No Snivelling

My friend Mikhail just opened his new company, ClayValet, to the public.

ClayValet is a new service that simplifies online shopping. How it works is you tell them what you're looking for, in plain English, and then real people/shoppers will scour the Internet on your behalf. They read customer reviews, compare prices and find expert opinions to decide which products would best fit your needs. They then put their findings in a clear report and send it to you within 24 hours of your request.

Here's a request that I made:

A GPS device that I can take with me when I travel and then use in rental cars to help guide me (with voice prompts), make suggestions (avoid traffic, find cheap gas) and save me time. Ideally, I'd like to spend <$300, but if the price point is really higher than that, I'd love to see other well-rated products.

And, here you can see the ClayValet GPS Response (I'd paste it here, but it's too long, detailed and awesome!

Finally, they're looking for feedback -- so, as you try the ClayValet shopping service, please use the feedback forms (at the bottom of every page) to tell them what you think.

Labels: clayvalet, personal shopper, shopping

Tired of the hundreds of catalogs that come to your house every month? Then cancel them!

This catalog cancellation service makes it easy to manage your catalog cancellations for you and other members of your household:

Labels: catalog, catalog choice

I just logged in to JibJab today and found a message from Clarence's wife, telling me that he passed away on November 10, 2007. That makes me very sad. icuclarence (his JibJab username) was one of my favorite 'bad video joke tellers' (sorry Clarence... I have to call 'em as I see 'em :-) ) -- he also inspired me to some bad video joke telling of my own. You can see his official obituary here.

Let's pause for a moment of silence... then go enjoy a few of Clarence's jokes:

Labels: clarence cagle, icuclarence, jibjab

Seriously, make it easy on yourself, and do all of your holiday shopping in one fell swoop -- head to Urchin on 1st Ave in Seattle, and in under and hour, you be done (note -- this works much better for men on a mission :-) )

Address:
1922 First Ave
Seattle, WA 98101

www.urchinseattle.com

Labels: seattle, shopping, urchin, urchin seattle

In the early days of TeachStreet, I was working out of coffee shops, my dining room and pretty much anywhere I could find a power outlet. About that time, I met Jacob Sayles (pictured above with his co-founder (and co-janitor) Susan), who had the idea to create a coworking space in Seattle, where individuals could band/work together in a group space, with each person paying a monthly fee (or daily fees, if needs were less frequent) to have the rights to use a large office space. It's been a few months, but I'm so excited to announce that Seattle's Office Nomads has officially opened for business!

Of course, you can get all the pertinent details via the link above, but if you're considering a startup in Seattle, this is exactly the type of first step that can get you moving your dream from idea to reality -- get yourself a space where you can focus your thinking/plans, and surround yourself with other creators -- the energy's contagious!

From their site:
Open for drop-ins Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 6pm
1617 Boylston Ave, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98122-6730
Main: (206) 323-6500 Fax: (206) 323-6501

There's a short video intro to coworking on the Office Nomads site (I tried to embed here, but the link code just kept breaking)

Labels: coworking, jacobsayles, officenomads, seattle, startup

I was reading my gmail this morning, and a story teaser caught my eye -- it went something like "China says poverty problem more urgent than global warming". Gmail probably pitched that to me because of a TeachStreet blog post that I wrote yesterday about learning about microfinance; regardless, it piqued my interest.

The poverty vs. global warming article from the Associated Press essentially stated the difficult situation/tradeoff from China's perspective as:

• Developing countries should be able to emit more greenhouse gases, as they work to reduce poverty for their populace
• Developed countries, thus, bear more responsibility to cut emissions

While life isn't ever this binary/simple, I do agree with the basic premise. And, I'm sure that the United States in 1800 would have a vastly different opinion about the matter than we do now. In a perfect world, all countries would see this as a global responsibility, and strive toward goals that are in line with their current development stages. Fellow blogger UrbanOnramps highlights the fact that China accounts for more than half of global carbon emissions -- that is most definitely shocking, but again, I shudder to think about our own contributions during the Industrial Revolution. Best to find a common ground toward significant improvements over the next 30 years than reject negotiation altogether.

I'll leave with a small plug for a company/organization I'm a supporter of -- if you'd like to become a little bit more responsible with your greenhouse emissions and support a cleaner planet, I encourage you to learn a bit more about TerraPass -- they make it quick and easy to offset carbon emissions from your car, flights, home and more.

Labels: carbon emission, greenhouse gas, poverty, terrapass