Web Sites We Care About
What their site is about: Cocoa Nuts owns and operates their own book printing and bindery facility. They are also the publisher of the Old Fart's Guide series of books for the over fifty years young.
Why we like them: This is another web site we own
What their site is about: A column about everything related to portable computing. Nobody knows more about issues surrounding the PowerBook than Charles Moore. His insight is keen and his words articulate. When a computer is placed in a totable form, it has the ability to change your lifestyle. Charles is truly a "Road Warrior."
Why we like them: Charles Moore provided the introduction to our "Old Fart's Guide to the Macintosh."
What their site is about: Makers of software for grade school children aptly titled "Blocks." Legos are a great creative outlet, but you can only admire your creation for a day or two before having to tear it apart. With "Blocks," children have access to an easy to use three-dimensional drawing tool. They can combine shapes to make practically anything their imagination warrants, then look at it from any camera angle, take a picture and print it! Of course they can save their work, paint it different colors, and even reuse boats, planes, people, etc. that they created from lego-like pieces. It is truly an unlimited bag of legos at your command, and at $30, a true bargain.
Why we like them: Jonathan Blocksom, the mastermind of "Blocks," is an acquaintance of ours. We often find ourselves at "WAP Garage Sales." This is a place where Apple Computer enthusiasts meet to swap hardware and software twice a year. We have also collaborated on book printing projects.
What their site is about: Guy Kawasaki is a beloved icon in the Macintosh community. He was instrumental in developing a "community" culture surrounding Apple's products in the early years and was the first successful techno logical evangelist. Today he is the CEO of Garage.com, a venture capital company who helps develop small startup companies in California.
Why we like them: Guy graciously delivered the foreword for the "Old Fart's Guide to the Macintosh."
What their site is about: Hunt and Harvest website allows home buyers and sellers to rapidly screen a wide range of real estate professionals based on their qualifications while interactively negotiating the commission fee. By leveraging its patent-pending reverse auction platform, the company provides agents with exclusive, targeted and qualified leads, while allowing consumers to anonymously maintain control of the process.
Why we like them: The CEO of this company, Jitin Ahuja, is a close friend of mine that I've known since the 4th grade of Elementary school. He has developed a very useful site for the real estate community.
What their site is about: DARCS - "David's Advanced Revision Control System" - is a type of database for programmers. It allows them to keep track of the iterative progress they make on a daily basis. Useful for programming teams of one to many people. DARCS is easy to use, easy to learn, and very flexible. The brainchild of David Roundy, a physicist and author of an online Bridge game (card game).
Why we like them: When evaluating version control systems, we wanted to see if there was any positive alternatives to the "tried and true" CVS. "Subversion" immediately came to mind, but after some research and experimentation, we found DARCS fit our needs best. Besides being easy to use, it is a distributed system. In a nutshell, distributed source control systems make it easy for you to work in a "mini-source control" environment and later check in your changes to a central repository.
What their site is about: A wonderful resource for anyone who drives a Chevy S-10 pickup truck, or any of its brethren. This includes the Isuzu Hombre, Chevy Blazer, GMC Jimmy, and Oldsmobile Bravada. Many photos and great in-depth explanations abound.
Why we like them: Site contains wonderful walkthroughs on how to replace the CPI/Nut kit of your engine.
What their site is about: A type of online yellow pages. "Respond" has three main ways to find business services. 1) yellow pages directory - given a type of business and geographical location, lists various businesses in that area. 2) automatic matching - By filling out a request form which acts useful questions for a particular type of service, Respond will match you to several candidates in your geographical area. 3) referral - Respond has a mechanism for viewing what others have said about a particular business.
Why we like them: Nice and easy way to scope out additional quotes when you need to hire someone for a project.
What their site is about: Talking to a generation that remembers what the world was like before there was color, Nancy Carroll Gravley covers issues for people who don't care how their computer works, but rather what their computer and the internet can do for them. Nancy has a Master's degree in Human Services Administration and prior to her retirement she worked for almost 30 years in field of mental health and mental retardation. She has been a Mac user for 11 years, and has recently developed an avocation of teaching basic computer skills in both group and one-to-one settings.
Why we like them: Nancy read and wrote stellar reviews of our Old Fart's Guide series of books.
What their site is about: The ultimate online resource for the do-it-yourselfer auto mechanic. This online forum is immense and covers a wide range of makes and models.
Why we like them: The Chevy Blazer subforum of this site is fantastic. We have personally benefited immensely from this resource and have been fairly active ourselves. We learned how to replace the ignition switch, EGR valve, and many other items.
What their site is about: In the very early days of the Internet, Brian Pinkerton had the foresight to create a robotic tool to index the World Wide Web. He created "WebCrawler," the first practical search engine. In his day, people questioned the utility of robotically sifted links versus hand picked lists of choice sites. Some even thought a web spider would put too big a strain on web servers. Thanks to Brian and his NeXT box, he changed the way we searched for information and in so doing, legitimized the World Wide Web. This is his site.
Why we like them: Brian wrote the foreword for our "Old Fart's Guide to Internet Searches."
What their site is about: A visionary software vendor from the dawn of time (1989). Their main application is "Create" which is an illustration package that fills the same niche as Adobe Illustrator. But Create is broad in scope and can be considered a page layout package as well. At $150 it is a bargain. With Stone Design's "Free Upgrades For Life" policy, it is revolutionary.
Why we like them: Andrew Stone is a great guy who has served the NeXT community (now Apple) for as long as anyone can remember.
What their site is about: TEOCO stands for "The Employee Owned Company." They are an up and coming business based out of Virginia with a heavy leaning towards telecom software solutions. Their major offering is "BillTrak Pro."
Why we like them: The CEO of this company is a man named Atul Jain. He believes in the practice of "principled entrepreneurship." This means only doing business where both the buyer and the seller win. If a deal is not mutually beneficial, it should never go into action. He is also an accomplished Bridge player.
What their site is about: A memorial to a great company who produced "TIFFany," which is in every way the equal of, if not better than, Adobe Photoshop. They also produced "PixelNHance" which is a nifty little image enhancement application.
Why we like them: Their software is still available and it is very good.
What their site is about: A broad and unique community with much technical merit which appeals to a wide range of interests. Spymac is a user group for people who use computers. It is also a meeting place where artists come to exchange images and compete in fun creative contests. Their forums thrive with diverse activity. They also enlist many talented writers to keep us abreast of current events. Membership is free and includes 1 gigabyte of Email storage with one of the nicest online Email readers available. For $40 a year, you get 3 gigabytes of Email storage and a large array of additional online tools. Spymac is immense and intense.
Why we like them: We get lots of great desktop pictures and inspiration here.
What their site is about: Apparent Motion is the name of a software development company in California. They use their WebObjects expertise to create data-driven web sites for other companies. They also create software for personal computers. The most notable of which is their free MetronomeX software to help musicians keep their rhythm.
Why we like them: We have adapted their WOPayPal framework for use on some of our web sites. Travis Cripps, the lead fiddle at Apparent Motion, is sharp as a tack and a pleasure to communicate with.
What their site is about: iDevGames is dedicated to educating aspiring software developers in how to write games for the Macintosh. They house numerous tuturials and forums for all aspects of game development. They also hold a yearly contest with cash prizes called "uDevGames."
Why we like them: Carlos Camacho, the driving force behind iDevGames, truely believes in the redeeming qualities of both playing and writing games. He selflessly pushes his dreams forward and every year makes big strides. You have to admire that.
What their site is about: Lim Chee Aun has created a great resource site for pushing the limits of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). His experiments utilize the best that "open standards compliant" browsers have to offer, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is not amongst them.
Why we like them: We followed Lim's example on our "Jewelry Luv" web site. He explores a great way to display thumbnail images. We modified his technique slightly to get imperfect, though acceptable, performance on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.
What their site is about: A news and information site of a different variety. At times clever, often silly, but always honest and insightful. You can count on "2 Guys" to inform and entertain. Besides, where else can you find a pajama pants rating system?
Why we like them: They rated our "Old Fart's Guide to Internet Searches" five-out-of-five pants, their highest honor.
What their site is about: P & L Software is based in the United Kingdom. They provide WebObjects development services and one of a kind WebObjects training courses. They are also the producers of Mesa, a fully functional and cost effective spreadsheet for the Macintosh. At only $34, it is quite a bargain and does far more than what most people need.
Why we like them: Paul Lynch is the head hauncho at P & L Software. Quite a mentor he is and a true WOFriend. Though geographically we may be far apart, he has proven more invaluable than anyone else in our neck of the woods as both a sounding board and a helping hand.