This is a guest post written by Matt Gamboa.

If you’ve been to a networking event or Japanese meeting, you’ll understand that the business card is a very important aspect in telling people who are and how to get in touch with you. You also would know then, that the 2 x 3.5 inch piece of fancy paper that you receive multiple times over, can take of a lot of space in your pocket!

Fortunately, Gist is working to build a service that will save the trees and your pocket space by storing contact information from your professional network in the cloud. By pulling all your contact data from different sources together, Gist’s services help you manage and organize who you know in a beautiful, informative way.

Contacts from your address books, social networks, and inboxes are combined and stored in your Gist account. Through the use of apps and plugins, your database can be accessed just about anywhere. Gist has been hard at work developing these plugins and already include:

• Outlook
• Lotus Notes
• Gmail
• Salesforce
• iPhone
• Android

Once you have your contacts built, additional services are then provided to keep you up to date with the latest happenings of your network. Twitter updates, blogs posts, Facebook news, and any other networks your contacts are connected to are all delivered to you when you log in. Making it simple to keep track of what that CTO had for lunch, or where that CEO you met yesterday is currently shopping. Gist wants to give you an open view of what all your contacts are up to and what news there might be about them.

As founder T.A. McCann says on his profile, “Gist brings your contacts into one place to give you the only full view of your network making it easy to find anyone, anytime.”

How to Take Control of Your Contacts

Holy videos, Batman! YouTube realizes that many of us depend heavily on our YouTube channels as a part of what we do on a daily basis. In order to help us promote our channel a little more effectively, they have teamed up with Moo.com to give away fifty very cool business cards to each of us… for next to nothing!

Up until June 30th, 2010, you can design your own card and place your order. The only this it will cost you is the amount of shipping and handling (around six U.S. dollars) necessary to send your cards to you. You’ll get fifty high-quality “Watch Me On YouTube” cards that you get to design yourself. On the picture side, you can choose to put thumbnails from your videos, your channel profile icon or even some part of your channel design. It’s completely up to you. On the detail side, you choose what information to include (in addition to your YT channel name), such as your Twitter or email information. Again, it’s your choice… and you can even add a small graphic on that side, as well.

In exchange for taking advantage of this cool offer, YouTube only asks one thing in return: make a video to put on your channel showing off your cards. Tag it with ytmoo so that they can find it. They will highlight some of their favorites on the Creator’s Corner and Moo’s site.

I can’t wait to see the cards you guys come up with. Make sure you point us towards your video or photos when your business cards come in!

Free YouTube Business Cards

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I love to surround myself with things I can use – and that look good on my desk. When the folks at Useful Things sent me a care package recently, I was only too happy to try out their nifty little offerings! I was especially happy with the staple-less stapler. That’s right… it actually “staples” papers together without using actual staples! It’s magic, I tell ya!

They also sent me a very cool pair of scissors. They aren’t really scissors at all! There are 18 blades all slapped together to help me easily shred a credit card or papers.

The next thing was To-Do Tattoos. Basically… lick it and stick it to the back of your hand. You then use a pen to write on your to-do list to write in what it is you need to remember. Now you don’t have to carry around a list or piece of paper.

The last item in my little gift box was a really cool looking business card holder. It moves and bends in many different ways. Business cards or pieces of paper are held to it using a small magnet. It looks great on my desk with all my other silver items!

What other cool and useful things do you have in your office? Make sure to email me a link. You never know what I might need to pick up for my office next.

[awsbullet:stapleless stapler]

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Useful Things in my Home Office

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You probably have a business card, even if you aren’t part of a business. You probably have something that you hand to people so they know how to contact you. At Macworld, I ran into the people who make CardScan, so I thought I’d give it a try.

this solution features a desktop scanner and full-featured software that scans in color in about three seconds. More than a business card scanner, CardScan’s powerful, easy-to-use software is a complete contact management solution. CardScan keeps your contact data safe, securely backing up your data to our CardScan at Your service online service at no charge.

I’ve had a CardScan Scanner for awhile, and used it on Windows. When I used it years ago, I ran into a few headaches. The software was difficult to use, so I just stopped trying to use it. So at Macworld when I saw them demonstrating this for the Mac, I had to check it out. I told them about my old Windows experiences. Since they recognized me, they sent a review unit home with me to play with and review. How great is that?!

I installed it and connected the CardScan. For the most part, the software is much easier to use for the Mac, and a cleaner experience. You set the business card in the try and the machine will automatically pick up there’s a card there and scan it in. Once it’s in the software, you can crop it or rotate it if need me.

Even though the font is small, you can see that it picked up all of the information on the card! That’s excellent. It will hyperlink the address and take you to a Google Map if you click it. The email will link you to whatever your default email client is. Also, it will link off to the web address if there is one printed on the card.

The software for Mac OS X has Cover Flow! I love that! I can browse through the business cards much as I would browse through my music, looking at the cover art in iTunes. I’m a visual learner, so this particular feature is very welcomed.

It’s done a good job of taking information on the business cards, and putting it into the software. It didn’t do so well with business cards that have a darker background, but I’m sure that will get tweaked over time. Nothing is perfect… not even me.

My review on the CardScan is very, very positive, and I will be scanning the rest of the huge stack of business cards I have into the software. I will no longer have to dig through the stack in the drawer – I can just browse through them on my Mac.

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How to Keep Track of Business Cards and Contacts: CardScan

Maura Desimone, from the graphic design firm New Axis in Art, was a little too late to enter into the HP Magic Giveaway, but here are some great tips if you’re creating or redesigning your business card.

1. Have one Focal Point – You want to give people a reason to continue to look at it and draw them in.
2. Use Interesting Contrasts – In color, graphics and/or typography
3. Include your Contact Information
4. Make it Easy to Read
5. Use the 1-2-3 Flow Method – Try to keep these 3 elements: one primary, one secondary and one supporting informational type focal point. Having these elements will help to establish an easy pattern for your eye to follow.
6. Include a Tagline – What is unique about your business in just a few words.
7. Show Some Personality – The goal is to make it memorable, don’t be afraid to show your style.
8. Use a High Quality or Unique Paper – It’s a tactile piece… it needs to feel nice in your hand. If it feels cheap, people will associate that feeling with your business.
9. Use Some Graphic Elements that Visually Represent your Business – This will add visual interest.
10. Keep it Updated, Keep it Fresh – Cards are cheap to print! Don’t scrimp on your most important “leave behind”.

People will use your business card to remember you. Think about printing cards for special advertising events for your business. How much does it cost to print them? The cost ranges from approximately $40 per 1000 to $200+ per 1000. Variants include paper stock and ink choices. Interested in having your business card designed professionally? Contact Maura through the New Axis in Art website for a quote.

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Top Ten Tips for An Effective BUSINESS Card