Bad Ass Web Applications with Forgettable Names

I recently had a string of good luck finding web apps that are well designed and make my job easier (ironically most of them are built on flash). Unfortunately, I can't ever remember their names because they make no sense and I don't use them every day. I was thinking about making a web app to remember them for me, but couldn't find a name that I would remember for that either. And now the purpose of this post is clear.

I'm very picky and probably try hundreds of new apps a year. I've wasted 10s of hours combing through crap, blah, and broken to get down to these tools. Despite the completely forgettable names, these are the few that don't piss me off:

• Cacoo: Wireframes. The interface reminds me of Gliffy but a little more stylized, hip. If Gliffy is Bill Gates then Cacoo is Steve Jobs.
• Color Schemer: Ready to go color schemes. It's better than agonizing for hours over color palates.
• Gliffy: Online version of visio. I assume this is named after some famous rapper or something. Bling bling bitches.
• Prezi: While it's interesting for presentations, I use it for doing architecture diagrams that are deeply nested. I would not object to gliffy and prezi hooking up and birthing a love child. 

And that's it. Hopefully google indexes this and takes me to this page the next time I search for "that thing that makes diagrams on the web and is flashy". Index it!

Coming May 2010 to a Bar Near You: There Will Be Beer

After 3 years of building from the ground up, our company is out of money. There is a small chance that the funds will show up last minute, but after working for almost 3 weeks without pay, I'm not placing any bets on success.

I'm currently not at liberty to explain how it all went down, but I promise to go into detail next month after things have solidified. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. No one really blogs about what its like when a company fails - the disintegration of morale, the death of the product, and the denial that leads up to the final stake. There are also of course obligatory lessons learned, technical at times but mostly personal, that I hope to detail over the next couple of months in short posts. Hopefully they will be useful for a young gun thinking to get into the startup world, especially someone else's startup.

In the meanwhile, I've decided to finally move to San Francisco and end a commuting relationship of 2 years. I'm very excited to plug the holes in my personal life that my job has kept me from fully exploring. I am also excited to get be in a city exploding with technical prowess and excitement.

For now, I'm getting my crap together and in a month or so will start to act on what's next.  I'm hoping to spend an additional month or two working on some projects I've always wanted to complete (thanks to @yood for the inspiration!). After that I'll probably move into a consulting position or the right full time position should it fall in my lap. More on that later as well once I defrag from all the excitement of the past month.

That being said, my first mission when I get to the bay area is to rally the Plone community that appears to be sleeping soundly there. Be prepared for meetups, sprints, shenanigans and various references to pants. This is your warning ploners... there will be beer.