Technology Reviews | Internet Startups | Social Media

You are independent. OK, you are your own sovereign nation.

You depend on maps. You depend on food to fuel your body. Total lack of food leads to an eventual canceled trip. A lack of quality trip apps can be worse than a canceled trip. It can be the trip that stops you from ever traveling again.

Here are six tools that will get you from flight, to car, to gas, through traffic, finding the lost parked car, and finding a new car when you can’t find your old, lost one. Get a smart phone. You’ll need it. Food, remember?

1. FlightTrack

Finding your plane can be a terrible event, especially when you are already fighting traffic in a new town. You lost the note with the arrival time? As long as you have the flight number, you will have more that departure and arrival. You also get a picture of where the plane is on the globe, actual take-off and landing times and air-speed. It’s $4.99 to use, but when you really need it, it is a blessing.

2. Zipcar

If you have traveled at all, you know what a Zipcar is: instant rental and the cars are parked everywhere—pick it up and go without the sale hassles. This app shows you where to find available cars, reserve it instantly and even unlocks your car’s doors. (Not as independent as you thought? Taxi Magic: it’s the Flight Track of taxis.)

3. GasBook

It’s simple: GasBook plots fuel stations for you on a map then lets you bookmark the stations. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s 99 cents.

4. Inrix Traffic

If you rented your own car, this one is perhaps the gem of all apps. Green is good. Red is bad. INRIX pinpoints traffic snags and desired routes. If it’s green, take it. If it’s red, don’t. It’s that simple. It pinpoints your exact location, outlines road conditions and even marks construction zones and accidents so that you can avoid the snags.

5. Edmunds

This iPhone app is useful if you’re trying to research car makes and models, find the right price to target with True Market Value, and search within a certain radius of your location for new cars. This is pretty much the ultimate “new car” finder if you want to skip out on being hounded by those car salesman who are practically frothing at the mouth when you pull into the dealership. You can also tweak the car to your liking and send the specs to your email.

6. Park‘n Find

You may never need this app, but if you ever do, you will think the gods just saved your bacon. Finding the car at the mall is impossible at certain times of the year, like the holiday shopping season. Out of town is nuts. You can’t tell one block from another in the city, especially if you’re from a small town in the middle of nowhere. When you’re on a business trip, the last thing you need is the worry of a lost rental.

This app pinpoints your car on an aerial map and tells you which direction to walk. Park’n Find even keeps track of parking meter time. So relax. Have dinner at that lovely Italian restaurant with real espresso. The rest is handled for you.

Independent? Yeah. Even though you depend on the Internet for car prices so you have your power at the dealership, and Yelp to find places to eat that won’t kill you, you’re independent.

Just a varying definition for the word. Independence is knowing how to access information instantly- sometimes, to have the freedom you want, you have to learn how to depend on others so that the independence has full autonomy.

Without dispute, the television is perhaps the most visible entertainment source in the average home.

Americans spend five hours or more per day viewing television. In competition with the television is the Internet, which has just as many people on it surfing and browsing websites, chatting on forums, and listening to music. Alone, the television and the web are two separate entities that perform their specific duties quite well. Coupled together, the two technologies keep people entertained, informed, and on the cusp of advancing technologies.

Google TV

The online media giant has created a new experience in television viewing. It has combined the entertaining venue of television with the flexibility and convenience of the Internet to create a package that is impressive and user-friendly. The computer transforms into a feature-rich platform of goodies that offers video playing, a photo slide-show viewer, a music player, gaming console, television channels, apps, news, and more.

Google TV offers a collaboration with Jinni.com, which will provide more features and sources of premium content to the user. Jinni.com is an application that provides semantic searches and social features for Google TV sources. Google also has negotiations and plans with companies like Sony, Logitech, and Intel to place the Google TV technology inside their units, including Blu-ray players and companion boxes. With these new developments, Google is planning to innovate television watching and take it to an exciting new level in entertainment.

Apple TV

The Apple TV made its foray into the entertainment world in September 2006. The company announced it would begin manufacturing and distributing television products. Loyal Apple followers were ecstatic and showed their appreciation by helping Apple to achieve record sales that tripled in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The technology of the Apple TV is in the form of a digital media receiver. It is a network appliance in a small form that plays content originating from sources like the iTunes store, YouTube, MobileMe, Flickr, and most all Mac OS X or Windows-based computers. Depending on the needs of the user, the Apple TV can function as a home theater device or as a digital media receiver. The device boasts 160 GB, which is now Apple’s main model. Although the sales were strong and the technology was innovative, the Apple TV never gained the attention and success as the company’s other products like the iPhone, iPod, and even the iPad. The television segment still has a strong customer base despite its unpopularity.

The entertainment industry is profitable and competitive with businesses online and offline vying for the consumer dollars. Online media and technological giants like Google and Apple recognize the economical potential in the entertainment industry. The television technology they have developed (including software tools and plug-ins) is very sophisticated and has loyal followers perplexed over which one is actually better than the other.

For now, consumers will have to wait to see which company takes the lead.

With so many demands on our time these days, we really need to maximize our time as much as possible.

Fortunately, even though the pace of life seems to be increasing, there are many ways that we can save precious moments by automating certain tasks and utilizing technology to take care of some of the tedious responsibilities (that none of us really WANT to take care of).

What  actions can tech take the weight off of?

Hand Writing Checks

Not only is it time-consuming, to manually write out checks for bills every month, it also takes time to mail and process checks. Plus, if you’ve ever stood behind someone in line who is trying to pay their electric bill at a grocery store (they exist) you know how annoying it is to stand behind them.

Automate and simplify the process by paying bills online. Today, there are many options to choose from based on your preferences, like:

• Electronic Bill Pay is a bank-provided service that sends payments to your vendors (electric company, phone service, etc.) from your account.
• Auto Bill Pay authorizes the vendor to automatically withdraw the amount of the bill every month from your banking account.
• Online Bill Pay Services are free and fee-based online services that receive bills, show monthly due amounts and provide vendor payments, all in one convenient location.

Many banks even have the ability to email or mail checks to non-businesses as well. This means that you can email money to your sister for her birthday or transfer funds directly to her account.

Manually Depositing Paychecks

Direct Deposit is available by even the smallest companies these days and provides tremendous benefit and time savings to you. Usually the funds are available earlier, sometimes midnight the night before your pay date. In addition, the funds are immediately accessible, making it easier and quicker to pay bills.

Most direct deposit options also allow you to set-up an automatic deposit to your savings account, making it easier to save money every month. You can denote a specific dollar amount or a percentage of the total paid.
There are also banks that allow you to stick your paycheck into the ATM and it will automatically scan and deposit money for you. Bank of America, and other banks have implemented this feature already.

Hand Writing Taxes

Let your computer do the manual calculations of taxes for you and benefit from a huge time savings every year. Noone really wants to sit down and go through their taxes by hand and lets face it. Unless we’re mathamatical whizzes with accounting degrees, we aren’t going to even know where to start.

Those “books” you see on TV are long gone- so many people are looking into software that can handle this for you.

Options include:
• Software Programs installed on your computer that allow you to input your tax information manually or electronically.
• Online Tax Preparation Services are free or fee-based services, approved by the IRS, that both collect and electronically submit your taxes.

Both options also provide the ability to periodically save your progress, allowing you to do your taxes five minutes at a time in-between your two-year old’s questions about their belly button and pulling dinner out of the oven.

Save even more time by having your Federal Return automatically deposited into your account instead of waiting weeks for a physical check. This means you can play and spend your money sooner. What?! I meant to say… this way you can responsibly save and not worry about needing money for while.

There may not be a way to safely speed up the time it takes to deliver a mini-van full of 6 year olds to soccer practice, but with suggestions like these, and online services such as Subscription.com, you can definitely save some time, money and potentially a lot of aggravation, too.

Eliminate some hassle and rework by streamlining some of life’s more laborious tasks and you might even find enough time in the day to take a deep breath before learning how to extract paint from your artistic child’s hair!

Managing a business is a monumental task.

Everything has to be covered, from collaboration to organization to motivation to navigation and more. In today’s fast-moving world, there’s more to keep track of than ever before. To keep your company moving swiftly in the age of ideas, you will need to keep your team members synchronized, informed, and motivated. There are many ways you can go about doing this, but electronic resources have made your job significantly easier.

Here are five great electronic ways to manage your business.

Document Management

Google documents is just one of the many tools being provided by Google that will allow your team to collaborate effectively. These web based documents, including word processing documents, spreadsheets, and even presentations, can be accessed by whichever members of the team need to work on the project. Multiple editors can make changes at the same time without interfering with the work of others, and the files can all be accessed from any computer at any time. Best of all, this stellar resource is completely free.

They just recently added the ability to upload multiple versions, so that instead of going back into revision history, you can view the actual document itself.

Acrobat offers something similar to Google Docs. It has a system with more features (offering out workspaces for teamwork) but it’s actually something you need to pay for to experience the extras.

Project Management

Basecamp is a project management system that shines in its low cost, advanced features, and customization options. The Basecamp HQ has a user friendly interface that provides instinctive task management and various levels of user customization. If you’re skeptical about Basecamp, you can always sign up for the free trial to test the ropes.

Communication Anywhere

Skype is one of the most popular voice communication programs in the world, and there are good reasons for its broad acceptance. For businesses, it’s an affordable solution that can replace normal IVR, standard in-office communications, and even outbound call services. The call quality is top notch, there are resources to help record and track the statistics of your calls, and the typical cost is well below the standard for business phone systems. In addition, free video chatting and conference calling solutions make this a great choice for anyone managing telecommuters.

Email hosting is also another solution to communicating with others outside the office. The ability for microsoft exchange to be synced and pulled into your phone or laptop while away from the office is pretty priceless. Mainly because it allows you to spend more time with family, or at least not be confined at the office while waiting for an important list.

Software Suites

Various software suites, such as Word Perfect, Microsoft Word, and Quicken, can synchronize with one another to maximize the effectiveness of collaborative projects. While most business management has moved online with the introduction of “cloud computing,” simple software is still an ideal solution for smaller businesses with low budgets. These different software suites all serve different purposes, ranging from document creation to company budget management, so appropriate software to meet your needs is almost certainly available.

Technology is moving in a direction that will make you both able to work from wherever you need to, and also get your business done as quick as possible. Utilize these basic tools and mobilize yourself and your business. Fo’ life.

Ben Kauffman, entrepreneur and founder of mophie and Kluster, has struck again.  Quirky.com is somewhat of a  follow through on Ben’s original mental concept of Kluster.  Kluster was originally meant to be a platform where ideas and inventors collaborated with designers, engineers, creative namers, etc on product ideas.  Kluster quickly morphed into an online collaboration platform and their software is now used by many for such collaboration.  Kluster’s NameThis.com has seen moderate success for both business owners seeking to name their product or business.

Quirky.com takes a few elements of both of the Kluster platforms and combines them into one stunning product development service.  Quirky.com’s main purpose is to address the common inventor’s conundrum.  People have ideas, but lack the capital and perhaps innovative improvements and feedback needed to bring that product to the market.  For $99 [click to continue...]

You can’t keep all the information you need in your head. A well-compiled cheat sheet is a nice way to quickly find questions to your answers and what’s more, structured data is easier to remember and keep in mind.

While Excel is an awesome tool for storing, structuring and organizing data, it has so many features and options that it is almost impossible to remember them all, so the following cheat sheets should be useful:

Keyboard Shortcuts and Function Quick Reference

This cheat sheet is broken down into 4 sections:

• Working in documents;
• Selections;
• Editing and formatting;
• Useful functions.

Excel Basics Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet (pdf) is not really brief; it’s rather a short overview of most useful Excel features presented in a handy format. This makes it a perfect choice for those who only start using Excel. The main sections include:

• Shortcuts for Getting Around
• Know Your Mouse Cursors
• Select Exactly What You Want
• Work with Worksheets
• Edit a Worksheet
• Create a Basic Formula
• Format Cells and the Worksheet
• Preview and Print [click to continue...]

Often times when employers adopt new technology it is for the better.  New technology can make the job easier for employees, increase workplace productivity, allow for better metrics reporting, and increase communication in the workplace.  Despite the advantages, employers have taken one large step backwards in the past few months.

The move from paper job applications that can be completed at the physical location of a business to online applications and application management has proven to be extremely detrimental to job seekers.  Couple that with automated phone systems where callers are only allowed to leave a voice message, and you have an impenetrable employer.  These technological advancements have only made it easier for employers to ignore new candidates and have left many candidates frustrated and left in the dark. [click to continue...]

After the second major “upgrade” to the FaceBook system in about a year, FB has many users wondering what’s next and how far off it is.

FB has always been its own social network.  The main source of FB’s likability was the simple AJAX driven user interface.  FB unveiled their New Facebook recently which sported a bit more of the “feed” aspect.  In the past two weeks, FaceBook has gone all out making it out to be a sort of closed network  iGoogle/NetVibes/Twitter service.  User profiles [click to continue...]

It seems like this week, and last, have been big on the search engines.  For the sake of continuity, what do you say we keep the search engine ball rolling with Spezify.com?

Spezify is the product of two Swedish startupists Felix af Ekenstam and Per Persson.  These two nordic masterminds have extensive experience in developting digital products and decided to venture into the realm of compilation with their Spezify project.  Spezify is a relatively new project.  It opened for private beta in April of 2009 and made its official launch for public use on June 15.

Spezify is a “search engine” which displays its results by scraping content by any and all websites relevant to the query.  Essentially, Spezify launches a bunch of “mini-searches” through [click to continue...]