I want to point out two tools I really love: Pinboard.in and Reeder for Mac.

Pinboard.in

Pinboard is a deliciously simple bookmarking site. I have two bookmarklets set up for it: One is for marking an item as ‘read later’ with just one click. The other allows me to bookmark an item, describe it, and tag it right in the popup window. It works great on mobile devices. It has a great no-nonsense UI. It’s the simple, reliable app that I’ve always been looking for.

Reeder

Reeder is a news reader that looks absolutely gorgegous, plays nice with Pinboard.in, and is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad. In addition to that, it syncs perfectly with your google reader account.

Both tools cost close to $10, and I would be happy to pay that money for them over, and over, and over again.

KISSInsights is a tool that allows you to gather feedback from your customers on your website in such a simple and elegant way that there is no way for me not to love it. The image below perfectly captures how it works. It took me about three minutes to put a survey asking “How would you rate this website’s design?” on one of my client’s pages.

three easy steps

Surveys can be chosen from a library of about 20 pre-written templates. I love that surveys can be configured to show up only on certain pages or visitors, according to their behavior. After your create and configure your survey, you copy and paste a javascript snippet into your site, and you can watch the results flow in.

Configuring the Survey

You can sign up with a free plan that includes 1 survey, 30 responses and a library with pre-written survey templates. If that is not enough, you can invite more people and get one survey per each invitee who registers, or upgrade to a $49 paying plan that gives you unlimited amounts of everything, plus the ability to create custom surveys.

I fell in love with the beautiful design and perfect execution. KISSinsights makes it easy to sign up – you don’t have anything to lose. If you want to pay, that’s great, and if you want to mess around before making up your mind, you can spread the word and get more surveys. Either option is a win-win for KISSinsights and you. They are setting a great example for online software services.

I encourage you go give it a try. Even if you’re not interested in the product itself, check out how it works. I learnt a thing or two. So might you. Use this link to sign up so both of us get a couple of bonus surveys for free. Post your thoughts in the comments.

]]> http://antonzolotov.com/2010/04/26/kissinsights-my-favorite-new-tool/feed/ 0 http://antonzolotov.com/2010/01/12/a-great-tool-for-making-simple-graphs/ http://antonzolotov.com/2010/01/12/a-great-tool-for-making-simple-graphs/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:26:42 +0000 Anton Zolotov http://antonzolotov.com/?p=185

OmniGraphSketcher

The OmniGroup has released an amazingly simple graph maker called OmniGraphSketcher for Mac OS that I would have loved to have in High School when I had to write my economics papers.

It’s not the best solution for drawing data-based graphs, but excellent to make simple graphs look really professional. A single license is $29.95.

I hate meetings because they are mostly a waste of time, but sometimes you can’t get around them. Here are two tools that make scheduling meetings much easier: When Is Good and ScheduleOnce.

Both work based on the same principle: the meeting organizer indicates the times he is available, sends invitations to all invitees, who in turn mark the times they are available. In the end, you should end up with a time that fits everybody.

When Is Good is a website, while ScheduleOnce, which I prefer, sits in your Gmail Sidebar, integrates with your Google Calendar, and is much more convenient to use if you use Gmail. Both apps are free.

Update: Also check out Doodle.com and Twtvite.com