Things That Go Out in the Night

When people have asked us what they should use to design a website, we used to point them to WordPress, which is what we and many others use. But that was then; this is now. Hello, Yola!

We changed because WordPress isn't a no-brainer. Joy found it necessary to take an online tutorial at lynda.com and a really smart friend paid for the same tutorial and then bought the WordPress for Dummies book. If you just want a blog, which is typically a series of postings to the web, we suggest Google's Blogger at Blogger.com, which is very easy to figure out. But if you want a real web site, Yola is the way to go.

With Yola, you can easily add an online store, maps, a search function, a photo gallery, video and more, just by dragging the icon for these items into your editing window. In fact, everything you do involves dragging an icon to wherever you want it. When you start, choose one of Yolas templates, all of which looked nice to us. If you later change your mind, just click change style to get a new look. You can also click change layout to add more columns or change the look of that template. This is by far the easiest site builder we've ever seen.

The site building tools are all free, and so is the web-hosting, if you don't mind having yolasite in your web address. When you start, you have the option of using a domain name you already own, or using a yolasite, or starting a brand new domain name for $20 a year.

Getting Organized

You can tell from the number that PaperPort 12 for Windows has been around for a while. We first reviewed it more than a decade ago. What it does is sort your documents in a pictorial layout that lets you easily pull the pieces together into a single file. You can then email or print that file.

The latest version does what it always did, but much faster. And it lets you fill out forms. One user told us he used the new version to do everything necessary to refinance his mortgage, while the mortgage broker was still on the phone. He downloaded the mortgage application and filled it out online with PaperPort's form filler. Then he dragged that and all the other documents he needed into a PaperPort window and combined them into one document as a PDF. He sent that about a minute after it was requested. The broker was stunned. (Hey! Whos got the technology now?)

Documents can be brought into PaperPort from any digital source, like incoming PDFs, scans, digital photos, etc. This is the same software that powers the popular NeatReceipts scanner, made by Neat Co. (neatco.com). Traveling sales people love that one for keeping track of expenses. Every time you get a receipt, you scan it and it gets added to a single PDF that can be emailed back to the office as an expense report. You can also do this with PaperPort and any scanner, by the way.

PaperPort is most useful for people who do a lot of scanning or photographing of documents, book pages, news clips, photos, etc. The software even lets you edit those photos and documents. It contains its own OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program, which makes a scanned or photographed document editable as if it were a text brought in from a word processor. Along with that editing power, you can make call-outs and add notes. (Call-outs are selections from a document that are copied and enlarged to emphasize some point. You see them often in newspaper and magazine stories.)

Though PaperPort is commonly used in business, over half of their customers use it for their personal files. The professional version of the program lists for $200 from the maker, nuance.com, and the standard, which has most of the features, lists for $100.

Internuts

-- EpixHD.com is a soon-to-be-launched website where vast collections of full-length movies and new original programing can be streamed by any subscriber. Its partners are Paramount film studio, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp and MGM.

--AntiRebate.com has bargains that don't require rebates. We saw a Sony Playstation 3 for $200, instead of $300. You just had to apply for a Sony Playstation credit card.

Books: Getting Crafty.

Digital Textile Design, by Bowles and Isaac; $23 from Amazon.com and various other book sellers.

This is a difficult book to describe. While initially intended for students at British textile colleges, the techniques can really be used by anyone, and truly individually designed fabrics can be created at home or by a small shop. The lessons show you how to add a design to paper patterns, how to space out sequins and other applied materials. Or, you can skip all that and just design for whole bolts of cloth.

A search on the web revealed a number of places that would both print your design and/or make your garment. Spoonflower.com, FabricOnDemand.com and KarmaKraft.com all charge around $17 a yard and up to print your design. If you want to do it yourself, you dont need expensive equipment; Bob recalls printing a silk tie with a Canon inkjet printer.