image courtesy of Flickr user Nancy White

Today I saw a post at ReadWriteWeb about a Wiki started by Songkick’s Ian Hogarth so that startups could collectively share tools and resources used to run their companies. Here’s the link to the Wiki which is a good resource, but I once had a vision of something grander along these lines. I have actually given this quite a bit of thought in the past and even had a startup idea to actually create a website where companies could create profiles to share knowledge of web tools, services, methodologies and more, to collectively help one another. How meta right? When thinking this through further I had concerns about whether companies would actually be willing to interact and participate in sharing this knowledge.

From the Read Write Web Post (re: the Wiki)

That advice and openness makes this a valuable resource for startups, so they can focus on building their product and not get sidetracked on questions like “Does anyone recommend a CRM?” As Hogarth argues, “I’m a big believer of trying to focus on your core competency (in our case tour dates) and then partnering with the best class companies elsewhere.”

Primarily regarding web tools and services, it can be a pretty painstaking process to research and find the right one. In my work for X PRIZE Foundation I have to not only find great tools and services, but also have to consider many free, open source, or low cost tools. We are a non-profit so I do my best to try and limit the budget we allocate to these so I can put it to better uses. Recently I joined a really interesting service called BagCheck which is a community to share and discover interesting and detailed lists of items around a given topic. In testing out the site I create a “Bag” called Great Web Services to Help Run Your Business. In it I provide a list of many of the tools and services I use at X PRIZE. So basically my vision would be to have a site dedicated to this specific niche where companies, startups, nonprofits and even freelancers could collectively share their knowledge so that we could make tool and service discovery a much easier process. Perhaps I should rekindle this startup idea…if only I had the time.

I decided I wanted to find all users from my city. So I went ahead and entered Chatsworth CA with a range of 1 mile (the minimum). The results came back with only 2 users, myself and 1 other user. Turns out the results only shows users who have sent a tweet within a 24 hour period. It got me thinking about how I can find all users from my city. I couldn’t find a service that does this though, so I had an idea.

I figured I could come up with query to Google to find this so I went ahead and created this query “site:twitter.com location chatsworth ca“. I figured I’d query the profile pages of all Twitter users who supplied their location. Sure enough I got more records. It returned 5 users. This seems to be a nice little hack to find users of your city until Twitterlocal.net offers to show all users or another site comes along that does.

My wife’s current hairdryer had just died. It was a pretty good one that had cost her ~$100 (I had no idea they could cost that much). But she really liked it. We went to Costco and she bought some $20 model they had over there and had been using it but knew that she didn’t like it as much. Being the tech gadget freak that I am, I decided to employ my research and purchasing skills as if I were buying some new computer accessory, to find her the best hairdryer I could as a birthday gift.

So I searched around for some reviews and comparisons of top hairdryers out there. The best I found was “How to pick the best professional hair dryer” at Missiko.com and “Buying The Right Hair Dryer” from CBS News. After reading each of these it became clear that a two rose to the top which were the Farouk CHI Turbo & Rocket Ionic hair dryer as well as the T3 Evolution Tourmaline hair dryer. I learned about what makes these higher end hair dryers so much better based on use of negatively charged ions, tourmaline, and ceramics. So my next step was to find some user reviews for each of these which I found over at a commerce site called Folica.com. They had a good number of user reviews for the Chi Turbo, Chi Rocket as well as the T3 Evolution. After thinking about it some more I decided to get my wife the Chi Rocket. Needless to say my wife was very happy not only with the hair dryer I bought her, but with the research I did to make sure I got her the best one.

Guys, let me tell you, going through a process like this to get your lady a tech gadget can go a long way in getting her to appreciate the nuances of getting better gear. It can also open the door to her understanding why we go through so much trouble selecting our gear. Hopefully she will understand this as I decide which High Def DVD player I will be purchasing soon.

Step 1 – Research (to narrow the field of contenders and make a decision)

So I’ve decided to buy a digital camera. For any given product there will surely be tons of product choices available so by setting some specific requirements you can narrow the field considerably. So my first step is to determine what features I want. For instance if you needed a waterproof camera you will definitely be looking at a very small handful of models. Another method to narrow even further is to set a price that you are willing to spend.

These were my requirements for a digital camera

• 6 Megapixel
• 10x (or higher) Optical Zoom
• Image Stabilization
• Movie Mode that captures at 30 Frames per second
• Under $400

Now it’s time to find a tool to narrow the field of products that meet my requirements. Most shopping & comparison sites will offer some basic tools to narrow your search. You can see examples here at Shopzilla, Amazon, and Pricegrabber. But if you want a more thorough and finer set of filters you will probably need to find a review or other niche site that specializes in the type of product you are searching for.

Dpreview Comparison Tool

If you are not aware of review sites for the product you are seeking, you will need to find them by using a search engine. A simple search on Google for “Digital Camera Review Site” returns these results. Which as of this writing happen to be my 3 favorite sites for information on digital cameras. They are Digital Photography Review, Steve’s Digicams, and Digital Camera Resource Page. Dpreview has a great comparison tool, so I went there and entered in my criteria. It returned 7 cameras. After I get this far I have two more methods I will take to narrow my decision down.

The first is to read the reviews on each of the respected sites I’ve identified. The second is to read posts and comments from users who own each of them on forums, blogs, and commerce sites. It’s best to get this information from sites that are dedicated to the product line you are searching for. Dpreview has manufacturer specific forums. Two other good places to search for product feedback are reviews from Epinions and Amazon. Reading user feedback definitely requires filtering out some noise, but generally will provide details that make it easier to decide on the right product for you.

After this process I quickly narrowed the field down to 2 cameras. The Panasonic FZ7 and the Canon S3 IS. It was very hard to decide between them but by now I had determined several other factors based on the information I learned about each to help me make my decision. The smaller size and weight of the Panasonic FZ7 as well as lower price helped me make that choice. Now we’re on to the next step.
Step 2 – Purchase (by comparing prices and merchants where to buy)

Techbargains
I mentioned shopping comparison sites above and they are great to use for finding the going “street price” of a product. If you are patient however, there are quite a few “Deal Sites” out there that can save you considerable money if you are willing to wait and do a little searching. My favorites are Dealnews, Techbargains, and the Fatwallet Forum. You can search of these sites with the model number of the product you want and if there aren’t currently any results or you want to wait until a great deal comes along you can subsribe via RSS or Email specifically based on the search criteria you want. The other advantage is that these sites will only list offers from reputable merchants (in the case of Fatwallet, the user base will rate accordingly). This really makes waiting for a great deal easy.

Dealnews
Another consideration is to purchase a used item. I have done this several times using both Ebay for online as well as Craigslist for in-person transactions. In both cases you can setup notifications via RSS much the same way as the examples above.

Ebay

On Ebay after you search for a product and see the results page you can scroll down to the bottom and you will see a tools section with an “RSS” button. That button provides a feed for the search term that you can monitor as new items are added to Ebay. Before buying you will want to determine what the current value of your item is on the used market. One of the best ways to gather this information is by viewing a batch of recent completed listings on Ebay. This is done by by making use of their search filters. You will want to set a filter for “items
priced” to start at a value to filter out accessories. This will help with limiting relevant results to help you. Make sure that you factor in shipping charges into the total cost. Lastly you may be able to find the item locally by using their location filter as well.

Fatwallet
Armed with the current used market pricing you can also search for an item in the classifieds. My preferred place to do this is on Craigslist. You can get a feed based on search results the same way as Ebay. You will see a link at the bottom of the search results page labeled RSS.

Craigslist

Step 3 – Support (by discovering useful resources on the web)

So now you’ve gone through all the trouble of deciding what to buy, being patient to get the item from the right place and right price, but it’s not over yet. There is an amazing wealth of community support for all types of products on the web. I have spent more time than I want to admit scouring all sorts of sites for information and user experiences when it comes to technology products. A slew of experts are available to provide guides, tips, and other useful information. You can also usually find manuals, drivers, accessories and other manufacturer resources long after the product has been discontinued as well. Finding this information is much more organic in nature and as with many of the resources I find it’s done through careful keyword selections entered into search engines as well as recommendations posted by users. But basically if a product is popular enough you will be able to find a community of owners that are passionate about sharing information on their product.

Well I wanted to keep this quick and to the point which is pretty difficult considering specific methods to finding product information. But as you can see it’s more about some basic concepts to follow. Hopefully this has given you some insight into improving your current process. So in review:

Additional Resources

• Retrevo is by far the most valuable tool I have currently found to help you with all 3 steps. Retrevo is a vertical search engine for products that allows you to enter a model number and get tabbed results that provide information for Reviews, Articles, Manufacturer info (including manuals), forum and community sites, and shopping information.
• Productwiki is a great community of passionate product lovers and definitely is worth a visit
• AVSforum is probably the best place to get information on anyting related to Home Theaters. This includes HDTV’s, Audio Equipment, DVR’s, and much more.They have the most technically knowledgeable group of contributors in this field I have been able to find.
• Tomshardware offers great charts to compare the performance of several computer hardware devices including Video Cards, Hard Drives, CPU’s, and Routers
• Pricewatch is a site I’ve used to find the best pricing information for computer hardware but they also offer other products as well.
• Crutchfield provides good audio & video product information and also offers the best product photos.

I just had an unexpected surprise after a phone call to Time Warner today about my current Road Runner pricing. I’ve recently been going over my current monthly expenses and paying especially close attention to the recurring monthly service bills I have. Of those I was currently paying $39.95 a month for Road Runner Standard service cable internet through Time Warner. I had recently seen them advertise the same service for new customers for $29.95 for 12 months. I know that I could save a considerable amount of money by switching back to DSL which I had used a few years back.

I could currently get basic DSL through At&T for $15 a month if I wanted to. But I’m a speed freak and don’t think I could downgrade to a slower speed. They’re closest product to compete with Road Runner Standard is their “Elite” package which runs $34.95 a month with downstream speeds up to 6Mbps and upstream speeds up to 768Kbps. Unfortunately I’m too far from the Central Office and don’t have this service available to me. They don’t offer anyting as fast as the Road Runner Extreme package.

Before
So I decided to call Time Warner to see if I could lower my bill to the promotional price. After a few idle threats I made of jumping ship to DSL for lower pricing to no avail the customer service rep mentioned another option. She said they could offer me an upgrade to Road Runner Extreme as a “new” customer for 12 months at the same price I was currently paying. She explained how upgrading to the “Extreme” service would increase my downstream speed from 6 Mbps to 10Mbps and would increase my upstream from 512Kpbs to 1Mbps for no additional cost. My eyebrows raised and my brain couldn’t transmit the words to my mouth fast enough to tell the rep “sign me up”. I then ask how long it will be before I receive this upgraded service and she said as soon as we get off the phone.

After
I quckly made way to my network closet and turned the modem off from the front panel and ran a speed test. Hmmm…I didn’t seem to see a difference. I decided to unplug the power cord for a few seconds and try again. After my modem was ready I made my way back to my favorite site to run a speed test and BOOM talk about a speed bump. You can see the before and after images. So it’s a pretty substantial boost. Especially for free.

So in review, if you are a current Time Warner “Standard” cable internet subscriber (although I’d imagine they offer this as an upgrade from their “Basic” to “Standard” service as well) in Southern California (not sure other available areas) call customer service and ask if you could get in on the new customer promotion to upgrade to “Extreme” service for 12 months for the same price. I also want to point out that the “Extreme” service varies by area and there is a slightly slower version that runs 8Mbps downstream and 512Kbps upstream if the faster service isn’t available.

Update: According to this thread on the Fatwallet forums some existing customers have been able to get the Standard service for $29.95 after some creative methods dealing with customer service.

All of the sites I list are based on tracking how you interact on them, so that the content will be dynamic. There are quite a few sites that track your interests from music to movies as well as videos and sites you find on the net. Those are just a few of the types of content that you could aggregate and provide to others in an automated fashion.

I have chosen to highlight a single site for each category either based on overall popularity, feeds available or personal experience. You may have another favorite or there may be alternatives to most of these. The main purpose is to point these out so it will open you up to further exploring other sites out there that offer feeds or encourage existing ones to provide them. For instance, it would be cool to have a feed listing restaurants I’ve eaten at recently, TV shows watched, or stocks purchased.

One additional item I will include is the use of a site that converts RSS feeds to javascript. Depending on the blogging or site software you are using there are probably many different methods of inserting RSS onto posts or pages within your site. Since inserting Javascript should work universally across these I thought it might be helpful to point you to such a tool in case you have problems. The code to display RSS feeds in this post were generated by the site Feed2JS. This should get you started until you find other plugins or tools to allow for inserting RSS on your site.

Music

• Site: last.fm
• Description: Site provides software that adds plugins for your computer’s media players which sends track information back to them as you listen. The site then provides a code snippet to display: Top tracks played (all time or weekly). Top artists played (all time or weekly). They also provide rss feeds as well.
• How to get it: Log in to your account and click on this link
• Example: Top Weekly Artists

Movies

• Site: netflix.com
• Description: Site provides an rss feed for your current queue, current movies you have, or recent rental activity
• How to get it: Log in to your account and then click this link
• Example: Movies at home

Books

• Site: librarything.com
• Description: Site provides ability to catalog your books online and then create a code snippet for your site that displays recent books, random books, or a tag cloud. You can even use your own Amazon associates id if you are currently an affiliate.
• How to get it: Add books and click on this link
• Example: Recent Books

Games

• Site: bf2s.com
• Description: Site provides statistics for my online play of Battlefield 2 which is a first person shooter for the PC.
• How to get it: I cheated a bit on this one. I’m using a WordPress plugin available here bf2s.com used to provide a code snippet
• Example: Real-time Stats

Sites

• Site: del.icio.us
• Description: Site provides code to display recent bookmarks which can also be filtered by tags. RSS feeds also available
• How to get it: Code available here
• Example: Latest Bookmarks

Videos

• Site: youtube.com
• Description: Site provides code to embed a defined playlist on your site.
• How to get it: Create a playlist here and then add the code for “embed”
• Example: My Favorite Videos

Photos

• Site: flickr.com
• Description: Site provides code to display recent or random photos which you can filter by tag. RSS feeds also are available
• How to get it: Log in to your account and Build a badge
• Example: Recent Pictures

www.flickr.com More of krynsky’s photos

• Site: productwiki.com
• Description: Site provides code to embed a list of product images that you can customize and filter by tags. RSS feeds are also available
• How to get it: Tap products, tag as necessary, and create a list
• Example: Products I Own

• Site:optimalbrowser.com
• Description: Site provides code to embed a list of your RSS feeds based on your OPML file.
• How to get it: Place your opml file on your server or on the web and create a widget and enter the url. They also have a WordPress Plugin available here
• Example: My RSS Feeds

Little did I know that shortly after the conversation I had with my friend, I too would become the victim of my digital camera being stolen. Luckily I am pretty pro-active about downloading pictures from my camera to my computer so I didn�t lose many pictures. But I still did lose a few since I had gone about 2 weeks without downloading.

So I basically went about researching some possible methods of trying to recover the camera such as contacting pawn shops, searching eBay, and even looking at postings on craigslist. Basically these are all long-shots and were more just defense mechanisms for me to postpone dealing with the reality that it was gone. Well, I never recovered it and acceptance finally set in.

It was amazing how many listings I saw on craigslist in their lost & found area were people were in many cases pleading to have their camera returned because of the photos they no longer have. Between those messages, and a survey of several friends, I saw a recurring theme. People in general don�t download their images for large periods of time. For many future victims of loss or theft, this will become a painful lesson to learn when it happens to them.

Backing up in general as it relates to data is something that most personal computer users have a concept of, yet most don�t have a plan in place. There are many, many methods for protecting data and although this guide was created based around digital cameras, it relates to any content where the original master is stored on an external portable media. This includes memory cards that can be on any portable electronic device which includes cameras, cell phones, mp3 players, USB drives, PDAs, etc�

There 3 main principals that I recommend when it comes to protecting your photos:��

1. Download the photos from your camera / memory card to your computer often
2. Backup the photos to another storage device in a timely fashion
3. Create off-site backups of your photos

Although step 1 is pretty clear and straightforward, there are many different approaches and ways to accomplish steps 2 & 3. I will go over several of them here with the primary goal being methods that automate the process. This means that you set it up once and it runs on its own.

The other point of this guide is to provide the simplest and most straightforward options to accomplishing these 3 tasks. I will touch on some of the other methods, but I want to provide a guide to allow for an easy and quick implementation.

Step 1 � Download the photos from your camera / memory card to your computer often

This is the simplest step with the most straightforward approach. I recommend just having a very pro-active mindset of downloading pictures to your computer after any daily session of taking them.

The actual method for transferring will involve either:

Connecting the camera itself via data cable to your computer Or Removing the memory card and inserting it into a card reader connected to the computer

I recommend purchasing the card reader for several reasons. The first is that you can purchase a multi-card reader. Multi-card readers are devices that plug into your USB port and can read different types of memory card formats that are on the market. They handle all the standard ones including Compact Flash, Memory Stick, Secure Digital, etc�

Since memory cards are used in many portable devices it makes sense to invest in a device that is flexible to handle multiple formats for two reasons. One is so that you can have a single loading point for multiple devices; the other is so that you can accommodate friends & family with the ability to download their photos or other data to your computer.

Another good reason for the external card reader as opposed to connecting the camera directly to the computer is speed. Many cameras still transmit utilizing the USB 1.1 standard which is much slower than USB 2.0. Check the interface used by your camera. This is a compelling reason because of the drastic speed difference between the two.

Step 2 � Backup the photos to another storage device in a timely fashion

As stated earlier this step can be handled using many different approaches, each with their own set of unique circumstances. Even though there are various methods, the concept is to identify the secondary hardware device to be used, and then selecting the software to do the automated backup process. We will concentrate on local methods since the next step deals with off-site.

We will also limit our options to storage devices that are large enough to allow for an automated process that doesn�t require human intervention. This eliminates devices such as CD, DVD, Zip drives etc�The reason is that we want an automated transparent process that doesn�t require human intervention. The minute you introduce a human component you risk bypassing the process. For example, the computer prompts you that it�s time to do a backup and requires you to insert a blank CD in your CD burner. It�s easy to say �oh I don�t have time, I�ll do that tomorrow.� You know what happens next. Are we in agreement? I thought so.

Here is a list of various storage device options:

• Additional internal hard drive installed on computer storing photos
• External USB hard drive connected to computer storing photos
• Secondary computer on local network (possibly notebook)
• File server on local network

You may already have one of these options available to you. If so, that�s great but if not then there are various reasons to choose any them. I won�t go into those reasons but probably the simplest and most versatile would be the external USB hard drive.

Once you have chosen the storage device you will be using it�s time to determine the automated backup process. The solution I recommend for this would be to select software that suits your needs. Now there are many, many programs out there to accomplish this. In fact if you purchase an external USB hard drive, there is a good chance it will include one. If that�s the case, by all means use it.

Below I have listed several programs that I have researched and recommend:

Lifehacker posted a guide for using Syncback which you can see here

Step 3 – Create off-site backups of your photos

For those that are curious as to why we need this step, the answer is to secure against damage or theft. So if your house burns down or other natural disaster occurs or perhaps you suffer a burglary, you can still be protected.

Just like the previous step, this one can be done in various ways as well. In fact many people use one of the many photo hosting sites available such as flickr, snapfish, etc. You could also burn copies of your photos and store them in a safety deposit box or other off-site location.

But remember that just like in the previous step, the criteria for this process to be successful it needs to be automated. Photo services require you to manually upload your photos to their site, and it isn�t feasible to burn copies of photos and go to your box after every session. So we will be focused on finding off-site data storage companies that provide an automated backup process.

If you are more of a tech savvy user and already have access to storage on an off-site server via FTP, then I should point out that you can use the FTP feature built in to one of the backup programs we chose in the previous step above to schedule your off-site backups. But for a simpler more turn-key approach you can go with a company that is dedicated to providing this service.

Below I have listed several services that provide scheduled online backup storage:

So now you have the information and tools necessary to protect your digital photos. So I�ll remind you once again. For a pretty quick and free setup start a backup solution by downloading Syncback and creating an account with Mozy for online backups. Just be sure to implement a solution now because what have you got to lose? Oh yea�priceless data. Now that you�re read this and made it to this point, you don�t want to have to deal with the consequences of a loss that you could have prevented.

Be Careful and good luck!