Technically Speaking

You may have missed this due to the iPhone hype yesterday. If you have ever been interested in learning how to program, you should check out Brandon Watts interview on the ScobleShow. He is the developer of the Leopard Programming Language. He is also one of the Tech Evangelists that I work with at Criteo.

Many of you already knew this, but I have been in San Francisco since Tuesday. I came here for a meeting with Criteo on Wednesday, but have stayed over to meet other people as well as just to do the tourist thing. That is why I haven’t updated the blog as well as I usually do. I have enjoyed my stay here, and seriously considering relocating here; well if someone would hire and pay me a California salary!

Should I be in line down at the Apple store around the corner? No. I don’t like standing in lines. One of my biggest pet peeve’s is to “stand in a line” for anything. One of the things that sort of really irritate a person who has spent anytime in the military.

One of the goals I had when I left the service many moons ago, was to never stand in a line unless absolutely necessary. The iPhone will be there tomorrow, and the next day, and probably for many days to come. If I want to buy one, I’m in no hurry. Additionally, since I am a social media person, if I did get one today, I’d have to blog about it!!

I read two good articles this morning. Sad, right? TWO! One almost shocked me. It was on CenterNetworks of course, and I thought for a moment, “Well, well… Allen fell for the iPhone push today.. ” — Glad to see he was talking about a funding round for iContact. Worried me for a second.

The other item was that Om Malik is going to Israel for a blogger conference. Enjoy Israel, I have been there many moons ago; loved the country - very very beautiful place. Not only that (for the linguist impaired such as myself) - they speak English!

Technically Speaking, I’m going to be here in town, San Francisco, through the weekend. Back to the STL and regular updates next week. Oh, btw, that is so far - two good articles - still going through my feeds, updating the Link Blog.

FreshBooks, has now added time tracking and online billing capabilities. Other companies such as SlimTimer provide the time tracking, but online billing is a great addition for FreshBooks. In doing so, the company is building a 21st Century invoicing platform for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry, making the Web a more effective and friendly place for business transactions for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and their customers.

FreshBooks API allows application designers, businesses, services companies, and users to integrate FreshBooks’ industry-leading billing platform into an entirely new category of products, features, and solutions for enhancing and streamlining productivity, workflow, sales, CRM, project management, and invoicing.

Application/service integrators can incorporate FreshBooks APIs into existing and new products to extend functionality, including timers, project planners, and desktop widgets. Services providers, such as ISPs, Web apps, wine, book or other product of the month clubs, with an existing sales infrastructure can use the API to add a professional-quality billing component. Tech savvy customers can also integrate FreshBooks functionality into their current workflow. All share the common goal of improving customer services and expediting the payment process.

FreshBooks is a painless online invoicing and time-tracking service designed to make its users look as professional as ‘Fortune 500′ companies. It changes the way businesses manage their books, saving them time, improving their cash flow, enhancing client communications, and streamlining their business processes.

Based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, FreshBooks, formerly 2ndSite, was introduced on May 1st 2004 and has released 18 new versions since then. Aside from providing painless online time tracking and billing services, FreshBooks also helps small businesses by driving community-based initiatives such as weekly tele-seminars, daily web log stories with helpful information, and an active, user-driven forum. ellipticals

Planypus, the Chicago, IL based event planning company is launching a new look today. The team has aggressively responded to their users needs and suggestions. In my mind this makes Planypus the leader in the event planning sphere.

While other event planning sites seem to gain all the press as well as the VC funding, Planypus moves forward and addresses the issues that their users find. This company has been a favorite of this blog as well as a sponsor (disclaimer) but from the first time I viewed them, I saw a winning product.

They don’t remain stale, old, and uninviting. In fact the new look along with new ideas has bolted this company into first place over other event planning sites. You can have all the VC funding in the world, but if your product is not up to par, it will fail. Money isn’t a key to building a winning product.

The team at Planypus responded to suggestions from its users, both new and converts from its competitors, and added the ability to:
• See old plans
• Vote not only on dates and times, but also on miscellaneous ideas
• Tag friends in bulk
• The ability to send friends private messages
• Merge multiple emails into one account
• Chose new, fun icons
• A complete restyle of user profiles

In the current online event planning industry, other companies are still stuck in the announcement state of mind. They help their users announce their plans but stop short of allowing the group of friends to collaborate and discuss details. According to one observer, “Planypus is on the cutting edge of event planning.”

The team at Planypus listened to its users, and over the last month added a large variety of new features, visual uplifts, and performance enhancements. Yan Pritzker, CEO and founder stated that the, “passionate users have been the single most important factor of our success. They give us ideas, yell at us when we have done something wrong, and shape Planypus into what it is today.”

Planypus is the product of Fifteen Reasons LLC, a startup based in Chicago and Washington D.C. The company was started in 2006 by five seasoned software engineers and entrepreneurs, with backgrounds including IBM, KPMG, and Orbitz, who share a vision to drastically simplify the way people make plans together.

* In the right hand corner after you hit start - you will see “1/13″ - click the right arrow to get to Episode 13!

Episode 13 notes:

AOL new blog news look

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc. plans to launch a test of its overhauled news portal on Tuesday, drawing influences from the uncluttered design of popular Internet blogs.

The online division of the world’s largest media company said it aimed to keep readers returning and to introduce a new generation of media consumers to the site by offering more interactive features such as polls and voting features and user-created news on one page.

Facebook apps selling

Slide, the San Francisco company that lets you create photo slideshows that you can embed in blogs and other sites, has acquired a specialty company called Favorite Peeps. While the purported purchase price was piddling, it suggests a land grab may be under way by companies developing applications for Facebook.

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Perhaps not as crazy as it might sound: the reported price is only $60,000. But nonetheless, the fact that the Favorite Peeps widget just got acquired by Slide - a company keen to dominate the Facebook apps market as it faces the uncertainty of MySpace’s widget policy - shows that the frenzied activity around the Facebook platform is paying off for some developers.

Circleup $3 million

CircleUp, a service that lets you send questions by email to groups as large as hundreds or thousands of people, and then collect and organize answers on a single page, has raised $3 million in a first round of financing.

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CircleUp, the polls creator, has released an embeddable MyQuestions widget to accompany its existing service, combining the functions of an instant messenger with a Q&A forums.

Activate your iPhone with iTunes

CUPERTINO, California and ATLANTA—June 26, 2007—Apple® and AT&T Inc. today announced that iPhone™ users will be able to activate their new iPhones using Apple’s popular iTunes® software running on a PC or Mac® computer in the comfort and privacy of their own home or office, without having to wait in a store while their phone is activated. Activating iPhone takes only minutes as iTunes guides the user through simple steps to choose their service plan, authorize their credit and activate their iPhone. Once iPhone is activated, users can then easily sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts, TV shows and movies just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes.

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“Usually it can be done in less than 20 minutes, but it can take several hours depending on your carrier,” Apple said.

To make the switch, customers will need to enter into the latest version of iTunes their existing mobile phone number, their existing mobile account number, billing zip code, and password (if applicable).

iPhone plan

ATLANTA and CUPERTINO, California—June 26, 2007—AT&T Inc. and Apple® today announced three simple, affordable service plans for iPhone™ which start at just $59.99 per month. All three plans include unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. With everything else already included, iPhone customers can easily choose the plan that’s right for them based on the amount of voice minutes they plan to use each month. In addition, iPhone customers can choose from any of AT&T’s standard service plans.

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All three plans include unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. With everything else already included, iPhone customers can easily choose the plan that’s right for them based on the amount of voice minutes they plan to use each month. In addition, iPhone customers can choose from any of AT&T’s standard service plans.

tennis ball will open your car door

Lock your keys in the car? Apparently you can retrieve them with a tennis ball. The trick involves drilling or burning a hole in the tennis ball and then using muscle to force enough air pressure into the door to pop the lock.

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