So, what I found was DVDStyler, an awesome cross platform DVD authoring application for the creation of professional-looking DVDs.  It does everything from menus to conversion and is completely open source.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• creation and burning DVD video with interactive menus
• support of AVI, MPEG and other file formats
• support of multi-core processor v1.7.3
• allows using MPEG and VOB files without reencoding
• allows files with different audio/video format on one DVD support of titleset
• user-friendly interface with support of drag & drop
• and a ton more stuff!

For more check out DVDStyler – Free DVD Authoring Application.

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The question remains, though – which Internet applications truly aid you in freelancing or starting a business? We have a number that we use here in the office, and quite a few that we have tried out along the way. Below, you will find our list of Placeless Office Applications!

• Kluster.com – A great project management suite (seriously, check it out.)
• Quickbooks Online Edition – Anytime, anywhere accounting. No longer are you tied to the desktop to keep on top of your finances.
• Skype.com – Great VOIP services, chats, collaboration, and plugins. A real life saver for those long distance clients and associates!
• Freshbooks.com – A great invoicing tool that allows your clients to pay off or online through Paypal!
• Toggl.com – A very nice time tracking utility, perfect for a freelancer or developer.
• Timexchange.net – A free online timesheet for projects, teams, and individuals. Great for remote office groups or outsourced work.
• Project2Manage.com – a free project management tool that rivals a lot of the other paid access ones. You just have to live with a few ads..
• GoToMyPC – Access your PC from anywhere (when you do have to get on it).
• KBpublisher.com – Knowledge base software (a knowledge based CMS).
• LogMeIn.com – Another remote access PC application. We particularly like this one because of the tools that come with it.
• Goplan.info – another online project management suite. It’s very nice and works real well.
• Near-time.net – An industrial strength wiki-based collaboration platform.
• Hamachi - Quick and easy virtual private networks. It installs like an instant messenger and makes your applications and files accessible anywhere!
• Gmail.com – the old standby favorite for email.
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets – What ‘Placeless’ List would be complete without Docs and Spreadsheets
• Microsoft Office Workspace – the online extension of Microsoft Office
• Thinkfree.com – another online office app
• Zoho.com – a plethora of online applications to suit your needs.
• Send2Fax – For those few times you do need to send a fax…
• Iomega IStorage – Access and share files and pictures from anywhere in the world.
• 37Signals.com – Home of these utilities:
  • Basecamp (project management and collaboration)
  • Highrise (online contact manager and simple CRM software)
  • Backpack - (intranet, group calendar, to do lists, organizers, etc)
  • Campfire – (real time group chat for business)
• EditGrid.com – A pretty cool spreadsheet application that lives online.
• Carbonite.com – automagically backs up your files and stores them remotely.
• Picnik.com – lets you edit your images without a desktop program.
• Remember the Milk – Helps you manage your tasks and sets up alerts in conjunction with your favorite online apps and smartphone.
• Box.net – a great online storage service that integrates with other applications like Zoho.
• Echosign.com – Lets you attach digital signitures to documents
• Freewheel - View CAD files in a browser
• ProjectOffice.net – an online project management solution that offers some extended functionalities for time tracking, expense tracking, etc.
• Onstage Project Portal – Quick and easy team collaboration
• Fax2Email – A simple fax to email system

We couldn’t have a placeless apps list without mentioning where all of this will be going, can we? With technology like Google Gears and Adobe Air that make the Internet and our desktops more fluid, you are going to see a number of these online applications make the leap to your own local computer. They will automatically update your online portolfios and sync up whenever necessary.

For more information on Gears and Air, check out the following links:

• Offline access to Google Docs
• Another app using Gears for Windows Mobile
• Google Analytics goes desktop with Adobe Air
• Adobe Air makes its way to Linux

If you can think of any other noteworthy apps, please let us and our readers know! We plan on keeping this list going, but we’re sure we forgot a few that deserve to be here.

To your success,

Jason

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Title: The Big Switch
Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W.W Norton & Company, Inc.

My latest review is The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr. Carr is an excellent author who writes about various technical/computing topics for the New York Times, Wired, and other publications. Carr is also the author of Does IT Matter?, which was generally misinterpreted by the IT community as an attack on IT. (His real point was that IT is no longer a competitive advantage for almost all companies because everyone does it, and all new innovations are quickly adopted by others).

In The Big Switch, Carr makes the argument that the future of computing and the internet (herby to be referred to as the “intergoogle”) is coming fast…and is dramatically affecting the way we do business, socialize, and generally “compute.” The main thesis of the book is that computing power/storage is turning into a utility, rather than powered privately.

The method Carr uses to is to show the parallels between computing and electricity. It is very interesting to see how alike those two systems are…and Carr does a fantastic job making the comparison. In the first section of the book he alternates chapters between Edison’s world and the modern world…tying them together the entire way. It is very interesting to read about how (controlled) electricity found its way and expanded from its humble beginnings. But then again, I like history…and especially history about stuff that has been invented. (Side note: I would recommend Edison: A Life of Invention to anyone interested in that topic).

In the early stages, almost all electricity was generated privately for various corporations. Edison then wanted to provide electricity to New York City, which he was able to do after installing all of the infrastructure and building HUGE generator farms. Carr shows how the computing world is headed in that direction.

This book is a really interesting look at what the future of computing holds for corporate life and personal life as well. As more and more people use Web 2.0 applications for their own data storage, it will snowball this process (as an example…I am writing this right now using Google Docs). I don’t foresee any time soon when all data storage is done remotely, because a lot of people will always want to be able to have it “physically” with them…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

Utility computing is coming…and Nicholas Carr lays out exactly how it will happen. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in technology. There were a few slow parts…but overall it was a fantastic read.

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In this post we will look at “Expanding your Business”:

• Promotion and Advertising
• Joining forces – partnerships and investors
• Investments
• Franchise
• Utilizing the Web’s Potential

ADVERTISING

Right, so first and foremost– advertising. Getting word around of your products and services is not alwaysthe easiest of tasks. It is very disheartening when potential customers let youdown by never getting back to you – they are always too polite to say “no”, sothey leave you on edge for weeks, before you give up all hope of them evercalling you back. Word of mouth is the best way of getting your business known,word from a friend is a very trustworthy advertisement, but not always the mostpractical. Other than that, you really need to focus on some strong advertisingcampaigns and promotion if you wish to increase your businesses prospects andrevenue.

When it comes to advertisingyour online business, the first advertising programme you should start is aGoogle AdWords promo. Google AdWords, granted are not the most visually stunningof ads, but when it comes down to it, you only pay-per-click. You pay for acertain amount, and then bang, you only get charged when someone clicks the ad!Not only that, but there is NO MINIMUM CHARGE for a Google AdWord – you canspend as little or as much as you want. These are a perfect place to startadvertising for any small online business that can’t afford to spend/riskmassive amounts on flashy looking posh graphical adverts.

If you do have a bit ofextra cash on hand and you think that it will be beneficial to pay forexpensive, graphical advertising, I highly recommend that you do – but ONLY ifyou have the cash to do so. Paying for expensive advertising campaigns couldend up being the death of your cash reserves and they may not be as effectiveas you hope.

If you are going to opt forexpensive forms of advertising like graphics, make sure you set aside an“Advertising Fund”. Do not go dipping into your personal cash, and make sureyou monitor what the adverts are bringing you. If your paying £1000 per monthon 5 adverts across a range of sites, you want them to make you at least £150profit. Any less and I’d say it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Another No-No for Internetadvertising is NEVER to have too much money tied up into a single advertisingagency. Once they have bound you to a contract and they have your money, you’llfind they soon start throwing your ads out willy-nilly and neglect the factyou’re a small business. It is always best to limit yourself, and spread your“Advertising Fund” across multiple sites – but make sure you keep a record ofwhat they cost and what they bring!

PROMOTION

Yes, promotion istechnically the same as advertising, but for the purpose of this post, I’mpretending they are two different things, ok?

A fantastic way of gettingyour business known is to offer out free promotion downloads or products, whichwill generate interest about your business and intrigue people to come and havea look at your site. Not only that, but if you are giving a free product away andit is of high quality, this will prove to your potential customers how trustworthy and excellent your products are. If you are selling hardware productsthen it will be more costly for you to give samples out for free, especially ifyou include delivery costs, however if you are giving away software products,I’d advise you go crazy on the free downloads – it will bring you thousands ofvisitors.

If you are going to promoteyourself through free downloads, don’t just offer the downloads from your own site,there are hundreds of sites that make their money from indexing your freedownloads, a brilliant example is www.apple.com/downloads- if you get one of your free downloads submitted onto theere, you will beastonished at how many other sites take your download from it and add it totheir own. Give it a week or so and type yourself into Google – you will belisted on every page!

It’s all good being able topromote yourself with free downloads and advertisements across the web, but youneed to have an image that people will be able to just glance at know – “oh,that’s sucha company”.

Building yourself a corporate identity that sticks in peoplesminds is not the easiest of things to do. For this you may need to employ aprofessional graphical design company and get them to do it for you, and I’dhighly advise that you do. Make sure that you have a fresh corporate theme thatincludes letterheads, high quality business cards, banner ads and a flawless,memorable logo.

If you have the money aftercompleting the above, another fantastic way of promoting your business isthrough sponsorship. Sponsorship wins peoples hearts. If you sponsor a localschool, parish, charity event – you will win the hearts of many and the rewardswill be yours, as well as that beautiful sense of achievement . Don’t gooverboard with this though; sponsorship can be very expensive so I would onlydo this if you really do have the money. Not only that, but sponsorship canhave the complete adverse effect if it becomes too much for you. Can youimagine how the local community would feel about your company if little Johnnycame home upset because soccer practice was cancelled? “The sponsors havewithdrawn their funding, so the playground has had to shut” – not verypromotional at all.

JOINING FORCES

With your site up andrunning to its potential and you’re putting everything you can into it, to thepoint your running out of fresh content and skills, teaming up with an expertfrom another field is brilliant way to expand your business. If you have asimple HTML/PHP Blog, team up with someone who can help develop it into a sitethat can handle members and an interactive networking community, then the moremembers you get, the more you can charge for the advertising space on yoursite.

You don’t just have todevelop your own site, you could simply just start teaming up with other sitesof a similar interest, an “affiliate programme” – you put there text link onyour site and they will place yours on theirs. So basically, you start swappingtraffic. You could even go extreme and merge your site with another, but doingthis loses you “YOUR” business and turns it to a partnership, if its worth itgo for it, but personally I like to be the one calling the shots.

INVESTMENTS

You’re only just on yourfeet and on the road to being an Internet entrepreneur. Investments will bevital to your success. However, I don’t mean investments as in putting yourmoney into someone else’s ideas, I mean purchasing yourself equipment andsupplies that in the long run will serve you in good stead. As soon as I hadsaved up enough, the first purchase I made was a fast, powerful and reliablecomputer that I could take with me anywhere – a MacBookPro. This was not thecheapest of laptops, but it is powerful and has never let me down, a perfectinvestment when I need to ensure mobile reliability. The second investment Imade was an office – I converted half of my house to an office to give me apleasant, organised and professional work environment – a key to success.

Investments are fantasticwhen they work, but if they go wrong, you will end up in the dumps. You cannever be 100% certain that an investment will be profitable. Make sure youweigh up the pros and cons before you commit to anything, if there are manycons to what you are doing, I’d opt that at this stage, you leave it out.

FRANCHISE

Now, I bet your probablythinking, “How the hell can you franchise a website?” Well. You cant. But youcan franchise the products and services which you are offering! A great way toget word of your company around is to franchise your software and service toother websites and companies to sell on your behalf. Draw up a contract withanother online business in a similar market and allow them to sell yoursoftware for you, and on each sale they’ll get a cut of the takings. Yes, itdoes lose money for you in the short term, but in the long term it will buildyou a strong, healthy and well-known corporate image and bring you more saleswithout lifting a finger. Secondly, you can also set up contracts with similaronline business so they can showcase your work on their site to bring them morebusiness, however on the circumstances that they must subcontract to you,therefore gaining you more work, and them. It doesn’t hurt to share a little,right?

UTILIZING THE WEB’S POTENTIAL

The web is one big massiveresource. It is a reservoir of potential and possibilities, especially when itcomes to expanding your business and/or its profile. With social networking andblogging at an all time high, you can’t go wrong when you want to get noticed!No matter what your online business specialises in, the first place to go whenattempting to expand your profile is MySpace. When you want to meet new people,teach them about yourself and show them what you can do, create a MySpaceaccount, upload a bio, pictures, add friends and even blog. It is the perfectway to get yourself known. Other than this, there are of course many otherservice which can be utilised to create a massive online portfolio of sites,simply there to promote one business. There are sites such as FaceBook, Beebo –job finding sites like The Ladders and Monster – its an endless pit! Make sureyou get on the web to maximise your online businesses potential!

A word of warning whenutilising the web, people expect a lot from the Internet today. Make sure anysite or MySpace you create has sharp, clean cut and crisp detail within itsgraphics, an eye catching design, a user interface which will guide the eye andmost of all, make them simple to use. A potential customer who arrives on yoursite and has to squint their eyes to find a link will have left before theyeven think about putting on their glasses. People don’t like struggling whenthey are browsing the web, they browse for fun and leisure – not for work. Maketheir time enjoyable and they’ll re-pay the favour.

*Additional – NEVER usespam. If you use spamming you will destroy your own image and people will hateyou. You will be perceived as a virus or malicious website and people willsteer clear of you!RESOURCES:

If your business revolvesaround graphic designs you may want to expand your business image through sitessuch as:

www.psdtuts.com – write a tutorial and putyour link on the bottom, even better that you get paid for doing it!

www.cafepress.com – add your designs tomany types of product, sell your products to advertise yourself whilst alsogenerating incomewww.zazzle.com – add your designs to t-shirtsand spread them like wildfire! They are high quality and you set the mark-up!

www.spreadshirt.net – another fantastict-shirt site, this one especially – You can completely customize the interfaceusing html and css! You also are not limited to products and you can set themark up to whatever you like. The shirts are of very high quality and ship worldwide.

www.aiburn.com – If you use Adobe Illustrator,this site is dedicated to Adobe Illustrator tutorials, just like PSD TUTS.If your business is advice,writing or blogging related, some fantastic site to help you brush up on yourwriting skills are:

www.wikipedia.org – yes, an obvious one –full of content, tips and inspiring articles.www.editorialservice.com – an onlineservice to help you with your writing skills.

www.performancing.com – a site full ofadvice dedicated to bloggers and their success!

For general business tipsthere are lots of good sites out their! For the younger business learners here are some good ones:

www.bized.co.uk – a huge archive of info foranyone wanting to learn business at an educational level.www.nytimes.com/pages/business/- topical, up to date business advice and news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/- Another up to date, topical business news site, but a British version!

The second part of this post is coming soon, hope you liked it!Adam.

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 At the beginning of your career as an Internet entrepreneur, I would recommend before you start, getting to grips with software such as Adobe Dreamweaver and learn yourself some HTML code. It’s all good having these brilliant ideas but you are nothing unless you can put them out there onto the web!

 The first thing you need to consider when starting up is, what exactly is your business going to do, and how it will earn money, then you need to scope out all the competition. Try to think of it as though your setting up a shop in your town centre – your not going to build “your trainer store” next to a JD-Outlet are you? 

I would recommend careful thought over what sort of site you are going to launch.  At the moment blogs are incredibly popular, they even have their own annual awards (the Bloggies), they are easy to set up and if you have the know-how on the content, you’ll be off to a flying start! If you haven’t got an idea that’s burning to get out there, you simply want to start an Internet business, I would take the time to sit down, think about what you are good at and what is missing from the net. Have a look around, what could you bring? If there is no new market you can think of, try and find one you would feel strong in, – improve it or slightly differentiate yourself – offer more, give a nicer user interface or offer what the competitors charge for, free.

 Once you have your idea on what your site will do, you need to look for some competitors. Obviously the first place to go is Google, Yahoo and all the other search sites. When searching with these engines, make sure to try as many different words and phrases you can think of to get the maximum different results popping up. Also try changing your spelling slightly to accommodate for English/American spelling differences.

Now, once you have found other companies that are already online, spend sometime to have a look around their site – what is it like, what sort of feel does it have? What do they offer? Can I beat them? – make sure to keep a note of EVERYTHING they have, this way you can make sure you build the perfect site to put up a fight! Now you have looked at the sites you have found on Google, you need to go a little further. Maybe order a product from the competitors site to test the quality or see what tricks they have, or if it’s more of a blog style site, read through their posts, talk with other users about how much they like the service and find out who is advertising on it. If possible, try and find out the fees that are paid to advertise on the site, this way, if you need to spend money it can help you generate a prediction cash-flow chart.

 Make sure that you remember Google is not the be-all and end-all of finding a site! There are millions of websites out there that are either not listed, or only appear 4000 pages down the line. Pick up your local business directory and see if there is any competitors who have a website, and try and find out how many people use it, how much it makes and how users feel about using it.

 When there is a competitor with a large Monopoly in the market, starting up is a very risky business and I would highly advise to steer clear. As an individual, it will be extremely hard for you to put up the fight necessary to bag yourself a profitable piece of the pie.

 Likewise to this, you need to scope out for the Oligopolies too. A market with, say, five key players will also be hard to penetrate, as well as nine times out of ten, more than one of them will be run by the same firm, so they will have more money to push you out. – A true story of mine, owning a creative media company, we were asked to create an online store that would sell golf equipment – we charged £6000 for the production and it ran for a mere 4 months before the opposition paid £15,000 for it and left it running. – BEWARE! (you may think this is a good thing but to think the site alone was generating £2000p/m )

Starting up for the first time will be hard. If I were to give you one piece of advice, (on top of the above) it would be to keep things local. Don’t set up your first site and think that it will be a worldwide phenomena. Set yourself up a nice cosy site for a select niche market for your local, well-known area. Earn a small amount of money from it, then expand, then as you grow larger, your revenue will follow, then expand – just as an offline business would.

   Some key things to keep in mind when starting off –

• Keep spending to a minimum! Use as many free resources as possible. Stay away from free site builders as they make you look unprofessional and people wont use you.
• Get yourself a good quality server. You want your site to be online and generating cash 24/7, you want it to be fast and you want it to be reliable.
• Be fast in setting up, but don’t rush. Yes you want to get yourself in business as quickly as possible, but you don’t want to make foolish mistakes and have your reputation stripped from you before you even get one!

  Useful Links:

 Free Website hosting with No-Ads, 30GB Bandwidth, 5GB capacity and a tiny one-time fee for MySQL and PHP, Webmail and much more!

 110mb Hosting Solutions

 Free server hosting for one year with FREE domain name – a tiny setup fee! 

One.com

 An inspiring business blog – obviously second to JD’s :

 BusinessWeek

  I hope you find it useful! Until next time…

Adam.

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Lately, there have been a lot of advancements in technology suggesting a less distinguishable difference between online and offline applications.  Mozilla has said they are building the functionality into their next Firefox launch – being the first ones to do so.  Adobe has what is called AIR, and they hope to accomplish the same thing.  The first to the game though, is Google.

Google Gears (an absolutely brilliant name if I must say so myself) makes online applications function whether the computer is connected to the Internet or not.  Here’s a bit more from the download page:

Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using Javascript API’s.

Right now, Gears exists as a plugin but I imagine it can be built right into an application at some point in time.  But think about the possibilities – the most mentioned being Docs and Spreadsheets.  But it would allow you to completely manage your Adwords accounts, get Adsense statistics, have a desktop Google reader widget, and so much more.

To me, Ubuntu Linux is the best bet for office computers at a startup; especially if your company utilizes online applications such as Zoho, Basecamp, or Docs and Spreadsheets.  All you need is an Internet browser and you are off and running.  What better way to keep startup costs down than by minimizing software expenses?

Now, imagine all of those applications being available online or offline!  In my opinion, Microsoft is up against something bigger than it can handle.

For more information, check out this article at slate.com.

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The thing about interactive media is that it is quantifiable. It lends itself to a pay per click model or even a pay per action, and the results of media campaigns can be justified in terms of return on investment. No longer will you being throwing money at a television station without a clear cut definition of results.

Typically I hate commercials, but the one below got my attention. I have never owned a Helio, and I don’t care to; but if I had a way to click on the TV commercial and find out more information, I would have.

I believe these types of commercials will be the future of advertising. They are relatively low cost (considering the lack of a celebrity endorser) and highly effective. All it takes is a creative design team and some compelling music!

Anyone want to start an advertising agency positioned for interactive media and marketing?

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Today, we are doing a sponsored review of HandyRecovery.com, and their software you can use to recover files.  Handy recovery is an easy to use data recovery application designed to restore files accidentally deleted from hard disks and floppy drives.  This includes virus attacks, power failures (which is a great feature), and formatted partitions.  Also, those programs that bypass the recycle bin are no longer a threat because Handy Recovery handles them.

My own personal downfall is when you accidentally delete something from a zip drive and the recycle bin doesn’t catch it.  Now, Handy Recovery will.

Handy Recovery works under all the major Windows applications, including Vista, and supports FAT12/16/32, NTFS and image recovery.  In fact, Handy Recovery successfully passed the Certified for Windows Vista seal of approval.

I like this software quite a bit; testing it before I wrote.  The interface is nice and uncomplicated.  I deleted files and even a couple programs that I didn’t use often, and then tried to recover them using the software.  It worked flawlessly every time.  My recommendation is to pick up the trial version and try it.  Also, don’t forget Softlogica’s other offerings.  If you remember I did a review on Backup Platinim which I still use both personally and for Tech Solution.

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I have been asked to review the iBegin Weather Widget which lets you add a little stamp on your site describing what the conditions outside are. For example, today it reads 46 degrees and overcast, so you can bet I am inside doing something on the computer. When it reads 90 degrees and sunny, don’t bet on me being around :0)

Overall, its a nice service and something worthwhile to add for a more personal feel to your site. From the business side, who can resist the free exposure that useful widgets provide!

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On various consulting gigs, I have walked right into a proverbial shitstorm because the network administator felt it unnecessary to back up their hard drives. Once a drive is toast, it’s toast. If you want to recover that data, you need to send it to some expert in Florida to have it done. Not to mention data recovery is minimum $500.

The nice folks at IBackup – Online Storage are having me review their software for two reasons. One, so I can blog about it. And two, so I can use it in my company.

IBackup is a fantastic solution for a couple of different reasons. Its features include mapping online data as a drive and mapping as a web folder, so you can simply drag and drop and do direct edits. It also has a backup service with a scheduler so you can run it at the times you want (generally nighttime).

One of the best features, in my opinion, is the online storage option. In fact, I bought server space which backs up all of my files from my PC’s weekly, in some remote location. IBackup does it for you for a pretty low cost. That way, if something happens to your office, everything is stored off-site.

All in all, IBackup offers a nice solution for an organization’s backup needs. I am going to do further testing on my own and if there are any more developments, I will let you know!

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Twenga, a UK shopping search engine, really does few things rather well. The part that I like the best though, is that you instantly know what the site is about. In the header and sidebar, there are links to the most popular categories; things like photo, audio-video, computers, and video games. The main content section has pictures and models, which is a nice feature. You can immediately start drilling down the options from the home page.

If you are shopping for computers, you just click the category link and get shuttled to a page to further define your search results. From here, the price comparisons start flowing. If you like a price, click it and the browser opens a new tab where the item is displayed at the retailer’s site.

The one downside to the search is that the product lineup isn’t full yet. I have been looking to build a new computer for a couple weeks now, so I have a good idea of what I want. I tried finding it on Twenga but couldn’t (keep in mind it isn’t out of beta yet). It might be that the search is tied to a geographic location as well; being France, UK, Spain and Italy, but I am not sure. If that is the case, it would be nice to see that distinction in the home page.

All in all, I think this is a site to keep an eye on. It has some very good points which any newbie web entrepreneur can take away from it. And if you are looking to make a purchase, run it through Twenga to see what you come up with.

This is a sponsored review

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No keyboard, no mouse, all you use is voice and the occasional headset.

Complete internet connectivity everywhere.

Check this video out. It is amazing. And it’s brought to you by Intel.

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Today, Adobe is doing something rather remarkable, launching their new software package, “Creative Suite 3″ through a webcast!

Make sure you check out the launch of Adobe CS3 today at 3:30pm EST.

The new products include:

• InDesign CS3
• Photoshop CS3
• Illustrator CS3
• Acrobat 8
• Flash CS3
• Dreamweaver CS3
• Fireworks CS3
• Contribute CS3
• After Effects CS3
• Premiere Pro CS3
• Encore CS3
• Soundbooth CS3

The launch will be broadcasted here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/webcast/

If you are interested, here are the new features of Flash CS3
http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/features/

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In my opinion, there is no doubt that professionals and computer users want to be mobile. But at what cost? Productivity? Good grammar? (because when you type on keys that are 1/5 of an inch wide, you are bound to screw up…)

So when I read that the entire professional workforce will be utilizing mobile devices in five years, I tend to be a little hesitant. Mobile devices have their merit; fast email responses, a in-sync calendar, typed notes, etc. But I simply don’t see myself conducting hardcore business from a cell phone.

If anything, mobile devices are great aids in productivity. They keep track of so much that I would forget on a daily basis. But I will in no way substitute a mobile PC for a real PC.

Maybe it is because I thrive on the ‘richness’ of the Internet. The always on, connectivity. Or maybe it is just because I have learned to manipulate my desktop environment in a way that suits me best.

Regardless, I think the time of being mobile is coming, but I think it will be a lot more transparent than what many people expect.

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I can just here Mr. Byrtus in the background, “Focus, Jason.  One thing at a time…”

For the most part, entrepreneurs, techies, and investors need to stick together.  That is what they have been doing in Silicon Valley for the past 10 years?  Companies get funded, get launched, etc.  All..  in.. the valley.

Well, there are a fantastic number of companies and businesses that get started outside ‘the valley.’  Usually in someone’s basement or garage, or on a college campus somewhere.  No one caters to them, though; which makes it increasingly difficult to get any kind of attention.

After all, if you have a fantastic product, but live in Ohio, what kind of interest will you truly generate?  It is sad to say something like that, but I am becoming increasingly aware that were you live is often a very significant barrier of entry.  I have thought about packing my stuff and moving out West or to Boston, just so my ideas can get some exposure.

OutsideTheValley is looking to change all that.  The site is going to cater to tech startups that are not affiliated with Silicon Valley.  To me, this is a remarkable opportunity because there are so many good business ideas that don’t have see the light of day because no one will write about them.

The thing that I am most proud of is the writing team that has been assembled for this site.  (More notably, I am honored to be one of them)  The creator is Rob May from businesspundit.com, a long time favorite of mine.  Adam Runquist, Dan Scudder, and Todd Earwood are also lending their expertise.

If you can’t tell, I am pretty excited about this project.  I think it has some amazing potential.  On another note, if any of you are looking to launch a company, send me an email.  Now I have an official way of promoting it!

Also, check out my first article over there, “The Lackluster State of Web 2.0.”

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It took a couple months for people to get comfortable with the idea, but a lot of bloggers have already signed up with Agloco.  Having a viewbar in your web browser window deters some people, due to different privacy issues, but bloggers are a bit different.  They surf the web to find content!

JohnChow.com has a post every here and there about how he is in the top .03% which is pretty amazing.  I signed up through his site.

In checking my stats though, it appears that I am in the top .56%!  Here’s a screenshot:

I thought this might be a fun way to make some extra money, since you are paid depending on how much time you and your referrals spend online.  I am excited to get the Agloco program kickstarted to see exactly how we all do!

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Fortunate for Google, users can be classified into two groups; those that produce content for YouTube, and those that upload copyrighted content. The core of their business is catered to the first classification.

In fact, in Fedbruary, Viacom made Google remove 100,000 clips that were infringing copyright. The result – YouTube continued to gain popularity.

Traveling further down that road, Google is valued at nearly $138 billion. “If Viacom were to win the $1 billion lawsuit – which Legal experts agree is a huge and unlikely if – it is not enough to crush Google.”

It is a popular thought that Viacom might be using the lawsuit as a negotiating tactic – to simply get paid for their content even if it is streaming from YouTube.

What are your thoughts? You think it was a bad idea for Google to make the acquisition in the first place?

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What people are referring to with that comment is building a list of email names which you can send product information or news to.

Recently, I had a question from a client concerning a newletter program. “How can I get website readers to subscribe to a newletter, so that I can get in touch with them offline? You know, a bit of email marketing…” Is there a program you can build or something you can implement?

The best answer I could come up with is a website named Zookoda. It is a service I have used in the past and recommend highly for everything from building a list, to designing newsletters. All the management tools are right there, you just have to go in and play with them.

There is one feature I am especially grateful for – scheduled delivery. Say you want to send marketing type emails every week. The service will actually remind you! I don’t know about you, but I am terribly forgetful when it comes to some things, and frankly writing newsletters is one of them.

The thing I don’t like is the fact that I don’t get to see who I am sending emails to. You never know if it is a competitior or a friend. All you know is that they opted in to the service, so it is legitimate and you don’t need to worry about being flagged for spam.

All in all, Zookoda has a lot of great things going for them. They couldn’t make it easier to manage a newsletter. Now the only problem is finding content for it!

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To put it very simply, it is easier to do a bit of preventative maintenance than have a company sift through a burnt disc to find remnants of information. Set up your computer to back itself up every week, or every day! Mirror drives across a network. Lessen the chance that something catastrophic can happen.

I was asked to do a sponsored review for Backup Platinum, a great application that lets you basically automate the process through a wizard. You tell it how you want it backed up (folders syncing to each other or traditional backup), where you want the files to go (DVD drive, network location, etc), and a time schedule (now or every Sunday night at 1 am).

The rest is automated. Log in, see that your files are safe, close out.

If you are in a corporate setting, the software will let you encrypt the data accordingly. Whether that be through a password or using ‘Blowfish’ technology, files will be compressed and safe.

All in all, I am extremely impressed by the Backup Platinum product. They have all of their ducks lined up in a crowded backup software market. It is a great investment if you are looking to keep years worth of work safe.

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What I don’t understand is why YouTube hasn’t done anything about it before now.  It was said that they have been dragging their feet when it came to protecting copyrights, but this is absurd.  Viacom has every right to break into the Google piggybank and take their share.

Unfortunately, this is the crux of user generated content…  Let everyone bring something to the party, and they will!  Lawful or not.  Whether it is if they break some copyright (which they don’t know anything about) or steal some idea, people do what serves them best.

Especially, when they are teenagers or young adults who don’t know any better.

I hope that this is a case of Google having the foresight to see this litigation.  It would be ashame to see a good, forward looking company have such a major pitfall to overcome.  On the other hand, if they saw this lawsuit pending and have prepared for it accordingly, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Google’s future deals heavily in video.  If they have a sticking point in the lawsuit, now is the time to pull it out!  I can’t imagine that Google paid $1.6 billion just to expense it out in under a year…

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Does anyone remember them? I was still small when they were popular but I have heard a lot of people talking about them through the years.

25 years ago, Commodore launched the best selling personal computer of the late 20th century – the C64. The new rigs will be demoed at the CeBIT show in Germany on March 15 where attendees will get to test them out.

Commodore’s website offers about the same information, except a gaming figure of old is prominently displayed.

I am curious on two things though… What are your thoughts on relaunches? Is it possible to bring a long dead brand back to the mainstream market? Or just an impossible feat?

Also, do you think they will succeed?

Perosnally, I feel that the computer industry is too crowded.  With heavy competition from Alienware and the Dell Gaming platforms, it is going to be hard to even make a dent.  Granted gaming PC’s offer pretty hefty profit margins, if built right, but the Commodore brand is known to an older crowd.

Can they successfully market themselves to a younger generation?

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It is a worthwhile question, but that’s not what I am getting at.

If you go halfway down the comment line, to number 9, Erik has an incredibly insightful thought:

“Google bought YouTube so Google’s lawyers would be handling the major litigation involving online video.  Video is imporant to Google’s future, they don’t want it screwed up the way music got screwed up by Napster.”

If this is the case, then the acquisition makes perfect sense.  With copyright litigations looming over many startups, it is incredibly important to get issues dealt with correctly; especially when the decision will affect Google’s bottom line down the road.

We all know that the majority of revenue brought through the search giant’s doors is through advertising.  How would the natural progression of internet advertising (via video) be affected if it were screwed up in a court battle?

If the future of video and video advertising were left to a startup company or an established enterprise, I would pick the enterprise.  One with really, really deep pockets…

And thanks, Erik, for the insight.  This is an aspect I hadn’t thought of.

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“The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Internet and invite comments, but will also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file!”

When, in the history of user generated content, has such a controversial decision been made?  We are talking billion dollar decisions riding on one document!

Personally, I love it. The wisdom of the masses often ourweighs the thoughts of one person.

Last year alone, 4000 examiners were given the job of completing 332,000 applications. That means that one application is due every 3 days, give or take a couple hours.

How can one person be expected to legitimately sign off on an application with utter certainty that it isn’t being done  somewhere else?

As far as the community voting process, it will be interesting to see who can vote and who can’t.  Experts from Ebay and Slashdot were consulted.  There will have to be some guidelines about who has access and what information is considered important, but ultimately, I think the application process will be more thorough.

The first round of applications being reviewed online will be the software design variety.  Apparently it is difficult for examiners to find related documentation, so the wisdom of the masses will be called on extensively.

More on this to come..  What are your thoughts on online patent reviews?  Will it be beneficial?

Source WashingtonPost.com

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For those unfamiliar with Creative Commons, it is a non-profit who licenses works through a system built into copyright law.  It allows you to share your creations with others, mix and mash music, movies, text, and so on.

The different licenses let you choose whether or not you allow commercial use of your work, allow modifications, etc.  This is all being done to encourage creativity and lessen the digital divide.

To put it in open source terms, CC is basically applying a GPL to text or music.  The difference being the GPL can be cusomized to fit the creator’s expectations of the work he/she created.

Living in a digital era, the thought is to make everything mashable or editable.  If I write an article, but am completely wrong in my assumptions, you have every right to republish my article and point out the differences or mistakes I made.  If you have made legitimate claims, it is assumed that it ‘further enhances’ the work.  Your additions make it better or more complete.

The same thing can be seen on YouTube or any of the countless video sharing sites.  How many mashups have you seen of Bush presentations?  I doubt all of the footage was created using only film under the creative commons licenses, but you get the idea.

The point is we live in a mashup culture.  One wreaking with user generated content.

Our young innovators aren’t finding ways to write better books or chisel a better sculpture, they are honing their talents digitally by hacking everyone else’s work.  In that sense, copyrights are killing the creativity of younger generations.

It is well known that less and less kids are spending time on playgrounds and more time messing around on the computer.  What happens to their creativity if you leash it by laws pertaining to the last century?

From where I stand, I see Creative Commons having a siginificant impact on the way we perceive content in the future.  Who legitimately has a right to license user generated content?

Copyrights do indeed have their place and will still be prevalent.  In terms of lessening a digital divide among generations and guaranteeing creativity, lesser restrictions need to be implied across the board.

Related posts:

1. 50 Stunning Images Licensed Under Creative Commons

We want a custom computer, Dell fits the bill perfectly.  If we are looking for a vacation, we can tailor any package at hotels.com.  So why should movie theaters be any different?

Newsvine.com has an article about Movie Firms Working on Digital Distribution of their films.  Apparently, theaters will be able to adapt to the demand of their moviegoers in an instant.

The model is quite simple – if one screen is sold out, take out a lesser performing movie and replace it with the blockbuster. In essence, they are trying to alleviate wasted space.  Another possibility – run two or three day films for a niche audience.

The interesting thing to me is it will all be done digitally.   The companies will use broadband to transfer the files, rather than hard drives.  Their hopes are that it will cut down on pirating and allow for greater profits from sold out shows.  Their pitch to customers will be that thay want to, “deliver the best movie going experience possible.”  As long as it is in line with thier bottom line, of course.

The future possibilities of this project are quite interesting though.  What’s to stop the movie houses from completely cutting out theaters and delivering direct access to customers?

Personally, I would love to forgo the small seats and screaming children in a movie theater, if I knew I could stream it legally on the internet!  From the movie houses’ standpoint, it is already digital and is being housed on a server somewhere, why not build a site around it and charge for access?

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In fact, I think these new tools promote laziness..

r9studio posted a resource for any developer looking to get into programming using Microsoft tools. The website is a MSDN product called the “Beginner Developer Learning Center,” and is completely free.

The site offers free downloads of Visual Studio Express Editions, Video Tutorials (hosted off of their ‘soapbox’ site :0) ) complete web or application development tracks, and different tiers of difficulty.

If you have been following the web for any amount of time, and know of the happenings in web services and Microsoft’s SaaS push, getting familiar with the language makes sense.

As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft will be dominant for at least the next 12-15 years. If you are looking to get into software development or you just need a refresher course, it is worthwhile to check the site out.

Related posts:

1. DVDStyler – Free DVD Authoring Application

To me, Spotplex.com is one of them.

For years, everyone has been trying to get around the Digg voting by assembling groups of friends and paying people to submit stories, but Spotplex is offering a different solution.

Just place a piece of code, and Spotplex tracks the number of visitors your article receives.  Then, depending on the traffic, the story has the ability to get onto the home page.

Spotplex is a web service

The part I like about it is that it really is so simple.  From the functionality side, Spotplex is a web service, no different than MyBlogLog.  (I am by know means comparing the two, but they are both web services.)

The change being a twist in the algorithm whichs keeps track of the number of hits on one post and ranking them accordingly.

The simplicity is that the blog platform is irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter if you use TypePad or WordPress or Blogger, it just takes a code snippet to alleviate all of those issues.

What do you need?

As entrepreneurs and developers, think about it – This web service market is new and inviting.  Startups are constantly getting funding by bringing ‘code snippets’ to the table.  Granted, there is a backend to the service where all the computing happens, but it isn’t anything too daunting.

Even better yet, Google and Yahoo are looking for the next web services that they can implement in their software.  You know what that means, right?

The web service market is a new, undefined phenomenon.  With more people always on (as in broadband), there is more transparency in the way the internet is interacting with websites and our desktops.

Why not make the most of it by trying to discover the next new web service?!

via Techcrunch

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It is a great game, even though I am terrible at it. The graphics and game play are pretty good. What makes Halo a success, though?

Is it because it is a great first person shooter game? Or maybe because you get to blast aliens away? Or the music? The music is good..

The secret to Halo’s success has been that it was based on secrecy and viral marketing. Bungie, the creators of Halo, figured out that if they surprise game players with a launch, they create frenzied buzz, not just buzz.

Before the Halo 2 launch, there was a huge internet treasure hunt which generated more interest in the game than plain, old ads. They announced the game two months before it hit shelves. Not six months or a year.

They did everything right in leading to the launch. And in trying to mimic the success for Halo 3, they created the video you see below.

Doesn’t it give you goosebumps? I don’t even like first person shooters…

[youtube uCsdPszJLNQ Halo 3 Trailer on Youtube]

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