Personal Journaling made Easy with Ohlife

Have you ever had the intention of keeping a personal journal or diary, but never got around to it? It seems so tedious right? Well Ohlife is a free (my favourite word) on-line personal journal. They make the process easy. Just sign up for an account and set up your preferences. You can choose to have an email sent to you daily or weekly and even choose what the time of day. You also have the option to include your thoughts from the previous day.

When you receive the email simply reply with your thoughts and it will be saved directly to your account. You can even add one photo. Doesn't get much easier than that. This is a great way to record your thoughts, and keep track of things. If you choose the "Past Entry in Email" option, you could use it as a reminder. Just make sure you set the time for when you need it. New parents and mom's to be can keep track of all those special moments. Ohlife helps you put all your thoughts in one place. The most important thing Ohlife is private. They will not sell or share your information. OhLife Privacy Policy

 Ohlife was created by  Reman Child and Shawn Gupta. These are the same guys who created Expensr, a personal finance tool which was later acquired by Money Strands.  So they are no strangers to developing. In the future I would like to see an option to download your entries, and a mobile app would be nice for convenience.  So enjoy Ohlife, and no more excuses of why you can't get that journal started!

Save Money on Your Next Mobile Upgrade

Hey I'm back! Had to take a short sabbatical, sorry for the inconvenience. Today I want to hip you to getting the most out of your sell phone upgrade. You may also want to check out my previous post (Why you shouldn't go cheap on your next cell phone) I purchased the HTC Hero last March and became an instant Android fan. By September however I was running out of space because I'm an app junkie. So of course I looked to the next big thing the HTC Evo.

My anniversary date wasn't until January 1, 2011 which means I had to have a little bit of patients, but by waiting I would get $250 dollars off the phone. A $150 dollar instant discount (online) and $100 dollar mail in rebate. Not to mention Android 2.2 aka (Froyo) would be on the device by the time I got it. So now I've got a $450 dollar phone down to $200, and by ordering online Sprint waives the activation fee. Which brings me to the core points?

1. Be patient- Unless your phone is falling apart then wait it out. It will save you $$$ and technology changes so much something even better may be out by the time you're anniversary date rolls around.

2. Buy Online- It's ok to go in the store and checkout the phone in person, but make your purchases online because that's where you will get the most savings.

3. Save even more mone- Gazelle is a site that buys used electronics. After upgrading simply go to their site and enter the condition of your of your old phone. If your phone is worth something Gazelle will quote you on a price and give you a free shipping label. Once your device is received and inspected. Your check will be in the mail or you can get paid via Paypal. Selling your old phone can even further offset the cost of your new one. However, if your phone is not worth anything they will also ask you if you wish to recycle it.

4. Use YouTube- You can find out everything about the phone you're interested in, and how it performs in the real world. Plus find out the best apps and games to run on your prospective device.

5. Exception to rule- Sometimes BestBuy offers some blowout deals on new phones. So make sure you check them out in-store and online.

6. Discounts come at a price- If you're not happy with your current carrier then you may want to look at other options before you upgrade. Because most-likely you will have to extend your contract to get the low prices.

So remember be patient, and get the best and most for your money.

Let's Crate- Online Storage

Let's Crate is a new Online Storage website currently in the Beta stage created by Sahil Lavingia. Crate gives you 200MB of free storage and is simple to use. Just create a "Crate" to put your files in. Then click on the Crate and drag and drop your files for upload. 200mb may not seem like a lot, but that's good enough to do a few things with and since the storage site Drop.io is going out of business after being purchased by Facebook, Crate has a real opportunity to fill a void for a service a lot of people enjoyed including yours truly. Crate is by invite only, but the Madden Corner has you covered. Just use the invite code "maddencorner10" and your good to go. Help Let's Crate out by offering suggestions for improvements on the left hand side of the page, and as always don't forget to stop by my Facebook fan page.

Personalize Your Blog or Amazon Store

Blog branding is one of the first things you must consider when creating a blog. One of the first tools I became associate with was GDI. GDI is a company that owns the .WS domain name. I initially used it because the domain names I own now were not available at the time. I also like the fact that I was able to get 10 personalized email address (example@maddencorner.ws) and setup my own website for my Amazon Store. I use the email addresses for this blog and for my children. Since I am the administrator of the account it made it easy for me to monitor what kind of emails they receive. So really it provided me with what I need for my blog, but also a little peace of mind when my little girls asked daddy for their own email addresses.

Now if your not that technical don't worry setup is easy with the custom templates provided. GDI charges $10 a month, but gives you a 7 day free trail just to checkout all the services offered. So if you don't like, don't keep it. I've been using the service for about two years now and I have no complaints. Even if you don't blog you can use the custom web templates and email addresses for your small business or anything else you can think of. GDI is also presented as a way to earn passive income. So if you need a simple and quick way to personalize your blogging GDI can meet your needs.

For all the details click here.

Why Facebook Email Will Not be a Gmail Killer

A lot of buzz over the past 24 hours has been in the air about Facebook offering a new email service. While innovation is always exciting it doesn't necessarily mean people are going to jump ship and change the way they communicate. Nielsen 2009 report on "Global Faces and Network Places" showed that from December of 2007 to December of 2008 internet usage was up 18% globally, however among 'Member Communities' it rose by 63% and Facebook saw an enormous increase of 566% (3.1 billion minutes spent online to 20.5 billion). This was the highest amongst the 75 most popular brands online worldwide.

Facebook has 500 million members and is constantly growing. To contact anyone on your Facebook friends list you simply go to messages and type their name (no email address required). Several recent surveys show that most people under 18 prefer Facebook and SMS as their primary means of communication over email. With that being said Facebook's new email offer maybe exciting, but there is no reason as of yet to believe that it will overtake Gmail and the number integrated services it already offers.