“We appreciate your interest in viewing our Magnatag Visible Systems website, however we have designed it for viewers in the United States and Canada only, the marketplace we serve. You may login below or submit an access request to view our website. New access requests will be processed within one buisiness day. Please accept our apology for your inconvenience.”

Apparently they dont like filthy foreigners.

Ditto. Blocked in Australia. Link effectively broken. Clearly they want to encourage people like Merkin to link to their site… (Borat-like pause) … … … NOT!

Apologies to folks outside the US.

While I once had control of the entire internet, I had to give it up in the late 90s owing to the large amount of paper work that was involved.

Google help at all?

Sadly, blocked in Japan as well. I have been using two wall 2006 erasable ink wall calendars. One is for booked gigs (blue marker), tentative (red), special events (green). The other I use to track family schedules birthdays, and business opportunities (special events).

So insulted by this. I blame 43 Folders for wasting my time and bringing me to a website that judges me unworthy of its precious wisdom. Americans.

They make one mistake though. If you aren’t from the US or Canada you have to apply to see the website.

I mean, come on! A bit old-fashioned don’t you think?

My favorite bit is the “Aluminum Wall Display Cases with magnetic whiteboard or bulletin board and Crystal Acrylic Glass Doors with key lock. Everyone can view the board without manipulating it; many interior board options. “

Hmm, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the whiteboard concept? ;)

This stuff scares me. It just reminds me of MS Project based gantt chart hell from my days in corporate IT development. Over specification of things which all change anyways, and too much micromanagement.

I’ll take a piece of paper, basecamp, and a whiteboard, thanks. When I start seeing color-coded timelines alarms start going off for me…

Amazing! It’s the WORLD WIDE web, not the US CANADA web! I can’t believe they are still in business with that kind of arrogance! Wow Merlin, you need nicer friends.

We use a very nice white dry-erase board system. Very low-tech but very effective. It tracks where our projects are, if they’re in-house or not, when they came in, and color-coded according to who’s been assigned that project. My projects are all blue, so I have trained myself to look for only the blue ones. We use a velcro “dot” to indicate if a project is in or out.

You want a giant cheap whiteboard? Here’s a hack, go to a Home Depot or home supply store and buy giant sheets of shower wall. Wipe them down once with a whiteboard cleaner (like Expo) and you have just produced a giant whiteboard that costs almost nothing.

I don’t understand the bitterness. They don’t sell outside of the North American continent, so why waste your time by displaying goods to you that you cannot buy?

For low fi I’ve been loving the half size Post-It index cards. I stick those in my Moleskine for extra “pages” when I need to add notes. Also I’ve been writing stuff that I know I’ll need for reference later so when I “retire” a full moleskine I can just pull out the cards and archive them easily.

Btw, I love the Pinnacle WhiteBoards. The model made with real Koala fur is really nice. :) Love ya Aussies!

The “bitterness” is because information should be free, not locked to a certain group. What’s wrong with allowing others to look at the information, even if they might not be able to buy it? They could recommend it to someone who can buy it, or they might get one the next time they’re in the states, or perhaps they’re visiting someone in Europe and might want to buy one when they get home. Or maybe they’re just interested, and want nothing more than to look!

It’s unnecessary to block people from your site just because they’re outside your marketplace. It’s also dumb not to sell to an international crowd. Just charge them more for shipping! You’d make more money!

It’s just irritating, also, because of the arrogance involved in such thinking.

Not that I’d buy something like that anyway. It looks like a bad product.

Also the “North American Continent” includes more countries than the U.S. or Canada. Also, the U.S. includes more areas than the “North American Continent”, such as Hawaii and Guam (where I live).

“New access requests will be processed within one buisiness day.”

They can’t spell “business”.

“Please accept our apology for your inconvenience.”

This is meretricious (why apologise for someting they’ve done on purpose?) and illiterate (it’s not our inconvenience; it’s an inconvenience they have caused. Who’s running this, er, buisiness?

First time I have ever seen this sort of nonsense. I have to apply to see their sales pitch? Lord save us.

I am absolutely drooling. I loooove productivity toys. Now if only they’d satisfy my ADD-addled brain for more than a month or so…

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Don’t be too quick to judge them. They have a link at the top of their site for US Federal Government purchasers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re locking their website to you “filthy foreigners” because of some goofball requirement of the government.

After all, we wouldn’t want all those foreign terrorists to see how the government stays organized, right?

If you apply for access, don’t be surprised if you wake up in some CIA holding cell, being questioned as to why you applied to see the top-secret whiteboards.

lol! An object lesson here in the alchemy of turning good publicity into bad. This debate is actually far more interesting than pictures of gantt charts with weather girls stuck in front of them.

…and the “CIA holding cell” will be in Gantt-anamo Bay… (sorry; just thought of that)

What a crazy company - I have never seen such a retarded and strange way to do business. So what if their market is in the US - that should be where they do marketing, but for the rest of the world they can at least offer shipping - EVEN AT A LUDICROUS PRICE.

I can only guess the product sucks, not being able to see it makes it hard to judge this point, if not - one of you US entrepreneurs should buy a load and put them on ebay where you can get a worldwide audience and sort out your shipping etc!

The other option is that they have given the rights away to a non-us company for “international” sales but at least pass the lead on to this company if that is the case.

We are in the 21st Century, the world is getting smaller, developing and 3rd world economies are growing and creating new markets - but the US get more protectionist by the day!

I’m an Aussie, so no access for me either - ehhhh, somethings just aren’t worth getting all excited about. But, if you are interested - google cache of those crazy people at Magnatag (hey, it’s a magnetic AND a tag!):

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache%3Awww.magnatag.com

hehehehe - you guys, so excitable. :)

oops / typo

magnetic == magnet

you get the idea

Price of relocating your entire family to the USA: c.$15,000. Whiteboards once you get settled in: $20 each at Costco. (Yes, even “filthy foreigners” need to get a Costco membership on top of that.) Satisfying GTD goodness: Priceless

I have always put paper on the walls to design websites, create ad campaigns or to prepare for a presentation. I thought my “paper on wall” approach was so “old school”. Who knew?

PS-if anyone likes the “visual” approach to brainstorming and problem solving, I found a great software program—-by accident——that is very helpful when you run out of wall space! Program is called INSPIRATION and it’s the best $70 I’ve ever spent. It’s really a software program for 10-14 year old kids that need help organizing,planning. I found out about it from my 12 year old and now I use it for work all the time. It’s very easy to use and documents created in this program convert instantly to Word and powerpoint.

I got an account for the site. They do have some great whiteboard products, but, man, they’re not cheap! The plain white 3x4 foot is $269. I’m sure they’re quite good but…

I love whiteboards. I mean, I really LOVE whiteboards. I mentioned my first hack, but let me to a few more.

1) Buy shower wall at a home supply store dirt cheap and expo them down for a good slick feel that will erase.

2) Draw you grids onto the showerboards using wet erase pens and a yard stick. Now you can dry erase as much as you want and just run the eraser over them to remove the dry erase while leaving the wet erase gridlines behind.

3) Advanced users can find 1/16” colored tape at office supply stores and make gridlines from those. It requires more time and is more expensive, but gives a more professional feel to the board.

4) Got a dry erase todo that’s six months old and won’t erase? Scratch it all out with a fresh dry erase marker and watch it vanish.

I heart whiteboards. I cover ever wall with them. Spouses hate it, but young children love it. You can encourage them to draw on all the walls.