Mike Flacy

I use a handful of tech oriented websites on a daily basis (for my job).  Outside of the realm of strictly tech, here are some lesser known, but extremely useful sites that I utilize constantly during my day.

• 30 days ago, I was driving from South Carolina to Los Angeles without a full time job.
• 20 days ago, I was on my first interview at a social networking company in Westwood.
• 10 days ago, I was on my third callback interview with a tech company in El Segundo.
• 5 days ago, I had three different job offers in my lap.

I sat in a coffee shop today and browsed the music on a friend’s laptop. I browsed by albums for a while but eventually found Ben Folds new album by an artist search. I queued up the music and sat there listening to the tracks while sipping my Splenda-filled jolt of caffeine.

Of course all I had was my iPhone. The laptop in question was about 578 miles away.

I downloaded the Simplify Media iPhone app a couple days ago for free. (It’s free for the first 100K users and $3.99 afterward.) Install the SM app on your PC / Mac and it uses iTunes, Winamp or just directories to share music. Sync it up with your iPhone and you can listen to your entire music collection without having to transfer it to the iPhone. It streams the music through the net and the quality is superb. You can add up to 30 friends and share your entire music collection online.

It works great on the 3G network or Wi-fi. Don’t bother using it on Edge though. It also downloads album art, lyrics and artist info. One downside is that it takes a really long time to archive huge collections on the computer. If you have more than 5000 songs, go watch a movie while it indexes the music.  Simplify Media is also having some growing pains due to the massive popularity of the iTunes app as well.

I’m also starting to enjoy Stitcher.  It’s a neat app that organizes a ton of podcasts and broadcasts them in a radio format.  I don’t like the little ads at the bottom of the screen though.  It makes the app seem overly sluggish.  I’ll take a few more days with it before sending it to the App graveyard.

I loaded custom firmware on my PSP today, much to my own technical dismay. I tried using Gizmodo’s method, but it was complete crap.  I delved into the web and found other means. The PSP is easily the most useless of my portable devices.  Besides Skype, I really don’t use it for much else.  I’m going to try and download some interesting apps tomorrow.  Probably nothing as cool as the iPhone though.

I read an interesting article over at ReadWriteWeb yesterday about the release of Moveable Type 4.2.  Very cool information about combining social networks with the blogging platform.   The Action Streams are a self hosted version of Friendfeed or, to a lesser extent, Twitter.  BuddyPress also looks interesting but it’s still in development.

There is a lovely article about Twitter etiquette over at The Morning News.  I totally agree with the first rule.  I’ve been blocking Twitter spammers since the start.  Zero followers is better than 100 spammer followers.

I discovered TweetDeck yesterday.  The design is ridiculously productive, yet the web keyword feature can easily suck away hours of your life.  I watched the iPhone feed and started firing off helpful replies incessantly.  The outcome is another handful of Twitter followers.  It’s a fantastic tool to find Twitter users with similar interests.  It’s not bad for local connections, but Twinkle is still the king in that respect.

I also came across two moderately funny web items today. The first is Where is Bob? It’s supposedly the tale of a absentee IT manager.  It’s likely a viral marketing campaign of some sort as the writing is a bit too good and the stories are just slightly outlandish.  It’s still worth looking at for a laugh.

The second is a Hulu video of a short comedy called The Line. It’s about a group of crazy fanboys that sit in a line 11 days before some sci-fi movie opens.  There are a couple guys from SNL in the mix.  Jason Sudeikis is particularly funny as the movie theater operator.

I’ve been listening to Chopin all day for some reason.  Dead Polish piano players seem to increase my productivity on the writing front.

I saw a man pushing a baby stroller with a toddler down the road today with his left hand and carrying a running weed trimmer in his right hand. He was either nuts or some sort of Nanny / Landscaper hybrid. Crazy or not, I drove away blissfully indifferent of the Cabbage Patch Kidnapper.

I tend to embrace my apathy. It’s especially fun to invoke during conversations. I’ve noticed that people automatically assume that you are of a differing opinion when clamming up; political and religious conversations in particular. For instance some liberal co-workers at my previous job thought I was a staunch conservative; all from adopting an apathetic stance. Truthfully I’m probably somewhere in the middle, but I don’t see the point in talking about something that I’d have to pretend I had the ability to change.

That’s the real beauty of apathy.  I don’t have to lie to myself about how much I should care about matters of supposed importance.  I get to focus on stuff that’s important to my little egocentric mind instead; work and play perhaps.  Everything else gets deleted from my brain after conversations end.  But on to more social topics…

I added a LinkedIn profile recently for networking purposes.  Seeing how my previous jobs weren’t exactly tech-related, I couldn’t beef up my contact list.  I strapped on my creativity hat and sent a mass-mailing to VGT contacts about adding me.  It will help me keep track of their job-hopping movements anyway.  I got about 60% to add me.  Not too shabby!

I also got in on the Ping.fm beta finally.  For those that don’t know, Ping.fm allows you to send the same status up to mutliple accounts.  For instance, I have it setup to send my status update to Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn.  It works with tons of other services as well (FriendFeed, Xanga, Livejournal, Blogger, WordPress, Pownce, etc…).  I have a beta code if anyone wants to sign up.

Here is a quick preview of my most recent Twitter application addiction. It’s a GPS aware app for the iPhone.

Digsby added Facebook Chat as a supported client last week, frankly shocking considering Facebook Chat only went live for the entire Facebook community a week previous. I’ve been evaluating the service for a week and have grown to prefer it over the Facebook in-browser chat screen. Using the Digsby interface is easier on the eyes and messages pop up instantly. I often miss messages from the in-browser screen due to lack of attention. It also seems to update friend status faster than the Facebook Chat window in addition to providing notification windows.

Digsby’s blog indicates they will eventually add the ability to move FB Chat users into groups as well as syncing IM status to FB status. Very cool moves for the IM / Social Network power users. Digsby just keeps getting better.

For money management, I’ve used a site called Yodlee in the past. Yodlee is tightly spun into the majority of the financial world and works as a central hub for my bills / accounts. When I need to go pay my mobile phone bill or check the balance of my student loan, I can type my password into Yodlee once and they will auto-log me into those accounts rather than having to remember several user names / passwords. Yodlee is extremely useful in that respect, but doesn’t offer a user friendly study of my finances or interface for that matter. This is where Mint comes in.

I tried out Mint a few weeks ago and I’m moderately impressed with their offering. First off, it’s absolutely free. Secondly, the user interface is incredibly streamlined. It took me about 5 minutes to get all of my credit card / bank / mutual fund information into my account and start to see my purchasing information analyzed (sample picture below). Mint breaks down your finances to tell you where your money is going. I can see what I spent on shopping, gas, entertainment, etc. without having to compile all the information myself.

I can also categorize any transaction that has been mislabeled (typically few). For instance, a payment to my Chase card was labeled a payment to Chaser’s Grill; a restaurant I can only assume. I changed it manually and set it to assign the correct title or category each time it appears.

In addition to their analysis, Mint offers competitive offers for your banking / credit needs with specific dollar figures on what you would be saving per year. For instance, I look at possible higher interest checking accounts through the site and sign up of one if I choose. While I don’t recommend limiting your search to the banks / credit card companies that are offered on Mint’s site, it does offer some perspective to the money saved by switching.

Unfortunately Mint is still limited in the types of accounts you can watch. While they have nearly all the banks / credit card companies / brokerage firms, they are lacking student loan companies, mortgage companies, and smaller accounts for electric / water / phone bills. It’s still too young to paint your entire financial portrait. They also have no way of importing data from financial programs / sites which forces you to re-enter all your account info. That is a big deal for folks with 30 or 40 different accounts to keep track of.

In comparison to Yodlee, Mint doesn’t have an auto-login feature for your accounts. I haven’t switched completely due to that reason, but rather use Mint as a supplementary tool. The budgeting graphs, spending trends, bill alerts and summary emails are enough to add value to whatever financial program you are currently using. If you aren’t using anything to keep track of your money, this is a fantastic place to start. But don’t blame me when realizing you spent $228 on Starbucks coffee last month. Check out the Mint forums for further information.