Welcome to Smuggle Me

About 3 months ago I made a presentation to a bunch of business people and angel investors for a business plan competition. I ended up doing pretty well and met a lot of interesting people. After winning the competition I was talking with one of the judges trying to create a relationship with him since he works for a multi-national company that does search engine marketing. Probably someone worth knowing.

After talking a little, he asked me for a business card. I was stuck. I had just written a business plan and hadn’t even considered the fact that someone might actually wany my number. Granted, considering my budget at the time I would have certainly needed to find some free business cards.

Well, it turns out that I’m a complete fool. There are plenty of places across the web where you can get free business cards. You can imagine my disgust with myself when I found out about free business cards. I can’t imagine what that executive thought of me without business cards when I could have gotten some for free!! I guess I could have blamed it on the fact that many places charge you shipping for the cards.

After telling him that I didn’t have any business cards on me, he said one phrase that will ring in my ears for a long time…

“An entrepreneur without a business card. ”

I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll always have a business card handy.

I recently came across a new company called Lingotek. Here’s a description of what they are doing:

“Lingotek is a new online translation tool for language professionals. Lingotek is not machine translation (MT) and it is not translation memory (TM). Lingotek is a Language Search Engine — the only tool of its kind. It may be used where TM will not work or may replace TM as a higher value, more affordable solution. Lingotek is a global web 2.0 collaborative service that enhances translator’s efficiency by quickly finding meaning-based translated material for reuse.”

A language search engine? What an interesting idea!! I’m really impressed with the idea. Even more interesting is that the guy who started it had been working for LDS church doing all the translations for all the different publications and general conferences. It’s nice to see that he could spread his wings and become an entrepreneur. I really hope it does well.

I wonder how Lingotek could work with an interesting Cambrian House project called BigHal – official website.

Here’s a description of BigHal:
“BigHal is a language translator plugin for your favorite Instant Messaging program including MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and AIM. With BigHal you can chat in your native language and it will be translated to any of the supported languages.

BigHal can help you get beyond the barrier of languages and enables conversations that could never have happened before; giving people the means to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world.”

I don’t know how many people out there have started purchasing a lot of clothes online, but if you have then you need to learn a little secret. There are tons of online coupons available for even some of the most common clothes stores. Here’s a few examples of ones I found without even really looking:

Gap Coupon Codes and Deals

Fredericks of Hollywood Coupons, Deals and Discounts

Eddie Baurer Coupon Code

If you haven’t figured out how a coupon code work, it is really simple. The above websites will give you a code that you can enter when you are ready to purchase an item at the respective website. As you get ready to pay it will ask for a coupon code. Just enter the code and then it will take care of giving you the appropriate discount, free shipping or whatever the deal may be.

Stop paying full price when a simple search for coupon codes can save you money so you can buy more clothes.

I’ve seen a lot of google mashups, but this was pretty cool. A guy drives a car at break neck speeds through the middle of Paris. Having the google map really gives a bit of perspective. I can’t believe he didn’t kill someone or himself. The thing that would have made the video better would be if they had the spedometer reading on the video also.