Going through old emails as part of my end of year clean-up activities, I came across a few companies that I didn’t have a chance to write about, or wrote about but felt deserved more kudos. To make amends, I’ve come up with this short list of under-appreciated but worthy apps:
LogoGarden – I discovered this Nashville-based startup while attending an invite-only pitch session run by the folks at OneVest. They are completely focused on providing branding for smaller companies that don’t have the budgets to contract with digital agencies. So you can design a basic logo using their builder and templates. They also offer a website builder that will take the logo and merge in with their existing portfolio of HTLM code.
BIME – One of my favorites of the last year, BIME is a French-based startup that helps ordinary folks analyze and graph Big Data—no need to bring in the services of data scientists and data architects specializing in huge datasets. In my review from April, I used the word “heady” to describe their QueryBlender, which lets you do join operations on data spread out across the cloud. I was impressed as I manipulated millions of rows of US census data. BIME’s app is well worth exploring if you have to do some serious data crunching.
MommyMeds – This IOS app is a mommy’s helper for figuring out what drugs are ok to take during and after pregnancy. MommyMeds is based on research done by Dr. Thomas Hale, PhD and the Texas Tech University Health Science Center’s InfantRisk Center. So new moms and moms-to-be are in good hands.
Anonymizer – Sure there are DIY solutions for anonymous, encrypted web browsing and internet activity. But one of the first companies to do this out of the box was Anonymizer.com. Their Anonymizer Universal ($79.99) encrypts web traffic and sends it off to their servers, which then relays it to the final destination. So besides protecting you against local WiFi snoopers, Anonymizer also hides your real IP address.
AirSig – Their innovative authentication technology won us over at TechCrunch Disrupt earlier this year. On my other channel, I write about multi-factor authentication as a relatively easy to implement approach to blocking hackers and boosting security. AirSig’s technology turns smart phones into virtual pens, capturing the hand motions of our air signatures. It’s actually a three-factor approach: the phone itself, our unique signatures, and the password.
Photo credit: F. Riedelio