VerusNova

MagCloud - lets you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and they take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.
This can be a great marketing tool - or a money maker!

PhoneVite - Send you and/or a group of people a message blast via voice mail; you can either do it now; or schedule it for a later time.

• Wake-up calls for you and/or your group
• Reminders for tasks and follow-ups
• Emergency alerts to the team
• Conference call reminders
• Weather cancellations
• Last-minute party/event reminders
• Finding a substitute/volunteer
• Quick motivational message to the team

To Do list software is very subjective to how you work and what fits into your style…
I have tried many todo list apps including: Voo2do, Todoist, Toodledo, and even DontForgetTheMilk…..

VitaList is still my favorite. I had temporarily abandoned it to try some others, but I keep coming back.

It integrates with my Google Calendar (iCal); it sends me email and SMS reminders; I can group actions by project and context; it has a mobile web version; and it is color-coded

Vitalist is perfect for anyone needing to get things done. Easily organize your actions and projects online. From grocery lists to business projects, track it all with Vitalist.
New iPhone Version at iPhone.Vitalist.com

PS - Nozbe looks real good too…but would not be free for how I would use it. I may give it a whirl though to see if it is better suited for my purposes.

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Earth Class Mail claims to be the ultimate PO Box and I have no argument against that.

With an online PO Box you’ll manage your postal mail as easily as your email.
View scanned images of your sealed envelopes online, then choose to have your mail securely scanned into a PDF document, recycled, shredded or forwarded to you or someone else.

Basically, you get to view images of your USPS mail via quick scan, and then decide if you want it or toss it. This is great if you live a lifestyle where you are potentially in many different cities, are moving and unsure where you will end up, go on long vacations, or just don’t want to be bothered dealing with your mail. You can also get a prestigious forwarding address like Park Ave in Manhattan.

They have pricing plans for personal use and small businesses, and larger customers as well.

Accept Credit Cards - Free Credit Card Processing Set Up

Acuity Scheduling - easy to use online appointment scheduling

DimDim - free shared desktop web meetings

Yugma - An easy-to-use, affordable shared desktop web collaboration service that works on Windows, Mac and Linux

Dropsend - Easy file transfer; Send large files of up to 1GB; free plan available

Wrike - An integrated online project management solution that helps you manage projects, teams and businesses

SpringNote - online notebook and mini-Wiki

Sky-Click - Setup your Free Click to Call Center

iHound - track devices by alerting you when your USB digital device is connected to another computer

Doodlekit - an online FREE website builder that helps you build a personal or business website.

NanoScan - Scan your PC for viruses, spyware, Trojans, etc. right from your homepage.

Web Album Generator - a software program that creates all the HTML, JPEG thumbnails, and CSS for your online photo albums

Linkrr - a tool that changes your non-clickable multiple links to clickables

“Good habits, once established are just as hard to break as are bad habits” –
Robert Puller

Here is a nice article from Ego Development blog:
The Top 10 Most Positive Habits of Life

TaxTrackr by InvestorGuide.com

You pay a lot in taxes, and you have a right to know how that money is spent. This has traditionally been difficult, but now TaxTrackr shows you what Uncle Sam does with each dollar you pay in federal taxes.

I find this interesting from a small business perspective when you see how much of this money goes toward … well, not what you would expect.

Print Free Graph Paper:
OK - not so glamorous, but if you use graph paper it can come in handy in a pinch. probably not cost effective in bulk, but when your trig homework is due or you need to create a layout for your house project this is very useful. Comesin Cartesian, Log, Polar, Isometric, and more.

Printer Anywhere lets you share any of your printers via the internet. I use this at home by connecting the 3 laptops via Printer Anywhere to our desktop. Then I send a print job without having to resort to a flash stick. I can even sit a drink coffee in Panera and send all of my printing to my home printer or my friend’s printer.

This free utility lets you hide your printer from the world if you desire and require manual approval to print jobs which can stop someone from printing the Encyclopedia Americana to your house (printer spam?)….

Have you ever found yourself wondering what a rar file is? How do I extract the goodies from this LZH file?
Don’t feel like downloading a special unzip tool for a possible one-time use?

Wobzip will decompress your files online. Any compressed file type, no downloads…

Keeping your privacy these days can be quite a challenge…
Two of the more useful tools in helping keep your identity hidden are disposable email addresses and phone numbers. Another tool which can be used for good or evil — is Caller ID Spoofing (yes, it’s legal). We actually use this for our corporate PBX because our VOIP provider shows the wrong phone number for our outgoing calls and I used a spoof script to make sure it shows the correct callback number.

Disposable Emails and Messages

MintEmail

Pookmail

Self-Destruct Message

Sizlopedia has 20 more options for this…

Caller ID Spoofing

SpoofCard
Phone Gangster

Disposable & Hidden Phone Numbers

Numbr (used to be Craigsnumber)
Tossable Digits
MyClassAd
MyAdBox
Jangl
My Private Line

Not sure why but most of my best ideas come to me while driving - maybe I drive too much. I also remember all the stuff I forgot in the car. I still say nothing beats a digital voice recorder — which I leave in the car door and review just before I get out of the car each day. But since I don’t like to take it out of my car - I sometimes find myself in a similar situation elsewhere, and without paper and pen.

There are 2 free services that allow you to use your cell phone for a similar purpose. Even better, these services will translate your speech to text and email it to you. (check spelling though!)

Give these two a whirl:

Jott - Create an account and dial 866-JOTT-123

reQall - Dial 888-9-REQALL (numbers for Canada and UK as well); works with iPhone too.

There are many times in life where it makes sense to rent (also known as borrowing with a fee) instead of buy…
Do you really need to spend hundreds of dollars on that tool when you will likely not need it again? How about testing out a new electronic device or cell phone to see if you really like it before you buy it? How about when you are on vacation and you need to rent a crib or other large childcare product?

Zilok has the answer - at Zilok you can find anything for rent or rent anything you own (at least as long as it is legal).

This is also a great way to make some extra cash for all that stuff you insist that someday you will need. I wouldn’t try to rent your old skivvys or grandma’s hearing aides - but I leave that to your discretion.

This can actually be a big help for small businesses who have to purchase big ticket items that they don’t use everyday. You can either rent them, or buy them and rent them out for extra cash flow. You could buy a bunch of old furniture at a garage sale for next to nothing, and rent it out to home sellers, college students, etc. Your total outlay would be a few hundred dollars for furniture and a monthly storage fee.

OK, TV is a total waste of time (except for sports of course) but if you must watch, don’t be a slave to the boob-tube schedule.

MythBuntu is an open source application with TIVO-like functionality on a CD. Just pop the ISO into your dedicated PC (with supported TV/video card), add internet, and voila! — record your favorite shows while you are gone and watch them at your convenience. It combines Ubuntu Linux with a pre-configured version of MythTV,

MythTV’s robust Personal Video Recorder (PVR) functions allow you to:

• pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television
• install multiple video capture cards to record more than one program at a time
• watch and record SDTV and HDTV via firewire
• Program Guide Data in North America is downloaded from www.schedulesdirect.org

The continuing saga of outsourcing your life and removing the mundane from wherever it resides –

I Want Sandy is an automated virtual assistant — who looks like someone from an Archie comic book — that can help organize your To Do list. You can send natural language emails to Sandy such as “Remind me to refill my prescription tomorrow @todo” or “Remember the plumber’s number is (415) 555-1212″ or “Remind me I have a Marketing meeting on 3/14 at 1-2pm”.

This computerized service is a glorified To Do service (I use free-minder.com all the time). Sandy can send reminders by email to your BlackBerry, Palm, or iPhone, or text you on your cell phone, and I believe a Twitter interface is on the way….

Best of all Sandy can nag you for free! This is definitely a great site if you tend to write yourself lots of sticky note reminders or carry around a voice recorder, etc.

In our continuing saga of using the internet to free up your life from drudgery and mundane tasks –

Car’s can take up a big chunk of your time and money between repairs, maintenance, and day-to-day — so unless you live somewhere that you can get by on a bicycle or public transportation — I have a great site for you…

Check out Service Beacon which will help you track your car’s service history and remind you of maintenance appointments. ServiceBeacon comes preloaded with your car’s official maintenance schedule, the electronic version of the schedule in your glove compartment that probably rarely (if ever) gets looked at — If a recall is issued on your car, you will receive an email notice to let you know. You can also create a service order and have Service Beacon email it to your dealer (or any service provider for that matter).

Everyone who has thought about it for even a moment realizes that time is the most valuable resource - you can’t beg, barter, bully, or buy more. So how can you make the most of the time you have? (No, it’s not playing more of Halo 3 - but a good guess!)

You can leverage some of the great time saver and outsourcing tools found on the internet. I will be highlighting several of these in the next few days.

DoMyStuff.com lets you find a local personal assistant by posting tasks and letting others bid (by zipcode). You can find someone to do chores like, picking up dry cleaning, walking the dog, mowing your lawn, and cooking your dinner. This is a great service - however, do not use this as a substitute for marriage (OK, fine - go ahead!)

Those who have read the amazing book by Timothy Ferris: The Four Hour Work Week know about outsourcing everything from work, personal chores, and even duties such as reading bedtime stories to your kids. I haven’t yet found a site called WipeMyButt.com, but I’m sure it’s just around the corner.

Other sites you can use to hire personal assistants — both local and virtual — include:

• GetFriday.com
• YourManInIndia.com
• eLance.com
• Virtual Assistants 4U
• Brickwork
• AskSunday.com

If I were to put my money where my mouth was…I would be outsourcing these blog entries…Hmmm