Then, I found Balsamiq Markups. Balsamiq Markups is like my whiteboard on steroids — yet, still much, much better than that.  Balsamiq is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to quickly prototype a site using common elements found on a web page like buttons, tabs, search, etc.  You can quickly and easily re-size elements, group them together, or lock them on the page.  (My whiteboard never did that.)

Balsamiq Mockups deftly combines a rough, hand-drawn sketch look with a smooth, Visio-like ability to arrange elements on a page.  For designers, this will save them from getting into Photoshop right away.  These mock-ups allow you to get a feel for space and alignment without needing to commit to color, design, or typography.  For everyone else, Balsamiq provides one of the easiest ways for you to get into the web design game too.  Developers can test out what they’re trying to build, product managers can test out new ideas — heck, even corporate executives can figure this thing out.

Because Balsamiq’s so easy to use, it’s a great tool for soliciting group UI discussion.  You can quickly iterate on an idea using multiple versions of a mock or by simply changing your design on the fly.  On top of all that, it’s actually fun to use.  When was the last time you picked up a new software product and said that?

To see for yourself, try out Balsamiq’s online demo.  You’ll quickly get sick of being told you’re using a demo, but you’ll also quickly find yourself feeling like you have the design skills of Steve Jobs.  For $79, you can have that feeling all you want with their full version.

As a blogger, I was granted a free license in exchange for an honest review (it meets my advertising tolerance level), so in that vein, here are a few things I think could be better:

1. The toolbar could use some improvement.  It takes up a substantial portion of the screen yet it seems like I’m always trying to find an element.  Sections labelled “Big” aren’t that helpful.  The issue’s alleviated by placing elements in multiple sections, but better labeling and smaller icons would certainly help.  Maybe a scrolling list with a single preview of the image?  I have ideas about this
2. The fade away toolbar that rests on the editing screen is also a bit tricky.  I often didn’t know what was hidden behind this section.  When it appears, it always seems to be in the way.  When I need something, I can’t always figure out where it is.  For example, clicking on the down arrow to bring up all icon options was not entirely intuitive.  I think there’s room for this to be in the top bar to save space on the editing screen and make it more visible.
3. Last, I’d say ditch the notebook look.  You don’t need to reinforce the fact that Balsamiq mirrors a sketch, and the notebook-on-a-web-page look feels very first generation blog to me.  Balsamiq couldn’t be further from first generation web and the rest of the editor should reflect that!

Thanks Balsamiq!

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There are also wayyyy more ads on this blog.

Online ads really bother some people.  They ruin the user experience and drive some people to using ad blockers.  I don’t think it has to be that way. I think don’t think of ads as a necessary necessary evil.  They’re a challenge.  We can create great ads that fill the side of a building, a page of a magazine, a bottlecap, a stamp.  Why not try to make online ads interesting? Where’s the next great 125×125 designer?

How can we make ads more useful for our users?  I’m not sure, but I’m playing around with ads on Enter Venture.  It has nothing to do with money because, well, there’s not yet enough to support my monthly coffee bill.  Instead, I’m adding ads to Enter Venture to figure ads out.  Here’s what I mean:

1. Designing with constraints

When you mock up a site, it’s easy to think about where you’ll place all of the top comment, category, and media goodies.  With ads, though, you have to figure out what you’re willing to sacrifice and where.  To make ads work, you certainly can’t hide them.  Ads teach you to organize with constraints.

2. Learn the lingo

CPC, CPM, and CPA are just the start of it.  You’ll want to get an idea for what a leader board is, why and when to use an ad network, and how to measure your success.  When you become big enough to sell your own ads, you’ll be glad to have made your mistakes early.

3. Understand your options

Ads are a bit like tattoos (or so I hear).  Once you’ve got one, you want another one.  Once you’ve got a single ad on your site, you’re going to start thinking about how to extract more revenue for less space.  You learn the difference between getting search ads from Chitika, affiliate revenue from Amazon, and direct ads from AdSense.  Your feed is all of a sudden ripe for the picking.  It’s not all banner ads and pop ups — know your options.

4.  A business or hobby?

Putting ads on your site will quickly tell you if you’re running a business or not.  Are you getting any closer to exceeding your blog’s expenses with your ad revenue?  How about paying yourself a salary?  No?  Yes? If not, blogging is your hobby.  (It’s my hobby).

5. Level of Tolerance

I feel similarly about learning advertising as a I do about learning to invest.  With just a little bit of real money, you change your mindset and learn things you just can’t simulate otherwise.  What’re you willing to do for ad revenue?  Are you going to write paid reviews?  Are there products you will not refer?  During the Prop 8 campaign, I saw a lot of “Yes on Prop 8″ ads online.  I definitely would have blocked that — just doesn’t meet my tolerance level.

6. Make it useful

There’s nothing advertised on Enter Venture that isn’t related to Enter Venture readers.  In fact, there’s nothing advertised that I don’t use myself.  I use both Highrise and InMotion hosting, and well, if Google wants to send people to GoBigNetwork, Business.com, and somewhere else to “Find Venture Capital”, I think that supports this blog too.

There it is.  Six reasons to add ads to your blog that have nothing to do with money.  The SEVENTH reason, though, that has everything to do with money.  It’s a recession, after all.  How else am I going to take care of that monthly coffee bill?

I’m obsessed with process.  It’s impossible for me to work without thinking about how to turn 10 steps into 3, without figuring out how to do things faster, simpler.

Recently, I found something that made my process-obsessed self feel well documented, reproducible, and, well, whole.  Recently, I discovered Tasks for Gmail.  Tasks is an amazing but simple little feature you can find by digging into the Labs portion of your Gmail account.  It allows you to easily add a task, schedule it, and check it off with a fulfilling strike-through.  It rests in the bottom right portion of your Gmail window, and when you’re not using it, you can simply keep it minimized.  Tasks are also what finally brought my work stream full circle, and, Tasks have almost single-handedly rid me of my paper “habit”.

Before Tasks, I wrote all of my major To-Dos for the day in my notebook.  Each day, I would start from the top and work down the notebook completing tasks.  In the course of this, I would scratch things out, write notes in the margins, and generally make a mess out of each and every page.  Each night, I would list out what I hadn’t accomplished and include any additional tasks for the next day, prioritizing as I went.  The problem is, it was just a little too messy.  I was never a huge fan of the hand offs between my paper process and my email / work stream management.  I was wasting paper and ink with pages of scratched out, messy lists.

Along comes Tasks, and all of a sudden, I have a fully integrated process for managing both my micro tasks — email — and my macro tasks — things bigger than emails.  Check it out:

1. As emails come in, I have filters that organize and tag my emails based on either a work stream or specific project.
2. When I come in each morning, I review every piece of email until each ones has been read — I continue this throughout the day too by monitoring a FireFox tab with Gmail to see when it throws up a (1).
3. Emails that I can respond to immediately, I do.  If not, the item is starred and finds its way onto my task list.
4. Once the inbox is clear, I review my task list, add anything that’s missing, and prioritize.
5. Next, I work on tasks in my task list from top to bottom — stopping only to keep my inbox clear.
6. As I come to an item that is associated with a starred email, I address that email and remove the star.

Voila!  When my emails are done, my tasks are done.  When my tasks are done, my emails are done too.

There are all kinds of task management tools I could have chosen — just ask my friends at Ativiti about all of them.  What’s great about Tasks, though, is that I never had to think about it. It simply arrived and became a part of my day-to-day, all without requiring a single additional username and password, without another website to keep open, and, really, without much more functionality than a basic checklist.

It’s now a part of something bigger than itself.  It’s now a part of a process.

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Recently, Boris over at TheNextWeb.com wrote a bit about the things he hates about the web. After reviewing the new group socializing startup, MIXTT, recently, I was thinking about one of my favorite things about the web. It’s those rare moments, when ideas, computer code, and virtual screens somehow turn into fresh air and real conversation. I love when the web helps me get outside and talk to real people.

These days, no matter what your profession, it’s hard to avoid constantly being on the web. You write emails, text messages, and 140 character status updates. You talk to people on Skype, your cell phone, and your iPhone (which isn’t really a phone — especially given it’s lackluster reception). You have all of these ways of trying to recreate real, flesh and blood conversation. Every once in awhile, why not use some of the web’s tools as a way to experience the real thing? Go meet some real people. Go visit some real places.

Go to an event

Back in the days before the web, finding out about an event was a bit of a crap shoot. You might see a flyer for the event somewhere or an ad in a magazine or newspaper. With the web, you can find just about any type of event you can imagine. You can find business and tech events on sites like Garysguide or get a list of events by your location with Eventful. You can even find tickets to professional events (i.e., you have an overpriced ticket with a bar code) resold for extra high prices on StubHub, Ebay, or craigslist.

Create your own event

Services like MeetUp and MIXTT help you form both online and real life groups to help both your business and social life. You can create an ad hoc gathering focused on learning something new with a BarCamp event. If that doesn’t work, there are all kinds of other “unconferences” you can create — you can even create your own overpriced tickets with tools like EventBrite.

Find a date

It’s hard to watch TV these days without seeing the dueling ads between Match.com and eHarmony. Real people are using these services, and you can use not-so-real compatibility tests to find them. If that doesn’t work for you, try finding dates based on religion with sites like JDate, MuslimFriends, or, Christian Cafe.

Go to china (or somewhere similar)

Ernst-Jan of TheNextWeb.com has recently been traveled around China for with other bloggers. What a great idea! You can find great travel deals on sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Travelocity. Read about about whatever the places you choose to visit with Lonely Planet (or get paid to write about them) or crash on a couch with CouchSurfer.

Go outside

When all else fails, fire up one of your favorite directions services and walk or drive to somewhere new. You can look up a nice park using one of your local park websites, or find a team to play sports using site’s like New York’s ZogSports.

In plain English, Crazy Egg shows you how your visitors use your site. Where are they clicking?

Crazy Egg offers 5 free tests of their service so I recently started a month long Crazy Egg test. Soon after I began, I wrote about the wpSearch plugin for WordPress. Crazy Egg tells me that people actually read this blog and try some of these things out. That’s good to know. It also tells me people tend to click the “Enter” in “Enter Venture” because it looks like a button. The other major button, the LinkedIn button, is second only to the search bar in number of clicks.  It even tells me I need to do something about that subscribe button…

Rather than explain any more though, just check out Crazy Egg’s results for Enter Venture. The images (and free trials) speak for themselves:

The Heat View - The heat view shows you a rough focal point for a user’s eye for popular areas.

The Confetti View — This is great for figuring out exactly where your users clicked. Notice, most of my users do not click Search. They must key it.

Statistics Overlay - This view gives you both the number of clicks and the exact element that is actioned with those clicks.

The different views do overlap a bit with their function, but so be it. They look cool in the process. I’ve been thinking about experimenting with advertisements on Enter Venture at some point. Crazy Egg’s $9/month (after a few more free trials) would likely be money well spent to help maximize those advertisements.

After my first iPhone App Store review, I realized I’d made a mistake. I hadn’t dug nearly deep enough to really comment on the App Store. I had only begun to try out many of the applications, and as I admitted, I’d really stayed away from paid applications.

So let’s do this again, shall we? I even paid for an application or two this time. (Imagine that, people paying for software.)

5 More of My Favorite Apps

1. Jambd – I am the last person in the world that would ever use this celebrity and gossip new application, but that doesn’t mean it’s not great. Jambd just works and works well. No crashes (Nytimes take note), fast load times, and a great way to browse a stack of related pictures make this application a joy to use.

2. Crash Bandicoot Racing – If you’ve ever played any of Nintendo’s Mario Cart racing titles, you’ll know what this game is. You drive around by rotating your iPhone like a steering wheel and fire missiles and bombs at your racing opponents with a few taps on the screen. This game has great gameplay and Nintendo GameCube-level graphics. It’s well worth the $9.99 and has probably sucked up way more of my time than I would like to admit.

3. Pocketpedia – This serves a direct need of mine that I’ve been supporting with various emails and notes on my iPhone. Pocketpedia allows you to search Amazon and build lists of items you want. This is exactly the solution I was hoping for while browsing Strand Bookstore during many of my lunch breaks this past year.

4. AOL Radio - Boston probably has one of the country’s best set of rock stations. With AOL Radio I can listen to at least 2 of my favorite stations no matter where I am. If only it had all radio stations, it might be a killer application.

5. Sportstap - Sportstap is one of the few applications that subtly uses mobile ads. It’s also the only sports application that is covering the Olympics as far as I can tell. That differentiation has helped make my primary sports application selection a lot easier.

5 More Apps with Potential

1. pTerm – This is a great application for running SSH on-the-go. All you command line junkies take note.

2. Glucose Charter - If you’ve ever seen a friend prick their finger to get a blood sample to measure their blood sugar, you have to think applications like this have potential. Hopefully with better access to information and nutritional tracking, this will save a finger or two.

3. Education Applications like Molecules and 3D Earth – Both of these applications bring education a step closer to the 3D world. Imagine if kids learned organic chemistry from 3D models all the time. They’d spend less of their time trying to draw sticks and lines to simulate 3D and more time visualizing 3D structures from the beginning.

4. Bible – You can search the Bible from you pocket. My high school would have practically required this thing.

5. MixMaster – Who’s hasn’t wanted to mix a little something at one point or another?

5 Apps I Hate

1. CraigsMobileList - I like that I can get a little bit of Craigslist with this, I guess. Why are is this interface so crowded though? Why can I save searches but I can’t save pages? Why can’t I get more than 25 results? I’m not sure what happened with this one, and I want my money back.

2. Lander - This, like many basic games for iPhone, could be fun for a minute or two. What bugs me about this application is that I have no idea how to play and there’s no simply no guide / help / rules with the application. Seriously, nothing is unacceptable.

3. Pour1Out- I wanted to like this application, but it simply doesn’t work well.

4. Tasks – The interface isn’t completely intuitive and I think a task application should be a lot more organized.

5. Jott – I’d long ago given up on voice recording services, but only 15 seconds of recording time is still way below my expectations.

One of the things I love about the App Store is how new it is. No one knows what they’re talking about with this thing. The playing field is relatively level, the startup costs seemingly reasonable, and the opportunity I’d there. You can even get paid for your software.

Early entrepreneurs would be smart to use this platform. There aren’t as many iPhone users as there are Internet users, but there’s not nearly as much competition here either. The number of iPhone and iPhone-like phones is only going to continue to grow. Every business has the opportunity to establish themselves in this marketplace. What we’re seeing now is a race to become primary destinations. There are $9.99 applications that do the same as free applications. That’ll change.

It’s going to be great seeing this new market unfold itself (especially if Apple would start releasing these things faster).

As for the WordPress iPhone application — not bad. I don’t think I’ll write many more like this because this has taken forever, but I love that I can if I want to. It’s a bit of a pain without WYSIWYG, and typing HTML on a keyboard is tedious. It just means I would have to keep basic formatting with these posts.

I am, however, really excited to talk about iPhone applications because I’m really excited to have my iPhone back. I’ve been without it for 3 months since I dropped and cracked the screen. I have replaced the phone just in time for the App Store, which is a much cooler, easier to use version of the CNET Download.com site, tailored specifically for the iPhone.

Some of the blogosphere’s response to the App Store launch has been critical. That NDA issue is a big deal, but it’s solvable. I think some of the prices are misguided — $10 for Tetris?! Really? Can I get an iPhone-crash-free guarantee with that? The market will ultimately take care of this too.

On the whole, this particular user is completely satisfied with the first release of applications and looking forward to future mobile innovations on the App Store. As a glimpse of that future, here are my top applications and ideas for applications.

Feel free to add your own ideas to the Comments.

5 Favorite iPhone Apps

1. Mlb.com At Bat – Have you ever seen video playback of this quality on any computer? I have a MLB.tv subscription, and it never, ever looks as good as the replays you can watch on Mlb.com At Bat just minutes after the play occurs. Mlb.com At Bat is like having a personalized, DVD quality version of Baseball Tonight’s highlight reel in your pocket.
2. Pandora – Apparently Pandora’s been around forever because my roomate remembers first hearing about them in college. If it weren’t for the iPhone, I might never have known about Pandora. I don’t think I’m alone here. Pandora’s online radio just became a whole lot more compelling now that I can carry it with me.
3. Google – Google has an iPhone version for a lot of its major products so they’re obviously at the top of the list. GChat and Google Reader are my two personal favorites.
4. WordPress – I have not used the WordPress application too much yet, but I already know I love it. The level of control it gives me over my blog at all times is reassuring. The Guarantee Fairy has nothing on that.
5. (Tie) Truveo & Twittelator – At first, I would have said Twittelator. This level of access to Twitter has made me much more active with the service and is what prompted this post. At the same time, I just spent half an hour checking out Obama in Berlin videos on Truveo. I’m hooked on both of these applications.

5 iPhone Apps with Potential

1. PayPal – Paypal’s application is a great example of clean, simple, easy-to-use design. I wish I had more reasons to send money to people with email addresses just to try it out.
2. Bloomberg – The iPhone application is nothing compared to a Bloomberg terminal, but it’s certainly of the same quality and style.
3. NYTimes – This application would be great if it would just stop crashing. I’ll read the NYTimes and use this application all the time as soon as it’s updated.
4. All Games – Most Games are paid applications. The problem I have with the paid applications is that they’re mostly in beta. I want to see the dust settle a bit on paid applications before I start pulling my credit card out. (The MLB application doesn’t count. I had to have that.)
5. Shakespeare – I walk around with the entire collection of Shakespeare in my pocket these days. If that doesn’t get you laid in literature circles, it at least speaks to the potential of online books for the iPhone.

5 Apps I Want

1. Credit Card Sensor – This requires a bit more infrastructure than a simple application, but it’d be an amazing leap toward the idea of having one application in your pocket. If you could figure out a way to put any item in my wallet on my phone, it would also make this list.
2. More Video Applications – I want an application that gives me quick news updates, movie previews, downloadable content, etc. Truveo’s a search engine. I want a better content provider application.
3. Emergency Services Contact – By leveraging the iPhone’s location awareness services, this application could determine a caller’s exact location immediately for police / fire fighthers / ambulances to immediately navigate to the scene.
4. Level – I know, this is random, but who hasn’t needed a level when they’re hanging a picture? I’m sure someone could make a simple level tool that every iPhone-carrying-window-hanger would love. Update: There is a level for iPhone. PosiMotion has an “A Level” application. iPhone-carrying-window-hangers rejoice!
5. Fingerprint recognition unlock – I love the idea of having a lock on my iPhone. With my notes, my calendar, contacts, email, etc. on my iPhone, I think that makes sense. The problem is, I can’t stand the idea of having to unlock my iPhone every single time I want to use it. This thing has a touch screen, right?  If you can’t take an actual image, how about the shape and width of your fingerprint? I’d love to simply press my finger to a point on the phone to both activate and unlock it. That’d be both security and convenience.

I know a few of these things are impossible right now given the restrictions Apple’s put on the iPhone SDK, but give it time. The walls will slowly come down.

Before I go on, Iet’s talk about the furniture in my room. There’s the desk. That was free from craigslist. Then there’s the bureau — also free from craigslist. The bed frame cost me about $50, and my bookshelf about $40 (also from craigslist. That Craig’s got a great list).

My whiteboard, the only other substantial thing in my room, cost me a cumbersome ride on the F train and around $75. It’s by far the most valuable thing in my room.

Now, why was it worth over 75% more than the rest of my bedroom combined? Quite simply, it’s the best tool for helping you get started on almost any project. It is the figurative “blank slate” come to life. It’s perfect for that idea you’ve been thinking through for days now and finally need to dump.

Actually, once you dump it on the board, you realize there are major gaps missing in your idea. You erase the whole thing, start again fresh. (Rinse, repeat, and you get the idea.)

A whiteboard is every early entrepreneur’s best friend. There are numerous different people you need to contact, things you’ve got to learn, and places you need to go. The whiteboard is a great place for all of this and more. Over the past few months, here are the different ways I’ve found myself using my whiteboard:

1. Task lists

This is the most obvious. My whiteboard currently has a few different task lists going on at once. A list of half baked post ideas for the Enter Venture blog are in the upper right corner. There’s a few technical topics I’ve committed to learning on the left, and a few people I need to email are listed just above my computer in the lower right corner.

On paper, you check or cross off your tasks and end up a book full of squiggles and lines. Whiteboards let you erase your tasks completely. This is somehow more gratifying, I think.

2. Blog Schedule

I’ve tried to keep a fairly consistent posting schedule with Enter Venture as well as keep variety in my posts. Creating calendars on the go has helped with this immensely. I don’t need to map out my blog’s calendar for 3 months. I certainly don’t have 3 months worth of ideas figured out, but a 2 week calendar is perfect for my needs.

I can quickly visualize when I’ll be at an event, whether I’ve added a book lately, or when Vik will be posting.

3. Idea Prototyping

Like any early entrepreneur, I’ve always got a few different ideas floating in my head. When I originally envisioned Enter Venture it was going to be a more comprehensive site with a wider range of social networking features. Prototyping these ideas on the white board made me realize I didn’t have a clear picture of what it was I wanted to create. I kept whittling down features until I was looking at a blog. Here you have it.

4. Doodling

Whiteboards are not only a great tool — your friends will love it! You’ll be the ‘it’ destination for various doodles and messages. People will enter your room and leave having felt like they left a mark, an impression.

Let them do it with a whiteboard. I’ve seen people try to do this with markers and a wall. It wasn’t pretty.

5. A fresh start.

This is the most important. Like any truly great tool, a whiteboard gives you the ultimate in flexibility. For a week, my whiteboard will have a series of screen shots on it. The next week, it has a calendar. Changing your frame of reference will help keep you and your ideas fresh.

In fact, I’m going to clean my board now. I could use a few new ideas for my next post…