iSawToday – The Coolest Thing I Saw Today on the Web

Being an entrepreneur, one of the most challenging/time-consuming/energy-usurping tasks is finding a suitable name/domain for a company.   While the process starts out being fun frustration quickly sets in as you realize every domain name under the sun is taken.

A good friend of mine named Dan has a solution of this. He looks up relevant words in another language, hoping to find a pronounceable word with meaning and available domain.

This morning I turned to a similar approach for a new company.  Rather than run tens of queries at Google Translate I found this awesomely handy tool which looks up words in multiple languages: http://www.nicetranslator.com/ .

Combine that with the fastest domain lookup tool I’ve ever used at https://domize.com/ and finding foreign company names becomes much-less painful…. although I’m still searching.

How do you find company names and domains?

Popularity: 3% [?]

Here’s a great interview with another Midwest startup success. Andrew Mason gives a great interview to Silicon Prairie News about the success and funding of GroupOn.com

Popularity: 6% [?]

Surrounded by entrepreneurs most days of the week I’m never short on ideas for the ‘next great thing’.  The harder part is finding and vetting an idea that can make money and be successfully scaled.  I thought the following post on vetting web startup ideas from Ash was a great read.  This is something that I do more or less everyday but never in such an organized fashion.  He’s got several great diagrams that describe the decision making process of going from idea to product and customer base.

Thanks for the great post Ash!

Popularity: 4% [?]

The holiday season is full of opportunities to network and meet/greet people so I decided to throw together a list of my top 5 small talk tactics:

1. Show up early – I did this by accident several weeks ago and had nothing to do but talk to the event organizers and help them rearrange the tables.  In return these two ladies made introductions for me throughout the evening.
2. Use an exciting opening phrase – Rather than the traditional “How are you?” greeting, incorporate a phrase such as “What are you working on that’s new and exciting?”  or “What’s new and exciting?”  I’ve used this at tradeshows for several years now and it’s a great way of getting other people to open up.
3. Give descriptive answers – Rather than answer the inevitable question “What do you do?” with “work for a software company”.   Try giving a more specific answer such as “I  sell and market data mining software to insurance companies.” Even though my example is tech-y I’ve given given my bogey the option of connecting on several fronts: software, sales & marketing,  and insurance.
4. Prepare – Formulate interesting answers to common questions that you know you will be asked. (apply #3)
5. Recommend & Refer – As you begin to meet people throughout the evening make recommendations and introductions between your new acquaintances.

What’s your favorite small talk tactic?

Popularity: 41% [?]

*Shameless Plug Warning*

2 weeks ago I was asked to speak to 30 small business owners as part of an alumni event at the local college. Although everyone thought they were coming to hear about social media I felt some reality would be more beneficial than the typical SM hype so often pitched these days. I reviewed each attendees online presence and decided to give them a GTD approach for things they could do to bolster their online presence.   Here is my presentation:

If you’re interested in learning more or would like to have me present to your group?  I always require a minimum fore-knowledge of the attendees so that I can adjust the GTD to-do’s appropriately for the group.

Feel free to email me via linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/theimer

Testimonial:

“We invited Andy Theimer to speak at our Business to Business Networking Night on the topic of social media marketing, and we could not have been more pleased with his presentation.  Andy presented to a group of about 30 alumni on the topic, “Getting Things Done with Social Media,” and it was clear from his presentation that he had done research into the attendees, their websites and their businesses and incorporated an attentiveness to their specific situations into his presentation.  His presentation was energetic, clear and well-organized, and not only were attendees taking notes during the presentation, but they also asked lots of questions afterwards and kept Andy answering questions well past his presentation, and even the end time of the event! Thank you for recommending him to us.”

Popularity: 22% [?]

If you’ve ever struggled to think of a clever way to meet that professional woman sitting next to you at Starbucks I may have stumbled upon a solution for you, offer her free WIFI.

A new application from Connectify allows anyone with a Windows 7 computer to share their internet connection with the people around them.  That’s right if you’re connected to a network you can hook your friends (and potentially new friends) up with no cost internet.

Here’s 4 quick steps to make it happen:

• Be running Windows 7, if you don’t have it already, go get it -it’s awesome!
• Have the Connectify application installed
• Be connected to Starbuck’s wireless network.
• Let the pretty girl two tables back know that she can connect to the Internet with the following details:
• Connect to network:<your name>
• Password: <you phone number>

Let me know how it works!

Popularity: 14% [?]

I took the plunge and installed Windows 7 Ultimate RTM from MSDN last week.  For the most part I’m loving the new OS aside from Outlook 2007hanging occassionally and my sound dying after hibernation.  One annoyance that remains is that Windows enjoys rebooting after installing updates which for someone like me who rarely ever shuts down his computer is not a good thing.  So here is a modified version of a registry hack for xp and vista to prevent Windows update from rebooting your computer.

1. Press Windows Key and type regedit to launch the registry editor.

2. Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Polices\Microsoft\Windows

3. In Windows 7 you will need to right click on the Windows folder and choose New -> Key

4. Name it WindowsUpdate

5. Now right-click on your newly created WindowsUpdate key and  choose new key again.

6. Name this new key AU

7. Look to the right-hand side of the registry editor and right-click and choose New-> 32bit Dword and name it NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers

8. Right-click on this new value and choose Modify, set the value to 1 and you’re all set!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Over the past couple years I’ve created hundreds of website comps using my trusty Macromedia Fireworks 8 software.  I always take my comps and manually create layouts for the various platforms I’m designing on: Wordpress, Joomla, Expression Engine in Dreamweaver and away we go.  I’ve tried using Rentacoder’s before and typically get what I pay for, but I’m curious about a new service I found called http://xhtml.pixelcrayons.com/ for a flat fee they promise validated, CSS layouts in straight html or in Joomla or Wordpress format.  Has anyone out there used this or another similar service?  Comments?

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’m pleased to announce the official launch of the world’s largest recipe search engine; www.recipebridge.com

Recipebridge helps anyone who uses the Internet as a source of cooking knowledge to more efficiently find quality recipes.  Today, cooks using the Internet use general search engines or specific cooking websites to find recipes.  RecipeBridge eliminates the inefficiency of visiting multiple websites by providing one search engine that allows a user to search all recipes on the Internet in a simple and easy manner.

Please feel free to send me any feedback on the site that you may have or partnership inquires for that matter.  In all I hope that this site helps other people quickly and easily use the Internet to find great recipes!

Sincerely, 

Andy Theimer

Popularity: 11% [?]

Last night while having an entrepreneurial drink with a good friend I met a very attractive woman who works as a color chemist. After several minutes of rousing discussion on topics such as:

• “If I get Blue #2 in my blond hair will my hair turn green”?
• “Which Peruvian beetle makes the best natural red coloring for M&M’s? (for the British only)

I decided to investigate what other exciting contributions color chemists are responsible for and the answer: bubbles. Or more accurately Zubbles; colored bubbles. It looks like this small company out of MN has been trying to bring this product to market for almost 3 years now and can’t seem to make it. Is there a conspiracy among the bubble industry to keep this mum? Surely the arrival of a mainstream colored bubble would spell an end for your average bubble toys.

Popularity: 2% [?]