Last month I launched a new website for a technology company in China, ArcherMind Technology. It’s my first international website. The challenge was to build an American website for the company to make their debut in North America. The primary purpose of the site is to generate sales leads. I designed the website and integrated it with a sales portal on the backend that allows ArcherMind to track sales leads through a step-by-step process.
The URL is http://www.archermind.com
It’s never been easier to travel, as airlines, hotels, resorts, and travel-related retailers are clamoring to attract us to use their services. The website TravBuddy.com is a great place to get travel info and much more.
The best thing about TravBuddy.com: Social networking. The site allows users to find travel buddies planning to travel to the same places at the same times, or to learn about destinations from people who have been there or actually live there. In fact, some users find friends on TravBuddy who they can travel with or get help from when they take their trip.
Another wonderful part of the site are the reams of travel reviews. There are, as of last count, more than 17,000 reviews of restaurants, bars, hotels and attractions. Need to know where the best martini is in Madrid? You can find out. Want to find the best place to rent a kayak in Sydney? That’s there too.
Users can also create travel-based blogs and upload travel photos. The photos (750,000 have been posted to blogs so far) are a great way to actually see places you want to go to, but the blogs are a little thin. Though TravBuddy boasts 65,000+ blogs, most of them are old our rarely updated, and many of them offer little to help you plan a trip. The reviews are best for getting the nitty-gritty details.
As of March 2008, TravBuddy has nearly 1,350,000 registered contributors and it’s growing, as it has been featured prominently on the NBC Nightly News, Popular Science, Real Simple Travel, and other media outlets.
I signed up on TravBuddy a few months ago because I’m going to the South Pacific in 2009. In a very short time (within hours) I had connected with folks who had been where I plan to travel and they gave me valuable tips. I also met several very friendly TravBuddy users who gave me advice on booking flights. The community at TravBuddy is wonderful.
The worst thing about TravBuddy.com: the blogs are not updated frequently (user-driven so that’s to be expected somewhat). For that reason, the site just misses a 5-star rating.
The least you need to know: TravBuddy.com is a social networking site to connect travelers with similar interests and itineraries. It’s especially appealing to adventure travelers, the types who cringe at the thought of a bus tour or a guided walk through a museum. However, it still offers a community that will benefit all types of travelers. It’s a fantastic way to safely connect with people in the places you want to travel to, to learn the secrets of enjoying that destination. You may also make a travel buddy who will throw on a backpack and take the trip with you!
Website rating: 4 out of 5 stars
URL: www.travbuddy.com
Earlier this year I wanted to challenge myself to build a website completely with CSS and PHP. I did a a makeover of my workhorse site The Baseball Page, which has been online since 1995, chugging along with a faithful following and generating excellent page views and income via Google Adsense. All the content has been and always will be free, and with a loyal group of writers and contributors, the site is fresh.
The site has much more color and it relies more on graphics than ever before. As I always have, I relied heavily on PHP includes to make the site flexible for updating the look-and-feel.
In addition, this is the first of my sites that I’ve run on Expression Engine, the CMS from Ellis Labs. Outside of the dynamic database content that generates the player pages and the lists of rankings, etc., the content is stored inside EE.
New features include a daily baseball video provided by YouTube, and an email newsletter that delivers This Day in Baseball History info to your email box every day.
We all love Microsoft Office, right? Ok, maybe we don’t. Much of the world may run on it, but, let’s face it - it’s bloated and expensive. That’s just one example of mainstream, over-the-counter software that manhandle our lives. Many people think that if they want to write a document, create a presentation, or have their kids draw a cool picture, they have to pony up for it. Not true. On the internet, there is such a thing as a free lunch.
Here are five programs you can download today FREE. All five can do the same stuff as their pricey counterparts.
RSS Bandit
RSS Bandit is a RSS and Atom reader that allows you to keep track of all of your news feeds in one location via a very intuitive and feature-filled interface.
Miro
Tired of Windows Media Player or Real Player? Miro is a full-featured, free, open-source media controller. Videos can come in from lots of places– a web browser, email, a p2p application, or Miro. Miro can watch any folder on your computer and include those videos in your collection. So when you save something to your desktop, for instance, it will show up in Miro without needing to be added manually.
Running out of space? Miro can move your video collection to any location on your system, such as an external hard drive. When you install Miro, you can search you computer to find all your video files and list them in your Miro Library.
FileZilla
FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface. Among others, the features of FileZilla include:
Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX and more
Available in many languages
Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
Drag & drop support
Configurable Speed limits
Filename filters
Network configuration wizard
GIMP
GIMP is a versatile graphics manipulation package with lots of cool features. It’s amazing that this program is FREE! Numerous digital photo imperfections can be easily compensated for using GIMP: Fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt simply choosing the corrective mode in the transform tools. Eliminate lens’ barrel distortion and vignetting with a powerful filter but a simple interface. Add edges, bevels, or perspective skews and drop-shadows very easily. There’s not enough space to list all the things GIMP can do.
Tux Paint
Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6 in the US, key stages 1 & 2 in the UK). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. Kids are presented with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative.
The drawing canvas is a fixed size, so the user doesn’t need to worry about “pixels� or “inches� when making a new picture. The entire program fits on a screen as small as 640×480, and can be displayed full-screen, to hide the computer’s underlying “desktop� interface. (It defaults to 800×600 mode, but can run at larger sizes and in portrait or landscape mode, as well.) Loading and saving of images is done using thumbnails, so no knowledge of the underlying operating system’s filesystem structure is needed. Even filenames are unnecessary. Fun sound effects are played when tools are selected and used. A cartoon version of Tux, the Linux penguin, appears at the bottom to give tips, hints and information.
Library of Congress photos at Flickr for tagging by the masses
One thing’s for sure: we’ll be hearing a lot more about Web 2.0 in 2008. The Library of Congress has embraced the Web 2.0 philosophy by posting more than 3,000 of their photos on Flickr to be “tagged” by users. That means anyone can add their comments or tag a keyword to the photos. In essence, the entire world will help the LOC grow the knowledge of their collection.
From my standpoint it’s a lot of fun, because many of the pictures are baseball players from the 1910s. I can think of several former colleagues at the Baseball Hall of Fame who could add valuable knowledge to many of the photos.
Library of Congress collection at Flickr
Credit Card data for more than 650,000 customers is lost
Oops
“…a backup tape belonging to GE Money that contains the personal information of some 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and about 100 other retailers.”
The missing tape affects 230 retailers, whose customers may be vulnerable to data fraud.
Coverage:
GE Money Backup Tape With 650,000 Records Missing At Iron Mountain
Credit Card Data on 650,000 Customers Lost
Britain vows to shut down terror web sites
British officials are calling for renewed efforts to shut down web sites that promote terrorism. “U.K. spending on counter-terrorism has doubled since the Sept. 11 attacks to 2 billion pounds ($3.94 billion) a year….”
U.K. to Urge Blocking of Web Sites That Promote Terrorist Acts
Laptop batteries that last 40 hours
Researchers at Stanford University have made a breakthrough in lithium battery technology: Stanford researchers develop super long-lasting Lithium-Ion battery
Sun makes bid for MySQL
The software and database giant Sun Microsystems is making a $1 billion bid to purchase MySQL, the world’s most popular open-source database (and easiest to use, IMO).
“Lots of people have decided that yes, you can make money with community-developed software. Everything that helps people understand that this way of making software is not an anticapitalist thing is a good thing. Everything which brings more technology that people are allowed to study and copy and share with others is a good thing.”
Coverage:
Open-source community sees promise in MySQL deal
Sun lights LAMP with bid for open-source MySQL
Sun snaps up MySQL
Apple’s new foray into Net Video is minor league
Anders Bylund at Motley Fool has a neat noodle on the current state of the digital video download market:
Apple’s Rentals Won’t Worry Netflix
I mentioned in this space earlier this month that Netflix is beefing up their offering
Scientists have confirmed that we’re at the beginning of a new 11-year solar activity cycle. That means that sunspots and other solar shenanigans could wreak havoc with electrical systems here on Earth. Especially cell phone towers and GPS devices.
New Solar Activity Is Trouble for GPS, Cell Phones & Power Companies (ABC News)
I’ve read this book twice since I bought it back in January. I’ve since loaned it to my best friend, and I hope he reads it, because I think he could use the ideas in it to propel his businesses.
Some have been critical of Friedman, and I have to admit, that when I hear him speak (as I have on Charlie Rose and other talk shows), I don’t always agree with Friedman’s politics, but for the large part he is very thought-provoking. His way of looking at the world is refreshing and not tied to any one ideology. I strongly urge everyone to read this book. It’s especially important for people who are working in technology or the media, but also for any entrepreneur or business owner.
Here’s a slice of review from Tom Nissley:
“What Friedman means by “flat” is “connected”: the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments–when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East–is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals.”
That last sentence is very important, in my opinion. This book helps you realize, if you haven’t already, that changes in our world have made it easier for folks to make an impact. Whether it be for charity or to build a fortune, the tools are in place, and the landscape is level (flat) enough that ANYONE can do it.
Friedman’s book changed my life in many ways, and I hope, when you read it, it will have a similar impact… Make sure you get the expanded and updated edition, which contains Friedman’s latest thoughts on new trends and political analysis.