Top Startup

Shovebox - A mac app that rocks

One of the things I like to do on my blog is shamelessly promote my friends. The criteria for shameless promotion is high. It’s about as high as the criteria for me calling you one of my friends. My friend Dan Grover at Wonderwarp Software just released version 1.0 of his new app Shovebox

Shovebox is great name, because that’s what the app is. It’s a box that you shove stuff in to. It competes in the same class of apps as Yojimbo and Eagle Filer. The Shovebox approach is to have a little box in the menu bar like you see below:

When you want to add something, drag and drop it to the box. Organize your notes and clippings later. Shovebox allows you to dump your brain when you get a thought or see something interesting. This allows you to focus on the activity at hand.

Basically, I use shovebox to store “stuff” and Actiontastic to store “things I need to do”. Shovebox is a great addition to my arsenal. I had been toying with Yojimbo, but couldn’t find a reason to justify the $40. $25 for Shovebox is easier to swallow.

Things I’d love to be able to store in Shovebox

• Passwords (integration with keychain)
• Serial Numbers
• Web archive from firefox (only works w/ Safari now)

Popularity: 19% [?]

37 Signals doesn’t understand Web 2.0

They may have helped define it, but they don’t get it!

I was reading a review by Robby on Rails about Highrise. One of the responders, Will had this to say about 37 Signals:

It doesn’t make sense to me. On the web (2.0) the mantra is integration, and yet here we have a single company releases compartmentalized applications that are an ideal extension of one another.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16% [?]

Dymo Labelwriter 400 - Get yourself organized

I just bought a Dymo Labelwriter 400 as part of a strategy to implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) in my life and work. It’s a great little tool that I picked up at Amazon for just under $100 .

What it’s good for

It’s great for getting your folders looking great. Psychologically, there is a big impact when the labels on your folders are not big scribbles. This helps your brain to process a bunch of folders at once and makes it easier to keep everything alphabetized. One of the major advantages with this over a large sheet of labels in your printer is that you can do labels one at a time, which makes it a lot easier to just label one folder.

Included Software

All in all, it takes about 30 seconds to create a label from the time you need a new folder label to the time you have one! The software works on both windows and mac and you can print from your office applications aswell. The labelwriter is also a great tool for creating the labels for all the letters you need to mail! For that, you may want the Twin Turbo to be able to print more than one type of label at a time.

Why It’s worth it

It’s hard to quantify a purchase like a labelwriter for $100 (or less). It doesn’t save you money immediately but it is another tool in your arsenal to make you more efficient and organized. Over the long run, you will spend fewer hours rummaging through your files for the one scrap of paper you need!

Popularity: 6% [?]