

Cheap or free web-based tools for your web startup - mpstx
http://blog.flexvite.com/2010/03/30/12-cheap-or-free-web-based-tools-your-web-startup-know-about/

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Pistos2
+1 for Pivotal Tracker. One of the most polished UIs I've worked with. It's a
pleasure for development teams to use; I use it for both freelancing and the
day job. Also helps management have its finger on the pulse of progress, and
have an accurate answer to the question "when will X be done?"

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sumeetjain
My favorite tool for finding available domains while discovering
product/company name ideas is <http://wordoid.com> \- made by a HNer, I think.

~~~
Jasber
Wordoid is great. Another favorite of mine is: <http://www.nxdom.com/>

Shameless plug: I threw up <http://domaingroovy.com/> to keep track of sites
like these. Maybe someone else will find it useful.

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CytokineStorm
Wait, no Heroku? It should definitely be listed in the Price-Scalable Hosting
section. Like AppEngine it's also free starting out, and super easy to scale.
Plus it's all rails, so you don't even have to learn any App Engine API.

~~~
cmelbye
I think it's a lot more expensive than App Engine though. You quickly get into
hundreds of dollars a month range for just a few extra features and two
running processes.

~~~
hopeless
That's a humorous exaggeration, right?

2 x processes + 20GB database = $51/mth

Most people won't require every addon, and there's a free or cheap option in
every case. Yes, you can spend "hundreds of dollars a month" but not easily

~~~
cmelbye
2 x processes + 20GB database + unlimited bundles + SSL ($20-100/month
depending on your needs) == $91-$171/month. And that's for just two thin
processes with a few extra features that are generally required for _most_
apps.

It jumps to more than $200 if you want just one more Thin process or a
background worker, etc.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with Heroku's pricing, but I
wouldn't considering it a "cheap or free web-based tool".

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3pt14159
domai.nr is by far the best domain finding service and is also totally free.
I've bought 8 or so domains with it.

~~~
mpstx
+1 I used domai.nr as well, but less frequently than the other two mentioned.
Domai.nr is great for finding shorter names and creative variations of longer
ones.

~~~
eurokc98
I enjoy using instantdomainsearch for domain hunting.

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Groxx
For browser compatibility: browsershots.org

Litmusapp may be nicer and have summaries, but it's hard to beat browsershot's
simplicity, breadth, and free-ness. Though I have yet to see any provide
decent testing for anything dynamic (videos, perhaps?).

~~~
Pistos2
browsershots.org is good, but some generator nodes can be extremely slow (30
minute wait times). For IE-only screenshots, I like to use
<http://meineipadresse.de/netrenderer/index.php> , which provides IE
screenshots in about 7 seconds.

~~~
kylemathews
browserlab.adobe.com/ is very fast and free as well.

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armandososa
I didn't know <http://www.ask500people.com/>. Looks like an useful resource. I
don't care about the map though.

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yurylifshits
Here is a longer list specifically for web publishers:
<http://publisherapps.org>

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mhartl
The recommended site vyew.com looks good, but

    
    
      http://vyew.com/
    

301s to

    
    
      http://vyew.com/site
    

which in turn 301s to

    
    
      http://vyew.com/site/index3
    

Two 301 redirects, and a damn ugly default URL to boot—I have a hard time
trusting them to get anything else right. Am I wrong?

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phsr
How is Google App Engine? Are there any pain points one should be aware of
before using it?

~~~
cgrinds
Cold startup sucks - it's horrendous for Java and just bad for Python.

If you have a popular app, this isn't an issue. If you don't, it hurts.

~~~
eop
Cold startup is almost unnoticeable for Python apps (bite my lip! see update
below). On the Java side it can be an issue but, as with most things, if you
dig around, you can find some acceptable workarounds.

~~~
cgrinds
No - I've seen 'Hello World' style apps take over 4s to cold startup. For
example <http://timezonetimezone.appspot.com/iscorrect?query=EST>

Took 4.67s to render
<http://www.webpagetest.org/result/100306_5PZ7/1/details/>

I monitored cold startup for a month on one of my apps and some times see 10s
cold startup. <http://www.webpagetest.org/result/100309_5TDW/>

This is after profiling, reducing imports, caching, using app appstats, etc.

~~~
eop
Wow, you're right. I just ran a test on one of my Python apps and found the
same thing. I always assumed 4 seconds was an acceptable start up time,
especially when compared with some of the Java apps I have runnning on App
Engine which have often exceeded the 30 second page limit on startup and
generated a DeadlineExceededException. Thanks for showing your results. I
would never have known this was an issue.

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sharpn
I found this helps when collaborating remotely, to send big files around - and
there are other companies offering a similar service:

<http://free.mailbigfile.com/index.php>

~~~
torial
Yeah, I like the Axosoft free variant: <http://www.transferbigfiles.com/>

~~~
sharpn
Good suggestion - I like their higher size limit of 1Gb. I'll check this out,
thanks.

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torial
Didn't see this category, but for the developers of a startup, an easy to use
/ free bug tracking system can be found in BugNotes:
<http://www.bugnotes.com/home.php>

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ledger123
I am working on simplified hosted accounting service for startups based upon
open source sql-ledger. There will be a free single user version.

Keep yourself updated via blog or mailing list (see my info)

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imagetic
<http://lighthouseapp.com> and <http://tenderapp.com> for bug tracking and
support tools that integrate.

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boundlessdreamz
The madmimi website gave me a headache.

Is there any site which allows me to display a text box on my site and
collects the emails given and allows me to send newsletters?

~~~
oneplusone
Use CampaignMonitor. By far the best tool for the job.
<http://www.campaignmonitor.com>

~~~
redorb
I agree campaignMonitor has some great analytics / at the link below you can
view a good screen shot of the analytics page..

<http://imgur.com/uq9zn>

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calaniz
Woopra is a great realtime analytics service. I'm building our iPhone
client...

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enjoyaol
really appreciated the list of tools. Anybody with a similar list but with
other tasks ?

~~~
yurylifshits
Here is a longer list specifically for web publishers:
<http://publisherapps.org>

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fender0011
Great article.

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giangbiscan
Great list. Thanks for sharing.

