The New Blog

Everyone!! Please update your feeds and bookmarks, as the PrintFu Blog is now located at:

Site: BCorbin.com
Feed:RSS feed

May the Fu be with you!

New Design and Features

The new PrintFu design is complete. Its a lot lighter and less "evil". Lets hope that it helps sales! Last month was my worst month ever! Also, new features will be added shortly. The biggest feature is the shopping cart - dubbed the fukart! HA. You will be able to order multiple books at the same time, this will save on shipping as well as a cheaper price per page. Also, I am working on adding a USPS Media Mail shipping method, prices for Media Mail is a lot less than UPS but it does take about 6 days to get to your home.

I have also decided to focus more time on getting Yummy running smoothly in hopes that it will help increase PrintFu's bottom line. Additionally I am working on more partnerships with large content providers (names withheld until all the documents are signed!).

So far I have been blown away by the number of requests I have gotten for PrintFu over seas. I still have not set up any firm relationships with printers outside of the US walls, but that is something I would like to finish up before the end of the year.

Again, I would like to thank everyone for all your great words of Printfu and Yummy!

Yummy... Ok we will try again

Ok, all of the emails convinced me, that I will let Yummy try to have a second life! Here's to Yummy. Lets hope that it doesnt keep crashing my server!

Yummy has been Killed!

Due to various legal reasons (DAMN THE MAN) Yummy has been shut down. I would like to thank everyone that contributed to this great little side project, it was a great few months. Unfortunately, with the legal issues, the server traffic and my lack of time, I have decided to stop it all. If you still want to find PDFs check out PrintFu's PDF search at http://www.printfu.org/index.cfm?mcAction=search.pdf

Now, if anyone out there is interested in taking the brand and running with it, contact me. Hell, do a google search for Yummy! and it's the first one. So if you want to build a better yummy, I will help.

Now, if you liked Yummy, your going to love Futodo, Kick Ass Time Management. I will be releasing it soon in beta and by invitation only. If you would like to be on the initial invite list email me at Brandon.corbin@gmail.com

Thanks again!!!!! B

xpressMessages

UN Communications, (the company that does most of PrintFu's fullfillment) has released XpressMessages, a product that allows companies or individuals to quickly send personalized postcards to any mailing address. These on-demand, full color cards are printed and mailed the same day they are ordered for a total price of around a buck per card.

Right now the system is mainly set up for corporate accounts and people who are willing to drop 250 bucks for a base account. But at around a dollar a card, you can make a pretty good argument that is a hell of a deal.

A great application would be for large companies HR departments. The majority of large companies have a database of job candidates, these passive job seekers need to be reminded how much company "XXX" loves them. So they could automatically up load their candidate list to xPressmessage and send them all a nice personalized postcard in just a few clicks.

I can see a lot of use for a product like this in sales organizations too. How about a birthday card for every prospect automatically sent out? The possibilities goes on and on. Check it out at XpressMessages.com

Futodo is almost done

So I have stopped development of yummy for the time being to finish up Futodo. With all the stuff I have going on, PostMaster LX Development (a killer job posting product for my employer), PrintFu, Yummy, and personal life stuff. I have found it damn near impossible to easily manage all the stuff I have to do. So I started building futodo, which is almost ready for alpha. Im not going to open it up for general access for a while, and It will be by invitation only until it leaves beta.

Creating Todos
1. Email
You can send an email to UserId.add@futodo.org and it will automatically be added to your todos. (it will parse out your due date and tags if you supply them) the system also supports iCals attachments and Outlook Invites.

2.Webservices, HTTP Get, HTTP Post
The system is completely open and ready to accept requests to create Todos.

3.Chat!
After the product leaves beta, we will support instant messaging. So you can create Todos by IMing an AIM or Yahoo account.

You will be able to list your todos, or be notified of a up coming task via Instant Messenger, Email, SMS messaging. You can also subscribe to your todos via RSS and Webcal!

The real geeky part about this is the way that you can filter your lists. I created a RequestHandler object that basically takes a string turns it in to a todo filter. For example: UserId.tags_work.retrieve@futodo.org will send you all your tasks that are tagged with "Work" or UserId.tags_work.status_complete.keyword_dogs.retrieve@futodo.org will return all tasks that are complete, that have been tagged with "work" and have the word "dog" in any of the parts.

The same goes for URL, users/USERNAME/status:Not Complete/todos.webcal

Futodo. Well make you efficient!

The new yummy!

The new Yummy is coming soon. I have been working on really tearing apart a PDF, so everyone can basically get all the information they need before they have to download. Like: Summary, HTML version, PDF Indexing and searching, Google PDF Search API, working thumbnails, accurate PDF metadata etc. Once I find the best java pdf manipulator I will post them here. (suggestions welcome)

Also, I am in the process of redesigning the entire product. I really hate the del.icio.us copy that I have now. Plus, Yummy is not a del.icio.us for PDFs. Its really meant to be a personal Library. That being the case, I think a clean un del.icio.us design is called for. Let me know your thoughts! Thanks, Brandon

The Corbin Free Spirit.

My sister Kim Corbin has to be one of the most interesting people I know. My family is not lacking in "strong personalities" and Kim helps reinforce that point more than any of us. As a matter of fact a few years back she decided to start a National Skipping Movement. Yes, skipping like you did when you were a child. My dad and I thought she was nuts, but using that great Corbin dedicated, she ended up in People Magazine, The Wallstreet Journal, Donny & Marie Show, NPR, Self Magazine, and hundreds of other big publications. Full list.

Believe it or not, there are skipping groups in almost every major city. Crazy right? The Corbin family wouldn't have it any other way! Here's to the crazy ones!

You can read more about Kim at the newest Corbin family blog: The iSkip Blog