milk, Google Maps and Docs. They have all the latest gadgets to sniff out free wifi hotspots to send in their faxes, find loads to haul, obtain permits and find out the latest on weather and traffic conditions. Want to know how to use a cell phone as a modem for your laptop? Ask a trucker. The stereotype of Smokey & the Bandit truck drivers on their CB radios is a relic from the past!

Of course, truckers are the best resource for identifying the best BBQ and meat-n-three diners.

Link: the mobile productivity toolbox: 100 resources to keep you productive when on the move

Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with.  I thought this would be called a ’site grabber’ - and many paid utilities thought the same :)  I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail.  Finally, I that download.com called these utilities “Offline Browsers”.  Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!

I found an open-source utility called HTTrack (http://www.httrack.com/) that does exactly what I needed.  Website saved!

Powered by ScribeFire.

It is a very popular (and affordable) email management solution for help desks & sales teams. It is a bit complex, so you’ll want to take a moment to review the features and consider ways to synthesize it for your business. It appears that everything is managed through email and you have certain email addresses that customers and prospects use (or that it recognizes).

There is workflow, tagging, team resolution, and an integrated knowledge base. Instead of typing an article into the knowledge base, simply answering a client’s problem would give you the ability to ‘Tag’ and file that email into the Knowledge base.

If you’re looking for a Helpdesk+KnowledgeBase combo, this could be a real winner since it integrates tightly with email.

As the spam-war has escalated, DNSBLs have become a double-edged sword. They have probably saved SMTP from being utterly inundated with spam to the point that it’s useless. However, blacklists have also been forced to get increasingly aggressive. It’s not uncommon for an organization to find itself blacklisted, even if it didn’t overtly send spam (that it knows of). If your organization becomes the unlucky member of a DNSBL, you’ll find that most (if not all) of your email is rejected by the outside world because you’re now considered a spammer. The worst part is that you may have no idea why you were blacklisted and no idea how to get de-listed!

DNSBLs play a central role in most email protection software. There are many popular blacklists and each has its own personality and aggressiveness factor. One well-known, aggressive DNSBL is SpamCop. This service is considered very aggressive since they make it so easy to report someone as a spammer. While it’s easy to get on the list, SpamCop also makes it easy to get off the list on their website. Other blacklists require substantial proof to add you to their list – but they also require substantial proof to remove you.

Here’s the problem: If everyone is using spam protection with DNSBLs and your organization is reported as a spammer… everyone blocks your email. DNSBLs have become so powerful that they can literally stop all email communications from your organization.

Take heart! There are things you can do to protect yourself from finding yourself on a blacklist. Here are some basic rules that should minimize your chances:

• Do not spam – While this seems obvious, it is the most important advice. Don’t add people to your mailing list just because you picked up their business card… this is spamming. Don’t email blast everyone in your address book with something they don’t necessarily want… this is also spamming.
• Educate your employees – While an organizational policy not to spam is a given, it is equally important that you convey this to your employees. They must understand what spam is and how to interact on the Internet properly. It only takes one person on a mailserver or a domain to get your entire organization blacklisted.
• Use Virus and Spyware protection – Today’s worst viruses no longer destroy your computer. Instead, they operate in the background and send spam on behalf of their creator. This can make your network or server into a participant in a spam/virus botnet. This is probably the number one reason that otherwise innocent parties wind up on a DNSBL. If you wind up on a blacklist, make this the first thing you check.
• Check your mail server – One of the fastest ways to get on an RBL is to have a misconfigured mail server. If your server is not properly configured to only allow your users to send mail, it could be used by a spammer (Such servers are called an open relay, and will be blacklisted instantly).
• Check miscellaneous webservers and/or proxies. Believe it or not, even a misconfigured webserver or web proxy — something unrelated to e-mail itself — can be used to send spam! You can find a list of services that will check your server for open proxies here.
• Use a 3rd party email marketing service – If you’re going to send e-mail to a large amount of recipients at a time, you should outsource your email marketing. Not all e-mail marketing firms are created equally (some are a thin veil for spammers or actually are spammers) — but the good ones take great pains to follow the rules and ensure that the recipients have all opted-in and are voluntary recipients of your mail. They will bear the onus of ensuring your mail gets to its recipients. In addition, because the service is hosted separately, your actual business-operations e-mail will be isolated and protected from being blacklisted as a result of the bulk e-mail.
• Have an expert on call – If you get on a blacklist, talk to your IT professional. Most will know the necessary steps for getting off the list. You can also check OpenRBL to see which blacklist(s) your IP may be on, along with links to information about the listing. Once you identify them, you’ll need to go through their steps to get off.

In summary, finding yourself on a RBL can be devastating for your organization. By following the steps outlined above, you greatly decrease your chances of inadvertently getting blacklisted.

1. Sensitive Data Storage - Examples include financial info, passwords, etc.
2. Email Access - Allowing you to comfortably check your mail from anywhere
3. Synchronization - As storage amounts increase, more data can be backed up
4. Buddies/Contacts - Instant messaging to friends is available anywhere
5. Office & Productivity - Work on docs, spreadsheets, and presentations

First things first, get a USB launcher

The Ativa drive I bought at Office Max for $45 (on special) came with “U3 Technology” for running apps directly from the drive. It was nice, but I ultimately decided to use a replacement from PortableApps. Unfortunately, U3 doesn’t make it obvious how to uninstall and I had to search to find the answer. Once it was uninstalled, I downloaded the PortableApps Standard Suite and followed the installation instructions. This suite killed two birds with one stone - I had an application ‘launcher’ & I had some cool applications. U3 gave me the launcher and then made me individually seek out the cool applications.

With this suite installed, I had the office piece (Open Office Portable) & the Email piece (Thunderbird). I opened Thunderbird and entered in my email server details [Note: I don’t recommend doing this if you have POP3 unless you ‘Leave a copy on the server’. IMAP users - you’re in a good boat with me!)

The PortableApps site also provided free add-on solutions for IM (GAIM) and Music/Video (VLC Media Player)

Next, Sensitive Data Protection

Interestingly enough, neither PortableApps nor U3 provided a good solution for sensitive data. U3 provides an app called Roboforms, but I couldn’t figure it out to save my life. Thanks to a very helpful article from TipMonkies, I learned about KeePass - a little password application for storing sensitive data on your USB drive. Since it doesn’t come with either suite, you have to follow these steps to install:

1. Download the ZIP version (the .exe version will install to your PC)
2. Open your USB drive and create the folder X:\PortableApps\KeePass
3. Unzip the downloaded file and copy/paste the .exe file into the new folder
4. Re-start the PortableApp Launcher and then select KeePass from the menu

Other goodies to consider…

Alas, there are other great apps you can put on your USB drive. Following the same manual steps listed above, I added these applications:

• XnView - Super Image viewer/editor that’s light weight and fast!
• Abstract Spoon’s ToDoList - Simple ToDo List that’s really small
• File Restoration (REST2514.EXE) - Originally created by Brian Kato and now provided by Kelly
• Security (and Encryption) - TrueCrypt wins hands down (Read the FAQ!)

Last, let’s back it all up

I saved this section for last because it actually took me a little while to settle on which back up method I wanted to use. After thinking about it, I want to ‘Synchronize’ my PC with my USB - not use either as a backup. Synchronization and Backup are very different in certain ways. If you want a free back up solution, here is a great page with many options. If you want a synchronization solution, I recommend Allway Sync.

There’s a lot here, but its all pretty simple to download and install. When you’re done, you’ll have a pretty functional USB drive - something you can plug in just about anywhere and start using! Good luck!

So, here’s our setup:

1) Email: This actually works really well. We use IMAP and the Blackberry (through Sprint) has a nice service that allows us to connect to our IMAP server. The Blackberry checks the IMAP Server every 15 minutes and alerts me to the new messages. I set my blackberry up to be the master and it reconciles every 15 minutes. WARNING: This means that my blackberry is actually deleting messages from my IMAP (and to be literal, it is expunging them - so they aren’t even in my trash folder). I chose this option so I don’t have hundreds of emails waiting on me when I get back to the office. Remember, I can’t sync (but that comes later).

2) Local PIM (personal information management): This includes contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes. Simply put, forget about using them. We have two issues that we’re up against. First, we use Thunderbird - so we don’t have a good option for calendar, tasks, and notes. I hope their progress with Sunbird and Lightning continues! The calendar isn’t as hopeless as Tasks/Notes since the Blackberry can sync with iCal formatted calendars. If you use an iCal compatible Calendar, then you can have your events.

As for locally stored contacts, I couldn’t find an easy solution to sync to the Blackberry. The best idea I had was to use Plaxo’s Thunderbird client and access via the web (premium service)

3) Groupware Server: If you are using an OpenSource Groupware product, there are more options available for syncing the blackberry. For basic calendars & tasks, the Blackberry will sync with any iCal formatted calendar. To do this, you will need an application like PocketMac.

For a more robust solution, the best option is to setup a Groupware solution that is compatible with a SyncML server like funambol. There are many solutions available (and even some services like Zyb). We use eGroupware and it integrates with SyncML. For the Blackberry, SyncBerry [$29.95] provides Over-The-Air (OTA) synchronization with Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks (InfoLog). Once the SyncML server is setup, there are two options for syncing Thunderbird. One is an community supported Mozilla extension of funambol and the other is a ‘beta’ application called TSync. This ensures that the Blackberry & Thunderbird are both sync’d to the corporate groupware package/service.

Note: I’m writing this article as I research these solutions. We haven’t implemented the SyncML server, so I can’t vouch for the success of this piece.

4) Internet Access (Phone): This is my favorite part! First, the 8703e has a beautiful screen and it is very easy to access web pages. For our company, we disabled images & their placeholders to increase load speeds. Since we haven’t implemented SyncML, everyone simply accesses eGroupware via the phone’s web browser. It isn’t pretty, but it’s functional (especially if you make the calendar display in list view).

** BONUS**
This phone actually acts as a wireless Modem on the Sprint Network!!! All of the research I’ve conducted has been through the phone - connected via a USB cable. The 8703e on Sprint’s EDVO network is getting an average of 340kbps - easily enough for basic web usage.

All in all, I think the Blackberry will be a fantastic solution once we have eGroupware+SyncML+SyncBerry+Thunderbird/funambol. In fact, CentreSource will begin providing Nashville clients with installations of the OpenSource combination upon successful implementation.

Until then, it is a great tool for checking IMAP email and accessing the web (via the phone and as a modem).

Superhighway to Success or
Long and Winding Dirt Road to Perdition?

A Client’s Perspective on Building a Consumer Web Software Application

The Vision
FrugalReader.com (“FR”) is an innovative book sharing website that goes well beyond trading books. It’s a venue for book lovers to relate with one another and share opinions, experiences and their passion for reading. FR went live on the Internet on December 12, 2004 and grew nicely over the following six months or so with what I’d describe as basic functionality. With a vision to turn FR into a place for avid readers to deeply connect with one another and share their thoughts on books and life, I began planning to take the website to the next level by adding enhanced functionality and a new graphic design.

Hire or Contract?
With a significant development effort needed, I contemplated hiring a developer or contacting with one for an extended period of time. The primary advantages of this approach are lower development cost and complete control over the development resource. However, the disadvantages are substantial. I engaged a software development firm instead because I needed broader and deeper human resources, skills and tools than a single developer could provide. And since revamping a web application involves much more than writing software, there would be development downtime that would need to be filled with other activities depending upon where we were in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Right Firm
Choosing the right software development firm is as much about selling as it is about buying. The software development firm is selling its ability to meet my development and other related needs. I’m selling an exciting project, my vision for future growth (i.e. more business in the future), and my ability to be a great client. Through a mutual contact I met with Nicholas Holland of CentreSource and quickly gained confidence that his firm had the capabilities I needed. There are numerous firms that could build what I needed, so why CentreSource? FR and CentreSource were at about the same place on a similar path. Both were relatively young organizations trying to do something different and better. If our project was a success, we would clearly both help grow each others business.

Appropriate Engagement
There is no simple way and certainly no one right way to engage a software development firm. CentreSource and FR entered into an agreement whereby CentreSource would develop a custom software application per the requirements (detailed in the agreement) defined by FR. Payment was made in stages as work was completed with the final payment made upon delivery of the completed product. Sounds straightforward but as a practical matter the software development process is not nearly as objective as we’d like it to be. The difficulty lies in the requirements. If the requirements are excruciatingly detailed (effectively programming specifications), then it’s much more likely that the development firm can accurately estimate the Level Of Effort (LOE), and therefore the cost, to produce the product. But creating such detailed requirements is costly and doing so without the aid of a development team increases the risk of creating a design that’s far from optimal from a programming and, more importantly, an end user perspective.

Build Without a Blueprint
A primary reason for hiring CentreSource was to leverage its creative development staff. I needed innovative applications of the latest web software development tools. So we proceeded with relatively high level requirements and worked out application design details during the build phase.

Not surprisingly, as we worked through the development of the application two things happened. First, the development team realized some of the work was more complex than originally estimated. This almost always happens when requirements are at a high level because the software development firm doesn’t benefit from overestimating the LOE. Rather, the software development firm benefits from erring on the side of underestimating LOE because the project looks more attractive to the client and the software development firm knows that it will charge for any out of scope work.

Second, in working with the development team several opportunities to improve the product were recognized that were not included in the original scope. Some of these alternative approaches or enhanced feature options were spawned by the development team and presented to me for consideration while others came from me, the client. Regardless of the source, each enhancement was a separate decision with an associated cost if implemented.

Test, Test, Test
The application had more defects coming out of unit testing that I had anticipated. Thus User Acceptance Testing (UAT) was a pretty arduous task and there were added test/code/test cycles. This result is not necessarily bad if you think through the alternative. It’d be relatively expensive to have developers perform more extensive testing. And if the software development firm has a Quality Assurance (QA) team, that too would cost additional money to have them develop and execute thorough test plans. In this case it was more cost effective for me to perform the robust testing.

Go-Live!
The November 28, 2005 cutover was more challenging than when I first brought FR online in December, 2004. We switched to a new ISP which of course required rerouting IP addresses and email. And since the new database had a completely different schema, it was necessary to convert all existing data. We had tightened up the transaction record tracking and data relationships which complicated the conversion and required CentreSource to program around some gaps in the original database structure. The data conversion was a significant challenge, as expected, and despite prior testing we ran into some referential integrity issues. The important problems were immediately addressed and some minor issues impacting a relatively few number of member accounts were left for me to manually clean up. CentreSource stuck with it until I was satisfied we had done everything necessary.

Post-Implementation
One by one we overcame the relatively few technical conversion issues that arose. A good number of FR members understandably found it difficult to adapt to the new design. Several indicated, for various reasons, that they preferred the previous design. This feedback was expected but there were also a small and growing number of members that considered a particular new feature unfair and were quite passionate and vocal in the forums about their discontent. They didn’t like the fact that they were unable to request a book within the first 48 hours of it being listed unless they upgraded (at a cost of $25.00/year) their account to Premium. I joined in the discussions, solicited specific feedback and spoke with a few members via telephone to get a better understanding of their concerns, needs and preferences.

After listening to the membership I had CentreSource make a small programming change that had a dramatic impact. I automatically convert each Standard account to Premium (for free) when the respective member ships 2 books that are marked received by the requester. This effectively made all existing member accounts Premium. New members would still need to wait 48 hours after a book was listed before requesting it, but only until proving themselves as legitimate traders by shipping 2 books.

Outcomes
I wasn’t surprised by any outcome from the project but some didn’t meet my expectations. And some of the outcome variance was a direct result of decisions made by me. So even though there were outcomes that were not necessarily desirable, they were better than the next best alternative. Below are a few of the outcomes worth noting.

1. The project scope grew significantly, yet with the appropriate client approval at each juncture.
2. CentreSource provided value-added functionality input and ideas, and elegant software design solutions. One salient example is FR Trade Groups. This unique feature gives members the autonomy to form and maintain groups of members with similar interests. The feature is being rapidly adopted, especially by members who use the website frequently.
3. The application had more defects after unit testing than anticipated.
4. Go-live support was very effective and necessarily so for the cutover to be successful.
5. There was no opportunity for finger pointing between vendors because I had CentreSource provide all major services: infrastructure setup/maintenance, website graphic design, and software development.
6. The project took longer to complete than originally planned, even when taking the additional scope into account.

Lessons Learned
Here are lessons that I learned, or that were once again reinforced, through the project.

1. Ask your customers what they want, but give them what they need. Ask all your employees, ask your software development firm – ask anyone with skin in the game what they recommend. Ideas are now the currency of business. Also, review new features and process changes with select hand-picked users before building and deploying them.
2. Build a good, but not a great, application in the first release. Software is evolutionary. It needs to be used, understood, and its impact measured for it to be effectively improved.
3. Keep it simple. People use web applications and people like software that is straightforward, intuitive and easy to use.
4. Work with clear purpose and high energy during the project negotiating and planning phase. The project preparation activities often take longer than necessary to complete and are the greatest opportunity to reduce the overall project time. Don’t be overly eager, but do be specific about expectations on follow up and deadlines throughout the project for all but the least important tasks.
5. Know who owns the project and confirm that the person is accountable to you. I owned the FR project and therefore managed the project. CentreSource coordinated a lot of activities behind the scenes but I was ultimately responsible for making things happen and ensuring that all the pieces fit together at the right time.
6. Partner with people that you trust. At the end of the day, good business comes down to trust. And you don’t trust a business, you trust people. If you have an open and trusting relationship with key managers of your business partner you’re much more likely to have an economically successful engagement, regardless of how your contracts or other legal agreements are structured.
7. Leverage key managers at the software development firm. One of the best value added services CenterSource provides is its CEO, Nicholas Holland. He stayed close to my project and gave me many suggestions and ideas to consider, several of which were business, not technology, oriented. This type of input is a valuable resource and one that the best software development firms will include, to a degree, without charge.
8. Beware of lack of regression testing. Regression testing has not reached the level it needs to in software development. Even some large software development shops lack sophisticated regression testing tools and techniques, and rely almost solely on ad hoc testing to ensure that related functionality wasn’t broke by new code.
9. Software development never ends. Software is merely a means to more effectively perform an activity or process. And activities and processes changes because people change. Your software application will change or it will die. The frequency of change is dependent upon the activities, processes and people who use and rely on it.

Gene J. McCabe
President, Frugal Concepts
genemccabe@yahoo.com
See my FrugalReader.com profile & photo: http://frugalreader.FrugalReader.com

A great example is BlueMoutain.com - a site that many people go to in hopes of creating a free greeting card. When you get there and choose one, you are greeted with a page that talks of a 1-month free trial! But if you want to see how much it costs after that, good luck. I clicked on various pages (including the FAQ) to see how much it would cost. Nothing… nada… zip. They are luring people into signing up and then they’ll show you the price later. Why would they do this? Because they are Shady (that’s slang for ‘unethical’).

Another Shady provider is Microsoft and their MSN online service. I had their MSN Explorer service (I used it for the MS Money Online Budgeting) and finally decided to cancel it. In my software it has a ‘Help/Settings’ page. Seemed simple enough… I clicked the page, selected ‘Billing Details’ and BOOM - page not found. I tried a few more times and even waited a few days thinking that something was wrong on their end. Still, page not found. This started a hunt that lasted 30 minutes and landed me in the Microsoft Knowledge base before I finally got the number/website to call.

The point is… don’t be a shady website. MSN Explorer and Blue Mountain are causing problems and frustration with their actions - and teaching a crop of young web service developers that their methods are ok. They aren’t…

Time Magazine listed a non-production virtual keyboard from Canesta as one of their best inventions of 2002. Interestingly enough, it appears that Canesta abandoned the idea and decided to focus on electronic image processing.

I did a little more digging and found out that the model displayed in SmartComputing is actually made by a firm in Isreal called VKB Inc. They have a domain, but no web page: http://www.vkb.co.il/. It appears they are selling their product through distributors like ThinkGeek and sites like http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com.

So, what are the cool uses of a Virtual Keyboard? Well, they are great for interfacing with:

• Personal digital assistants
• Cellular telephones
• Space saving computers
• Tablet PCs
• Laptops
• Industrial environments
• Clean rooms
• Sterile and medical environments
• Test Equipment
• Transport (Air, Rail, Automotive)

From various articles, it looks like you can type 70-80 words per minute without any degradation of performance. Most of the devices run off of batteries, connect via bluetooth, and work best indoors with normal or low light.

I found a great write-up from 2003 that describes 4 companies competing to get their virtual keyboards to market. The funny thing is that 3 of the 4 (the 4th being VKB Inc.) didn’t find any luck with their virtual keyboards. And check out Senseboard - it was the winner of Comdex’s Best new technology in 2001… yet, their website seems to be a ghost town. Virtual Devices appears to have the technology, but still no products.

I also found this article that describes some manufacturers in the UK & Hong Kong. Unfortunately, it didn’t list their websites or product info :)

Long story short… one made it! Now we can all have our own Virtual Keyboard for $199