mint on SWiK

sensory output " Projects " Fresh View for Mint

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:18:26 -0700

Main Page - Linux Mint

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:16:07 -0700

Main Page - Linux Mint

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:02:52 -0700

Development Release: Linux Mint 5 RC1 "Fluxbox"

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:00:39 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the first release candidate for Linux Mint 5 "Fluxbox" edition: "Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox Community edition RC1 is out and available for download. New features: mint-mfm - the most radical feature of Linux Mint Fluxbox is the auto-generated and auto-updating Fluxbox menu; full desktop....

Architect / Senior Engineer (Java Server) Job at Mint

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:58:06 -0700

Architect/Principal Architect Job at Mint

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:58:06 -0700

Distribution Release: Linux Mint 5 "Xfce"

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:57:12 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 5 "Xfce" edition: "We are proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 5 Xfce Community edition." Some of the new features found in this release include: miscellaneous improvements to Mint tools, such as a new layout and more....

Linux Mint Forums • View topic - mint special google search page....

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:57:38 -0700

Google search en Mint http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Google+Search ====opera Add to Search Bar 1.7 === FF

Redesigning For A Reason: Towards Better Conversion Rates

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:07:20 -0700

Mint, an online personal finance site, has gotten a facelift. The new site sports a much cleaner design than the previous iteration, and appears to be focused on describing what Mint actually does rather than presenting pretty (but somewhat overwhelming) graphics. For now the improvements are mainly on the external portion of the site (for non-members), with the members’ portion switching to the new design in the next few weeks.

That normally isn’t big news, but what caught my attention is that Mint has been bucket testing various redesign formats with some users and is seeing conversion rates increase by 20% over the current site.

That equals “hundreds of thousands” of more registered users over the course of a year given their current growth rates, says CEO Aaron Patzer. When we last checked in with them, they had 350,000 registered users and were tracking $11 billion in assets. Those numbers are likely substantially higher now.

Most startups have very limited resources and are so busy building and maintaining core features that they can’t spend too much time doing user testing on various concepts. Sometimes it makes sense to just take a step back and think about usability, though. It can pay off in the end.

Since the site’s launch last year, it has added a number of new features including loan tracking and investment tracking. However, most of these functions haven’t been readily apparent to most users - something the new design is looking to remedy.

Mint allows users to keep track of their finances, presenting spending history with attractive graphs and typically requiring much less effort compared to programs like Quicken. Unfortunately, while the site serves its purpose well, it is currently unable to actually transfer any funds to pay bills - you’ll have to go to your bank’s website to do that.

As part of the update, Mint is also releasing a handful of new guides to personal finance, ranging from “reducing credit card debt” to the seemingly obvious “saving money while dining out”.

Mint, which has now raised $17 million in venture capital, was the overall winner of the TechCrunch40 event in 2007.

The new designs are below. In the first image the old is on left, new is on right.

CrunchBase Information

Mint

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Ubuntu-TR.org

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:04:51 -0700

Ubuntu Türkiye

Development Release: Linux Mint 5 RC1 "KDE"

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:01:55 -0700

The first release candidate for the KDE Community edition of Linux Mint 5 is out and ready for testing: "Linux Mint 5 'Elyssa' KDE Community edition RC1 (BETA 045) was released today. This is the first beta release of the KDE Community edition for Linux Mint 5, codename....

Mint Adds Support For Mortgage And Loan Tracking

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:46:33 -0700

Mint, the popular personal finance site that won TechCrunch 40, has further expanded its services by introducing support for mortgage and loan tracking. Users will now be able to keep tabs on their loans from over 1,000 supported institutions. In addition to the mortgage and loan tracking, Mint also monitors users’ savings accounts, credit cards, and investments.

Mint doesn’t deal with any actual fund transfers. Instead, it monitors users’ spending habits, producing coherent graphs that are designed to help people save their money (or at least know where it’s all going). Users can also elect to receive SMS and email alerts when bills are due or their balance drops below a certain level.

Mint has seen extremely quick growth since its launch at TechCrunch40, and is now
monitoring a total of $11 billion in assets, with 350,000 registered users, it says. CEO Aaron Patzer says that Mint will eventually be able to move money around, but that functionality won’t be coming until 2009. Until then, Patzer says that the addition of mortgage and loan tracking will let Mint users effectively monitor their entire financial portfolio. It’s too bad we’ll still have to rely on our banks’ websites to actually pay the bills.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Development Release: Linux Mint 5 XFCE CE RC1

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:43:13 -0700

The first release candidate (marked as BETA 025) for Linux Mint 5 "Elyssa" XFCE Community Edition is out and available for download: "This is the first BETA release of the XFCE Community Edition for Linux Mint 5, codename Elyssa, based on Daryna and compatible with Ubuntu Hardy....

Main Page - Linux Mint

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:48:44 -0700

fixed

Linux Mint

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:02:52 -0700

Linux Mint originally launched as a variant of Ubuntu with integrated media codecs but has developed into one of the most user-friendly distributions. It offers a custom desktop, a web-based package installation interface, and more.

How to distinguish generated code from non-generated code | form follows function

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:03:19 -0700

Main Page - Linux Mint

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:56:41 -0700

Distribution Release: Linux Mint 5

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:54:41 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 5.0, an enhanced and user-friendly desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 8.04: "It is with great pleasure that I officially announce the release of Linux Mint 5 Elyssa." Among the many new characteristics of this release the most notable....

What Winning TechCrunch40 Did For Mint.com

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:38:27 -0700

Aaron Patzer launched his new startup Mint.com at TechCrunch40 last year. As the top company he received a cash award of $50,000 and a ton of press attention.

Since TechCrunch40 the company has raised over $17 million in venture financing and 10,000 or so new users sign up each week.

We asked Aaron to write about his experience at TechCrunch40 - the good, the bad, and everything else. We’re striving to preserve the magic for our upcoming event, TechCrunch50. And not repeat our rookie errors.

His post is below.

Presenting at TechCrunch 40 last September was probably the most important 7 minutes of my professional life. I’m not exaggerating here. It’s where Mint.com launched.

Rewind a bit. I started Mint in March of 2006 out of frustration. Existing tools like Quicken and MS Money took way too much work, and provided very little real insight on your finances. Like many a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I quit my job, invested half my life savings in the company, and convinced a few friends to join me for very meager pay.

By September 2006, we had enough of a prototype for seed funding. We spent the next year solid building the product, working and re-working the UI, and trying to come up with an elegant way to connect to 6,500 financial institutions. Mint was ready – well, almost ready – to launch. TechCrunch 40 gave us a good line in the sand, an absolute hard date that everyone could rally around. In a startup, that means focus, and focus is everything.

That was nine months ago, and we were at zero. Now Mint.com is up to nearly 300,000 users, we’re leading our all competitors by a factor of at least 5x, and we’ve raised $17m in funding from Benchmark, Shasta, Sherpalo, First Round, and more. Presenting at (and winning) TechCrunch 40 helped us get to where we are today. Here’s how:

1. TechCrunch is a Massive Press Platform

The event is well attended by press. Even prior to winning, we did at least 10 interviews, including Forbes, Fortune, Business 2.0, VentureBeat, and CNET. I even got suckered into a fake-interview (which I didn’t realize was fake until they asked me to explain the difference between a geek and a nerd).

The event is loaded with bloggers. And for startups, the blogosphere probably matters more than traditional media for the first few months. According to Technorati, Mint.com had nearly 1,000 posts during or immediately after TechCrunch.

Expect a spike in traffic – even if you don’t win. If you do win, have some servers on standby. And for all you engineers out there, make sure you increase MySQL’s in memory DB cache to at least a few GB: we got slammed with over 80,000 visits and 15,000 sign-ups in a 12-hour window and our machines started to crawl.

2. $$$ Attracting Investors $$$

Investors of all sizes attended TechCrunch 40. That includes angels like former Google VP Aydin Senkut, seed stage firms like First Round Capital, and plenty of traditional early stage venture firms. Have your 30-second pitch down, and be prepared to recite it a hundred times.

Also, if you’re not selected as one of the on-stage presenters, don’t worry, the demo-pit has its own advantages: you have the time and space to walk investors through your product one on one.

3. Being Challenged by Experts

After Mint’s 7-minute on-stage presentation, we went back up on stage with Xobni, Orgoo, App2You, and KerPoof. Here, Esther Dyson, Roelof Botha, and Guy Kawasaki challenged each of us – in front of a crowd of 1,000 people. It’s nerve racking for sure, but it hones your skill, and all the sudden, VC meetings seem relatively tame by comparison.

Toughest question: Describe your revenue model…in five words or less.

4. Competitive Analysis

Over 700 companies applied to TechCrunch 40 last year. 40 presented, with another 100 in the demo pit. Chances are, you’re going to find out about a new competitor. We did (SpendView), and sizing up the competition is a very good thing.

5. Winning Helps

Winning TechCrunch gave us more than a stratospheric jump in traffic; it gave us outside validation. Mint’s win gave us an “in” to pitch the Mint story to any tech or business publication. TechCrunch, with a few million monthly readers, has that kind of influence now.

Oh, and as a pre-profit startup, the $50,000 check for grand prize is nice too!

—–

Launching at TechCrunch is free, gives you tons of press exposure, lots of feedback from users, and can help pique the interest of the venture community. Not to be a shill, but if you’re a tech company and the timing is about right, why would you launch anywhere else?

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Development Release: Linux Mint 5.0 RC2

Mon, 26 May 2008 17:06:54 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the second and final release candidate for Linux Mint 5.0: "The second (and last) release candidate for Linux Mint 5 'Elyssa' is out and available for download. Changes since RC1: Upgraded to Firefox 3.0 RC1; upgraded to Flash 10; added mintBackup; added Aurora GTK+....

Linspire.com - CNR support for Linux Mint

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:15:27 -0700

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.linspire.com%2Flindows_news_pressreleases_archives.php%3Fid%3D240

Strands Absorbs Another Personal Finance Company

Thu, 15 May 2008 04:08:40 -0700

Strands has made a second recruitment in its effort to develop a Mint competitor called moneyStrands that leverages the same recommendation engine behind its video and music products.

Just over two weeks ago Strands acquired Expensr, and now the company is announcing its acquisition of NetworthIQ. Both are personal finance applications that Strands wanted mostly for their human capital, but also for some of their technology assets. The terms of both deals were not disclosed.

While the media has yet to get its hands on moneyStrands and give it a spin, the product has been in development since December and it marks Strands’ attempt to aggressively apply its recommendation technology to new fields.

Just how that technology will be applied to personal finance is not altogether clear. The core Strands technology digests and analyzes behavioral information to make its recommendations. This is fairly straightforward when it comes to music: frequently play two or more songs with one another and Strands will learn something about how you prefer to experience music.

Apparently this technique will transfer over into personal finance by analyzing the sets of purchases that consumers make and then recommending how they can make better purchases. This analysis will not only consider the various purchases that one consumer makes; it will also compare these purchases to those made by others.

Aside from detailed personalized recommendations, Strands hopes to differentiate itself from competitors like Mint and Wesabe by providing superior mobile support and widget integration.

Strands is mum on the fate of NetworthIQ as a stand alone service, but I think we can safely assume it will shut down eventually as its team focuses on the development of moneyStrands.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Development Release: Linux Mint 5.0 Beta 1

Mon, 12 May 2008 05:05:07 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the availability of the first development release of Linux Mint 5.0, code name "Elyssa" and based on the recently released Ubuntu 8.04: "After many sleepless nights and a lot of work, I am delighted to announce that the first release candidate for Linux Mint....

Mint Moves Into Investment Tracking

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:13:51 -0700

Silicon Valley-based startup Mint, which provides a service that lets users manage their checking, savings and credit card accounts online, will launch a new product on May 6 that let’s users track virtually any type of investment account as well. Users will now be able to manage all of their financial assets on the Mint site. With this change, Mint says, 6,500 US financial institutions: 2,520 banks, 1,621 credit cards, and 2,381 investment accounts are supported.

Brokerage, IRA, 401k and 529 assets can be managed. For now, only student loan accounts and mortgages are left off, although support for those types of accounts is coming soon. The site will show all your buys, sells, dividend distributions, etc. across multiple accounts. Dive into a single account or equity for its individual performance. Account performance v. the S&P and other indexes is graphed, and account charges are also shown.

There are some things you still won’t be able to do with Mint, such as stock trades, bill payments and funds transfers. Mint CEO Aaron Patzer says those features will eventually be added, with a focus on bill payments first. Funds transfers and stock trades are a little stickier, though, and may eventually require state and/or federal regulation of the company.

Investments will soft launch on May 6 for very active Mint users and roll out from there. Anyone who wants to be in the beta right at launch (whether they are a current Mint user or not) can sign up at mint.com/techcrunch and will be added on May 6.

Other services, including Cake Financial (another TechCrunch40 startup) Vestopia, Covestor, and UpDown also offer investment tracking.

We’ve been tracking Mint since their launch at TechCrunch40 last year. The 20-person company has now raised $17 million in venture capital and has 230,000 registered users (40% of which are active, Patzer says). 10,000 new users sign up each week (13,000 last week)

CrunchBase Information

Mint

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Motley Fool Co-Brands With Mint

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:47:50 -0700

TechCrunch40-winner and Benchmark-funded startup Mint is having a good year. Their user base has grown 25% in the last month to 200,000. And today they’re getting access to 4 million more via a co-branded partnership with The Motley Fool, a popular finance portal.

The deal includes a co-branded version of Mint and promotion of the site on Motley Fool. Mint CEO Aaron Patzer says the deal is not exclusive, but wouldn’t give other details.

More than anything this is a sign of credibility for Mint, which continues to win ground v. competitors. Expect more partnerships soon.

CrunchBase Information

Mint

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Distribution Release: Linux Mint 4.0

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:40:36 -0700

Clement Lefebvre has announced the final release of Linux Mint 4.0 KDE Community edition: "Linux Mint 4.0 KDE released. Daryna KDE is nearly as 'minty' as the main edition now. The packages are (safely) up to date and the kernel is the Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon kernel 2.6.22. Mint....

Mint Gets A Mint

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:42:06 -0800

Silicon Valley based Mint, an “online Quicken” that also suggest to users different ways to save money by searching for deals on credit cards, bank accounts, etc., will announce a third round of funding today - $12.1 million from new investor Benchmark Capital and all previous investors, including Shasta Ventures, Sherpalo, Felicis Ventures, Hite Capital and First Round Capital. The company has now raised a total of $17 million, most of it since October of 2007. Benchmark’s Bob Kagle is joining the Mint board.

Mint has grown to 160,000 users just six months after launching and taking the $50,000 top prize at the TechCrunch40 conference. CEO Aaron Patzer says the company is adding 10,000 new users per week, has organized over $10 billion in purchasing activity and has identified around $100 million in savings opportunities for users.

The average user logs in twice per week, Patzer says, and 10% have opted in for SMS alerts.

The company makes money via lead generations, and Patzer says users are clicking on presented opportunities 12-15% of the time.

We heard through a number of sources that venture capitalists were clamoring to get a piece of this deal. Patzer wouldn’t comment that, saying only that he was very happy to be working with Benchmark.

CrunchBase Information

Mint

Aaron Patzer

Information provided by CrunchBase

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Distribution Release: Linux Mint 4.0 "KDE"

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:39:40 -0800

Can the Money 2.0 Startups Get Their Finances in Order?

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:55:19 -0800

Although I personally find the low national savings rate scary, for the myriad of next-generation personal finance sites, it’s an opportunity. Most pitch their sites as a resource for younger Americans trying to figure out where their money goes each month — and to help them keep their bank accounts out of the red. And unlike many of the web-based consumer applications out there, bringing personal finance to the web makes sense. There are also numerous revenue opportunities for them, which means some of these companies will survive.

By taking financial applications off the desktop, this next generation of services is pushing two separate innovations. It’s putting data on the Net in a way in which that information can be aggregated (think how powerful a tool like Mint’s analysis of Starbucks spending in various regions could be if a Starbucks investors could see that amount grow or decrease over time) while also allowing complete access to that data from anywhere. That’s an important benefit for those trying to stay on a budget or even for monitoring an account for fraud. As mobile browsing improves this will become even more prevalent.

Many of the sites don’t support more advanced financial transactions, such as tracking a mortgage or following investment accounts, although Geezeo and Yodlee do and several others, such as Mint, say they are adding those features in the coming months. Even more interesting are the sites such as Voyant and BoulevardR, which give users a holistic picture of their financial goals, tracking how current savings rates and spending will affect retirement or plans to buy a boat at age 50.

Into this growing hodge-podge of services (there’s a BarCamp in San Fransisco devoted solely to personal finance in March, and the inaugural Money:Tech Conference next week) comes Quicken, which launched its Quicken Online product earlier this month. So far it’s the only one I found that’s charging a subscription fee for its services ($2.99 per month), but it’s also a known brand in the space. Wesabe plans to charge subscription fees, but has yet to do so.

The subscription model is going up against what are essentially two different models built around advertising. In one, the site act as a lead generator for financial planners and products; in the other, advertisers are putting banners and other such ads directly onto the site.

While the lead generation-supported sites seem less trustworthy (is the annuity Bank A offers really the best product or did the bank just pay more than the other providers?), their creators are trying to strike a balance between getting paid and providing a useful, free service to consumers. Sites such as Mint push financial products only if they save a user money, while a site like Voyant allows a community of users to rate the benefits of a financial product being offered. Geezeo is close to this model; it offers users the opportunity to comparison shop among different financial products.

Others seem to have a murkier view of their plans for monetization. The CEO of recently funded SpendView Nikhil Roy tells me that the site will take advertising based on whether the product can help the customer save money or the planet. Others tell me they are focused on getting users rather than revenue. As the economy slows, more users may be inclined to try the sites, but if those without solid financial footing slip, it could trip up the entire sector for a long time to come.

Linux Mint Forums • View topic - Howto: setting up Beryl on Linux Mint

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:09:31 -0800