Enginerve's Blog

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping, and always have a mountain in life to climb

  • 35+ Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Your Business

    October 8, 2008 – 10:08 am PDT – by Sean P. Aune 53 Comments

    With the shape of the economy and ever changing gas prices, online shopping may end up growing even faster than some have predicted. If your business hasn’t added an online shopping cart yet, why not?  The technology has been around for years now, and there are solutions for just about every skill level: you can do it yourself, outsource the work, pay companies for hosting, or even turn a WordPress blog into a simple shopping cart using plugins.  Here are over 35 shopping cart solutions for your business.

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  • Uni. Washington and Microsoft Research collaborates on (yet another) mindblowing 3D photo viewer

    Article is reprinted from above site just to hold onto it.

    If you think you’ve seen what’s possible with Photosynth, then you’ve seen nothing yet. The collaborative research team from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research who only two years ago in 2006 published their paper “Photo Tourism” and their technology demonstration “Photosynth” have again pushed the boundaries of what can be achieved by intuitively processing the abundance of digital images shared on the web.

    This week at SIGGRAPH 2008 they’re sharing with the world some even better technology they’ve been working on which they call “Finding Paths through the World’s Photos“. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s damn cool. If you’re not much of a reading person like me, take a look at this video demonstration. (Watch it till the end)

    This technology is much better than Photosynth simply because instead of just presenting individual photographs in a cool 3D environment, it actually manipulates the photo to give you a seamless and more lifelike experience. It’s one thing to click around different photos taken at a particular museum, it’s a whole other story to “walk through” the museum.

    Now if you want to know exactly how they did it, and you’re a rocket scientist, take a look at their conference paper. For the rest of us, just take it for granted.

  • Seen on a barista at Bipartisan Cafe in Portland

    Things You Learn From Videogames T-Shirt

    What is written on shirt:

    There is no problem that cannot be overcome by force.
    If it moves, DESTROY IT!
    Piloting any vehicle is simple and requires no training.
    One lone “good guy” can defeat an infinite number of “badguys”
    Make sure you eat all food lying on the ground.
    You can break things and get away with it.
    You can push other vehicles off the road and get away with it.
    If someone dies, they disappear.
    If you get mad enough, you can fight even better.
    You can overcome most adversaries simply by having enough quarters.
    You can operate all weapons without training.
    No matter how long you fight, you can always fight again.
    Death is reversible (only for you!)
    Ninjas are common and frequently fight in public.
    Whenever big fat mean guys are about to croak, they begin flashing red or yellow.
    You never run out of ammunition, just grenades.
    All women wear revealing clothes and have great bodies.
    Shoot everything. If it blows up or dies, it was bad.
    Don’t worry if your vehicle crashes and explodes. A new vehicle will appear in its place.
    A thousand-to-one odds against you is NOT a problem.

  • Stretching: The Truth – REPRINTED from the NYTimes

    By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
    Published: October 31, 2008

    WHEN DUANE KNUDSON, a professor of kinesiology at California State University, Chico, looks around campus at athletes warming up before practice, he sees one dangerous mistake after another. “They’re stretching, touching their toes. . . . ” He sighs. “It’s discouraging.”

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  • October 14, 2008
    Vital Signs
    Exercise: Program Reduces a Knee Injury in Women
    By ERIC NAGOURNEY

    A newly designed program of strengthening exercises may help guard against a knee injury that sidelines many girls and young women who play sports, a study says.

    The program, which is described in a recent article in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, is intended to reduce injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament, which often require surgery and months of rehabilitation. The lead author is Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    While other strengthening and flexibility programs have been found to reduce injuries to the ligament, known as the A.C.L., they often require special equipment. The researchers said they wanted one that could be easily incorporated into regular team practices.

    A co-author of the study, Holly J. Silvers of the Santa Monica Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation, said the new program took only about 20 minutes three times a week. Sample exercises, which involve jumping and other forms of muscle strengthening, can be found at www.apta.org/consumer.

    For the study, the researchers worked with 61 women’s soccer teams in the N.C.A.A. and more than 1,400 athletes. Some teams were asked to use the new program for the fall season, while the others were asked to follow their usual routine.

    The study found a 41 percent decrease in reported A.C.L. injuries.

  • Free or Open Source Imaging Solutions

    Posted on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 by Tim Fehlman


    Many
    of you are familiar with the concept of computer imaging. Essentially,
    you take a system, configure it the way that you would like, and then
    duplicate the hard drive to all of the other systems, saving yourself
    all of the same steps that you did on the first system.

    Now, there are a lot of great commercial software programs out there
    that can do this for you. Acronis and Ghost come to mind. But, not
    everyone can afford these options. For those of you find yourself in
    this situation, I present you with a list of options that are available
    for free or are open source. (All descriptions are copied from their
    respective websites.)

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  • 101 Essential Freelancing Resources

    Cyan Ta’eed

    101 Essential Freelancing ResourcesImage from iStockPhoto

    Update: Well it’s actually 126 resources now, thanks to all the people who added resources in the comments.
    Update: This article has been translated into Brazillian Portuguese by Rafael Marin.
    This article has also been translated into Spanish by Diana at Artegami.
    This article has also been translated into Italian by Matteo at Rails On The Road.

    The web is such a big and wonderful place, packed with tools and resources which you all too often don’t know about. So to help all you freelancers out there we have compiled a gigantic list of resources, categorized up for your benefit. If you know a resource that we’ve missed, let us know as we’re always looking to grow this list!

    Timing
    These are tools to help you time and track your work. Some of them plug into invoicing programs and some even come with them built in:

    1. SlimTimer – A Start/Stop little timer that tracks jobs on a main web interface
    2. Tick – Timetracking application focused on keeping track of your budgets
    3. Time Assistant – Professional timesheet software
    4. Harvest – Simple and efficient time tracking
    5. FourteenDayz – Online time tracking for teams
    6. PunchyTime – A simple time tracking tool for creatives
    7. TimePost – Timer that plugs into Harvest, Basecamp and Tick
    8. FunctionFox – Timing for creatives (subscription pricing)

    Invoicing
    When you don’t invoice, you don’t get paid, so it literally pays to stay on top of your billing. Here are some tools to help:

    1. FreshBooks

      Billing Orchard – Electronic billing and invoicing software, starting at $14.95 per month

    2. Billable – Service and invoice tracking
    3. SimplyBill – Easy to use invoicing software
    4. Blinksale – More easy to use invoicing software
    5. Quickbooks – Small business financial software
    6. Side Job Track – Free web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting and project management for the part-time independent contractor
    7. Freshbooks – Tracks time, sends invoices by email or U.S. mail, and generally makes invoicing easier
    8. InvoicePlace – Easy Invoicing and Quotes From Anywhere
    9. LessAccounting – Is your job title Accounting? Probably not. Do less accounting!
    10. MS Office Accounting Express (Free) – Free Microsoft Accounting

    Project Management and Organization
    These resources will help you stay organised and manage those projects and clients

    1. Proposal Kit – Proposal and contract management tools
    2. Ta-Da Lists – a simple (free!) to-do list application that can be shared with the world
    3. Backpack – Service that integrates to-do lists, notes, files, images, and a calendar with reminders that can be sent to your email or cell
    4. Writeboard – Sharable, web-based text documents that save edits, so you can collaborate, roll back and compare
    5. ConceptShare – Share designs and get feedback with visual annotation tools
    6. Wridea – Free tool for writers focusing on idea generation
    7. GoPlan – Note-taking, calendaring, task management, issue tracking, file management and online real-time chat
    8. Toodledo – Another web based to-do list
    9. ActiveCollab – Open source collaboration and project management tool
    10. MonkeyOn – Your to-do list for things that you want other people to do
    11. Remember The Milk – Another To-Do List manager

    Stock Libraries
    Templates, Photos, Flash files all to help make you look good

    1. FlashDen – A resource selling stock Flash, audio, video and fonts for as little as 50 cents
    2. Dreamstime – Royalty free stock photography for $1 – $2
    3. Getty Images – When price is no object and quality is essential
    4. Istockphoto – Royalty free stock photography, videos, and illustrations for $1 – $50
    5. Veer – Rights managed and royalty free photography, illutration, type, and motion
    6. Stock.xchng – Completely Free stock photography
    7. Ice Templates – Website templates in Flash and HTML
    8. Template Monster – The biggest website template company on the web!
    9. MyFonts – All the fonts you could ever want and a very handy font identification tool as well.
    10. IconBuffet – Icons, more icons and even more icons
    11. VectorVault – Vector illustration sets

    Business Tools
    Resources to help with the business of freelancing…

    1. FreshBooks

      HighRise – Track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors

    2. Campfire – Real-time group chat and file sharing
    3. Central Desktop – Shared workspaces and web conferencing
    4. Relenta – Manage your email, contacts, documents and activities
    5. Google Apps – Communication and collaboration tools from Google
    6. Zoho – Free office tools
    7. Campaign Monitor – Email newsletter software
    8. MailBuild – More newsletter software
    9. Breeze – Email campaign and newsletter software
    10. Business-Paper – Easy business cards
    11. GoToMeeting – Easy online meetings
    12. Wufoo – Make forms to survey your clients
    13. AIGA Spec Letter – Sample letter to communicate with clients who want spec work or free pitching
    14. CPA Directory – Find an accountant (in the US)
    15. SBA – Small Business Administration, help and advice
    16. Paypal – Online payment system
    17. Moneybookers – Online payment system
    18. Escrow – Online payment system that protects the buyer and seller, useful for those bigger jobs with anonymous clients.
    19. Resources for the Design Entrepeneur – Free sample forms and agreements
    20. Work – How-to guides to running a small business
    21. XE – Quick and easy currency converter for all your international transactions…
    22. Trendwatching – Consumer trends and insights resource
    23. FaxZero – US & Canada – Send Faxes for Free

    Legal
    Because you have to protect yourself and your work…

    1. My New Company – Legal and general start-up information
    2. Designers Toolbox – Free legal forms for graphic designers
    3. Copyright – Everything you need to know about US copyright
    4. AIGA Form of Agreement – Standard form of agreement for design services trmplate
    5. HelpMeWork – US – Services to help you focus on what you know best
    6. CreativeCommons – For licensing…just about anything

    Job Boards
    A whole bunch of places to find jobs, and don’t forget FreelanceSwitch will be adding its very own job board real soon!

    1. 37signals Job Board – Mostly full-time design and programming jobs
    2. Authentic Jobs – Full time and freelance job board for standards aware designers and developers
    3. Coroflot Job Board – Designer job board
    4. WebProJobs – Freelance and full-time jobs for designers, developers, copywriters and marketers
    5. Jobpile – Aggregates the best job boards on the web
    6. Krop – Creative and tech jobs
    7. FWjobs – Web jobs board
    8. SlashDot – Jobs for IT professionals
    9. CSS Beauty Job Board – Job board for web designers
    10. MinistryCamp Job Board – Job board for Christian designers and programmers
    11. Guru – Freelancer listing service with job board
    12. Elance – List yourself for freelance jobs

    Web Tools
    Tools to get your Web Presence Up and running…

    1. Squarespace – Very nice publishing system for websites and blogs
    2. Rackspace – dedicated hosting and customer service that is second to none
    3. Mosso – Advanced hosting at a reasonable price
    4. MyDomain – Domains for $8.50 per year
    5. Media Temple – Easy to set up and use hosting
    6. Light – Content management for designers and ad agencies
    7. SiteKreator – Instant websites – just add your content
    8. StrongSpace – Back-up and store important files
    9. psd2html – Builds websites in html from Photoshop files
    10. xhtml iT – Website builds from design in 24 hours
    11. ExpressionEngine – A neat little CMS app
    12. Inblogit – A great free blogging tool for web designers
    13. PublicSquare – Easy Web Publishing
    14. WordPress – The best damn blogging tool around
    15. AgencyFusion – Outsourcable programmers
    16. XHTMLized – The original – you supply the design and they do the XHTML/CSS

    Advertising and Marketing
    A few ways to market and advertise yourself online…

    1. Text Link Ads – Text ads to sell your wares and improve your traffic ranking
    2. Review Me – Get your service or Web site reviewed by bloggers
    3. Adbrite – Text and banner ads on over 20,000 sites
    4. AdEngage – Text and Photext ads (image and text ad combined)
    5. Adwords – Text ads on Google searches
    6. Professional On The Web – Get yourself Listed

    Miscellaneous
    All the many things we couldn’t fit anywhere else!

    1. Creative Public – Useful site for anyone starting a freelance graphic or web design career. A $49.95 fee buys unlimited access to forms, manuals, pricing guides, contracts etc
    2. You Send It – Send files up to 2GB online
    3. Jewelboxing – superior packaging for short run CDs and DVDs
    4. eFax – Send and receive faxes by email
    5. PowerXChange – Extensions for a variety of creative software, including Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver
    6. Coroflot – A great resources for designers to showcase their portfolios, share work and network
    7. Cloudmark – Block spam on your PC
    8. SpamSieve – Block spam on your Mac
    9. Dropsend – Email up to 1GB of files
    10. Media Fire – Send 100MB files online
    11. Box – Store, share and access files online
    12. Icebrrg – Simple web forms
    13. Formsite – Web forms and surveys in minutes
    14. Lorem Ipsum – Lorem Ipsum generator for dummy copy
    15. Textmate – The essential programmers text editor for Macs
    16. ETextEditor – Like Textmate but for Windows
    17. Kuler – Colour scheme picker
    18. Pixie – A useful little colour picker
    19. ColourSchemer – A bunch of colour tools
    20. Jungle Disk – Online storage for 15 cents a gigabyte
    21. AskCharity – free online contacts for journalists
    22. TechInline – Remote Desktop Software
    23. Protolize – Web Resource Directory