Article • December 19, 2011

Buy a Gift Card For Anywhere You Want

Create gift cards for any business with GiftRocket

Option 1: Give cash.
Option 2: Give a gift card to some generic gift card-type place.
Option 3: Start shopping much earlier next year.

Or do none of the above and use GiftRocket, a nifty little service that disguises your cash as a gift card good at the business of your choosing.

So instead of sending your sister a $50 bill (or a $50 gift card to Applebee’s) you can choose a business you know she loves and buy her an e-certificate there in the amount of your choosing.

When she’s ready to redeem it, GiftRocket will transmit the amount via PayPal, electronic bank transfer, or old-fashioned paper check.

Of course there’s no telling what she does with the money after that. But at least you know she’ll like what she gets.

Visit GiftRocket


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Article • July 20, 2010

Purchase One-of-a-Kind Home Decor

CustomMade is a marketplace for custom made home decor items

Interior decorating can be hard. While Crate & Barrel is easy enough, it lacks for originality.

For those in search of unique designs, there’s CustomMade, a marketplace that presents hundreds of talented artisans specializing in, well, custom made home furnishings.

If you’re looking for a specific piece of furniture or item, simply click “Find Artisans” and browse the categories. Almost everything you’d ever need is covered, from lighting to cabinetry to metal work to completely built homes.

You can also search by location, if you’re looking to hire someone in your area.

If your project is large or still happens to fall outside of any of the categories listed, fret not. An in-house interior designer is available to match you up with the right artisans for the project.

Think of it as really good design that happens to be within reach.

Visit CustomMade


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Article • July 16, 2010

Save, Annotate, and Organize Web Pages and Resources

Simplify online organization with Diigo

If you’re anything like us, the mess of bookmarks, sticky notes, and clipped web pages is so confusing that you’re just a step away from reverting back to post-its.

To make things a bit more streamlined, try Diigo, a free service that combines bookmarking, web clipping, and annotation tools.

To begin, create a free account with Diigo and download the toolbar (it works with every major browser).

The toolbar allows you to bookmark pages, highlight text, send articles via a bevy of social networking tools, and mark items for later reading.

(Diigo even allows you to capture pages as fully searchable screenshots, so you can archive a page and view it offline.)

After you’ve made any changes, Diigo pushes that information to their servers, or “the cloud.” You don’t have to worry about setting up separate syncs for different types of data since everything updates together at once.

The service also has apps for the iPad, iPhone, and for Android devices.

You are now free to annotate the entire Internet.

Visit Diigo


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Article • July 15, 2010

Shelf Space

A Netflix-Style Rental Service For Your Literary Needs

Reading is fundamental.  But budget cuts are making many local libraries less of an option for avid readers.

Thankfully, there’s Bookswim, an online book rental service that lets you compile a Netflix-style queue of books to be delivered to your door.

Simply set up an account and choose the pricing plan that best suits your reading speed (they start as low as $23.95 a month for 3 books at a time, which includes shipping and handling).

After that, begin selecting books to add to your “Rental Pool.” Bookswim offers everything from best sellers to classic literature to textbooks

There are no due dates or time limits on the books you borrow (unlike a library, you’ll never pay a late fee). When you’ve finished a book, simply pack it in the provided return envelope and send it back to receive the next title on your list.

It’s like having your own personal Dewey Decimal System.

Visit Bookswim


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