As a first-time dad of a two year old, I continually find myself being humbled by how much I have still to learn about being a great father. Every time I think I’ve got something down with my son, he throws a curve ball our way and we go back to the drawing board. I am realizing that this full time job — parenting — is one where I am constantly learning and seeking advice, and I don’t think it is ever going to stop.
My wife and I have found the web to be very helpful for a lot of answers to our questions that we have about our son, when it comes to simple issues like when to potty train, to more complex ones like “Why is our son not eating?” But, as we have found, we can spend hours on the web finding the answers to our questions and we can get many different opinions from people. That is great, but I would love to be able to condense that into one site — where hopefully the answers are all high quality.
As I was looking for answers to a question a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Quib.ly, which is a question and answer site, similar to Quora and the like, but puts its focus on parenting and technology. Those are two areas where I can offer help and learn a great deal from so I thought I would give it a spin to see how beneficial it could be for me.
I just recently ventured into creating my own website again. There is something about doing it that is so fulfilling for me. Over the years, I have learned a lot about websites by creating them, and have found what should and should not go into it. Now, don’t let me mislead you: I am no pro at this by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, when you start talking about coding, you lose me right away. But, what I have started to learn more and more about is using the amazing resources that are out there to help you create your own site. I am finding that you really don’t have to know how to code to help you come up with a decently good looking website.
Take for example, the app that I am reviewing today called Feeder Ninja, which does something so simple in nature, but yet can come in very handy when you are creating your own site. Feeder Ninja takes your social media feeds and creates an embedable window that you can insert into your website. Again, simple in nature, but they make it so easy to do and it looks very professional.
When it comes to the RSS feed app wars, at this point if you are going to win people over, you have to be willing to do something different. Not radically different, but something that will make you stand out. Whenever I come across a new Google Reader app, I ask myself, “What does this app do that I cannot already do in Google Reader?”
In the case of Nextly, they definitely present you with a different experience all together. Unlike other RSS reader apps, they take a slightly different route that is somewhat interesting and could actually catch on. One feature that they do to stand out from the others is that they incorporate the use of the keyboard into the reading experience. Sound intriguing? Let’s explore more of this app and see what it has in store for us.
As much as we all were sent in shock and general frustration/unhappiness with Google when they decided to let us know they were pulling the plug on Reader, there definitely has been some good to come out of it. It has shed light on other apps that are out there for RSS and better yet, it has given developers the opportunity to create something different and better than what Reader was. It has given people the ability to take a step back, think about what was good about Reader, and then create something that builds on that legacy.
MultiPlx is one of those apps. It is taking things that were good about Google Reader and then adding another layer to – hopefully – make it better. Currently, it is in beta, but there are doing some good things to make me believe that my RSS feeds won’t just go away when Google kills reader this summer. Let’s take a more in depth look at MultiPlx and what it has to offer.
Competition is always a good thing, right? At least I think so, and this “finding a replacement for Google Reader” scenario presents us with this opportunity. It is good to have choices, to find what we like and don’t like and settle on something that works for us. I bet you can get ten different tech nerds in a room and they would all have their own opinions as to why they like their favorite RSS reader. It’s the nature of the beast and that is okay, it pushes developers to make quality products and apps.
Bloglovin is one that is just a little different than some of the others that I have reviewed. For one, their focus is on reading blogs, but don’t let that turn you away from this web app. It is more than just reading blogs and it takes a fresh approach to the RSS feed reading situation that some may actually like. Let’s take a look at it more to see what it is all about.
Outside of reading numerous different tech blogs on a daily basis, I keep up with my technology news through podcasts. There are a lot of great tech podcasters out there that not only keep you up to date on the latest and greatest, but also offer a huge amount of insight into the tech world. Most of the time, I use my iPhone to store and play them in my car or while I am out and about.
But, I don’t always want to use my iPhone to play podcasts, especially when I am at my desk working on my computer. Yes, I could use iTunes and just play them through it, but today I am going to talk about another alternative. I came across Podcast Gallery about a week ago and it is a web based app where I can find and play a variety of podcasts. It actually is a pretty nifty alternative for those of you that are looking for something that is on the web. Let’s take a more in depth look at it.
Within education there is a big debate going on about whether or not it is a good idea to let students bring their own mobile device (BYOD) to school to use in the classroom. As an educator who has been given the opportunity to test pilot an iPod Touch adoption in our school district, I definitely have my own thoughts on this issue. I think, whether we like it or not, we have to prepare and encourage students to bring their own devices. But, no matter what side of the debate we land on, one thing is for sure, the web is going to be a powerful place for education. It is a space that if developers can conquer and create great products, they will do well in the education space.
Now, we can also debate for a very long time about the future of technology in education and the how the web will or will not play a part in that. But, for now, I think it is the way to go, especially for its low cost and its accessibility. For example, for the past few weeks, I have been playing around with Presefy, which is a web based application that you can use to share your presentations. I originally started using it to see if it could work in my classroom and as a way for others to use it as well.
I don’t know when it happened for me, but I got to a point in life where I truly started to enjoy reading. Maybe it was after I got done with grad school and I actually had time to read. I’ll admit that I don’t read as often as I would like, and now that I am back in school and a father to a two year old, that time has shrunk even further. But, that still hasn’t stopped me from finding books that I want to get to “someday”, as I know I will get to them eventually.
A year or so ago, I started to experiment with different ways that I could save book titiles that I was interested in reading so that when I did have some time, I could actually find a book to read. I defaulted to Evernote since I practically use it for just about everything these days, but about a month ago, I stumbled upon a web app called Slice Bookshelf. To be perfectly honest, the only reason why I even found it was the fact that I had been using Slice for other reasons. If you are unfamiliar with Slice, I did a review on their app a little while back and I still use it till this day. So, when I saw that they had a book saving app, I knew I had to try it out to see if it was worth it.
When it comes to saving things from the web, there are a lot of different ways to do this. For me, when it comes to saving articles, I am a huge fan of Pocket for many reasons that I won’t get into here. But, now that I am going back to school, I find that I am having to save a lot more information from the web than I have in a long time. The main reason why I don’t use a service like Pocket or Instapaper for this is because I want a place where I can dump whatever I find into something temporarily. I don’t like to mix up the articles that I want to read or save for later with my snippets of research for my thesis.
I have used Evernote before for this purpose, but then I came along a web app called Dragdis, which takes a different approach to saving things online. Instead of saving articles or texts to a service, it lets you drag and drop what you want to save so that you can come back to it later. It is actually a pretty neat idea and with some help from HTML 5, this is a slick app to use. Let me show you more about what it can do.
Yes, this is another post on another type of Google Reader replacement, but this one takes a little different strategy than some of the others that are out there. As you know, we at Web.AppStorm have been scouring the internet for replacements for our Reader fix. A little while back, I did a review on Taptu, which I actually do like and think it can be a solid replacement. But, as always the tech nerd in me is always searching for something better, something that can really meet all my needs for a replacement.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I will honestly find something on the web that will satisfy me unless it syncs with my iOS devices. But, the one that I am about to review today definitely got my attention, enough so that I actually decided to pay for the app. Yes, we have been spoiled with a free service like Google Reader, but in my opinion that is what led to its demise; Google just didn’t want to bother with a product that wasn’t going to make money. But I digress, time to switch gears and talk about Feedbin, a possible RSS reader replacement that you might actually want to pay for as well. Let’s take a look.
