So, how does it work?  You can use their easy to use website interface to add text, images, shapes and more to your own business card layout.  When you are done – you have the option to print it or save it to print out in another program.  This is a very simple website idea that does one job and does it well.  You have the option of choosing either a round or rectangle layout (although, I have never seen too many round business cards). There are also a couple of templates you can use if your not sure what all you should include on your business card:

Makebadge.com will help you get a business card created, saved or printed in a flash.  I would highly recommend everybody go check out their website and try designing your own business card today.

Just load up the website and put your content into the top box.  Next, hit the button labeled "Ginger it".  Once you do, your text will be reviewed and then in the bottom half of the window, you’ll get your corrections.  While it isn’t perfect – it does do a pretty good job at finding spelling errors and suggesting fixes.

Here is a little more on why proofreading is so important, from the folks at Ginger:

Content is important, but the way it’s presented, its correctness and coherence, can significantly affect the way people judge it (and the way they judge you). In today’s world, it’s extremely important to write without mistakes. Making mistakes reflects badly on you, whether it’s a school paper you submit, a CV for a job application, or an email to a colleague. In order to avoid mistakes you should proofread the texts that you produce. Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation.

I found that the spellchecking is pretty good with this tool, but the grammar assistance could use some improvement.  If you want to try it out for yourself, head on over to the Ginger software website and give it a go.

OK, maybe I can not think of a real practical use for this off the top of my head, but I am sure there is one. Privnote acts as a free way to send top secret notes over the Internet.  You don’t have to register and you don’t need to use a password of any kind. 

Once you write your note out, you get a link to share it.  Once you pass that link along to a friend, that person can click the link to read the note. After they see the note, the message inside can never be pulled up again.  You can also have the option to know when or if your friend saw the note you sent them too.

It might be a little silly, but I am so in love with the absurd idea of self-destructing notes, I just had to share this with you.  Give them a shot at Privnote.com.

Pen.io boasts that they are the fastest way to publish online, period. It is true, you can create a beautiful text-based page in seconds and then share it with whomever you wish to share it with too.  Here is a quick example of what the pages look like:

As you can see, they keep things very simple and lightweight.  Now, I wouldn’t say this would be the perfect way to publish an entire website – however it is handy if you want to share something you have written online – but don’t want to go through all the trouble of finding a fancy place to host it.  Just write it up, publish and share the link.  It really is super simple to do.

If you want to claim your own pen.io page, head on over to their website.  If you publish anything with it, be sure to leave a link to it in the comments too!

Chances are there are a lot of people out there using Steam right now.  For the rest of you though, you might not know that Steam is a place where you can purchase games on the Web, and then download them via their special desktop client.  The idea here is to eliminate the need of keeping up with game disks and clutter – and it works, as long as you have an internet connection that is fast enough. 

After taking a look at the EA Store Digital Downloads, I was asked by several people to give Steam a shot too – because some say it might even deliver a better experience.  There is a wider selection of games on Steam, but I can’t recommend one over the other.  I think both services are worth checking out.

The process of buying a game through Steam is pretty easy.  You find a game you like, you then purchase the game, you download their client to download the game, and then you can download and install the game.  The Steam desktop application serves as a way to manage the games you have downloaded as well as another gateway into the store interface.

The big thing to love about Steam is they are always putting out great deals or discounts on games or game bundles.  A few week back, I bought both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 for around $10.

Now, I might still rather have the game disk, but as services like Steam get more popular I have faith that I am not tossing money out the window, and if anything bad happens – I can still re-download the games I have paid for.  You too can give Steam a shot (they now support both Mac and Windows) at SteamPowered.com.

Now that our marketing month here on Mitchelaneous is close to an end, I bet you are wondering, "How am I suppose to remember when to do all of this stuff?".  Well, I think the best route you should take is to create yourself a marketing to-do list calendar – so that this way you can always know what to do today to improve your blog, your brand or your business.

Now first, we have to find you a calendar.  You could use a traditional paper calendar, and just jot your notes down on it.  Then again, we live in a digital age, so let us turn towards some of the online calendar services.

Online Calendar Suggestions

Here are two of my personal favorites:

• Google Calendar
• 30 Boxes

Both of these great online applications will let you setup reminders and notes for yourself, so that you know what to do on each day of the month. Now, how do you break down the things you need to do? You can get as complex as needed, but here are a few guidelines to help you get started.

Daily Marketing Goals

Look at simple things you can do to help improve the big picture.  This might be as simple as contacting a new partner to see if you can get a deal going, or maybe spell checking one page a day.

Weekly Marketing Goals

For your weekly goals, look at tasks that might take longer to get done.  Mark down events that could take two or three days, such as a new website launch or a possible landing page redesign.  Set a goal for yourself here, but remember to keep it as flexible as you need.

Monthly Marketing Goals

Your monthly goals should be more in sync with "big picture" goals.  Did you sell more or less things that you did the month before?  What about comparing your stats this month to your stats a year ago to see how you stack up.  Give yourself a big monthly goal to work towards – that can be made up of your daily and weekly goals.

It might take a few months to work out, but once you find the right marketing schedule for yourself – you will find you are becoming more productive because you have that list of things to check off for the day, the week and the month ahead. 

So we know the Pirates in Fat Princess dance a little jig, and do say, “Arr!” in a really cute way. How do you really play at the Fat Princess pirate?  Hopefully, this guide will help you out in that department.

As with the giants and the ninjas; to play as the pirate, you must pick up the special purple hat from inside your base or from within the base of the opposing team.  When you hit triangle, on your controller, you can keep rotating till you see your Fat Princess character dressed in his finest pirate costume.  The pirate class has six hearts for health and moves at a medium pace.  You might not get to upgrade this class, but you do get to send a cannon ball flying down from the sky onto whatever or whomever you target.

Attacking with the Pirate’s Sword – The pirate class’s sword is kind of like the warrior’s basic sword.  As you double tap on the attack button, you will hack and slash in close combat.  However, you might elect to use the Pirate’s charged hand gun attack more times than not.  The Cutlass sword is really only for close combat emergencies.

Attacking with the Pirate’s Hand Gun – The hand gun (or Flintlock, or pistol) is your charged attack option as the pirate.  If you hold down the attack button, you can charge the shot up.  Then just target somebody on the other team and take aim.  It is quick to recharge, however is not as accurate as other ranged weapons or attacks in the game.

Make Them Walk the Plank

The best part about playing as a pirate is using the pirate’s special move.  The cannon barrage is the special attack for the pirate class.  When you hit triangle (after your special meter has fully charged) you can select where the cannon ball will come crashing down at.  The damage done to other players is around three to four hearts – so this attack is a very powerful one if you learn how to do it right (which really just takes practice and aim).

More Pirate Class Tips and Tricks

Still lost?  Here are a few more Fat Princess pirate tips that should help you along in the game.

• Right before the pirate launches his special attack (cannon barrage) you can hear him yell, “ARRRRG!”.  This is your clue to get the heck away from any pirates you see near.
• There are several pirate versus ninja PS3 trophies to get, if you really want to master your pirating techniques.  Annihilate 20 ninjas, kill 200 enemies as a pirate, obliterate 100 enemies with the Pirate’s cannon balls.
• Make sure when you attack with the pirate’s special move you don’t accidently take out your own teammates.  I’ve seen a number of games where an accidental cannon ball has become as commonplace as an accidental bomb or chicken potion.

I hope that helps you out the next time you decide to play a game of Fat Princess.  The pirates are really fun to play as in the land of Titania.  The cannon barrage makes them really handy at keeping the enemies doors down, when you are in a pinch, too.  Have any more tips to share?  Make sure to leave them in the comments!

Looking for a simple and shareable notepad on the Web?

Wrttn hopes to the the Web 2.0 service you have been looking for.  It has to be the most straight forward online notepad I have seen, but still brings home several features that make it really useful.

For example, if you don’t have your own place to blog about something you feel passionate about, you could write it on Wrttn and then share it with the world.

You can also easily embed YouTube, Flickr, and Vimeo content into your notes you create with this tool too.  Want to make things a little more stylish looking?  Drop in some custom CSS code by clicking the Options link, from the main page.

In what ways can you write your content up? Well, you can use markdown, textile,  plain text or html.  The choice is up to you.  To learn more about Wrttn.me, make sure you go check out the website.  If you find it handy, be sure to list some of your creations in the comments.

The widget is pretty simple.  From the drop down menu, you can select to do one of these six Mad Libs.

• Diva Girl
• Cool
• Pirates
• Family Tree
• Operation
• Upside Down

Then you go though filling out the nouns, adjectives and more till you are ready to read your wacky, mixed up story. Try it out here:

Want to add this widget to your own website?  You can pick it up on MadLibs.com. Also, if you know of a better online Mad Lib tool or resource, leave a link in the comments.

Ever wonder if there was a search engine devoted to just searching Twitter images? Oh there is – and its name is Twtimage.  This website is a Twitter photo search engine.  It will fetch search results from twitpic, tweetphoto, img.ly and yfrog.com.  So, how does it work and is it worth your time?

Well, to start things out we navigate ourselves to the website, and type in a search term. I am going to type in HostingCon 2010, since that happened last week.  I am sure somebody had pictures of that, right?

Darn it.  Ok, how about we go with that other big convention, ComicCon?  Whoo hoo, we have results…

When you click on one of the thumbnailed images in the search results, you are taken to the main page for that image on whatever service it was fetched from.

While it might not be perfect yet – I would definitely say to keep an eye on twtimage.com as I am sure it will only get better from here.