MindMeister.com – With mobile, offline and online mind mapping tools, this brain storming tool is perfect to mind map with, no matter where you need to do it from.

XMind.net – XMind is the self proclaimed coolest brain storming and mind mapping software package out there.  It does provide a great way to share ideas, and comes in both free and paid for versions.

Mindomo.com – Mindomo lets you organize your ideas, solve everyday problems, plan and track projects, manage tasks and define goals.  One of the better mind mapping tools, and worth the price.

Web.DropMind.com – Collaborate, and share your ideas with others.  This unique mind mapping tool is a little more affordable than the others. You can create FREE mind mapping account in 40 seconds, to test it out too!

Know of any more mind mapping tools, either free or premium, that are worth checking out?  Be sure to leave them in the comments so we can all check them out!

Using what they promise to be an optimized platform for enhanced performance and reliability, OnlyWire looks like it has all the bases covered.  You can submit your web site instantly to places such as:  ask, bibsonomy, blinklist, bluedot, bookmarksync, connotea, delicious, diigo, facebook, furl, googlebookmarks,  jumptags, linkatopia, multiply, mywebyahoo, newsvine, simpy, spurl, technorati, and twitter.

You can also use the limited service for free, or pay for more features:

• “Pay” version — use fully-supported OnlyWire “ad free” by paying $2.99 per month or prepaying for 1 year ($24.99) and saving 30%. Pay customers are encouraged to embed
  the Bookmark & Share Button on your website to drive traffic and backlinks. You will also have the option to turn off OnlyWire advertisements.
• “Promote” version — use fully-supported OnlyWire for FREE by adding the Bookmark & Share Button to your website or blog. You still enjoy the same functionality as the “Pay” version of OnlyWire, but promote the continued operation of the site through advertising.

Another interesting service they provide in an API to work with, to help you get yourself submitted to a number of different places automatically.

All in all, it is another alternative out there to some of the other “there can be only one” bookmark or link sharing sites out there.  If you are looking to auto-submit your bookmarks, give OnlyWire a shot.

RescueTime – It is a web-based time management and analytic tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

FreshBooks – One of the best tools to easily and quickly track your time and invoice your clients.

Cashboard – Time tracking, invoicing, estimates, and online payments done your way. Cashboard does it all, and does it for free.

Motismo – a simple time tracking solution for creative professionals.

LiveTimer – This is a flexible and easy to use online time tracking service. It can be used by anyone on the Internet to track time for billing purposes or to improve accountability and productivity.

TrackMyPeople -This system is entirely web based meaning you can access your teams data everywhere in the world allowing you to easily track your employees time spent on a project or just analyze a graph for optimization.

Torch – This application allows you to communicate simply with your colleagues, clients and suppliers.

FreeTimeManager – FreeTime was conceived and developed by a team of designers who were looking for a simple yet logical real-time management solution.

BubbleTimer – A personal time management solution that helps you spend your time on what’s most important to you.

If you are looking for more time saving solutions, be sure to check out the previous list of ten application to help you get more time back.

With Scrumy, all you do is point your browser towards scrumy.com/ and then after the / type in any name you want.  For each job you might need to get done, add a new story.  Then you can add the tasks for that job under the “To Do” list.  In addition to the “To Do” list you also have sections for work in progress, that are verified, and that are done.  As the work progresses, you can drag and drop to do list items to other boxes.  The process is simple, yet very effective for organizing your team’s ideas and tracking the progress.

The service is totally free, but if you want a few more features – I suggest you shell out for Scrumy Pro.  With Scrumy Pro, you can password protect your project. You get the Dashboard to help you manage multiple sprints. You get Burndown Charts to help you schedule. You can rename your project at any time. Your project will never be deleted for inactivity. Ever.

If you need help organizing your next big project, give Scrumy a shot.

1. Firefox
   It has been my Web browser for year, and unless they do something extremely crazy – don’t think I’ll be moving away for one of the other browsers anytime soon.
2. NoteTab Pro
   NoteTab Pro is another program I have been using forever and have never found anything better. Three reasons I love it are: basic text editing, spell checker and word count. If your a text editor without those three don’t bother me.
3. WinRAR
   Out of all the zipping and un-zipping tools out there, I think WinRAR does the best job and stays out of my way unless I need it. Good stuff all around.
4. VLC Media Player
   I mainly have this one loaded up to play all the wacky video downloaded from the Web that doesn’t play right in your standard video players.
5. CoreFTP Lite
   I am not deeply in love with this FTP client – but it does the job without choking much. If I could find a better client – I’d probably use it instead. Alternatives welcome!
6. Audacity
   A must have for any podcast that is working with a $3 budget. Totally free and easy to use even for a beginner in the audio editing arena.
7. CDBurnerXP Pro 3
   Toss out your old CD burning software because you no longer need it. CDBurnerXP Pro 3 does for free what some of the other burning packages can’t even get done for $50 or more.
8. XNeat Windows Manager
   This is one I just ran across not too long ago. It allows you to hide things on your taskbar, send anything to the tray, show and hide windows, and a heck of a lot more.
9. Foxit Reader
   Adobe can bite my Web hosting butt. Foxit Reader gives me a PDF reader that doesn’t ask to update itself every five minutes with crap I don’t need. Thank you Foxit!
10. OpenOffice.org
    Anybody who says you can’t live day to day inside of Open Office is wrong. For me, at least – it does what it needs to do when I need it to do something. Usually I only use it for editing and creating invoices though so maybe I’m not the spokesperson they are looking for.

What about you? What do you think of these suggestions – or can you suggest a replacement for one? Let me know and make sure to leave some links for them as well.

Want the good news? Yahoo is going to give us unlimited E-mail storage soon. The bad news? If you haven’t been seeing ads – you are about to get them back – even if you have been paying for your E-mail service! I have enjoyed the perks of having the “paid” version of Yahoo Mail since I am a AT&T DSL customer. When I moved over to DSL I signed up with SBC Yahoo! DSL. One of the perks I liked the most was that there were no ads on the E-mail application.

Here is a copy of the E-mail I got from Yahoo:

Dear AT&T Yahoo! Member:

AT&T and Yahoo! have a history of providing our members with award-winning, industry-leading Internet products and services at a great value.

As more members are using AT&T Yahoo! Mail to send and receive photos, videos, and music, we will begin offering unlimited email storage in May to both existing and new members. Your service will continue to include all the premium products you already enjoy including video, LAUNCHcast Plus, and an all-in-one security suite.

Additionally, within the next few weeks you will begin seeing graphical advertisements in your AT&T Yahoo! Mail service. These advertisements will be integrated into the AT&T Yahoo! Mail experience, and we hope you will find the advertisements useful. Advertising such as this allows us to continue delivering new and innovative elements to our service and helps us keep prices competitive, while we continue to provide the high level of service that you have come to know and trust.

We strive to provide you with the best online experience possible and to address all your needs on the Internet.

Sincerely,

AT&T Yahoo! Member Services

I love how they push the advertisements as an additional feature to look forward to. Shame on you Yahoo!

I would like to say the folks at Web Hosting Talk are pretty darn bonkers, but they have people actually paying for it. I can’t blame them because if people were willing to give me money for the same thing – I might have to do it. Do Web hosting people really have that much money to burn? People there are other Web hosting forums out there! Need a list of them?

Go check out HostingHoopla.com!

Come on, give me some feedback – are people really that desperate for a t-shirt or are they just not aware that there are better hosting forums out there? Is Web Hosting Talk desperate for money?

I know they have been resold on a few occasions but they seem popular – why do they need to stick it to their members without giving much more of a perk than just a free t-shirt?

This afternoon I signed up with Review Me, and in turn I am going to be getting paid $30 once this post is posted and done with. With that said, if you go through the Web site and want me to write about something it will only cost you $30 as well (looks like they bumped me up to $60). Not too bad of a price, I must say. Some people are getting up to $250 – but I don’t know who is going to really pay that much for one post. I probably could have had a higher number, but since the domain name switch a few months ago I have been building link popularity all over again.

The idea behind Review Me is simple, you sign up and they judge how much you are worth by popularity. Once that is done and you get in, advertisers will come to you and ask you to write about them. Now you do not have to post a positive review but you do have to disclose somewhere that you are doing paid posts. I think this is a nice balance and should keep the ego bloggers at bay for now.

I am looking at this as more than just another way to get some cash. That is nice and all, but I sometimes really need to find a good muse. Interesting ideas are not that easy to find so if I have people feeding me ideas and offering to pay me to write it, that is every real writer’s dream come true.