TechLifeWeb

Do you exchange business cards with people? Of course you do. Everyone goes to networking events or exchanges cards as a matter of course during the business day. The thing is people end up with a stack of cards when they get back home or to the office and a to do list item to enter those cards into their contact manager. Or, worse, your card ends up in a stack in a drawer and that valuable service you provide goes irretrievable by any useful method.

This is where DropCards come in. Go to www.mydropcard.com and set up a profile. You will need to enter your cell phone number as your account (this is how you are verified) and set up a password. You will then enter the usual information that is contained on your business card. You can even set up separate profiles for Business or Personal.

The magic comes in 2 parts. First, when someone give you their email address or business card, simply take out your mobile phone and Text drop and their email to 41411 (e.g., drop johndoe@email.com). The person will then get your all your contact information along with a vCard attachment. vCards are the second part of the magic. They are specially formatted file that will let most contact management tools import the contact data so no retyping is needed. Additionally, DropCard stores the email address you sent to so you have a record when you get home.

Hints and tips:

• No special cell phone is needed, just one that can send sms text messages.
• Put DropCard 41411 into your phone’s address book so you don’t have to remember these things
• You can go into Settings on mydropcard.com and add other phone numbers to be able to send to your drop
• You don’t need to use your phone! When you get back to your computer you can send ‘drops’ directly from mydropcard.com. Click on the ‘Contacts’ button and you’ll see an area to enter your information
• DropCard makes a cool ‘ice breaker’ at networking events
• GMAIL USERS: As of this writing, GMail doesn’t import vCards (lame, I know) so you need to convert them to a CSV file. Fortunately there is an online converter vCard to CSV Converter that makes it dead simple.
• Don’t miss the shortcuts!

Pricing starts with 15 free Drops per month and increases at nominal amounts from there. Here is a chart:

Be sure to check out DropCard and sign up before you next event!

Do you use LinkedIn? In contrast to Twitter and Facebook, for me, LinkedIn is keeping track of people I really know or have worked with. Guy Kawasaki has put together this 10 slide deck to give you some power tips for LinkedIn. If you are looking for work or researching companies there are some great ideas in here. Slideshow below:

So you are tired of tripping over that tread mill in your bedroom? You know, that thing holding your laundry or dry cleaning. Give it away? Yeah…but it was kind of expensive. Maybe you can make a couple bucks on it? What are your options? The venerable Craigslist has been around for a long time and you are sure to sell it quickly. The only problem is, Craigslist and the like have become hang outs for scammers.

Enter Sell Stuff at Work! It is a brand new site, handy URL too www.sellstuffatwork.com.  The man behind the idea for the site, B.J. Schone, was tired of transactions gong sour on Craigslist. Hopes are that people who know each other or at least have their workplace in common are much more apt to treat each other better. 

You sign up for the site with your work email address. You can also set up a secondary address but the work address is the one used to parse who works with who. Additionally, you get a verification email to the work address to be sure you really are a widget cranker at Acme Inc….or where ever.

Give it a try and tell your coworkers to sign up too. For a limited time, you’ll get a $5 Amazon gift card if you are the first at your company to sign up.

Go now…that treadmill isn’t going to sell itself.

If you have had any exposure to Facebook you’ll enjoy this video. Hilarious.

Hulu is an online video site that combines more than 50 content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more. I was in the beta and the site is beautiful. There are ads but they are so short it wasn’t annoying at all. And the ads don’t make the show break up and have you clicking to continue like some sites from the networks.

I’d like it better if I could view the videos on my TV screen. I could do that if I could download them and stream like I do the rest of my video. Also, someone told me they like the Sarah Conner Chronicles so I thought hey, I’ll go back and look on Hulu! No can do, they only have 3 or 4 weeks back and not the first episodes. So now I won’t watch any of the episodes and FOX lost a viewer.

This does change things though. I subscribe to the most basic of basic cable. Hulu gives me access to things like Sci Fi Channel, Fuel, Bravo!, Sundance Channel, National Geographic and on and on…for free. And they are adding HD content provided you have the latest Flash player (Flash Player 9.0.115.0).

Also?  I can legally embed a clip or whole show right into this blog. And I don’t have to take their pre-packaged clip, there are sliders that let you clip the piece YOU like from a show! Impressive. Sure, there will be an ad but it’s free content and I can share the things I enjoy. Or at least I can with my American friends. See, they block foreign IP addresses. I guess you could try an American proxy server but that is kind of a pain.

So lets have a look at this classic Chris Farley episode on Saturday Night Live. One of my all time favorites:

If you use Google Calendar and want to follow the NFL postseason, I’ve created a new Calendar. You can add it to your Google Calendar by clicking on this button:

I know we’re already a week in but I thought it might be helpful so I published it. I’ll be updating it with times and teams as things change over the next couple weeks.

If you use another calendar that supports iCal, here is the link you need for subscribing (right-click and copy the link):

basic.ics

Update: If you just want to view the calendar, go here: NFL Post Season Calendar

Have you shipped your holiday packages yet? If not your procrastination has paid off! I just learned about a new site called ShipGooder.com. We’ll excuse the atrocious grammar of the sites name.

With ShipGooder you simply put your zip code, the zip code of the city you are shipping to (this works for US and Canadian cities) and the weight of your package and you will get back a chart of your best shipping options. The service compares FedEx^®, UPS^®, DHL^® and the U.S. Postal Service^®.

I did a test of a 5lb package from San Diego, CA to Kansas City, MO. For a 1 to 6 day turn around I was surprised to find that FedEx was the cheapest. Here are the complete results:

Viewed by days (click to enlarge):

of Viewed by carrier:

Give it try. Hopefully you can save yourself some cash this holiday season.

Trying to find TV online? Try out out the new site launched by TV Guide – video.tvguide.com. There several full episodes that you can watch if you happened to miss a show. It was just launched so I haven’t had extensive time to play with it but it looks really great. If you have a vcr+ device you can get the codes to set up recordings. Also TV Guide has teamed up with Tivo and you can schedule recordings that way as well.

via Lost Remote

Here is another installment in the ‘Plain English’ series. This one covers Google Docs and in an excellent explanation.

Don’t miss RSS in Plain English if you haven’t seen it. That one is still my favorite.

via