The Ultimate Mind Blower

I sit here writing (or rather dictating to my still quite annoying Dragon software) with a mixture of excitement and relief, and oddly, a bit of sadness. My digital communications course has come to an end, now I am just trying to eek out a few more blog posts to solidly get a B on the assignment. I walked out of class on Monday telling my professor that my last blog posts were going to blow his mind, then left thinking... "oh crap, I was only joking, what am I going to write about to wrap this thing up?"

So I decided to give you a list of a lot of cool things (online tools, websites, apps) that I learned from my classmates during our weekly knowledge share. I wanted to review many of these for blog posts, but didn't quite get to it. I can't vouch for whether these are worthwhile, because I've not tried them myself, but my classmates are pretty knowledgeable and trustworthy. There is a little something here for everyone, enjoy!

For the do-gooder:

If you still like to print paper, but feel guilty about it, GreenPrint allows you to print only the parts you want from any kind of document.

FirstGiving allows you to select a particular charity and fundraise on behalf of someone, without having to be linked to a particular event.

For the social media buff:

Tired of logging and different sites and see what your friends are up to? Meebo.com allows you to sign into all of your accounts at once and have the streams appear in one dashboard view.

For those Twitter lovers, Twiangulate compiles Twitter lists and lets the user triangulate the data which helps them to find and revise the list of people that they follow.

For the creative types:

Issuu is a digital platform for individuals, businesses, and publishers to create content with traditional print design features (i.e. turns pages like a magazine) but with greater interactivity.

Customink allows users to create their own designs on all sorts of merchandise: t-shirts, mugs, hats etc.

For the effective project manager:

LessProjects is a free application for managing collaborative projects.

Remember the Milk, is a free, Web-based to-do list manager (with a poor name) that allows for offline use so you don't always need to be connected to the Internet.

For the data nerds:

Many Eyes is a cool online data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive visualizations of their data (sounds kind of like Wordle, but more extensive).

Lynda.com is an extensive library of tutorials for software such as Flashbuilder, Excel, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Avid Media Composer, Encore, Illustrator, etc.

Distracted By Discounts

Recently I've been enthralled by a slew of invitation-only, private sale, online shopping retailers like Gilt Groupe, ideeli, and Rue La La. I'm sure there are many more sites like these that exist, but I don't even want to know about them because I don't want the temptation.

These sites create demand for their products because of the exclusivity of the sales, the deep discounts, and the lure of the limited-time offering. For instance, on the wildly-successful Gilt Groupe, sales only last 36 hours. This time component increases the pressure to buy. If you snooze you lose (or maybe you save money).

Each day I receive an e-mail from these retailers announcing the special sales of the day. Hordes of women watch as the timer ticks down on the website to start shopping for their favorite designer brands when the sale goes live at noon. Items often sell out quickly so I won't be relying upon Dragon Speak to complete my purchases. ideeli even sells membership to "front row" seats to these sales, allowing you to shop an hour before the commoners.

There's definitely a viral component to the shopping sites. Participants are encouraged through various referral bonuses to drag their friends into the ring.

Although these sites initially focused on fashion, many are now selling a more broad, holistic, discounted luxury lifestyle (if there ever was a more oxymoronic concept). Now you can get 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheets or buy a complete vacation that comes with the sheets included on the Tempur-pedic mattress in your room.

Recently Gilt Groupe launched Jetsetter, their version of a limited-time travel discount site(fortunately you get 5 days instead of 5 minutes to decide your travel plans). I'm considering using Jetsetter for an upcoming vacation to Canada, the allure of a glamorous 4 star hotel at 2 star prices is too much to resist. The only caveat being, unlike other hotel booking sites that allow for cancellations there's no backing out once you click to commit to your new luxury accomodations.

I even bought a six month membership to a high-end gym on one of these websites for much less than I would have paid walking in off the street. I also skipped out on enrollment fees and unbreakable gym contracts. Not having to deal with the typical cheesy gym membership salespeople was an added bonus.

I like learning about new designers and brands through these sites, as well as shopping designers and brands that I normally can't afford. I think the sites are worth while for people who have money to burn (which does not describe me), because it's fun to browse and shop for the designer of the day. For those that don't have unlimited discretionary funds you might find yourself spending money on things you really don't need. If you're looking for something specific that they are offering, you could be in luck.

P.S. If anyone wants a subscription to one of these sites let me know. I'd be happy to get my referal bonus , just stay away from the size 7 pumps!

The Evil Dictator

It is not natural or healthy to be sitting at a desk in front of a computer day in and day out. Working full time and going to school has taken a toll on my body, and has caused a repetitive stress injury in my arms. To remedy this situation I have made some lifestyle changes, one of those being using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 speech recognition software. This is my first blog post through voice dictation, and I can tell you there is a steep learning curve.

To illustrate the challenges of using the software I thought it would be funny to leave all the errors on the blog post, but I didn't want to fail my course for poor writing skills. If the software is working properly, I should be able to do everything with voice commands that I normally do with a mouse. Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered these commands and am struggling with a hybrid method of typing whenever the software fails to recognize my commands, but of course it somehow understands all of the expletives I've spewed at it trying to get it to complete simple tasks like highlighting a word. I've read that smoother roads lie ahead, the more you work with it the better it gets to know you and your speech patterns but I might need an anger management course by then.

I've been feeling sorry for myself having to use this software, but feel even more sorry for my colleague who has to sit next to me and listen to my dictation at work on Monday (ha!) Wish me luck...

Worth my while-time, money, and energy? I sincerely hope so!