Startup

Mint founder on branding: Keep it simple

MIAMI--Walk around the Future of Web Apps event in South Beach this week, and you'll see loads of eager young entrepreneurs and developers proudly displaying the names of their fledgling companies on their conference badges.

Aaron Patzer, who founded personal-finance site Mint.com and sold it to Intuit for $170 million last year, might tell them that the company name might be the first place to make changes.

"Choose something with meaning, even if it's expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you're going to kill word-of-mouth," he told … Read more

Veoh finally calls it quits: Layoffs yesterday, bankruptcy filing soon

Veoh, one of several well-funded start-ups that have tried and failed to cash in on the Web video boom, is finally calling it quits. The company let go of the remainder of its workforce Wednesday, and sources say it plans on filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the near future.

Veoh, which started out as a YouTube-style site, has struggled for years to find a business model that works, and has burned through $70 million in funding from name-brand investors like Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, Intel's venture arm, Spark Capital, and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

Veoh CEO … Read more

Dig deeper to find the cause of Windows start-up delays

Who doesn't want their PC to start faster? Even if you've trimmed the list of Windows' start-up apps, as described here in October 2008, you may still find your PC starts too slowly.

A year ago, I wrote about the free Startup Delayer from R2 Studios that lets you adjust how Windows loads your start-up programs. Two useful free tools for trimming your PC's roster of start-up apps are Pirisoft's CCleaner and Microsoft's (formerly SysInternals') AutoRuns. The problem is, you can do massive damage with such registry-editing programs--to the point of making your machine unbootable.… Read more

Logging in gives an "Insecure Startup Items folder" error

Apple has a number of ways to run scripts, applications, and open other common items at startup or login. The most common is the "login items" list for each account in the "Accounts" system preferences; however, there are others including the "Startup Items" folder in the global library, which is primarily used by applications that need to start a helper process at startup. A few users who have installed Snow Leopard on their systems have run into a problem where upon logging in the system claims the "Startup Items" folder is insecure and items from this folder will not be used.… Read more

VC investments sink to lowest levels in 12 years

The weak economy of 2009 took its toll on venture capitalists, though the year ended with hints of a recovery in store, says a new MoneyTree report.

VCs spent only $17.7 billion on 2,795 different deals last year, the lowest dollar amount and number of investments since 1997, according to the report released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data from Thomson Reuters.

The numbers amounted to a 37 percent drop in dollars and a 30 percent fall in the volume of deals from 2008, marking the second consecutive year of declines. … Read more

Start-up simplifier

Startup Guard provides a simple tool for managing a computer's start-up procedure. By allowing some programs and disabling others, this user-friendly device helps improve your computer's performance.

We were impressed by Startup Guard's interface, with its professional look, and its few commands all felt intuitive to operate. While the program offers no Help file or instructions, we never felt lost without them. Startup Guard's main job is to help you organize which programs do and do not open when your PC boots up. By managing separate menus for each option, it lets you pick and choose … Read more

Task wrangler extreme

AnVir Task Manager Free offers users a one-stop shop for managing your system's running processes and applications. Though it more than delivers the information it promises, it could really benefit from a more streamlined interface.

Users will need to spend some time taking in AnVir's user interface, because at first glance it's overwhelming. It uses tabs to distinguish system categories, such as start-up, applications, processes, and services. Command buttons at the top of the window give you the ability to kill processes, block processes, free memory, and select a parent process. The bottom of the window details … Read more

Devices you already own can be greener

Many companies are investing in the green market by creating energy efficient appliances, but those new devices tend to be pricey. Besides, why replace something that still works? Tenrehte Technologies, a start-up located in Rochester, NY and Austin, TX, would like to help people reduce the power consumption of products they already own.

PICOwatt, Tenrehte's first product, allows consumers to turn off any appliance with just a few clicks. Appliances plugged into the device are controlled by the consumer via Wi-Fi. Energy usage, timers, and power are all controlled with a smartphone or computer. For example, instead of using … Read more

Basic start-up utility

WhatInStartup is a basic program that allows users to view and disable programs that run automatically when Windows starts. It's nothing fancy, but it does work.

The program's interface is plain, consisting mostly of just a list of processes that are scheduled to run on start-up. Users enable or disable each one with the click of a button, and that's really all there is to it. The program provides a few other features--users can view each program's properties (in an HTML format if desired), and there's a search feature for users who have a lot … Read more