Hit By Bricks

www.zerohalliburtoncases.com a site that specializes in business card cases that compliment the very expensive zero halliburton briefcase is launching a site that will allow for easier navigation and a similar checkout process.  If you are looking for a great stocking stuffer for that business man or woman in your life, check out www.zerohalliburtoncases.com

These business card cases are made to look like a and measure 3×4 and can hold about 20 cards

The time has come to revitalize hitbybricks.  It’s a site where you can share an idea, talk about a site you like, discuss business ideas, spotlight successful young companies.  All in all, this should be a place that will let you share ideas, think of new ideas and collaborate as a community.  We had a nice community back on the old site and we have re-designed this site to make it easier to follow, easier to post your idea, and above all a better overall site.   It’s high time that we get things going again.  Look for more to come…

A lot has been said about the best iPhone apps out there.   There are a handful of sites out there that indicate the top 10 iPhone apps.  I thought we would do something similar but instead of me just metioning the apps that I like, I want to hear from the community some of your best apps.  One thing that I enjoy the most about the app store is learning about new apps from others…  that’s where all of my best apps come from.

So here are my top 5.  All of these happen to be free apps although there are plenty of  paid apps that are well worth the price.  These are in no particular order:

Mint.com is the best online money management sites out there.(and it’s free   The mint.com  iphone app is spectacular.   I love to stay up to date on my finances no matter where i’m at.

Pandora whether you like Pandora or Slacker both apps provide you mobile access to streaming music.  Pick a song or an artist and start to build a channel where you can listen to your favorite music.

Bloomberg is a great app to stay on top of what is going on in the market.   You can get interactive quotes, charts, and news on all things financial.

Lux Touch brings back everything we like about playing risk.  The strategy of moving your armies into world domination all from your iPhone.  And it takes only a fraction of the time to play…  highly addicting and you can buy Lux DLX to take it to the next level.

Facebook, although I’m not a huge fan of Facebook, I do like this app.  This is the only way I can stay up to date on Facebook without spending my whole life logged in online.  This app allows me to easily see what’s up with my peeps.

There are so many cool apps.  Even games that I would have never thought would make it on to the iPhone are starting to show up, i.e.  Need for Speed, The Sims, Tiger Woods Golf…

So now here is your chance to share your favorites with us.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he had mentioned this new company Frogzog.  It’s basically a free service that allows you to find and redeem coupons from your phone.  You text a keyword and your state/zip to 40123 and it will retrieve coupons.

This is a unique service, different than what you would do if you were to text Google.  Google would give you back Google search results according to your keyword.  Frogzog focuses on returning results as they relate to the latest and greatest coupon.  You can start to see how useful this service might be.  Say you are heading out to lunch and want to see lunch discounts in the area.  With a quick text you can find a usable coupon to get a break on your lunch.

This friend of mind mentioned to me that this idea started from the founders trying to figure out  a better way to distribute a printed coupon magazine they published.  They were trying to find better ways of creating a win win for both businesses and consumers.  Someone thought of, well what about text messages… and the idea was born.  A real hit by bricks moment.  This also was a good reminder to me that not always does  an idea end up where we think it will.  They we’re trying to find a better way to distribute their magazine.  What they got was a new creative approach that tapped into the world of texting and web 2.0.

Check them out…  frogzog.com.

Back when we first started hit by bricks we had a great idea about a creating a new community for homebuilders…  take a look

i have recently built a home, and while we love our new home, it seems like each day, now that we are living in the home, we come up with something we would have done different.

for example, we would have put a light switch for the garage lights in both the garage, and inside the home in the laundry home.

or would have added a walk through door from the laundry room to the outside so that we don’t have to open the garage door every time the garbage needs to be taken out….

i think a cool web community would be a place for all individuals who have built a home to post all the ideas they now have thought of since they now live in the home, share them with others, and allow individuals who are thinking about building to leverage our experience and not to make the same mistakes we made, or to incorporate the ideas we now have…after the fact…

any body know if this already exists?

This is still one of the highest rated ideas that we discussed on the first hitbybricks website.  Let us know your thoughts.

I can’t imagine life in my office without my ear-buds although i wish they had a cord that was at least 10 feet long and pandora.com…or my solid state one-terabyte flash drive. 

What gadgetry do you use to make your work space a bit more enjoyable or more efficient?

Although buying into a successful franchise can make good business sense, make sure you read and understand your agreement with the corporate office…click on the picture to read the full article about Burger King and its attempt to force the removal of this statement from one of its largest franchisees in the South…

ran across this article on lifehacker and thought that it applies to our interests…the article and posts are focused on the challenges of choosing a good name for your business…click here

Most of us work full time.  Some of us like what we do, others don’t.   There is a large number of us that aspire to do our own thing .  So in an effort to accomplish this goal, we end up moonlighting.   We do this sometimes to see if we can sustain ourselves enough to make the leap or just to make an extra buck.

The disussion for this month is what are some good ideas around moonlighting.  What have you done, what has worked well, and how have you done it.  It can be things you’ve thought of, something your actually doing or something that you’ve done in the past.