Buster Collings » Business & Economy

Yes, No, Don’t Care – Urtak Asks Simple Questions

Buster — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:26:17 +0000

Urtak is a nifty little tool. It’s free and I must say can be a little bit addictive.

I’ve created a simple feedback collection for Buying Concert & Sports Tickets Online

Tesla Motors is not bad, Better Place is real good

Buster — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 20:40:05 +0000

tesla motors has some slick vehicles and post IPO investors have made some bank. however, as much as i’d like to have one of their rides, the prices aren’t yet practical. that is very likely to change for all electric car manufacturers if Better Place succeeds.

foreign oil independence for the USA might be closer than imagined before, but don’t be surprised if the Chinese beat us to it. in the meantime Shai Agassi is working to make our lives a better place. not by simply making the world ‘greener’ but by making automobiles BETTER, FASTER, CHEAPER and AS CONVENIENT AS PETRO BASED CARS TODAY.

his approach is to use batteries the same way we use fuel (petro). this might not unique, but actually tesla and most other electric car makers take the approach of using batteries the way we currently use “fuel tanks” which is not better, faster, cheaper or as convenient as petro based cars today.

here’s a good Charlie Rose interview with Shai Agassi of Better Place

Click here to view the embedded video.

Free Currency Converter for Your Website

Buster — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:30:05 +0000

a long time ago, i was looking for some currency conversion code, be it JavaScript or some server side code utilizing some public web service. to be honest there just wasn’t anything very decent for use inside your own website… not without paying of course. i wasn’t looking for an official and up to the minute foreign exchange service, just something a little better than what a dev like myself might hack up on the cheap.

thankfully i found exactly what i was looking for.. an unbranded currency converter that i could embed into my pages via an iframe. where do you think i got it from? you know… who else gives away more useful web tools that others charge for than… Google. i bet it’s even an up to the minute quality too… but i’m not making any promises. anyhow, i just figured there might be many of you out there like myself searching for ‘free website currency converter’ ‘iframe currency converter’ ‘currency conversion script’ or something similar. so here’s the best i’ve found.. free of charge

http://www.google.com/finance/converter

Mint.com Review

Buster — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:03:41 +0000

Have you been using Mint.com? I checked it out a year ago or so and it was pretty basic, aesthetically nice, but basic. Over the last couple of months however, I tied in most of my accounts and I gotta say it’s come a long ways in the last year. It turns out Intuit bought Mint.com last September which opened up a lot of access to various financial institutions. I still can’t wire up my GoldMoney.com or Forex.com accounts yet, but pretty much everything else.

Chase is my primary bank and I’ve always been happy with their web interface, but Mint.com opens you up to a much broader view of your finances by pulling in information from all the financial institutions you use. So, even if you think you already get enough information from your various online account interfaces or if you tried Mint.com a while back and like me weren’t impressed, you should give Mint.com a try today. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

It’s free, seriously. Basically they’re hoping to make money by discovering alternative bank, investment & credit accounts that would benefit you individually more than the accounts you already have. If you sign up for any of the new accounts they earn referral commissions.

Here’s a review from About.com