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MICHELE'S
"Can't Live Without" Resources
"Gotta
Have" Resources for eBusiness Visionaries
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 Marks
my personal "blue ribbon" resources that I highly recommend.
Table
of Contents
Philosophical Resources
All visionaries, whether we be "webbies" or not, need to strive for
greater things to stretch our imaginations, make us uncomfortable with, or help
us carry on against the naysayers. Best web practices also mean that the
visionaries need to be able to get through the day-to-day "gotta do's"
as quickly as possible to free up time to dream the "wanna do's". One
also has to be balanced in life to do well at a career. Thus, I've brought
together some of the following resources to help you with the "life"
side of the equation.
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Conquer Time and Live Live to the
Fullest:
Do you need a wake-up call to start focusing on what is important and not get
mired in the trivial? Do you have life-work balance issues? Then you MUST
read this heartfelt anonymous
letter on the Value of Time that was sent to me by a friend and WebPractices
fan, and
share it with everyone you know who doesn't take time to " Carpe
Diem"! This will
help you Seize the Day and work to live, not live to work. Caution: Do
not read if you don't want to have a fuller life! |
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Follow
the Dalai Lama's Instructions for Life:
The Dalai Lama offers great wisdom on how to live a fulfilling life.
Read his Nineteen Instructions for Life. |
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Derive Inspiration from Leonardo da
Vinci:
If you feel misunderstood and underappreciated because others don't
understand or believe in your vision, turn to the greatest thinker of all
time: Leonardo da Vinci. Had he lived longer, he would have invented
everything, even the Internet, I am sure (Sorry, Mr. Gore!) .
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To hone your own genius, you should study the best.
Finally, Leonardo knew he had to deal with all sorts of people in order to
build many of his visions, something we in the web world understand very
well.
- Learn how to best deal with other types who may not be as
creative or visionary as yourself by reading What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are, by Renee Baron.
This allows you to self-test for the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™ (of Consulting
Psychologists Press, Inc.)., but it goes one step further by giving you tips for handling work
situations with different types of people, choosing occupations, dealing with relationships, and suggestions for life.
Buy
it now from Amazon.com!
Productivity Tools In the more prosaic world of getting things
done, here are some more great resources:
- FastCompany's
list for e-business people
- Web
Information Sorter links: Check them out! Like the bookmark organizer...
- Newsweek's Sites for e-Biz Entrepreneuers is a list of 103
great web sites for e-business peoples.
- 4Credit: Find the best rates on
credit cards, mortages, loans, auto financing. Particularly useful to
compare benefits of those frequent flyer credit cards.
Price Comparison
- The Shopping Spot has the best
master list of all Price
Comparison sites.
- MySimon shops for the best
price for you across the web in a myriad of categories.
- PriceGrabber lets you compare
prices for computers, electronics, movies and video games.
- Priceline lets you pre-shop for
groceries, travel, gas and other necessities by naming your own price.
- Group Buying:
- MobShop gives great group deals
but only on a limited number of product categories. Beware! Many friends
have reported fulfillment problems with them!
- WebMarket has deals
on a number of close-out products and offers group buying.
- Car Buying:
- DriveOff lets you get great
deals on a car (to be bought out by MSN Carpoint).
- AutobyTel basically is an
online form and dealers call you back.
Content & Bookmark
Organizers
- ClickMarks
extended its original bookmark-only organizer into an incredible one-stop
shop of online organization. It allows you to organize all your favorite
content, password-protected accounts and bookmarks in a central place as
well as pushing this to any device- PC or WAP (wireless).
- Octopus also allows you to
"design your own web page" by bringing onto your personal page all
the web elements from your favorite sites from all over the Internet. For
shortcuts to creativity, they will have pre-designed views for various
topics like Finance.
- OnePage also
lets you choose the best parts of all your favorite sites in one place.
- Web Quanta is a wireless service
that tracks live Internet text in "web snippets" for you and sends
to your WAP device.
- www.blink.com allows you to move all
your bookmarks to the web so you can find them when you move around between
different computers.
Locator Resources
Here are sites for finding things: other web sites, businesses, people,
directions, the weather.
Find it online:
- Search engines and directories:
- Search Assistants:
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www.Alexa.com is a unique plug-in
search assistant that gives you inside information on the sites you are
visiting, including address and phone number of the site you're
visiting, news about them, related links other people recommend that are
related to this topic or site, and ratings of the site. Better on
e-business related sites than others.
Find something "offline" (i.e., in the "real
world"):
- www.switchboard.com
Switchboard is my favorite "find it" web site. Better than a
Yellow Pages, you can find a type of business near a zip code or town, say
the nearest bookstore or all the Starbucks near you. It then links to online
maps and driving instructions. Oh, yes, you can use it to find people, too.
- www.four11.com
Four11 is the site for finding people who are online or offline, since it lists addresses
and email addresses from all the U.S. phone books.
- www.mapquest.com Use MapQuest when you're heading
to a new place to seal that new e-business joint venture. It will print out a map with
(usually) near door-to-door instructions.
- www.weather.com The Weather Channel online lets
you check the weather around the world before that big business or pleasure trip.
Note, that you should check this even if you use Yahoo! or other portal
weather services. I have found this site to be consistently more accurate
and timely on every occasion.
Mobile Computing or
Wireless Applictions
- www.handandgo.com offers the best
selection of Palm Pilot software and freeware. Great for m-commerce
applications (mobile commerce).
- www.mobileplanet.com has PDAs,
accessories and the look for WAP (wireless application protocol)
devices.
- www.vindigo.com, is a terrific free
restaurant guide application for Palm Pilots covering a few large US
cities.
- Wireless Modem with
built-in cell phone. "The Complete Wireless Cell/Modem by CYNET, Inc.
offers a high-speed V.34 cellular modem which transfers landline speeds up
to 33.6 Kbps and cellular speeds up to 21.6 Kbps. Designed to be compatible
with any laptop or portable device equipped with a PCMCIA Type III slot,
this cellular modem contains a built-in cell phone, eliminating the need for
a separate device for communications."
 Please
send your suggestions for inspiration and productivity to me at mjb@webpractices.com.
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