Ever since Threadsy closed up shop, I have been looking for a great aggregator that pulls together my email and social networks. And I tried a lot of services which offered an alternative, like Unifyo and Smak. But this isn’t something I wanted to pay for, and most apps had limited features for the free accounts.
So when I came across Alternion, I had a bit of a tough time believing it would actually work for me. I’ve been using it for well over two months now, and I can say that it really does end up being a major time-saver, although there are some features that I would still need before making the switch completely.
Every party I go to in December has one thing in common: every person has a camera – either a clicker or the one on their phone – and is happily shooting away. The next day, my Facebook notifications go haywire with all the photos I’m tagged in, I get emails from people sharing albums of the event on Picasa and Flickr, there are a bunch of Instagram photos of the same night (and usually with a lot of food in that, sigh!), and my dad and his friends stick to good old email attachments.
And the whole point of a service like Everpix really sunk in when this happened: a nifty web app that collates photos from all your different accounts and puts them under one roof. And it even features an app for the iPhone that takes all of its images. Lovely! But does it actually deliver?
For the longest time now, Evernote has been the go-to service if you want to conduct any research on the web. And why not, with the plethora of options that it offers. But personally, I’ve found that it lacks the simplicity to let me use the app to collaborate with others. Evernote is great for power users and I swear by it, but every time I’ve worked in a project group with others who aren’t that tech-savvy, it’s a stumbling block and we end up switching back to a long Gmail thread that’s messy and hard to keep a track of.
That was the main reason Annotary piqued my interest when I came across it. The simplicity it offers is unparalleled in other apps, be it Evernote, Scrible or anything else. And when I actually did work on an assignment with a tech-challenged friend using Annotary, he didn’t find it the least bit intimidating and is now using it as his default bookmarking service for all, irrespective of research projects.
My friend Savio has been eyeing the top-of-the-line iPad Mini ever since it was launched, and with the holidays coming up, I thought it would be a nice gift for him. Unfortunately, Christmas means having to buy presents for everyone, so the amount one can afford to spend per person tends to go down a bit. It was a disheartening thought because I know how much Savio wanted that iPad Mini.
But Savio’s a great guy and everybody loves him. You know the type? He seems to make friends anywhere he goes and because he’ll go the extra mile for you, you feel like doing more for him. Well, I decided to tap into the goodwill Savio’s earned to get him that gift he wanted.
Share A Gift is a fantastic site that is, essentially, a Kickstarter for gifts! You can invite people to contribute to a gift and collect all that money to buy that much-wanted item. Here’s how it works… (more…)
If there is one thing that mars the joy of giving a gift, it’s actually thinking one up. I don’t know about you, but personally, I always prefer asking the person for a few things he or she wants, and then picking the best out of that. That way, not only is the recipient happy with the gift they got – since it was something they wanted anyway – but I also get the satisfaction of knowing it’s something they will actually use, and not just have it lying around somewhere in the closet for eternity.
Wishmindr is a nifty little service that lets you always have an answer for the question, “So, what do you want this Christmas/birthday/anniversary?” It’s tightly integrated with online shopping sites Amazon, eBay and ShopStyle, making it much easier to pinpoint exactly what you want and share it with your family and friends. (more…)
In the days before email and smartphones, postcards were an amazing way of sending a pictorial message to someone. It showed the recipient when that sender was seeing, along with a note at the back describing what that was or their feelings at the time. It was personal.
Smartphones changed that to a large extent with their cameras and internet connectivity, making the modern ‘e-postcard’ much faster. And now, Findery is taking it to the next step of the postcard’s evolution. It’s no longer about you sending a postcard to a friend, it’s about sharing it with the world and pinpointing it on a map for anyone to find.
That’s right, Findery lets you leave notes for the world. (more…)
The world loves food. Even if you may not be a foodie, there has to have been a time when you came across a dish and it brought you instant joy. As Voltaire put it, nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
And given our obsession with what we put in our mouths, it’s no surprise that there are tons of web apps that focus on helping you find good restaurants to eat at. But that just tells you where to eat at, not what to eat there. Foodspotting wants to fill that void. (more…)
I can’t tell you how many hours of my childhood have gone into building elaborate forts, spaceships or construction sites with Lego, the block-building toy that captured every kid’s fancy and continues to do so. I really thought that this generation wouldn’t find much appreciation for it until my nephew got his first Lego kit and spent a chunk of his vacation letting his imagination go wild with a bunch of little red bricks and yellow men.
And then I came across Build With Chrome.
If you’re managing a team, it can get very hard to keep a track of vacation time. With the holidays coming up, you don’t want to be caught in a situation where all your employees are out of office at the same time, unless you’re really planned for it. If you happen to have many freelancers working for your company, it can be especially hard to figure out who’s going to be unavailable, when.
Timetastic is a fantastic little tool that helps you manage leaves for people in your organization, and is loaded with options that make it a must-have for anyone responsible for the smooth functionality of a team. It’s even got a nice design. Let’s take a look. (more…)
How often have you come across this scenario: You’re working in the office when someone sends you a PDF file that needs to be edited, either with your signature or anything else. But hey, there’s no PDF editor on your work machine, and your company has strict admin policies.
A web app is the best way to go around this and PDF Zen could be just what the doctor ordered. It’s got a lovely, Metro-inspired design, is extremely easy to use and features enough options for you basic PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, ODF and RTF editing needs. (more…)
