By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Our reader base is legion with those who spend countless hours at their desks and at their computers. Hand stiffness, elbow pain, and wrist pain are the inevitable results of this sedentary lifestyle.
Clinically Fit, Inc., a Melville, New York based company, has created a device to deal with these problems and as well as other repetitive motion injuries such as arthritis, tendonitis, tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome.
After three years of research and development The Xtensor was released in June of 2007 and has changed the way people deal with common issues affecting the upper extremity.
Winner of the prestigious Medical Design Excellence Award, The Xtensor is the first product to correctly counteract the gripping actions our hands go through every day by strengthening the muscles that open the hands to improve core strength and stability in the wrists and elbows allowing users to better handle repetitive stress and improve dexterity in the fingers.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
8coupons.com, a site that helps you find deals in your local area, has, since December, been offering its new self-service mobile coupon platform free. The promotion is scheduled to last for 100 days. Since launching in 2007, 8coupons.com has offered a self-service mobile coupon platform for small-businesses in New York City. As part of a redesign, the platform is now available nationwide. To celebrate, 8coupons is offering an opportunity for any business to try the service free for 100 days (an $888 value). Businesses can sign up at the site and use the promo code “MobileCoupons” at checkout to receive a credit of $888.
8coupons started in New York City was mostly known for its mobile coupons and its OCHO LOCO! promotions (more on that in a bit). 8coupons.com now aims to be a one-stop shop for locating deals, regardless of where you live. With a loaded database of over 60,000 mobile coupons and deals throughout the country, consumers can now find money-saving information all in one place.
The newly designed site has been upgraded. When a user visits 8coupons.com, the map on the homepage will automatically populate the Top 8 most popular deals based on his or her IP address. This ensures that anyone who visits the site will see the deals that are most relevant to him or her specifically. The Top 8 deals will change dynamically as the user moves the map around to different locations, zooms in on a specific street, or narrows down the deals by sub-categories such as restaurants, entertainment, beauty & spas, services and shopping.
8coupons.com also has so-called “User Submitted Deals”. Consumers can tell everyone about the specials in their local area. To date, there have been over 100,000 user-shared deals on 8coupons.com. Sponsored listings on the site include deals with Valpak, Money Mailer, andRedPlum’s SuperCoups. They also have deals with local bloggers and content partners.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Want to be in better shape, but have no time fit in a trip to the gym or exercise in your busy life. Well two entrepreneurs have the solution.
Annie Ulichney and Kim Koelle, the founders of Banglz.com and its parent company fitnessUwear, LLC (located in Wayne Pennsylvania), are two typical moms in Philadelphia who were faced with the typically quandary of finding enough hours in the day to accomplish all the activities of running a household and still incorporate exercise into their daily routine.
Through extensive research, they were surprised to learn that muscle health is extremely vital to overall health. It has also being directly linked to overall strength, balance, healthy bones, healthy heart, metabolism, stress levels and more. They realized that everyday folks were unaware (as they were) of how important muscle health was and they were determined to create products that would help women get more daily exercise and create healthier lives. With their entrepreneurial spirit despite a difficult, they set about finding a solution to this problem-facing woman.
The solution was a creation called fitnessUwear. This was a platform they used to create their inventions. One such invention is Banglz; Banglz are comfy ½ pound weighted bands wrapped in different stylish interchangeable sleeves designed to be worn during every day activities. They also invented Smartslip, a slip with fabric that adds slight, ongoing resistance in every step, targeting hips, glutes and legs while you go about your normal day.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Muumuu Heaven operators of MuumuuHeaven.com and its retail outlets, is a true small business success story. They offer one-of-a-kind eco-conscious clothing, jewelry, accessories, homewares and art. The traditional Hawaiian dress, the muumuu, is the inspiration and “objet d’art” that forms the basis for the business with fabric from muumuus transformed into beautiful handmade garments, products and stylish works of art with a contemporary Hawaiian flair. The muumuus are given a new life, hence the name, Muumuu Heaven.
Muumuu Heaven’s small business success story is a great one. Deb and Eric Mascia, a couple in their mid-30s, have built their business from the ground up. When Deb Mascia saw a huge trash bag full of muumuus being thrown out at the thrift store where she volunteered, she asked to keep them, knowing she could give them another life. While the traditional muumuu wasn’t really her style as a fashionable 29 year-old fresh from NYC, Deb was drawn to their wonderfully bright and colorful fabrics with Polynesian motifs. She took the muumuus home and used swatches of the material to create her own personal collection of chic dresses and skirts.
Each time Deb wore her own designs she received compliments from friends and was frequently stopped on the street by eager fashionistas who knew style when they saw it. . She started receiving orders for outfits, and the Mascias’ living room quickly turned into a dressmaker’s workshop.
To market her distinctive threads, Deb started hosting what she calls “skirt parties.” Groups of women would gather to gossip, sip champagne, try on Deb’s latest creations and of course, buy. Deb would not only walk away with all her outfits sold; she’d have pages of orders for custom-made designs.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When Dan and Jean Ehrlich, global touring musicians, got sick of the convenience store snack foods full of artificial ingredients they ate while on the road, they knew there had to be a better alternative. Dan and Jean decided to take things into their own hands by starting Rock-n-Roll Gourmet, creating “natural snack foods with a rock-n-roll attitude.”
Launched in June of 2009, its flagship brand, Hippie Chips, as well as other products, are already available in regional Whole Foods Markets and Safeway stores, natural food and convenience stores, and sold in public schools and college campuses.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet’s mission was to make a totally natural, low fat, and tastily addicting potato chip. They also wanted to create a fun rock and roll image through their colorful music themed packaging, which they also use to promote new bands and artists.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet’s mission was to make a totally natural, low fat, and tastily addicting potato chip. They also wanted to create a fun rock and roll image through their colorful music themed packaging, which they also use to promote new bands and artists.
Rock-n-Roll Gourmet is now the featured snack at the Woodstock Museum.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
MerchantCircle.com recently announced that it had signed the one-millionth local merchant to its social network and publishing platform. In case you don’t know, MerchantCircle.com is the largest social network of local business owners.
Out of the estimated 15 million local merchants in the U.S. today, more than one million have claimed their listings and have accessed MerchantCircle’s suite of free and premium tools to reach local consumers online since its launch in 2006. More than 20 million local consumers discover small businesses in their area via MerchantCircle.com every month. The merchants on the MerchantCircle network upload pictures, blog, create coupons and newsletters, and connect with other merchants.
The company is located on Main St. in downtown Los Altos, Calif., and is funded by Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, and IAC.
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
E-commerce company Shopify.com is challenging small and medium sized businesses to become online entrepreneurs. Shopify.com is sponsoring a contest to build the most successful e-commerce site and offering a prize of $100,000 as an incentive to do so.
Ottawa-based Shopify.com launched in 2006. Shopify is a hosted ecommerce solution with integrated payments. People who sell stuff online, or want to, can set up a store in moments, add items to sell, upload images, add tags and group items, and integrate paypal or a credit card processor for payments. Reporting is excellent, and they’ve included a RSS feed of recent orders to keep track of sales.
When you start building your Shopify store you have the choice of many beautiful professional themes. You can use your own HTML and CSS and have complete control over the look and feel of your online store. Your online store will have its own shopping cart and streamlined checkout.
You can try Shopify fee for 30 days. The pricing model ranges from $24 per month for the “basic” service to $699 for the “premier” service. The variations in price are based on transaction fees, maximum SKUs, adwords credit and storage.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When I was in college dealing with bills was a major headache. We had one roommate who never had any money and was always late with getting it in. Also, no one in our house wanted the chore of collecting every month and keeping track of all of the house’s expenses.
To help with that chore comes Beezang.com, a new site out of India, launched in August 2009 and currently in alpha.
Beezang.com is a free, simple to use web application that helps people manage and keep track of bills they split with friends, roommates and office colleagues. You can use Beezang.com to stay on the top of your apartment shared expenses with your roommate, you can also track bills associated with weekend get away trips.
The site does one thing and does it good. The folks at Beezang.com have worked hard on the usability so that its users do not have to spend hours figuring out how to use the app. They are working towards constantly improving the application.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City is scheduled for February 11-18, 2010 displaying the Fall 2010 collections. However, I am not here to discuss the ins and outs of Fashion Weeks in New York City such as which parties are hot and in which restaurants the models congregate. I am here to discuss two entrepreneurs that will be showing their wares at February’s Fashion Week. These entrepreneurs’ creations will be shown during the so-called GreenShows at Fashion Week.
c.marchuska is an eco-friendly clothing line conceived by Christine Marchuska and Brooke Bresnan. The line provides chic and sustainable clothing at affordable prices. Manufactured in New York City, the clothing is designed to embody versatility throughout different trends and seasons in order to stay true to the sustainable fashion mantra of producing less waste. But make no mistake, it is better described as a “sophisticated clothing with green benefits” Thus, it is the perfect match for the socially conscious woman that does not want to sacrifice style, price or comfort in order to be eco-friendly.
As stated on the website cmarchuska.com, Ms. Marchuska and Ms. Bresnan met in April 2008 while raising funds and awareness for Safe Horizon, the nation’s leading victim assistance organization. Both were dissatisfied with their Wall Street careers and sought a more creative outlet to fulfill their days. Ms. Marchuska had identified a need for an eco-chic women’s clothing line that would not only meet her socially conscious standards, but also her desire for affordable high fashion. Thus, in November 2008, c. marchuska was born.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
There is a great deal of educational content on the Internet; Wikieducator.org, edu.com, Educause, plus many institutions of higher learning offer educational content for free.
Now comes NalandaU.com, a site launched on November 6, 2009 and based in Chennai, India. NalandaU.com is a site with free educational content from top universities and other institutions. There are about 300 courses (6000 videos) in topics ranging from finance to quantum mechanics to iphone programming to macroeconomics. You can watch the lecture videos, take notes, connect with your Facebook friends, take tests, etc.
There are sample courses on the site. The site has one of the largest lecture video collections on the Internet. The site makes it easy to learn and understand ideas that text alone cannot teach. NalandaU.com categorizes and organizes content that makes it easy to find and discover what you need. The site also allows students to connect to each other, take notes and take tests.
As stated, they have about 300 courses in 75 subjects organized fewer than 10 top-level departments. Out of these include 47 are from MIT, 33 from Stanford, 24 from Yale, 11 from UCLA, 22 from Berkeley and 36 from Indian Institutes of Technology.
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