Read/Write Web has a terrific list of non-profit web tools. This goes along great with some of the previous guides I’ve linked (see “How we set up a non-profit by the seat of our pants” and Startup Guides).
Blogging Scholarships
Collegescholarships.org is offering a $10,000 scholarship for college bloggers. Like almost everything I see nowadays, I wonder why they didn’t have this when I was in college and was still writing Calstuff (via Read/WriteWeb).
Google Maps for Palm
So I just got a Palm T|X from work at Los Angeles Urban League. One of the downsides of working in this part of LA is there isn’t a lot of free wi-fi points to make use of the Internet capabilities. Meanwhile, my current favorite app for the handheld so far is Google Maps for Palm. It’s application built on top of the web based maps, and works quite quickly. They also have a Pocket PC edition as well.
Startup Guides
A few blog posts about some other software and Internet services that might be useful for starting up a company (or nonprofit).
- Read and Write Web’s Software for Virtual Teams
- Nick Denton’s (owner of Gawker and Lifehacker) Startup Kit
- Evan Williams’s (founder of blogger.com) list of business web apps
- Added: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Web 2.0: Top 25 Apps to Grow your Business
In summary, you’ll need these applications the most:
Voicemail still needs improvements
Why do cell phones have color screens and yet voicemail prompts are still voice only? For those of us who get the newest phones, we still are stuck with a system from the late ’90s. There’s no reason for this. Fortunately, Apple has done something about it with their visual voicemail feature on the iPhone. And remember 37signals wants to help make this visual phone system. Remember that they have made some really killer apps.
Update: I talked about this a bit last year.
More thoughts on MacWorld
- Photoshop CS3 looks really cool. The perspective grid looks amazing. By far that was the best conference I attended.
- Most of the conferences I wanted to go to were really full, which really sucks. Hope that means they’re good.
- I’m tempted to buy the disk for the conferences I missed from Macworld Encore. At $99, it maybe a better value than the conference itself.
Blogging from MacWorld
My job as Computer Resource Specialist for the College Writing Programs of Berkeley has me blogging from the MacWorld Expo. I’m at the great Microsoft Blogging Lounge typing away. I must say I’ve learned a few things from the consultants that I haven’t been able to figure out, which was great. I also saw a great show by David Pogue of the New York Times and ran into a few friends I didn’t expect to see. However, I’ve already missed a couple of the fun things like the Steve Jobs Keynote and the Q & A with Kevin Smith. Now I’m off to the User Conferences.
I want those menus on my phone screen please.
So I called Greyhound the other day for a trip to Los Angeles for the coming weekend. They had what I thought was kind of a weird interface for making reservations. Rather than the new (but still annoying) computers that can process what people say over the phone, they have you navigate a set of menus to tell the system where you are leaving and where you are going. For example, “if you are leaving from a city in that starts with San or Santa, press (2 or something).” Their website is better, but it doesn’t have a way of checking your itnenary as easy as Southwest Airlines (though most airlines don’t have anything as good as Southwest).
Some company really needs to implement showing those menus on the screens of cell phones like 37signals (one of the best design firms) suggests. It could actually make phone systems easier than Internet systems.
Google bigger than God?
Google bigger than God?-This, among other Google Trends, found by Steve Rubel.
Semagic
Semagic, the best Livejournal client for Windows, is now also a decent general blogging client. Works with MSN Spaces, Xanga, and others. I’d wish it fetched my WordPress categories automatically.