Reviews
In the course of my online travels, I’ve come across some good stuff. Rather than have you try to find it all on the blog, I decided to make a central page so that you can scan this to see if anything interests you.
Reviews
The links in this section take you to my most recent review of the product.
- Amazon’s Kindle ($259/$489) – The e-reader to get if you’re going to get one.
- Backpack (Free+/month) – The web application that became a major part of my effectiveness
- SEO School ($39) – Take the mystery out of getting traffic from the search engines. If you have an online business, you’ll want to check this product out.
- Todoodlist (6 GBP – about $10) – A great, simple ebook about falling in love with paper, simplifying your life, and following your dreams. If GTD makes you want to stab your eyes out, this product might be worth looking into.
- RescueTime (free/+) – RescueTime is a web-based time-management tool that allows you to easily understand how you spend your time. But how does it help you rescue your time?
- Reclaim Your Dreams ($24.95, not including my exclusive discount) – What would your life look like if you were living your dreams rather than putting them off or thinking that they were unattainable or foolish? Jonathan Mead’s gorgeous, well-written ebook discusses how you can stop dreaming and start living.
- Concentrate ($29) – Concentrate is a nifty Mac application that actually helped me take control of my computer again. If you have problems with Social Media and email and would rather not end up in those places without meaning to, check out this program.
- Twitter (Free!) – Thanks to Oprah and Ashton Kutcher, Twitter has now reached mainstream media. If you’ve ever wondered what the point of Twitter is, read this review. Spoiler alert!: it probably has very little to do with answering the question of what you’re doing now.
- Pandora (Free or $36/year) – Pandora is an internet radio station that helps you find music that is similar to music you already know. It’s awesome, but be careful if you’re already on a music budget.
- The Bottom-Line Book Club (~$20 each or ~$15/~$27 per month) – Want to learn the high-leverage ideas from some of the most influential books in personal development? Then the Bottom-line Book Club might be right for you.
Recommendations
The stuff in this section are great products I’ve used that I haven’t gotten around to writing about. The links will take you to the product page, and the links that are followed by “aff” are affiliate links – they fall under my review guidelines. Please purchase the product using my affiliate link if my mini-review helps you make an informed decision. (Thanks!)
I’ll be writing a review of this soon, but this is one of those products that I believe every online entrepreneur should have. Though it talks about launching ebooks, you can use the formula to launch just about anything online. I’ve done a lot of launches, and I’ll still refer to this product to make sure I’ve got everything covered.
At first, I didn’t care much for Highrise, but it’s now become an indispensable part of how I keep track of all of my business contacts. It’s the best solution I’ve found for keeping the right information with the right people in a way that doesn’t require a lot of overhead.
This is an incredible product for coaches and other service providers whose primary focus is people. Its free version is actually quite robust and is a great place to start.
After years of messing around with different project management software, Basecamp solved my need to put some structure around my projects without making managing that structure a full-time job. This is what I use to collaborate on all of my joint ventures, and I also use it for my own product launches.
Though it’s not on the original signup page, Basecamp has a Personal plan for $12 per mont that gives you a good feel for the program and costs half as much as the Basic plan they advertise – when you sign up, immediately switch to the Personal plan and use a few projects to get used to it.
TextMate is simply the best text editor for the Mac, and I don’t say things like that often. If you run an online business and mess with a lot of code, you have to check TextMate out. I write everything in TextMate first, as much as I have tried to wean myself back into a word processor – I’m a better, more efficient writer because of the program. It comes with a 30 Day Trial and more screencasts than you can shake a stick at.
Coda can be difficult to describe, but if you’ve done much webdesign, you’ll appreciate the fact that, with Coda, you can code, transfer, design, and preview in one application. It also comes with The Web Programmer’s Desk Reference built right into the program.
When you combine Coda and TextMate, you can do just about any coding you want to do with two beautiful and simple-to-use programs.
