Inbound Faxing

I’ve tried for a while to find a faxing service that will just let me get inbound faxes. The vast majority of online faxing services are tied to the idea that a user wants to send out faxes. Certainly, the biggest fax provider, eFax, is setup with this thinking. I’ve looked a few times and then got to busy to keep at it. But I think I found a good one.

All fax providers want to give you a “free trial”. I don’t know about you, but I hate free trials. Not that I’m smart enough to think of a better business model. But, nonetheless, I deplore free trials. But, they want to give you a free trial because many folks have still never sent a fax from their computer via modem, much less online. Once you see how it easy is, these companies hope you’ll sign up and start faxing everyone like a crazed loon.

Delta SkyMiles Doesn’t Play Well With Others

You gotta wonder about Delta SkyMiles. LifeHacker recently turned me on to a great new site called Points.Com. It allows you to easily swap and redeem points earned from one program to another. The site has garnered the cooperation of every major airline, and lots of major retailers, like Best Buy, Amazon, Target, and many others.

Ideally, when your crazy uncle gives you a gift card to a store that isn’t even in your town, you can now go online and swap that card for something you might more readily use. There are lots of online points earning programs that are exchangeable at Points.Com as well. I’m surprised no one has done this earlier.

Portfolio Link is Great

I recently discovered a great little website called Portfolio Link. It allows you to very easily create a fictitious stock portfolio to see how good of an investor (or day trader) you might be. However, it is unique from other similar sites in some ways.

I initially had my fake portfolio on Yahoo’s Finance. However, there is no way to prove your merit to others with such a portfolio, because, for ease and convenience, Yahoo, like many other sites, allows you to go back in time and make changes to your portfolio. Thus, I could go back to Google’s IPO date and make a large purchase of its stock and then claim I’m a financial genius.

What’s Wrong with Online Feed Readers

I was reviewing TechCrunch’s post from March 2006 about the state of Online Feed Readers because I’ve been wanting to find a way to read and track my feeds online. I’m a pretty heavy news junkie - for at least the things I like to read about (sorry, Associated Press), but I’m sort of bound to my computer to track and manage my feeds. Sometimes, I have a little extra free time where I’m waiting for someone or something and there is internet access nearby, so I’d like to be able to check out the latest feeds and catch up on them.

There are plenty of ways to do this online, but I don’t just want a reader. I want to be able to manage those feeds efficiently, too.

Contact

You can contact me in a number of ways, but email is usually the best way.

And of course, the good old-fashioned, time-wasting, instant messaging. Here’s my Yahoo! Messenger link:

Thanks for reaching out!

Are there any Handheld Phones worth buying?

I’ve been helping a client setup a Treo 600 to send and receive email and I started getting curious about these devices. I’ve owned two PDA’s over the years, but after I got rid of my last one a few years ago, I vowed to wait until I could better integrate the device with a phone. I just wasn’t going to be one of those guys who carry a PDA, a phone, a laptop, a thumb drive, etc… you know who you are, guys.

So, I jumped online to see what the latest offerings are and I have to say I’m very disappointed in what is available.

The $39 Experiment

Under the “Why didn’t I think of this?” category, I found about this guy, Tom Locke, who decided to use a roll of stamps and mail letters to 100 different companies asking them for free stuff. He has received all sorts of things back, but what I find typical of mis-managed companies is what some of the companies wrote back in their rejection of his request. Amazing. Tom includes all the text of his letters, each individually tailored to each company he wrote to. My favorite letters of Tom’s are the ones he wrote to Energizer (hysterical), Subway, and Industrial Tool & Die. While some cool companies sent him a few coupons or a free product sample, a special few sent him some big time stuff. Fellowes sent him 4 cans of compressed air! What? I pay through the nose for that stuff. It’s like crack to a techie.

Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Need a Website

Wrote an article for another site of mine that I thought I’d share here. Sometimes a small business owner will think, even in 2006, that he or she does not need a website - at all. Here are ten very good reasons why that is never the case - assuming the goal of the business is to prosper and succeed.

“Nowadays a company without a Web site is in loser territory-out of touch.” - John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine columnist, June 5, 2006.

1. Competitive Pressure: Your competition has websites. While this alone may not drive every business decision, knowing what your competition is doing is a healthy part of self-evaluation. Do they know something you don’t? Have they or are they experiencing something you might not yet have realized?

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