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Meet the 13 Companies that Came Out on Top at the "Launch" event.
Over the past two days, CEOs and co-founders took the stage, presented their product and then answered to a panel of judges. All the while, a “grand jury” of angels, founders and pundits (as well as ReadWriteWeb’s own Marshall Kirkpatrick) kept a running tally of the presenting companies to pass final judgment .
40 companies were initially chosen to present on stage and a number of other companies were picked by judges to come up from the “Launch Pad”. Now, 13 winners will be chosen with five coming from the “Launch 1.0” group, which consists of brand new companies, and five from the “Launch 2.0” group, which consists of existing companies introducing new products.
Here are the winners:
- Most Likely to Be Acquired in the Next 100 Days: Shoefitr
- Best Design (Launch Pad): Pen.io
- Best Technology (Launch Pad): Fluid Info
- Best Business (Launch Pad): Gripe Line
- Best Overall (Launch Pad): Green Goose
- Best Technology (Launch 2.0): Disconnect
- Best Design (Launch 2.0): Hipmunk
- Best Overall (Launch 2.0): Stack Overflow
- Best Presentation (Launch 1.0): LifeProof Cases
- Best Business Model (Launch 1.0): Volta
- Best Design (Launch 1.0): Cabana
- Best Technology (Launch 1.0): NeuAer
- Best Overall (Launch 1.0): Room 77
Beyond awards, it was also announced that Green Goose closed a $500k round and more than a dozen deals were signed over the past two days.
While the grand jury may have spoken, there’s one award we have to give away ourselves: the best presentation at a conference ever. Meet Domo.
via readwriteweb.comAn interesting view into the future…
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Burnout is Beautiful | zen habits
Burnout is Beautiful
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Melissa Gorzelanczyk of Peace & Projects.
Everyone experiences burnout.
Maybe you feel overworked, sick of your marriage or stressed about money. Maybe you’re living a daily cliché: one step forward, two steps back. Life can be tricky like that.
Believe it or not, burnout can be a beautiful thing. Instead of surrendering to burnout, what if you could use it to transform your life? Just like the story of the Phoenix, what if burnout was a chance for rebirth?
Four years ago I was overworked, stressed and a bit burned out. Now, I’m in a much different place. Here’s what I’ve done since 2007 to help redefine my life.
- Quit smoking for good (after failing more than eight times)
- Eliminated over $42,000 in debt.
- Convinced my employer to let me work from home two days a week.
- Stuck to a budget so we could live on one income which allowed me to …
- Quit my day job.
- Started to eat right and exercise.
- Ended my relationship with stuff.
- Wrote a novel in a month.
- Defined myself as a hybrid homemaker. Now, I am home when my step kids return from school. I’ve also kept my professional identity through freelance writing.
- Showed others how to live the same way in my first ebook, The Hybrid Homemaker.
None of this would have been possible without burnout. If I hadn’t reached a point where I felt exhausted, beaten down, burned out … I never would have come up from the ashes.
I’m here to show you how you can rise from the ashes, too. If your path in life feels crooked, you can turn around and take one step forward. That’s the beauty of this story. If I can do it, so can you.
Burnout is beautiful. It gives you the chance to:
Imagine.
I never thought we could live on one income until I imagined a life without debt. Really? People lived on one income? “What if,” I thought and the rest is history. Burnout led me to imagine a life where I didn’t have to work to support the family. That changed everything. What could your life look like? If you’re unhappy at work, there is another way to make money. Start imagining it. Even a simple internet search can help. If you are crushed by debt, there is a way to change that. Imagine your life without limits. Someone else is already living your dream life – start wondering, “How did they do that?”
Become the artist.
The desire to change starts with you. Once you feel it, use that passion to experiment and try new things. Become the artist – life is the masterpiece. To get healthy, you might challenge yourself to 10 minutes of exercise each morning. Looking to transform your diet? Eat like Leo. Take a stand against debt by cutting up your credit cards. Burnout brings strong emotions like anger, fear, jealousy and sadness. Use those feelings to light your creativity on fire. Keep mixing it up with new ideas and projects.
Set people free.
Don’t expect your employer to relieve stress at work. Don’t expect your lover to make you happy. Your burnout is not their responsibility. Give yourself permission to do all the work. Setting people free from your expectations will put you back in control. You can be burnout’s victim or victor. Find one reason to do something, not a million reasons to quit. Now, no one stands in your way.
Focus on tiny movements.
That’s all it takes to change your life. If you want to quit smoking, you can stop putting a cigarette in your mouth and lighting the end. Once you master the way you move, you can do anything. You can decide to write instead of go out to lunch. You can put away the beer and go to bed early. You can feel your feet on the ground for a run. Movements, no matter how small, shape your entire life. How you go through the motions is up to you. Ask yourself today: Is the way I move beautiful? Or destructive?
Start over.
Change can be slow, but it has to start somewhere. For me, burnout became beautiful when I fed new ideas to my broken spirit. Inspiration was everywhere once I wanted to look. Sites like The Happiness Project and Zen Habits gave me courage to begin a new life.
I know now: Burnout is just the beginning. It might feel awful at times. If it didn’t, how would you know when to try something new? Let your imagination fly. Learn what lights up your world before burnout defines it. Ask yourself for help first. Then, start with tiny movements. Tiny actions. Like building a new foundation, brick by brick, you can create something strong and beautiful.
Read more from Melissa at her blog, Peace & Projects, or follow her on Twitter.
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10 Completely Free Wireframing and Mockup Tools | Speckyboy Design Magazine
10 Completely Free Wireframing and Mockup Tools
February 23, 2011 – 9 CommentsWritten by Paul AndrewThe wireframing process is the straight-to-the-point and completely non-tech stage of any web project. It only requires that you define a skeletal outline of essential page elements such as headers, footers, navigation and content area and should illustrate how to cater and respond to any possible interaction from a user.
It is the most important, yet underused, stage of any web or apps development.There are several avenues you could take for sketching a wireframe, most notably pen and paper (the easiest and most cost effective way), but for the sake of this article we have focused on apps that are not only highly effective and easy to use, they are also completely free.
We have covered free wireframe apps before (here), but a year is a long time in web development – some of the apps we had previously covered are either no longer completely free or are no longer available. And as such, we felt that we should compile a new list with more detail and covering all areas of design including web pages, mobile apps and application dev.
As well as showcasing a variety of free apps (11 in total), at the bottom of the post, we have also highlighted some premium wireframing services that do offer free, yet limited, options. You may like to try them.You may also like…
A Collection of Useful Web Design Wireframing Resources →
Printable Web Browser Sketching and Wireframe Templates →
Illustrator Template Toolbox for Web, Mobile and App Developers →
20 Free Web UI Element Kits and Stencils →
An Introduction to HTML Prototyping →Please note that all of these apps have been confirmed as completely free on this articles publishing date.Lumzy – Quick Mockup Creation and Prototyping Tool
With Lumzy, you can create mockups of how your site or application will function by adding events from the extensive list of controls on offer. As well as having great tools for creating your mockup, you can also create Message Alerts, interactive Page Navigation, add Links to external content, and much more. It does offer a great set collaboration tools for live team editing and a chat engine for deliberating over designs. All of this and it is absolutely FREE.
Lumzy Homepage →View Editor →Lumzy Editor Screenshot
Mockup Builder – A Killing Prototyping App
Mockup Builder has just recenly been released and looks very promising. It is feature-rich and versatile by allowing you create various prototyping styles, including: UI mockups, interactive wireframes, website layouts, desktop software prototypes and even sitemaps & screen navigation.
Of course, it does come with great collaboration tools for sharing with clients and colleagues. And yes, it is completely FREE.
Mockup Builder Homepage →View Editor →Mockup Builder Editor Screenshot
Tiggr – Creating Prototypes Collaboratively
The idea behind Tiggr (currently in beta) is to give you the resources needed to create prototypes (for web, app or mobile) that look and feel like the final product. It allows you to design from a large number of components, share (via email, Twitter or Facebook), you can collaborate with any number of users and will generate an HTML/JS/CSS so that you can preview your UI mockups very quickly. A 10 second registration (email & password) is the only thing you have to go through to use this fantastic FREE tool.
Tiggr Homepage →Tiggr Editor Screenshot
Frame Box – Lightweight Online Tool for Creating Mockups
Frame Box does not have an extensive list of features (like the web based apps above). You can drag and drop, re-size and copy/paste the UI units, but its main focus, and why we like it so much, is that it allows you to create your mockup/prototype very, very quickly by using its very easy to use drag and drop interface. Again, this app is FREE and only requires a quick registration.
Frame Box Homepage →SimpleDiagrams Free Edition (Adobe Air App)
SimpleDiagrams (free version) is a tiny Adobe Air app that helps you express your design ideas quickly and simply. Drag & drop symbols from its libraries, add images or post-notes, export as a PNG are all of its features, adding up to just just enough functionality to create a decent mockup.
SimpleDiagrams Homepage →iPhone Mockup
With iPhone Mockup you have a choice of using either the Pencil styled editor (screenshot above) or the Illustration editor (screenshot below). Whichever editor you decide to use, the functionality remains the same: Its a very simple and easy to use app that allows you to create your own iPhone mockups very quickly, share them with other people at the click of a button, and any changes you make will by synced to everyone who has the mockup’s URL.
iPhone Mockup Homepage →Illustration Editor →Pencil Editor →iPhone Mockup Editor Screenshot
fluidIA
fluidIA is a downloadable web based design tool for prototyping rich user interfaces. It allows for rapid refinement and exploration of concepts using an object-oriented approach to design. The original idea behind fluidIA is to discover whether a group of interaction designers, IA’s, UX professionals and developers can create there own prototyping tool in an open way. Progress on FluidIA has been a little bit slow recently, but the actual app works perfectly for designing a wireframe mockup.
fluidIA Homepage →Fluidia (GitHub) →fluidIA Editor Screenshot
Pencil Project (Firefox Extension)
Pencil Project is a free and opensource Firefox addon for designing GUI prototypes. With its built-in stencils you can create linked multi-page UI documents and finally export your mockup in either HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org document, Word document or PDF. What more would you want from a wireframing app? This truly is an essential Firefox extension that any serious developer or designer should use.
Pencil Project Homepage →Screenshots →Pencil Project Editor Screenshot
CogTool – General Purpose UI Prototyping Tool (Standalone Application for Win & Mac)
CogTool is a FREE and powerful general purpose UI prototyping tool with a difference – it automatically evaluates your design with a predictive human performance model (a “cognitive crash dummy”). You simply create a storyboard of your design idea with sketches, images or on a canvas with CogTool’s widgets, demonstrate tasks on that storyboard, then press a button to produce a valid cognitive model predicting how long it will take a skilled user to complete those tasks. CogTool offers a lot of support via its extensive user guides, step-by-step tutorials (video and articles), its forum and also offers example files to help you get started.
CogTool Homepage →Prototype Composer (Community Edition)
Prototype Composer makes it possible to simulate how an application will look and function before any code is ever written. Instead of endless text entries, complex data hierarchies, or too technical UML diagrams, Serena Prototype Composer makes it easy for business users and business analysts to collaborate on requirements by building simple, high fidelity prototypes that simulate a working application. It is a tool for prototyping data, processes, activities and most importantly, user interfaces. The application also works as a fairly easy to use Project Management tool.
The Community Edition is its free version which allows users to work in a sample project as well as in one user-defined project.
Prototype Composer Homepage →DUB – DENIM (Standalone Application for Win, Linux & Mac)
DENIM is a free desktop application that is available for Windows, Unix, and Mac OS X. DENIM describes itself as “an Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design”.
It combines many of the benefits of paper-based sketching with existing electronic prototyping tools. It allows designers to quickly sketch an interface, preserving the important properties of pencil and paper: a rough drawing can be produced quickly and the medium is flexible. However, unlike a paper sketch, this electronic sketch is interactive and can easily be annotated and modified.
DUB – DENIM Homepage →Premium Wireframe/Prototype Apps with a Free Option Available
All of the Wireframe/Prototype/Mockup web-based applications below are premium services that do offer a free, yet limited, option. You may like to try them:MockFlow: Online Wireframe Tool
Gliffy – Online Diagram Software and Flowchart Software
Naview – Create Easier Navigations Through Prototyping and Testing
iPlotz – Wireframing, Mockups and Prototyping
Creately – Collaborative Online Diagram Software
FlairBuilder – Wireframes. Mockups. Prototypes
Cacoo – Create Diagrams Online
Mockabilly – iPhone app mockup
You may also like…
An Introduction to HTML Prototyping →
A Collection of Useful Web Design Wireframing Resources →
A Collection of Printable Web Browser Sketching and Wireframe Templates →
15 Javascript Web UI Libraries, Frameworks and Toolkits →
25 UI Inspiration and Design Pattern Resources →
50 Essential Web Typography Tutorials, Tips, Guides and Best Practices →
25 Free Pictogram and Symbols Sign Icon Sets →
Illustrator Template Toolbox for Web, Mobile and App Developers →
20 Free Web UI Element Kits and Stencils →About the Author: Paul Andrew (662 Articles)
9 Comments (Leave yours)
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Tim says:
Awesome list! And timely, as I was just about to embark upon a new mockup. So… which one is the best?
Very nice list, yet my favorite: Mocking Bird (which is not listed https://gomockingbird.com/)
John says:
Surprised that there’s no mention of my favorite – http://www.lucidchart.com. I’ve tried a number of the ones listed above and found Lucid Chart to be much better. A free plan is available.
Hey, thanks so much for mentioning FlairBuilder.
We recently launched a new version of our website and are working on a very cool update. So check it out! 🙂
Thanks,
CristianSusann says:
Cool list!
Don´t forget http://gomockingbird.com/ and http://hotgloo.com in your list. They also offer a Free Plan.My favorite is Axure.
Shameless plug: For something a bit different have a look at http://www.wirify.com/ – it lets you turn any web page into a wireframe in one click.
Nice to get the list on right time..
Thanks a lotHey Paul,
Thanks for the list. I know it’s hard to capture all tools, it’s nearly impossible, that’s why I’d like to add HotGloo to the list.
Suitable for all web workers looking for a web-based solution, who want to speed up the process and work collaboratively on their interactive wireframes.
Come and say hi, try the 30day free trial and see if HotGloo is the right tool for you.
Wolf Becvar
@HotGloofederico says:
What about Balsamiq Mockups. Excellent freemium app. Constant improvements from the dveloper and an active community behind it (mockupstogo.net)
Great article btw!!via speckyboy.com -
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Popping The Balloon Of Market Research
Is market research just a bunch of baloney? Philip Graves is going to make a lot of people angry for even asking that question, but ask he does, and the answer more often than not is yes in his new book, “Consumer.Ology: The Market Research Myth, the Truth about Consumers and the Psychology of Shopping.”
tag to
via cmo.comThought-provoking.
Sentience and Intelligence Research 