When I walked in to Startup Weekend a week ago I had absolutely no experience at all. I did not know how to code a website, to develop an app, to create a logo, or how to start a business. I was nothing more than an inexperienced 15 year old with a desire to create something cool and learn a bit while doing so.

I had spent the previous three days creating and practicing my one minute elevator pitch. I was ninth in line, and close to 70 people would be pitching after me. Before I knew it I was speaking in front of 150 strangers, including some of Portland’s most successful entrepreneurs, designers, and developers.

After giving my pitch and listening to the pitches of everyone else, it was finally time to vote on the ideas. Some of the ideas got no votes, while some of the ideas received up to 26 votes. After being tallied up by the organizers, it was announced that my idea had received 11 votes, enough to make it to the top 15 ideas. These top 15 ideas would then attract teams of Startup Weekend attendees and be developed over the course of the weekend. I formed a team with Ken Westin, who I had known before the weekend, and Joey Petelle, an extremely smart person. We would spend the next 50 hours working on uEdit.me, a service that connects writers and bloggers with editors.

I learned more over the course of that weekend than any textbook or schoolteacher could teach me in a year. I learned what goes in to creating a business, how to work well in a small group of people, and how to determine what needs to get done in order to meet the deadline. I walked in to Portland Startup Weekend with no experience whatsoever, and still found a way to get as much out of it as I had expected. What they say is true, Startup Weekend is a no talk, all action environment. You are not judged based on your experience, but on how well you can get the job done.

Startup Weekend was an extraordinary experience, and was an invaluable use of my time and money. I learned a lot and met some of Portland’s greatest entrepreneurs. My team and I have decided to move on with our project, uEdit.me, and are making great strides towards a version accessible to the public.

I would encourage anyone to attend a Startup Weekend. Whether you work for a Fortune 500 company, are unemployed, or anywhere in-between, there’s certainty something you could learn from attending a Startup Weekend event. At Startup Weekend qualifications do not matter, it’s what you do during the weekend that counts.

How do you keep track of your Twitter account? Do you just keep track of the numbers on your profile, or do you use 3rd party tools to get a better report? Here are five useful services that can help you monitor your Twitter account.

1. Tweetstats [web] (free)
Tweetstats is an extremely useful website that lets you keep track of your Twitter activity. It shows you things like how many times you tweet per day and how many replies you receive per day. It also shows you how many of your tweets are replies, how many are retweets, and how many have hashtags. Tweetstats actually does quite a bit much more than this, so go check it out!

2. Detective [Mac app]($2.99)
Detective is a simple menu bar app for your Mac that will show you who has recently followed or unfollowed you on Twitter.

3. Birdbrain [iPhone app]($2.99)
If you placed Tweetstats and Detective in a blender and turned it on, you would get Birdbrain. Birdbrain is a great iPhone app that lets you monitor how often you tweet per day, as well as who has recently followed or unfollowed you.

4. Twit Cleaner [web] (free)
If you follow a large number of people and are looking to clean up your timeline, Twit Cleaner can help you out. Twit Cleaner is a great web app that recommends people you should unfollow on Twitter based on a number of things such as how often they tweet, how often they post links, their follower/following ratio, etc.

5. Favstar [web] (free, optional subscription)
Favstar is the ever so popular website that lets you see who has recently favorited or retweeted your tweets. It also allows you to view your most popular tweets, as well as the most popular tweets of other people. Favstar is free, but you have the option to subscribe and unlock more features.

What tools do you use to monitor your Twitter account?

The Pebble Watch is a Kickstarter funded E-Paper watch for iPhone and Android. Is has been “backed” by 27,000 people and has raised close to $4,000,000, making it the most funded Kiskstarter project to date. And it still has 30 days left on the clock.

Why is the Pebble such a success? Because it’s a step in the right direction. Smartphones let us stay updated on the go by letting us check in on Twitter, our email, and even get the latest weather forecast. Pebble is the next step in the journey to constant connectivity. The watch allows us to receive information without even having to take our phones out of our pockets. Pebble is also one of the most affordable smart watches out there, starting at $115.

But I will not back it. Why? Because it looks horrible. It is undoubtedly one of the ugliest watches that I’ve seen yet. The people behind The Pebble seem to have put too much time into the internals of the watch, and have (from what I’ve seen) put little thought into its look. The watchband looks cheaply made, the bezel looks flimsy, and worst of all, the screen has a very awkward aspect ratio and can’t even display a round clock face without cutting the edges off.

Pebble’s concept is really cool, and like I said is a step in the right direction. With that said, it’s not something that I would want to be seen wearing outside of the house. I’ve decided to wait and see what the future holds for these smart watches before spending my hard-earned cash on a first generation Pebble.

What do you think? Will you back The Pebble? Why/why not?

Everyme is a new iPhone app that lets you share things with close friends and family, using circles (as seen in Google+). Its design is a blatant ripoff of Path, and the concept is a carbon copy of Google+. I can’t believe that a company can get away with something like this. Everyme brings absolutely nothing to the table, and I can’t seem to understand why it’s getting so much attention.

“Everyme is a special place for you to be the real you. No one wants to share everything with everyone. With Everyme, you can share like you do in real life, in intimate Circles.”

Sound familiar?

If you’re still not catching my drift, here ‘s a screenshot of Everyme and a comparison photo provided by The Verge. They even copied Path’s splash page!

Path is a beautifully designed app, and I’m sure that Path’s designers shed blood, sweat, and tears designing the app. It makes me sad to see people blatantly steal the ideas and concepts of others. Am I the only one who has noticed this?

Ever since I purchased my first iPhone, a 16GB iPhone 3G, I’ve used a case. I’ve tried out some great cases, like the Speck CandyShell, Speck PixelSkin HD, and the Twelve South BookBook. I’ve also used some not so great cases such as the Apple iPhone Bumper.

About a week ago I took my iPhone out of the case to dust off the back of it as well as clean the screen. I then realized what a beautiful device the iPhone is and how light it is without a case. Why would I want to cover up such a beautiful device? I decided that for the rest of the day I would not use a case. As the day went on I questioned why I ever put a case on the beautiful iPhone to begin with.

Without the case I was a little afraid that the phone would break if I dropped it, but to this date that has not happened. I have found that I rarely drop my iPhone, so this really isn’t a problem.

If you keep a case on your phone, why? I haven’t looked back since taking the case off of my iPhone. The phone is lighter, feels better in the hand, and looks better. If you currently have a case on your phone, I challenge you to take the case off for a day. Leave a comment or a follow-up blog post with your findings!

When Facebook announced earlier this week that they would be acquiring Instagram for $1billion, many Instagram users were upset, sticking to the mindset that Facebook is somehow going to ruin the service.

But this will not happen. Facebook will not ruin Instagram. There is an obvious reason for Facebook to acquire Instagram: the community. Facebook didn’t spend a billion dollars on a few filters and an iPhone app, they spent it on 30 million users. Instagram is a photo sharing app, not a photo editing app. It is in Facebook’s best interest to maintain Instagram’s user base. The thought that Facebook is going to fundamentally change Instagram is foolish.

The OZAKI iSuppli iPhone dock does more than the average iPhone dock. In addition to charging your device, it also amplifies the audio coming out of your device’s speaker by 15dB. The dock/amplifier is very stylish, and it is obvious that a lot of work has been put in to designing the product.

In my testing I have found that the dock does a great job of amplifying the sound, but if you turn the volume up to anything over 50% the audio quality drastically drops. I am not sure if this is the case with all iPhone audio amplifiers, or if it is unique to this specific one, but it’s a major flaw.

The dock allows you to charge your iPhone while amplifying the audio. However, I have found a major problem with this. The charging cable is permanently attached to the dock (unlike Apple’s own dock) so if you plan to use the gadget only to amplify audio, you’re going to have to drag the cable around as well.

It should also be noted that the dock/amplifier works only with the iPhone 4 and 4S, so if you are looking to use it with your older iPhone or iPod you will have to look elsewhere.

Overall, I am actually quite pleased with the gadget. It is a great addition to my bedside table, allowing me to listen to music while charging my iPhone as well as making my alarm noticeably louder in the morning. I would recommend it to anyone with an iPhone 4 or 4S looking to amplify their iPhone’s audio.

Paper is a brand new iPad app that mimics real-life paper and lets you create great pieces of art on your iPad. Today I sat down and started really using Paper, throughly testing out its capabilities. I started recreating the icons of apps on my iPhone, and even made a Tumblr blog with all my icon re-creations.

In conjugation with Paper and Pixelmator (OSX), I recreated my iPhone’s homescreen with my own icons.

Here’s the recreated homescreen (left) and the original homescreen (right).

As usual, you can click to enlarge.

Some of the icons came out pretty well, some not so well. Either way, this project was a great way to test the capabilities of both Paper and Pixelmator.

Again, please check out the Tumblr blog I made, where you can see the ful-res icons. They look a little better over there for some reason.

Some people were disappointed when Apple announced that The New iPad would have Siri’s dictation feature, but would not have the full Siri support that we’ve seen in the iPhone 4S.

To explain why Apple did this, let me take a step back and identify the fundamental differences between the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad:

The iPhone is an always connected device that requires a contract with a cell phone company upon purchase. The iPod Touch, on the other hand, is basically an iPhone without the data plan. The only way to connect to the internet on the iPod Touch is with WiFi, meaning that it is not an always connected device like the iPhone.

Now, the iPad is quite different from the other two. It’s bigger, has a WiFi model (like the iPod Touch) and a 3G model. The key difference between the iPad 3G model and the iPhone (besides its form factor) is that you aren’t required to sign a contract with a carrier when purchasing a 3G iPad. This is why I would not consider the iPad an always connected device like the iPhone.

To conclude, we have one always connected device, the iPhone, and two devices that are not always connected, the iPod Touch and the iPad. As we all know, the iPhone is also the only device of the three to support Siri, Apple’s personal assistant.
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Quite a while ago I posted my Top ten iPhone apps list. Today I would like to update that list, with eight iPhone apps that I use on a daily basis. These are apps that have great functionality, have thoughtful design, and help me get the job done every day.

You can also view a screenshot of my iPhone home screen on my homescreen.me page. Many of the apps I talk about below are on my home screen.

1. Tweetbot
When Twitter updated their iPhone app last December stripping most of the functionality, I decided that it was time to find a new iPhone Twitter client. I had briefly tried Tweetbot before, but I honestly do not remember why I did not switch to it right after I downloaded it. Anyway, Tweetbot is undoubtedly my favorite app on my phone today. It is the perfect mix of design and functionality, and to be honest I have absolutely no complaints. I would recommend the $2.99 app to anyone looking for an iPhone twitter client.

2. Instagram
Instagram is one of the best photo sharing apps out there these days. It allows you to quickly take a photo, apply one of their beautiful filters, and share it with your followers on Instagram, Twitter, and your friends on Facebook. Instagram is much like Twitter in that you can follow and be followed by people, and there’s a timeline that chronologically displays the photos from the people you follow. It is simple, fun, and I would defiantly recommend it to anyone who likes taking and sharing photos with their iPhone. Instagram is free in the Apple App Store

3. Reeder
Reeder is a Google Reader powered RSS reading app. Reeder is available on the iPhone and iPad, as well as Mac OS X. It is (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful applications in the App Store. Reeder is so nicely designed, in fact, that I have found many other RSS readers basically copy its design. I would recommend Reeder to anyone who uses RSS to keep track of the news, uses Google Reader, and appreciates thoughtful design. Reeder for iPhone is available in the Apple App Store for $2.99.

4. Instacast
If you are one who enjoys listening to podcasts, Instacast is a great app that lets you subscribe to, keep track of, and listen to your favorite podcasts. Instacast is available in the Apple App Store for $1.99.

5. Pastebot
Pastebot allows you to easily keep track of text, photos, and more. Additionally, Pastebot allows you to quickly send things from your iPhone to Mac, and vice versa. Pastebot is available in the Apple App Store for $3.99. Additionally, you can read my full review of Pastebot here.

6. Foursquare
Foursquare allows you “check in” to restaurants, theaters, stores, and other public places. You can then choose to share these checkins with your Foursquare friends, Facebook friends, or Twitter followers. Foursquare has also partnered with a number of venues to bring special deals to people who use the service. The iPhone app is great. It’s speedy, simple, and nicely designed. I use Foursquare in conjunction with Memolane to keep a journal of the places I visit. Foursquare is free in the Apple App Store.

7. Rdio
Rdio is the new way I listen to music. Gone are the days that I would buy every song I wanted to listen to off of iTunes at $1.29 each. These days I pay $10 a month for the ability to stream unlimited music through Rdio. Rdio’s iPhone app is stellar. In addition to letting you stream music over WiFi and 3G, the app lets you store music on the phone for when you will not be connected to the internet. The Rdio iPhone app is free, but requires that you are subscribed to their $9.99 a month service.

8. Cloudette
People who use Cloudapp will know that the service is one of the best ways to quickly share media with people. The Cloudapp Mac application is great, but the service has yet to bring that experience to the iPhone with an official application. There are a few 3rd party Cloud applications in the iOS App Store, but this is the one I use. Cloudette is simple and to the point, and gets the job done. Cloudette is available for free in the Apple App Store.

What apps do you use on a day to day basis? What device do you run them on? How do they help you in your day to day life? Leave a comment below!