I’m excited to announce that my friends at Xobni have made one of my favorite tools even better. Originally an amazing tool for Microsoft Outlook, now Xobni organizes your contacts and more on your smartphones and in Gmail. Here’s an update the company sent me last week:

Not only can you use Xobni with Outlook, but you can also use Xobni with your iPhone, Android or BlackBerry.  Smartr Contacts by Xobni enables you to access all your contacts from any Xobni or Smartr App, when you’re on the go!

With these apps on your phone, you’ll never need to manage your address book again.  Smartr Contacts pulls in all the existing contacts on your phone AND it pulls in information from your email, calendar and social networks. Each contact is not just a name on your phone, but Smartr Contacts imports photos, and recent updates from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Most importantly, it pulls all the information for a person into one contact–you’ll no longer have six entries for the same person and all these contacts are ranked contacts by those you interact with the most. Each contact profile is complete with all the email addresses and phone numbers for that person and a history of the most recent interactions and emails, and even a list of contacts you share in common.

Lifehacker named Smartr Contacts “The Best Address Book Apps” for both iPhone and Android. 

Click here to get started right away with Smartr Contacts:
Smartr Contacts for iPhone
Smartr Contacts for Android
Smartr Contacts for BlackBerry

Here are some videos if you’d like to see the apps in action:
Smartr Contacts for iPhone

Smartr Contacts for Android

Xobni | Your smarter address book is waiting.

Need a custom cartoon for your marketing? ToonDoo makes it easy — and free! They have hundreds of stock backgrounds, clipart and people, or you can create your own images. My masterpiece (above) took about 45 minutes. You can create online cartoons or buy a high-res version for marketing use. Way cool and super fast.

Nerd Life by askbethz – ToonDoo – Worlds fastest way to create cartoons!.

A few years ago I purchased a fairly expensive antique Coca Cola thermometer for my mother for Christmas via Ebay. It looked awesome to me when I wrapped it, and Mom adored it… until she saw that the mercury thermometer was broken, rendering the piece much less valuable.

Too bad WeGoLook.com didn’t exist way back then. For $49, a background-checked “Looker” will go check out any item you need to eyeball before you buy: furniture for your office, a car for your business trips, equipment for your company. They will go see the item (or property), confirm the existence and basic functionality, check out the details that validate your purchase and much more. They even take up to 10 pictures and include them in a report.

In addition, you can purchase add-ons, such as a video, shipping and more. It’s a worthwhile investment when you’re making a big purchase.

If you like this tool, try…

• Zaarly
• Elance

(PS — they’ll also go check out a date if you’re meeting people online — thus eliminating a potential creep factor!)

WeGoLook.com: Onsite Inspection of Auction Items, Autos, Properties, Field Services

Think of Zaarly as a very organized, moderately safer Craigslist. It allows your neighbors to offer and request goods and services with the benefit of a moderated platform and a rating system. Need your house cleaned while you work at home? Post a free request, and within hours you’ll hear from a local provider who can help. Then pay via credit card through the site and get on with the real work at hand.

Not yet available in all US cities.

Platforms:

•  Online
• Apple iOS
• Android

Sites like Zaarly:

·         TaskRabbit:  Find household and office help in your area from providers who have gone through background checks.

Register Now! Top 20 Travel Tools for Nerds on the Go!

$30 registration includes a signed copy of the presenter’s book!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Pacific Time)

If you travel, there’s no need to juggle printed itineraries, collect business receipts or feel disconnected from the office.

Beth Ziesenis, Your Nerdy Best Friend, will share the Top 20 Tech Travel Tools for Nerds on the Go! This special session will include free and bargain tech tools that help you stay organized, productive and in touch on the road.

BONUS!
Every attendee receives a copy of the presenter’s book, Upgrade to Free: The Best Free and Low-Cost Tools and Apps (rated 5 stars on Amazon.com — a $15 value), plus one lucky attendee will win a one-hour consultation with Beth to discover tech tools specific to his or her organization or lifestyle.

NOTE: Profits from this webinar will be donated to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in memory of the presenter’s running buddy, Rebecca Reza, who lost her life to cancer this winter. Read her story here.

If you’re like me, chances are you have a pile of grocery, pharmacy and other loyalty cards in your wallet, and a couple of peeling, pathetic ones on your key ring. These are the cards you need to scan to receive store discounts and garner loyalty points.

At a recent conference, a fellow app-a-holic turned me on to Key Ring, a handy smartphone app that allows you to enter all your loyalty programs into your phone so you don’t have to carry the physical cards anymore. To enter your cards, just snap a picture of the card’s barcode, and your card is permanently and instantly cataloged in your app.

In addition, the loyalty programs frequently offer other discounts and specials through the app and makes it easier for you to sign up for new cards as well.

Key Ring

Sometimes we need a quick and easy image to illustrate a point. Says-It.com is an image generator that lets you personalize soft drink cans, old 45s, concert tickets and more. Way cool to play with and super easy to use.

Says-It.com.

Vizualize.me is a free site that lets you connect your LinkedIn profile to an online graphic resume. In seconds, you can have a fun, colorful representation of your skills, experience and education, plus a handy list of your recommendations.

Watch the brief video to see how easy it is to make…

Take your job hunting or networking a step further by turning your Vizualize resume into a t-shirt for about thirty bucks. Clever, clever.

vizualize.me.

My experience as a copywriter revealed to me the secret insecurities that many people have about their writing. Incredibly intelligent people with excellent communication skills would cringe when they handed me a first draft of a piece they wanted me to shape.

With visions of former English teachers in their heads, they fretted about grammar, spelling and word choice, forever concerned that they were making the mistakes that they made when they were in school.

Most of the time, they had nothing to worry about, but a clever, anonymous tool can help restore a writer’s confidence, no matter his level.

Just paste text into a text box at www.PaperRater.com and receive instant feedback about spelling, grammar, word choice and more. It’ll even analyze your sentence structure and vocabulary use to give you an overall grade, just like your English teacher used to give.

Designed to help students improve their writing, this tool is completely free and a little addictive. I ran several of my published pieces through the analysis and was surprised by the little errors I had missed.

Oh, and I ran this post through PaperRater — I earned a “B.” Harumph. Paper Rater Blog Analysis.

Paper Rater: Free Online Grammar Checker, Proofreader and More.