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I am a huge fan of moving more toward the web and away from native software. There are a variety of reasons for this, and I have realized the more we start to move away from software and to the web, the more we are going to need tools to edit on the web. I can think of two recent examples of this, where a friend of mine sent me a link to a new blog he is trying to write as well as students sending me essays online. Having tools to edit these pages online would be so helpful.
This is where a tool like Scrible comes in very handy. It is a toolbar that gives you a variety of options to edit webpages, save them, and then send them off. Scrible opens up a lot of possibilities for the web and it gives us the chance to give instant feedback.
If you are a regular reader you should probably know about a major gripe of mine – lack of quality feed reader apps on the web like the ones available for iOS. While remaining loyal to Google Reader for the time being, I am constantly looking out for that one awesome web app that will make me jump a creaking ship.
As and when I find some hopefuls, I never miss a chance to take them for a spin and share the results with our community. Subpug brings all your favourite websites, blogs and news sources into one convenient place. It’s totally free and there’s no need to sign up. You don’t even need to give us your email address. So, is it the feed reader that’s gonna make me ditch the good old Reader?
Knowing how many people are viewing your site can either be a fun distraction or the difference between making an appropriate amount of money from all your work and going broke. There are plenty of solutions available, some commercial and some free or integrated with another service.
Gaug.es, an analytics tool from Ordered List (the same group that created Harmony) is aiming for your business with several amazing features and a simple, intuitive interface.
There are plenty of ways to manage a website, from home-baked content management systems to established juggernauts like WordPress and ExpressionEngine, from free solutions like Tumblr to paid services like Squarespace. You could roll your own HTML and CSS based static site, or cook up a fully responsive site based on a content management system designed for sites with millions of articles. It’s your choice.
Harmony is throwing its hat into the ring, hoping to appeal to users that are seeking a fully-functional website builder that is powerful and simple. It’s a hosted website design and content management system that’s designed to let you focus on creation rather than the engine behind your site. Let’s take a look and see if it has what you need to power your site.
There is little innovation happening in the online news reader space. I am so jealous at the awesome apps like Google Currents, Flipboard, Pulse, and more that push the envelop for reading on a tablet. After mercilessly slaughtering the usability of the Google Reader web app, Google came up with the elegant Currents. Unbelievable.
These days lot of my reading time is spent on my iPad and with the choices out there on the web, I don’t see things changing anytime soon. That doesn’t stop me from scouting for new web apps that help consume news better. Like Readings. I took some time off to put the app to test and you can find out if is a promising contender after the break.
Looking through your site’s analytics can be insightful and unsettling at the same time. You can see how many people read your latest articles, but then wonder why they didn’t share the link or join in the conversation. Disqus has tried to take on this problem by making comments more social, and building in a new ranks system to let your loyal readers show that they’re staying involved.
We’re going to take a look at some of the newest features in Disqus, and how you can use them to enhance your site’s community. Then, we’ve got 2 Disqus Pro accounts to giveaway to our readers: a 1 year subscription, and a 6 month subscription. Keep reading to learn more about Disqus and how you can win Disqus Pro for your site!
Our giveaway is closed for new entries, but you can vote on the site you want to see with a Disqus Pro subscription on our 2nd round article!
Blogs are supposed to be about writing. Real, authentic, personal, heartfelt writing. The very word blog comes from the words web and log, a log of your thoughts on the web. But by and large, blogs have gotten complicated. 15 million widgets, word clouds, flashing ads, and more drive most people to just use social networks and forget the mess and confusion of blogging.
If installing WordPress on your hosting account or tweaking a Tumblr account to your liking sounds like more trouble than it’s worth just to publish your thoughts on the web, then get ready for a breath of fresh air. How about just saving plain text files with Markdown formatting to a folder in Dropbox, and having them published directly online? That’s what Calepin offers.
Jux.com is a publishing platform which allows users to showcase their work in a streamlined portfolio format with no prior knowledge of coding or web design. Filling a void somewhere between Flickr and Blogger, Jux strives to set itself apart by being a publishing platform for creative professionals.
Users not only have the ability to quickly and easily post block quotes, articles, photos, videos, slideshows and top-10 countdowns, but also the tools to do so in a beautifully organized and fully intuitive gallery format. Jux.com was launched just a few short months ago, but it is already demonstrating why good design and approachability can lead to a substantial following. The rest of this post will delve into Jux and discuss the many benefits it can bring to your creative ventures.
In the introduction to the latest issue of McSweeny’s Quarterly, the editors write, “More widespread and democratic access to education here and around the world means that there are more literate people…and more people reading than at any time in human history. So that’s good news.”
The bad news is that the ability to read a well-written sentence does not translate into the ability to write one. With more of our interaction taking place through emails, text messages, status updates, tweets, blog posts — heck, with more of us having to become writers — there are also more people in need of writing help than any time in human history.
Thankfully, Grammarly can give us that help. For a price.
I’m always looking for simple ways to keep a log certain activities- my workouts, my side project progress, my lesson plans, or whatever else I may want to reference later. So far the most trustworthy has been my handy-dandy notebook (cue Doug- “Dear Journal…”), but I don’t always have that with me and well, my notebook is really, “a bunch of notebooks.” What I really want is an easily accessible, singular place to keep journal entries. Since reading the Quick Look we published here a while back, I’ve though 280daily might be just that.
Quick Look
Get your app in front of thousands of interested users with a sponsored Quick Look post, including a poll for users to vote for an in-depth review!
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