Finance Friday - PocketSmith

You may remember my previous post about Mint.com. Well, if that site didn't strike your fancy, then maybe PocketSmith will. PocketSmith has many of the same benefits of Mint.com to help you with your budgeting, but with more of a focus on financial forecasting. It has some pretty neat features that show you your account balances on a calendar, to truly show you where you stand in the future. You can even forecast to see if you fix your car today, will you have enough money to get through the month. Pretty cool stuff.

Source: PocketSmith

GeoEye - High Res Satellite Images

All right, here are some "Oh, Cool" high resolution satellite images to enjoy from GeoEye. Check them out!They've got everything from images of the the man made to the natural occurrences. Pretty amazing stuff. This one here is of the airforce graveyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.

Source: GeoEye

prezi - create eye-popping presentations

Tired of being put to sleep by boring powerpoint presentation? Then tell the world about Prezi. Prezi is no ordinary presentation maker, it allows to create amazingly creative and interactive presentations with an easy to use presentation builder tool. And best of all it is free. The only way to truly understand is to check out a presentation created with Prezi, so see below. Now, stop showing boring presentations and amaze your friends and colleagues!

Power of storytelling on Prezi

GrandCare Systems - live independently

Do you have an aging parent that is still living independently, but you are constantly worrying about them? Maybe you've even wondered if it's time for them to move to an assisted living home? But, you know that they aren't ready to give up their independence, so what do you do? GrandCare Systems has a great answer for you; they offer a system that will allow you to monitor and stay in touch with your parents, while still giving them their independence. Their system "combines aspects of smart home technology, internet communications, and telewellness in one flexible, user friendly, and affordable package."

Here's what it can help you do:
-Assess "normal" activity for your loved one
-Set up customized rules to receive email, text or telephone alerts
-Print out blood pressure, weight & glucose graphs to bring along to doctor visits
-Save Money by allowing a loved one the freedom to stay at home
-Receive daily email/web activity & wellness reports about your loved one
-Monitor door openings, blood pressure, weight, meds, eating, wake ups, etc.
-Send pictures, messages, reminders & more to the loved one's TV
-Coordinate schedules on-line with family & caregivers
-Exchange/record notes and memos between family & caregivers
-Know your loved one is happy, healthy & independent at home

Ecosquid - resell/recycle electronics

If you are looking to get rid of some of your old electronics, don't just chuck them in the trash! Go check out Ecosquid and recycle or resell them. It's a pretty cool service. You just describe the electronic, put in your zip code, and it will give you a long list of places you can recycle or resell it. I've had our old desktop computer around for a long time, just sitting in the corner of our bonus room, but I looked it up on Ecosquid, and I plan to drop it off to be recycled with Best Buy. I can simply go in and drop it off with them. How easy is that!

Calcmoolator - calculate anything financial

Wondering how the numbers would work out if you stay on unemployment versus get that part time job? Or want to calculate if it's worth buying that more expensive, yet much more efficient car? Well, you can calculate those as well as tons of other things with the Calcmoolator! So, as they put it, "Math is Hard, Calcmoolator is Easy!" So, if your parents or spouse won't let you get a dog because they think it's too expensive, now you can calculate it out and show them exactly what it will cost! Start calculating!

Homeminders - home reminders

Do you have trouble remembering the last time you changed your home's air filter? Or maybe you've been searching for the manual for one of your appliances, and you can't find it anywhere. Or another good one we never remember until we are already on the road heading out of town is turning down the hot water heater. Wouldn't it be nice if there we some fool proof system that would remind us to do all these things and keep up with all our house information? Well, there is! It's a site called Homeminders. From a monthly maintenance schedule emails to weather alerts, and vacation reminders to document vaulting, Homeminders is the ultimate service for every homeowner.

Rentometer - rentals made easy

Are you a landlord or a tenant? If you answered "yes," then you should check out Rentometer. From the tenant side, you can compare your rent with other local properties to make sure you're not paying too much. You may even be able to send maintenance requests to your landlord through them; reducing the hassle of tracking down your landlord. For landlords, there's a plethora of services designed to help you manage your rentals, from Craigslist posting and tenant screening to a dashboard to manage all your rentals in one place. So, if you're a landlord or a tenant, check them out and see if they're right for you.

NoNotes - stop taking notes

Are you a college student who finds it hard to listen to your professor and take notes at the same time? Or maybe you're heading to a conference this weekend, but your colleagues aren't, and you want to fill them in on all the talks? Well, then NoNotes may have the answer for you.  In NoNotes own words, they are "a high quality low cost transcription and translation provider. We take your audio files and turn them in to text and we can translate any document to more than 80 languages." Transcription services are nothing new, but they've simply made it easy to do. You simply send them the audio, and they'll send you back a complete word-for-word copy. So, next time you "don't want to miss a thing" (as Aerosmith would say), check them out.

Corn Maze - How they do it

Okay, I've received a few requests to find out and post how corn mazes are created, so here you go. After a little research, the mystery is solved. A maze is cut into the corn by a tractor with a GPS! No, it's not as simple as taking your GPS out of your car, throwing it on a tractor and heading off into the fields, but it's not that far off from it.

Basically, you plant your corn throughout the acreage you plan to use for the maze; usually doing it in double rows, so it's thicker for the maze. Then you use the special software program to design your maze and plug it into your GPS. Once the corn is a foot or two high, you can hook your GPS up to your tractor and have at it!

Prior to GPS, they would use a grid system in the field to create the maze. Yes, think back to those high school math classes. Glad we have GPS now! In case you feel like starting your own maze someday, you can check out these guys at Corn Mazes America. Thanks to them for helping me solve the mystery!

Violight - cell phone sanitizer

Did you know that your cell phone may be dirtier than the sole of your shoe or even a toilet seat? Yep, that's pretty nasty all right. With our daily, and sometime hourly, use of cell phones, it makes sense that they can get pretty dirty. In fact, take yours out now and look at it. See all those finger print smudges? Now think about the last five places you set it down. Unhuh, it's pretty nasty all right. Well, a company called Violight has developed a UV Cell Phone Sanitizer that eliminates 99.9% of germs in just minutes (they actually came out with a toothbrush sanitizer a couple years ago as well, so if your toothbrush looks a little gross, you can take a look at that product too!). Okay, on that note, I'm going to go wash my hands!

Tether - access the internet anywhere

For those of you who are a bit more tech savy and have a blackberry, here is a pretty cool app. As they put it on their website..."Have you ever been stuck in an airport, hotel room, coffee shop, or on the road with no Internet? Frustrated paying $9.95 for 30 minutes of internet service? Resorting to your Blackberry but wished you could use your laptop? Tether is here to provide a solution to all those worries! Tether is an application that allows your PC to take advantage of your Blackberry's data plan, allowing you to access the Internet on your laptop anywhere there is cellular coverage from your BlackBerry." Hey, and today only, they are running a special price; it is 50% off!

Pogoplug - your personal online storage

Okay, so you may remember me writing about Dropbox a little while back. Dropbox offers online storage and sharing of your files. Well, if Dropbox wasn't robust enough for your needs, Pogoplug is! Pogoplug takes a different angle on the whole online storage / cloud computing thing. Rather than saving or linking your files online, it simply hooks your external hard drive up to the internet; thus, you can access anything on your external hard drive from anywhere with any device. It is of course password protected, there are no ongoing fees, and it is incredibly easy to use. You basically just plug one end into your computer and the other into your external hard drive. Then, voila, you are your own online storage! The device is only $129. So, if you have lots of files you need to access away from home or you have pictures you want to share with others, this may be a great option.

Spokeo - not your grandma's phonebook

Okay, so this is a little scary. The folks at Spokeo have aggregated a huge amount of publicly available information on people. Try it on yourself. Visit their site and type in your name and city/state. You'll be amazed at what comes up. For those who want to snoop on others this is great, but for the average person, this is a bit creepy. Click HERE to see how you can remove your personal profile from this site. Of course, this information is all publicly available, but you can at least make it a little harder to get at.

Identity Stronghold - keep your credit card safe

Do you have one of the new credit cards that has an RFID tag, so you can simply tap the credit card reader, rather than swipe your card? Well, it may make your purchases a little easier, but it also makes it easier for a criminal to steal your card number. If a thief with a card reader gets close enough to your purse or wallet, they can steal your card number. Check out the video on Identity Stronghold's website to see how this can happen. Luckily, this guy has come up with a pretty easy solution to the problem with a foil card sleeve. You can purchase them through their website if you have one of these cards. Also, if you have a Passport that is from 1996 or newer, then it has an RFID tag too. But don't worry, Identity Stronghold sells sleeves for those too. Now, no one has yet been caught stealing card numbers this way, but as you can see in the videos, it's an easy target. So my advice, if you are often in crowded areas where people could be getting close to your cards, then think about getting these card sleeves. If you aren't, then you you're probably all right.

LinkedIn - facebook for business

If you haven't gotten a LinkedIn account yet, you are missing out. LinkedIn is basically the Facebook for business networking. You set up your profile, listing out your previous job experience (basically your resume), and then you connect with all your current and previous business colleagues. This is THE BEST way to network when looking for a job because not only can you see all your business colleagues, but you can see all of THEIR business colleagues. So, if you want to work for "ABC Company", you may have a colleague or a colleague of a colleague that works there who can push you through the clutter. I actually got my current job this way. I currently have 125 connections on LinkedIn, but my extended network is almost 2,000! That's the power of LinkedIn!

Red Box - $1 movie rentals

Are you still paying $5 or more for a movie rental? I've been a loyal Red Box fan for a couple years now, but I broke down and went to Blockbuster a couple weeks ago. It cost me $5.30 to rent ONE movie! I could rent 5 movies from Red Box for the price of one from Blockbuster! Now, that's a big potential savings. Haven't heard of Red Box? Well, they are basically a vending machine for DVD movie rentals. You'll find them outside drug stores and grocery stores typically. It's really easy, you simply search for the DVD you want on the screen, insert your credit card, and for just $1 it will give you DVD rental for one night. This is a great and cheap family or date night idea.

Sharpie Liquid Pencil - cool pen or cool pencil?

In case you didn't know, I work in the world of office products, so I see some of the cool new office products as they're about to come out. The Sharpie Liquid Pencil is one of those products. It's a pencil that uses liquid graphite, so it's "smooth like a pen; erases like a pencil." And you'll never have to worry about breaking a lead again. I haven't been able to get my hands on one to try it, but my sources tell me it's pretty cool! It should be available everywhere you buy office products in September.  Be on the look out for it!

Finance Friday - the virtual family bank

How would you like to teach your kids a little more about spending wisely, saving patiently, giving thoughtfully, and setting/achieving goals? Well, dang, what parent wouldn't! Lucky for you, FamZoo created a pretty cool Virtual Family Bank that can do all that and more. So, if you need a little help managing the allowance vs. chores relationship, want to track your kids' personal savings goals, or just want to create some family time and teachable moments around money with your kids, then you need to check them out. They have a two-month free trial period, so there's no risk...other than your kids may actually learn some life lessons that will change their lives!

Here's their video that gives you a little more detail.

TeachStreet - learn something new today!

Would you like to learn something new today? Maybe take a dance class with your spouse? Learn to play guitar? Or find a private lesson teacher for your daughter? Then you need to check out TeachStreet! They have a great website where you can find local teachers and classes in your area for everything from Electrical Engineering to Piano! Or maybe you have a skill to teach? Then list yourself on the site and teach others what you love; and even make a few dollars while you're at it.