Currently Browsing
General
I’m guessing most of us use some sort of notifications system within our day-to-day workflow. On our smartphones and tablets, we get sounds, alerts and other visualisations to bring new or modified information to our tablet and even on the traditional computer, most of us here a unique chime everytime an email hits our inbox.
For any fans of The Office, you might remember WUPHF.com, a service the character Ryan Howard setup based around the concept of an aggregated notifications service which handles all of a user’s alerts and sends them out to each one of their platforms. If was presented in a comedic way in the show, but I think there’s a strong case for a service like that. (more…)
It sounds simple: don’t be evil. How hard can it be, really? Don’t kill kittens. Don’t perform illegal acts involving chainsaws, guns, or exotic fruits. Easy.
For such a simple motto – slogan, really – Google seems to have been having difficulties with this lately. Has the omnipresent company grown from its don’t be evil roots, or are they as good-hearted as they’ve ever been?
One of my earliest memories of the internet is going to the bank with my parents in, oh, the mid ‘90s, when our bank was handing out packets with a floppy to help you get started using internet banking. The floppy included a browser (Netscape, perhaps, but I’m not sure), and a tutorial about how to get on the “world wide web” and magically manage your bank account from the comfort of your home. The Jetsons’ era had arrived.
Over a decade and a half later, there are still many people who are scared of managing their finances online. Some fear irrationally that someone could hack their computer and somehow download all of their money from their bank account, while others more rationally fear the privacy concerns surrounding financial web apps. Most banks let you at least manage some of your banking online, and apps like Quicken and iBank can download your statements to make it easier to manage. We’ve gotten used to that, and it doesn’t seem frightening now, but many are still scared to let apps like Mint.com bring in all of their financial info.
Or, then, you have the other extreme: people who do all of their banking online. I personally have an online bank account with ING Direct, a bank that has no physical bank locations, and love it. Then, new banking options like Simple are trying to reinvent banking online, with beautiful interfaces and new services. I, for one, can’t wait to give it a try.
Do you have a Facebook? Possibly a Twitter? Or maybe you’re one of those inactive Google Plus folks? There’s even the case that you don’t have any of these and you’re having fun over at Diaspora. In any case, you’re always susceptible to becoming addicted to your favorite social network and avoiding work or some other task that needs to get done. Hopefully I can provide a solution.
In this article, I hope to inform you of a few ways to be more productive with the time you spend on the Internet and hopefully aid you in the fight to stay off those evil social networks during work or any other time when you shouldn’t be on them …
We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in February. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, Web, Android, Windows, or iPad apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month. Now would be a good time to explore a part of the AppStorm Network you’ve never seen before!
Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!
It’s easy to think there’s always something new in the world of technology. With CES and Macworld, Twitter and Techmeme, there’s a million new things that, all in all, are the same old thing in the latest wrapping. Essentially.
Actually, gadgets themselves, by themselves, aren’t that important anymore. Just like a TV with no good shows or movies isn’t very useful, a smartphone, tablet, or computer isn’t very useful at all without great apps. That’s what makes web apps exciting: they’re apps that can run on almost anything with a browser. Even your HP Touchpad will still have new web apps it can use for years to come, since it has a browser.
So it’s easier for many of us to get more excited about software than hardware. This is AppStorm, after all! I’ve submitted my email to dozens of pre-launch app sites so I’ll get to know when they’re ready to try out, and I’ve done that for years before I was writing about new apps for a job. Sometimes, it’s just fun to create a new account and try out the latest web apps out there, and it’s even more fun when one happens to fit perfectly into your life and workflow in ways you never imagined. But, of course, usually we create new app accounts, only to forget them weeks (or minutes) later.
So how about you? Do you signup to hear about the latest app releases and try out apps the first, or do you wait until something’s mainstream before you tried it? Were you one of the first people you knew who had a Google Wave account, or did you wait to get Facebook until even your Grandmother signed up? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
If you’ve hung around Web.AppStorm long enough, you’ve surely come across a few web apps you’ve thought looked nice. Hopefully you found some you kept using, but odds are, you quit using most of them right after you tried them out.
There’s the web apps we use all the time, like Gmail and Facebook, that we can’t imagine not using. Then there’s others we like, say Evernote or Google Reader, that we might like but we tend to use through native apps. And then, there’s the dozens of apps we’ve used but don’t keep using forever.
So what makes a great web app, and why do some seem to click while others never find a place in your toolkit?
When Apple first announced iCloud at the last WWDC conference, it was unclear at first if iCloud would even have real web apps so you could check your email and calendar from any browser. The first iPhone shipped without native app support, relying instead on web apps to fill any functionality gaps, but the success of the App Store in iOS and OS X has made web apps a much lower priority for Apple’s platforms.
Then, iCloud finally trickled down to the public with iOS 5 and OS X Lion, and we were excited to see that iCloud not only included web apps, but really high quality web apps that were beautifully designed. They’re just about the closest imitation of their sister native apps we’ve ever seen on the web.
Problem is, most people just use the native apps on iOS or their Macs already. Plus, many of us already have our mail, contacts, and calendar in Google’s cloud, and don’t overly want to switch. That’s why I was wondering if you use the iCloud web apps. If you have an account, and have never tried them out, you owe it to yourself to go to iCloud.com and take them for a spin.
Question is: will you keep using them there, or will Mail, Calendar, and Address Book on your iOS device or Mac come calling again?
Internet speed. More than disk speed or CPU speed or videocard speed, internet speed is likely the one thing that can most directly impact our computing workflow today. Whether you’re like us and use web apps all the time, or just do the occasional Stack Overflow and Google search to find out how to fix those pesky problems you come across, if the ‘net’s pokey, you’re work’s going to come to a crawl.
A few years ago, when I started working online, we had a pokey 512 Kbps ASDL connection at our home office. Over the holidays, we were able to upgrade to a fibre optics connection with crisp 8-10 Mbps download speeds. Only problem is, those speeds only hold up inside Thailand; try downloading from an overseas site (read: most sites), and you’ll see your speed drop to 1-2 Mbps rather quickly. But hey, anything’s an improvement.
Even on the go, internet speeds have become incredibly fast. I still usually get by with an EDGE connection wile traveling, which hovers around 200-300 Kbps, but even that’s sufficient to get basic work done on the road almost anywhere on earth. And with 4G speeds rivaling standard home internet connections, the day might come when we all cut the cord for good.
So what do internet speeds at your home or office look like? If you’re not sure, pay Speedtest.net a visit. If you’d like to share your exact scores, feel free to post your speed test link in the comments below!
