Jay’s posterous

A group of Rocky Mountain News journalists with support and backing from three Denver entrepreneurs launched a subscription drive Monday for the online news site INDenverTimes.com.

Their goal is to get 50,000 subscribers by April 23 — the 150th anniversary of the first edition of the Rocky Mountain News — in order to launch the full site by May 4.

INDenverTimes is an effort to reinvent the newspaper for the Internet age, featuring many of the reporters, editors, designers and other journalists that the Denver community has come to depend on for coverage of local and national news, sports and the arts. News will be free, but the subscription will invite readers inside the newsroom as never before through news analysis, insight, online chats and other features.

Former Rocky staff involved in effort so far: Sam Adams, Tom Auclair, Lisa Bornstein, Mark Brown, Tim Burroughs, Mary Chandler, Mark Christopher, Kevin Flynn, Tillie Fong, Steve Foster, Scott Gilbert, Chuck Hickey, Cindy House, Kevin Huhn, Kim Humphreys, Jay Lee, Aaron Lopez, Gary Massaro, David Milstead, John Moore, Alex Neth, Melissa Pomponio, Bill Scanlon, Hank Schultz, Marc Shulgold, Ed Stein, George Tanner, Chris Tomasson, Bob Willis and Mark Wolf.

Jessica Gelt

It started with a 4 a.m. glass of Champagne and a carne asada taco after a night of serious bar hopping. Thirty-year-old Mark Manguera was sitting with his 25-year-old sister-in-law, Alice Shin (his wife Caroline was already sleeping soundly), when the taste of L.A.'s most ubiquitous street food caused him to have a drunken revelation.

"I'm biting into my taco and it dawned on me, 'Alice, wouldn't it be great if someone put Korean barbecue on a taco?,' " recalls Manguera, who is Filipino but married into a Korean family. Most people would have left it at that, maybe recounting their brilliant idea ad nauseum to friends at dinner parties, but Manguera followed through. He got a truck from taco-truck Goliath Cater Craft, he brought in former RockSugar chef Roy Choi as a partner, and he enlisted friends and family to begin blogging, branding and Twittering on his behalf.

The result: The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck. (@kogibbq on Twitter) After celebrating a Nov. 20 soft opening, the roving vehicle has emerged as a social-networking juggernaut, drawing 300 to 800 people each time it parks (often several times in an evening) and spawning a burgeoning cyber-hippie movement affectionately referred to as "Kogi kulture."

The truck and its staff of merry makers have become a sort of roving party, bringing people to neighborhoods they might not normally go to, and allowing for interactions with strangers they might not otherwise talk to. A constant Twitter feed connects truck-followers and updates them about whether Kogi is going to be late to its next stop. Occasionally, a negative Nelly will rain on this love parade by asking the Kogi truck to park elsewhere; when this happens, legions of Kogi-lytes rally to find a desirable new location.

On a recent Thursday night, Kogi (pronounced with a hard "g") parked at 5:30 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum on Central Avenue and 1st Street in Little Tokyo. By 7 p.m., the truck had already served at least 400 people and a long line still snaked across the broad brick entrance to the museum.

Nearby, DJ Akaider cranked dance music and reggaeton. Manguera says he asked Akaider to participate that evening out of appreciation for a YouTube video the DJ made about eating at Kogi called "Chasing the Dragon (The Kogi BBQ Adventure)." In the video (which has been viewed more than 2,000 times), Akaider is seen driving through Silver Lake trying to find the "elusive" Kogi truck. He eats a Korean hot dog with kimchi sauerkraut and takes a spicy pork taco home for his dad.

Those in the slow-moving line are appreciative of the musical distraction. Milady Flores and her friends Courtney Morofuji and Doug Wu stand near the front of the line. They have been waiting for an hour (by the time they get their tacos it will have been nearly two hours). They are giggling because a drunken girl has slipped them $10 to buy her three tacos. Tacos cost $2 each, so that's a $4 profit for them (or two free tacos).

They don't mind waiting, though. "If you're expecting it, it's OK," Morofuji says. And it's safe to say that pretty much everyone in line is expecting it.

L.A. phenom

So, how did this happen, and what kind of magic resides in a Kogi taco? Maybe it's the power of juicy meat; flavored with slightly spicy, delicately tangy Korean "salsa roja," topped with cilantro and onions as well as cabbage slaw with soy-sesame chili, and cupped in a soft corn tortilla, it can taste awfully good, especially when your stomach has spent two hours priming. Or perhaps it's the exquisite cultural co-mingling inherent in the food that draws crowds; the only-in-L.A. combination of two of the city's most beloved ethnic cuisines. Maybe it's the thrill of being a part of the rogue movements and flash mobs created through the power of today's many instantaneous modes of communication.

Sitting on the museum steps with his legs crossed and a diminutive Yorkshire terrier named Diesel in his lap, Manguera looks with bewilderment at the line in front of Kogi and offers this: "I have no idea how this happened." Recently he's been overwhelmed by a flash flood of investment solicitations, as well as many offers to cater high-profile special events and parties Beginning in about a week, Kogi will take over the kitchen at David Reiss' Alibi Room, effectively establishing the brand's first bricks-and-mortar location. Cedd Moses' 213 group has expressed interest in accomplishing something similar with Kogi in downtown L.A.

"SBE called me yesterday," Manguera says, referring to the entertainment group owned by the he-man of L.A. night life, Sam Nazarian, and adding, "I admire the guy. He's brought in a group of people who know better than him, and that's the key to good business. When they called, I was like, 'Now I'm happy.' "

Manguera, too, has brought in a group of people who know better than him. By his own admission, he is not very tech-savvy. "The most I know about the online world is my Google mail and my MySpace," he says. That's where his sister-in-law Alice Shin comes in handy.

She blogs incessantly for Kogi using the upbeat, LOL-speak that drives online dialogue. Her post about the recent launch of a second Kogi truck reads: "KOGIHEADQUARTERSIS TOTALLYPREGGERSAND ISGIVINGBIRTHTOANEW BABYTRUCK . . . So I'm leaving it to YOU, the peopLes to nominate names for our trucks, because at this rate, Roy's gonna be caLLing Big Brah KoGi #1 and Mark's gonna be caLLing the new one KoGi #2, which, frankLy, is way BORING." Names poured in from fans; an early favorite was "Kogi Juan Kenogi," but the crew settled on the more prosaic Kogi Roja and Kogi Verde -- though they're still not sure which truck will be which.

Shin also runs the truck's Twitter feed, which, as it turns out, is a transnational endeavor. Because Kogi draws such massive crowds, it usually runs late. When that happens, Manguera calls Shin in Brooklyn, and Shin puts out a Twitter feed notifying those waiting of the truck's delay.

Family affair

The other key players on the Kogi carousel? Manguera's wife, Caroline, who as a food, beverage and hospitality specialist with Four Seasons hotels knows how to keep a crowd calm and make people feel special (she also knows how to keep Kogi's books); Caroline's brother Eric Shin, who obsessively photographs the truck's cross-county journeys (from Rosemead to Westwood to Mid-Wilshire and more); Eric's best friend Mike Prasad (another twentysomething social networking and branding wunderkind); Caroline's cousin Young Ho Yoo, who acts as the truck's promoter; and finally, 38-year-old chef Roy Choi himself, who sees his place in the group as that of culinary guru -- a sort of post-Abstract Expressionist food artist.

"This is my graffiti," says Choi, who insists that up until now his life story (despite its many highs) has been one of failure. Born to Korean immigrant parents, Choi struggled to find his place, toying with law school before stumbling into the world of the palate. He worked in restaurants in New York and Palm Desert before being invited to work in the kitchen of "Iron Chef" Rokusaburo Michiba in Japan.

When Manguera contacted Choi he was at a crossroads, having left a cushy chef de cuisine job at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (where he cooked for then-Sen. Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen and the royal family of Dubai) and most recently moving on after helping open RockSugar Pan Asian Kitchen in Century City.

"It's not Korean food," Choi says of Kogi. "It's a Korean American kid translating the food from his country into the present-day life of L.A. It's everything I see: the Latinos working in the Korean market, the bus that I ride."

Choi introduces nightly specials to the menu (like the Venice Beach vegan black sesame seed jelly special, barbecue sliders and chorizo and egg tacos). Once people have waited in line, they tend to order a lot, pushing the average check near $20. When they finally sink their teeth into the much-hyped fare, are they disappointed?

For the most part, the answer is no (though many in line say they wouldn't make it a habit). After a two-hour wait in Little Tokyo, Doug Wu and his friends walk away with a large bag. Wu stops to bite into a taco as his friends look on anxiously. Wu scrunches his face in displeasure. "This is disgusting," he says. His friends look deflated, then he smiles broadly, juice dripping down his forearm. "Ha! No, it's really good!"

jessica.gelt@latimes.com

Dan Schawbel ( for mashable.com )

Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground.

Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure.

Have another social site to add to this list? Tell us about it in the comments.

1. Entrepreneur Connect

Entrepreneur Media, the company that produces Entrepreneur Magazine, started a social network over a year ago specifically for entrepreneurs and small business owners called Entrepreneur Connect.   Like all social networks, you have the opportunity to create your own profile, explore the community, share ideas with other entrepreneurs and network. Unlike most social networks, this one frowns upon too much self-promotion and applauds idea sharing. 

You can use this network to connect to service providers, suppliers, advisers and colleagues.  Just like LinkedIn and FacebookFacebook reviews, there are professional groups that you can join or create.  Another cool feature is that you’re able to start your own blog and possibly have it appear on the main page.  This is similar to what Fast Company has done with their website.

2. PartnerUp

PartnerUp is a social network for entrepreneurs who are searching for people and resources for business opportunities.  Anyone can join, but business partners, co-founders, executives and board members will get the most out of this one.  In this network, you can ask or offer advice, find commercial real estate and find service providers like accountants and marketers for your business. 

The big differentiator with this social network is the commercial real estate “MoveUpSM” program that serves entrepreneurs who have experienced a hard time trying to find office space for their business.  They also have a Resource Directory that allows small and mid-sized businesses to advertise their services.

3.  StartupNation

Most social networks neglect the content aspect that makes StartupNation so useful.  With articles, forums, blogs, on-demand seminars, and podcasts, entrepreneurs will be better prepared for their ventures and have the resources required to make better business decisions. 

There are a wide range of topics being discussed on StartupNation right now, including business planning, marketing and web-based business.  The site also offers a series of competitions, such as a dorm-based 20 contest and an elevator pitch competition. If you’re an entrepreneur or hope to become one, this site is definitely one you can’t miss out on.

4.  LinkedIn

It’s difficult to leave LinkedIn off of any social networking list because it’s so useful for anyone who’s either searching for a job, is trying to network with like-minded individuals, or building a company.  LinkedIn offers many resources for entrepreneurs, such as groups, including the very popular “On Startups” group that has over 54,000 members. 

Entrepreneurs on LinkedIn should brand themselves properly so they can attract the right kind of business opportunities, and perform searches to find service providers or partners.  As an entrepreneur, you should also be looking to participate in LinkedIn Answers, events and applications to spruce up your profile and become a valuable member to your community.

5. Biznik

This isn’t another LinkedIn clone.  Instead, Biznik brands itself as a social network that “doesn’t suck.”  The Biznik community is composed of freelancers, CEOs, and the self-employed.  Like the other networks, this is a place for you to share ideas, instead of posting your resume.  It is mandatory for all members to use their real names and provide real data, and Biznik editors actually review all profiles to ensure compliance with that policy.  There are three levels of membership, including basic, active ($10 a month for an enhanced profile) and supporting ($24 a month for increased visibility).

6.  Perfect Business

If you want to meet thousands of serious entrepreneurs, experts and investors from a variety of industries, then Perfect Business might be the perfect social network for you.  The type of people you’ll find are potential business partners, potential clients and advisers. Additionally, the site has leading business partners like Entrepreneur and Virgin Money.

From business networking to a video center where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, a business plan builder and even an investor center, you’ll have most of the resources you need to create or regenerate your business. There is a free basic membership and a gold membership that costs $29.99 per month.

7.  Go BIG Network

The Go BIG Network embraces job seekers, in addition to funding sources, service providers and entrepreneurs.  In this social network, you post requests for help, which are then routed to other people in the network that can answer your questions or support you.  Members of this social network can search through profiles of other members, contact them or post a request (a classified ad) to talk about what they are looking for (such as a business partner).  The profiles on this network are targeted and specific so it’s easy to find an investor in a particular region.

8.  Cofoundr

The Cofoundr network is made up of idea makers, entrepreneurs, programmers, web designers, investors, freelancers and executives.  The primary purpose of joining this network is to start a new web venture.  Unlike most of the social networks already listed here, Cofoundr is a strictly private network, which means that you can’t view member profiles before you register for an account. 

Membership requires having a valid university or work email address, which means high schools students and younger aren’t allowed.  The first thing you have to do is sign up, then specify your abilities and the people you are trying to network with and finally, post your idea on the bulletin board or in the forum.

9.   The Funded

The Funded is an online community of entrepreneurs who research, rate and review funding sources.  Entrepreneurs can view and share terms sheets to assist each other in finding good investors, as well as discuss the inner workings of operating a business.  General benefits of this site include viewing facts, reviews and commentary on funding resources, and accessing RSS feeds of the most recent public comments by members. 

By joining the site, you have access to detailed fund profiles with specialty, reference investments, and investment criteria, in addition to accessing partner vCards that have full contact information of all partners at venture funds.  In order to get any value out of this social network, you pretty much have to become a member.

Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog.

Medical bots powered by sperm, clean fusion power, and two-dimensional time.

Mouse sperm Image courtesy of Atsushi Asano

1) Sperm-powered Nanobots
The next wave in health care may include a brigade of medical nanobots, devices tiny enough to ride the flow of blood through the body's arteries to a problem area. The bots might arrive at a clot, for example, and then using an internal power system, obliterate the clot with a precisely targeted drug or therapy. Designing a power source to accomplish such a task has been a challenge, but from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University comes a possible answer. The same molecular power packs that fuel sperm in their journey through the uterus and to a fallopian tube might be copied and used to keep the nanomachines running once they reach their targets.

Led by reproductive biologist Alex Travis, the engineering effort focuses on a chain of enzymes that metabolize glucose molecules into the biological fuel ATP (a process known as glycolysis), which enables sperm locomotion. Ordinarily the ATP provides sperm with enough energy to bend and flex their tails as they swim to the unfertilized egg. Travis’s plan is to copy the design of the sperm’s engine by slightly modifying a 10-enzyme glycolysis chain embedded in the sperm’s tail, and then to install it in nanobots.

Using mouse sperm, Travis has thus far modified the first two enzymes on the chain so that they bind to nickel ions attached to the surface of a tiny gold chip, which serves as a stand-in for a future nanobot. Now he needs to tweak the remaining enzymes so they can be attached too. If the spermlike motor works, it could someday use the body’s own energy source—glucose—to do such things as run super-tiny medical devices designed to release anticancer drugs or trigger the breakup of potentially deadly clots.

2) Fusion On Tap
Plasma physicist Eric Lerner has a dream: a form of nuclear energy so clean it generates no radioactive waste, so safe it can be located in the heart of a city, and so inexpensive it provides virtually unlimited power for the dirt-cheap price of $60 per kilowatt—far below the $1,000-per-kilowatt cost of electricity from natural gas.

It may sound too good to be true, but the technology, called focus fusion, is based on real physics experiments. Focus fusion is initiated when a pulse of electricity is discharged through a hydrogen-boron gas across two nesting cylindrical electrodes, transforming the gas into a thin sheath of hot, electrically conducting plasma. This sheath travels to the end of the inner electrode, where the magnetic fields produced by the currents pinch and twist the plasma into a tiny, dense ball. As the magnetic fields start to decay, they cause a beam of electrons to flow in one direction and a beam of positive ions (atoms that have lost electrons) to flow in the opposite direction. The electron beam heats the plasma ball, igniting fusion reactions between the hydrogen and boron; these reactions pump more heat and charged particles into the plasma. The energy in the ion beam can be directly converted to electricity—no need for conventional turbines and generators. Part of this electricity powers the next pulse, and the rest is net output.

A focus fusion reactor could be built for just $300,000, says Lerner, president of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics in New Jersey. But huge technical hurdles remain. These include increasing the density of the plasma so the fusion reaction will be more intense. (Conventional fusion experiments do not come close to the temperatures and densities needed for efficient hydrogen-boron fusion.) Still, the payoff could be huge: While mainstream fusion research programs are still decades from fruition, Lerner claims he requires just $750,000 in funding and two years of work to prove his process generates more energy than it consumes. “The next experiment is aimed at achieving higher density, higher magnetic field, and higher efficiency,” he says. “We believe it will succeed.”

3) A Two-Timing Universe
For nearly a century, physicists have tried to reconcile Einstein’s vision of the universe (including three dimensions of space and one of time) with the bizarre realm of quantum physics, rife with such oddities as instant communication at a distance and being in two places at once. The effort to unify the views has resulted in a stream of elaborate hypotheses positing worlds with multiple dimensions of space, most notably string theory and its successor, M-theory.

Itzhak Bars, a theoretical physicist at the University of Southern California, thinks these hypotheses are missing a crucial ingredient: an extra dimension of time. By adding a second dimension of time and a fourth dimension of space to Einstein’s standard space-time, Bars has come up with a new model providing “additional information that remained hidden in previous formulations” of physics, including current versions of M-theory. Such a model could better explain “how nature works,” he says.

Physicists had never added a second dimension of time to their models because it opens the possibility of traveling back in time and introduces negative probabilities and other scenarios that seem nonsensical. In his equations Bars has solved these problems with a new symmetry that treats an object’s position and its momentum as interchangeable at any given instant.

Does this mean we could actually experience a second dimension of time? “Yes,” Bars says, “but only indirectly,” by thinking of the world around us as many shadows that look different depending on the perspective of the light source. “The predicted relations among the different shadows contain most of the information about the extra dimensions,” he explains. Next, Bars and his team are developing tests for two-time physics and investigating how to apply the theory to all the natural forces, including gravity. Adding two-time physics to M-theory, he says, should help us close in on “the fundamental theory that so far has eluded all of us.”

Read the original article

With so many http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1866680,00.html" target="_new">Ponzis and so little time to know if you've been hoodwinked, there are some red flags even the most trusting investors can bank on: yachts, mansions, jets and women. If your investment adviser is dabbling in any of the above, there's a good chance you've been "Ponzi-ed" or are about to be.

Creating the illusion of fantastic success, of course, is chapter one in the Scammer's Handbook. But many, like http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1880101,00.html" target="_new">R. Allen Stanford and http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877337,00.html" target="_new">Bernie Madoff, among the most egregious alleged billionaire bamboozlers, are taking the art of thievery to the next level. Some don't even bother opening an investor account when new monies come in, they just go shopping. It's enough to make Gordon "Greed is Good" Gecko blush. (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1877351,00.html" target="_new">See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

Take Stephen Walsh and Paul Greenwood, operators of Westridge Capital Management, with $1.3 billion in assets, who last week were charged by The Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly "misappropriating" at least $553 million for either personal expenses or to cover trading losses. The CFTC is the sister agency of the Securities and Exchange Commission and covers fraud in the commodities, futures, and foreign exchange markets. (http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1873974,00.html" target="_new">See pictures of the demise of Bernard Madoff.)

Read the original TIME story

by Sean P. Aune ( from mashable.com )

Deciding to become a freelance worker can be a scary proposition. Sure there is an allure to picking what projects you work on, but it can also be stressful not knowing where your next paycheck will come from. Luckily there are numerous resources out there that not only help you find more work, but also loads of tools to help you do your job more efficiently with a professional edge.

We’ve gathered over 85 tools and job sites for a variety of freelancers and web workers. While a lot of these items are focused on web design elements such as photography, programming and writing, we made sure to include something for everyone.

Have more resources to recommend? Tell us about them in the comments.

Work Tools

It’s important for freelance workers to be as organized as possible. After all, it’s up to you to track your time, individual projects, create your own invoices, and more. There are tons of great tools to simplify this for you. For example, GetHarvest.com can help you keep track of your time spent on projects in differing locations, and Zoho Invoices can help you create professional looking invoices to send to clients.

Adobe AIR Apps

AgileTracker - Allows you to keep track of time spent on projects by client, and if you are using AgileAgenda, you can sync them with each other.

Google Calendar Invoice Creator - Allows you to use Google Calendar as a way to keep track of your hours and then import that data into this app to automatically generate invoices.

Klok - Klok allows you to easily keep track of your time spent on multiple projects. You can easily start and stop tracking by just clicking a button for each project. You’re able to generate multiple reports based off of this information.

Ora Time and Expense - Ora allows you to track expenses, keep a list of your tasks, run a timer on your tasks and more.

Sundial - Keeps track of time spent on multiple projects & clients and allows you to generate reports based on any time period.

Timeloc - Offers multiple features such as running several clients with different billing rates per account, setting different timing intervals, audible alerts and much more.

Vertabase Timer - You can track time on projects for various clients and then export that data to other systems so you can generate reports and invoices.

Invoicing

BillMyClients.com - Has import & export capabilities, allows you to save invoices locally at any time, HTML customization for better branding, recurring invoicing, PayPal integration and other features.

Blinksale.com - Create invoices from their templates, or you can use your own CSS to custom design one of your own.  Also allows you to import clients from Basecamp, create tags for better organization, set up recurring invoices and more.

CannyBill.com - CannyBill can help you accept credit cards, export data to QuickBooks, automate invoicing and late payment notices and a host of other tools.

CitrusBill.com - You can automate late payment notices as well as customize the look and feel of your invoices while managing all of your payments.

CurdBee.com - A simple and straightforward invoicing solution that also integrates with PayPal and Google Checkout.

Endeve.com - Endeve allows you to customize invoices, import clients from Outlook, track which clients owe you money and a whole lot more.

Fluttervoice.co.uk - A UK-based invoicing service that allows you to generate new invoices and keep track of your payments.  Your clients can also login to see all of their invoices with you at a glance.

FreeAgentCentral.com - Helps you to invoice your clients, keep track of billing, prepare your taxes, and more.  Focused on freelancers in the UK.

FreshBooks.com - FreshBooks allows you to automate late payment reminders, track your time and expenses, customize the look of your tools for a full branded experience and more.

GoToBilling.com - Get paid from an emailed invoice, keep track of your clients, use marketing tools to gain new ones and more.

InLattice.net - Give your clients web access to their invoices and receive confirmation that your customer has viewed an invoice. InLattice integrates with major online payment systems and other tools.

InvoiceJournal.com - InvoiceJournal allows you to send invoices for free via email or print them out to be sent by snail mail.  Also allows you to use multiple currencies.

InvoiceMachine.com - Customize your invoices with logos and colors, use their built-in timer to track your billable hours, create PDFs of your invoices and more.

InvoicePlace.com - InvoicePlace lets you send invoices, track all payments, generate reports, export to Word & Excel and more.

Invoicera.com - Invoicera offers you several time saving features such as automatic repeating invoices for frequent clients, integration with multiple payment gateways, printing, management and more.

InvoicesMadeEasy.com - This service allows you to email or physically mail invoices yourself, or you can pay as little as a $1.00 each to have them mail invoices for you.  Offers all of the usual features to boot.

Invotrak.com - Allows you to track your time sheets, generate invoices, see who has paid you, generate various reports to see how you are performing and more.

LiteAccounting.com - Create invoices you can send via email, save them as PDFs, set up recurring invoices, and more features.

SimplyBill.com - Save your invoices as PDFs, create quotes for work that you can later convert to invoices, get alerted when an invoice is overdue and numerous other features.

SimplyInvoices.com - SimplyInvoices integrates with the Basecamp API to give you full integration with your account and allow for easy invoicing based on your Basecamp activities.

Winkbill.com - Set up recurring billing, export invoices as PDFs, accept payments via PayPal, multiple templates to choose from and more features.

Zoho Invoices - The popular Zoho online office suite has an invoicing feature that can be used for free for a few invoices a month, but you’ll have to pay if you have numerous payment requests to make.  Allows you to import and export data, set up templates, set up recurring billing and more.

Time Tracking

GetHarvest.com - Harvest offers pricing plans from free to premium, but offers an amazing array of platform integrations such as iPhone, Basecamp, Beanstalk, a WordPress plugin and more.  Offers both time tracking and invoicing.

MyClientSpot.com - Helps you keep track of your billable hours, staying organized, tracking leads and numerous other features.

Tickspot.com - Allows you to keep track of your time spent on a project and even see how close you are to using up your client’s allotted budget.  Also offers a free iPhone application.

Time59.com - Keep track of your time and expenses and generate invoices that you can send to your clients.

TimeIQ.com - Keep track of your billable hours. Allows for exporting of data, generating reports at your own specified intervals, and several more features.

Toggl.com - Toogl allows you to manually keep track of your time or use their timer.  They also offer both an online version or a Windows-based download that you can use on your desktop.

Miscellaneous Tools

Bizzvo.com - Allows you to import contacts, keep to-do lists, take notes, log phone calls with clients, create invoices and more.

Cashboard -A Basecamp compatible tool that allows you to use Mac OSX, Windows and iPhone applications to update your customers on projects, send invoices, accept payments and more.

CreativeProOffice.com - CreativePro Office allows you to manage your clients, projects, tasks, invoicing and more all in one easy web application.

FreelanceSwitch.com Rates Calculator - Have no clue what you should be charging for your hourly rate as a freelancer?  This rates calculator asks you a series of questions about your working situation, how much you want to make and so on, and then gives you a suggestion of how much to charge per hour.

Homecourtx.com - Gives you a customer management system as well as the ability to pass files back and forth and invoice.

SimplifyThis.com - SimplifyThis is both an appointment book for keeping track of your meetings, and any of those that might be billable, as well as a full invoicing service with payment gateway integrations.

So you’ve got the tools to do your job, but do you have the work to do?  Photographers have tons of places like iStockphoto where they can open an account and sell their images with little to no hassle.  For writers there are places such as Helium.com, where you can write any time you’d like, on any subject. While places like FreelanceWriting.com will help you find steadier work.  And if you’re a programmer, there are sites like GetAFreelancer.com, where it seems people will always need workers for more highly technical jobs.

Freelance Photography

123rf.com - 123 Royalty Free pays you a 50% commission on downloaded images, and also allows you to earn money for referring subscribers and new photographers alike.

BigStockPhoto.com - BigStockPhoto pays you between $.50 and $3.00 per download for your photos, and even higher for special requests.

Dreamstime.com - Photographers can place their images here for a sale and receive between 50% and 80% commission.

Fotolia.com - Commissions range from 33% to 64% depending on your exclusivity and your ranking based on the total number of downloads you’ve sold.

FreelancePhotoJobs.com - Find all sorts of freelance photography jobs for magazines, weddings, websites and more.

ImageCatalog.com - Depending on licensing, ImageCatalog pays photographers anywhere from $.40 to $40.00 per download.

iStockphoto - Photographers can earn from 20 - 40% commissions on each photo they sell through this royalty free site.  (Disclosure: Mashable has a partnership with iStockphoto)

PhotoStockPlus.com - You can earn commissions up to 85% with a 3.25% processing fee for both photos you sell as well as products you put your images on such as mugs and other products.

Shutterstock.com - Shutterstock pays a flat rate of $.25 a download and increases it to $.30 per download when you hit $500 in a pay period.  You can also earn commissions for referring others to the service.

Freelance Programmers & Web Designers

DesignQuote.net - Potential clients with design and graphic art work post jobs that freelancers can browse through and post bids on to win contracts.

FreelanceAuction.com - Allows you to bid on listed jobs for all aspects of programming and design.  Numerous listings for Web coding and design work such as logos.

GetAFreelancer.com - Focused on a wide selection of computer related work from basic site design to developing full sites for Joomla, OsCommerce, WordPress and more.

LimeExchange.com - Offers jobs that freelancers can bid on, and then you can continue to use the service to check in with one another throughout the lifespan of the project.

oDesk.com - A marketplace for freelancers to meet up with clients and look for work.  Clients can leave ratings and reviews for any freelancers they hire to help them get future work.

ozLance.com.au - Focused on Australia, ozLance has listings for Web development, content writing, audio/visual work and more.

Project4Hire.com - Contractors post technical programming or blogging jobs they have available and freelancers bid for the work.

RentACoder.com - Has thousands of open coding projects and a newsletter you can subscribe to so that you receive daily notifications of new projects as they come available.

ScriptLance.com - ScriptLance focuses heavily on programming assignments, but also features some listings for blog content creation.

SearchWebJobs.com - A job site focused on Web related jobs with a section dedicated to freelance engagements that indicate if you must live near the office or if you can work from anywhere.

Freelance Writers

BloggerJobs.biz - Numerous blogging jobs from all different styles of blogs that range from freelance to full-time.

FreelancePortfolios.com -A resource allowing writers to set up portfolios to show off their work and skills to potential employers.  Also has some job listings for people looking for work.

FreelanceWriting.com - FreelanceWriting.com features a mixture of articles and resources to help people break into freelance writing, and also offers some job listings and links to other resources.

Helium.com - While not so much freelance writing as writing “on spec,” you are free to write articles on any subject and then you can earn revenue from a portion of their advertising sales related to your articles.

Jobs.ProBlogger.net - A jobs board over at the well known ProBlogger for freelance and full-time bloggers looking for work.

JournalismJobs.com - Features job listings for blogs, newspapers, magazines, newswires and other forms of print and online media.

Online-Writing-Jobs.com - Offers all sorts of freelance writing job listings for magazines, reviews, resume writing, blogs and more.

Suite101.com - Freelance writers of all stripes can write articles on just about any subject of their choice and get paid a share of the advertising for the entire life of the article.

WritersWeekly.com - A weekly ezine dedicated to freelance writing that features articles and some listings for jobs.

WritingBids.com - A site that allows various online and offline publishers to post writing gigs that freelancers can bid on in an attempt to win.

WritingCareer.com - Features listings of freelance writing jobs as well as guides and advice for aspiring writers.

Miscellaneous Freelancers

AllFreelanceWork.com - AllFreelanceWork offers a support community as well as a jobs board for people looking for work in web design, sales, marketing and more.

Amazon Mechanical Turk - Run by Amazon.com, Mechanical Turk offers all sorts of quick freelance work from simple things such as doing searches for Creative Commons licensed photography to writing full articles for web sites.

BizReef.com - Contractors post their jobs and freelancers bid on the work in a number of fields such as graphic design, marketing, photography and more.

ContractedWork.com - Businesses needing work done post their projects and then freelancers can bid for the work.  Has a heavy concentration on web site related work, but does also have listings for other fields.

Elance.com -A well known freelancing website with just about every type of job you can think of from high end coding projects to engineering, finance, copy writing and a lot more.  Freelancers can set up profile pages listing all of their skills and what services they offer.

FreelanceJobs.org - Freelancers can set up a profile explaining their background while employers can post jobs for computer workers, Web designers, writers, translators and many more fields.

see the original post

Hello Everyone,

Hello Everyone,