Review: Create a professional online portfolio in minutes with Enthuse.me

Enthuse.me If you're looking for a free and super-simple way to show the world what you're good at, Enthuse.me is it.

Download Now

Creating a résumé or CV can be a tedious task, manually listing your experience, training, and other salient facts of your life. And then it may get ignored by prospective employers or clients who just want to know what you can do. Increasingly, your skill and results are what counts, so having a good way to showcase them is important. Enthuse.me is a free service that lets you do just that.  You can quickly put up an Enthuse.me page that pulls in the best of your work from around the Web.

Enthuse.me's introductory page is simple and cuts right to the point, just like the service itself.

While competitors About.me and Flavors.me emphasize customization, Enthuse.me is all about keeping things simple. To get started, you need to provide only a single profile image, and describe yourself in a couple of words. This forms the basis of your page, but isn't very interesting on its own: Your next step is adding links to your work.

To get started, Enthuse.me asks you to describe yourself in just a few words.

Not all links are equal, and Enthuse.me reflects this by offering different modules for populating the page. There's a module for links showing your current work, and there's one for historical links. There's a module for your Twitter profile that renders your vital Twitter stats on the page, and there are purpose-built modules for Blogger,  LinkedIn, Soundcloud, SlideShare, Tumblr, Vimeo, YouTube, and even Klout, if that's your thing. Finally, if you just want to add a bit of text, the Insight module lets you write a 255-character message that appears right on the page, sort of like a static tweet.

You build up your page by adding content modules.

The Current Projects module includes a thumbnail, and lets you specify a headline and an excerpt for describing the link. There's also a Press & Mentions module, for including links to places which noted your work in the past.

The end result feels like a neat, comprehensive summary of your online professional presence. Since you can't pick a color or a theme, it may not look very different from all other Ethuse.me profiles, but the clean, sparse layout puts your information front and center. The company will introduce customization options later this year, as a premium feature.

The final page is clean and spacious, and can house lots of information without becoming visually overwhelming.

Enthuse.me is a fast and simple way to show the world what you're about. I wouldn't say it's better than using Flavors.me or coding your own site from scratch, but it's definitely faster. If you're looking for a clean online CV, this can be it.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Review: Create stunning websites in minutes for free with Tackk

Every once in a while, I come across a service that leaves me speechless. This is exactly what happened when I first started using Tackk: It took my breath away. Tackk is a free website maker currently in beta, and will help you create any single-page website (or Tackks) in minutes.

Choose between multiple fonts and add as many images as you want to your page.

Not only is it free, but if you don't mind your website expiring after seven days, you don't even have to sign up. Just point your browser to tackk.com and start editing your new page. It's going to be beautiful, too, regardless of your skills—there's simply no other way with Tackk.

If you decide to go for a free account, you'll get Tackks that never expire, the ability to create multiple Tackks, give them custom URLs, and include contact forms. All other features are available to everyone, and anonymously. To help you get started, Tackk comes with five different themes: Anything, Events, Housing, For Sale, Announce, and Business. Each one comes with the features you're most likely to use on the page, but you can add and remove elements as you please.

After choosing a theme, use the Editor on the right to choose your color, headline font, and background texture. Remember when I said your website is going to be beautiful? This is due to the delicate balance of freedoms and limitations that Tackk provides. You can choose any color you want (there are almost 100 to choose from), but once that's done, it sets the color scheme for your entire page. When it comes to your headings, sub-headings, and buttons, you only get to choose from 3-4 colors that go well with your background. The weak point of this feature is links, which always take the background's color, and may become almost invisible when using dark backgrounds.

Embedding a video, song, or Instagram photo is as easy as pasting the URL.

Your Tackk page is not all about text. You can easily add lists, buttons, photos from your hard drive or Instagram, videos from YouTube, Vimeo or Hulu, embedded songs from Spotify or SoundCloud, maps, a contact form (registered users only), comments, and even a payment widget that lets you sell products and accept PayPal payments. Adding an element could not be easier: hover over an existing element and click on the plus sign. Provide the necessary details, and you're good to go. Contact forms, maps, and payment elements are added from the Features tab in the Editor.

Tackk's brilliance lies in its simplicity, but also in the way it lets you personalize your page to a limit. No matter what you do, the page will be an obvious Tackk in its design, but it can be personal enough to be your page, with your background, colors, and content. If you've created an account, you can create a custom URL for your page, otherwise, you get a random one. If you've included comments, your visitors can interact with you page using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail logins. They can also share your page on various social networks.

You can easily sell items through your Tackk, and include a map to your physical store.

Unlike Wix or Breezi, Tackk cannot create full-fledged websites with multiple pages, and doesn't include many of the more powerful features such as collaborative creation, blogging options, hosting, etc. Unlike these services, it's also free to use no matter what features you use and how many pages you create. Use Tackk when you want to create a beautiful online invitation, a gorgeous announcement or ad, a stunning sales page, or anything else you can think of that can be done in one page. For businesses, Tackk provides branded Tackks for customers to play with and build upon. You can browse a large collection or public Tackks for some inspiration, but Tackk is so well made, I doubt you'll need it.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.

Yaara is a foodie, horse-lover, and biologist who enjoys being a geek as a full-time job.
More by Yaara Lancet

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference