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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.
In the past couple of years, my writing workflow has evolved to accommodate my changing habits, which now include working from wherever I am, thanks to my handy smartphone and physical-keyboard-and-tablet combo. I use them to jot down notes at events and conferences, take screenshots to illustrate points and of late, I’ve begun to record voice notes and calls for interviews, which greatly reduces the time I spend preparing content for articles.
There’s just one problem with recorded notes though: you have to convert them into editable text yourself. Transcribing requires you to listen, pause, type, and repeat until you’re done — and I had not come across a way to do this elegantly, until recently when I stumbled upon Transcribe Pro. This clever app combines robust audio playback control and note-taking for a simple web-based solution to your transcription woes. Today I’d like to show you how I get my work done, and how you can get the most out of Transcribe Pro.
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.
Over the years, AppStorm has reviewed a number of writing tools. For writers, these apps can have special meaning, as many of us earn our livings by using these apps. A good web-based word editor can be indispensable in daily life, both for us and for many of our readers as well.
Whenever I stumble upon a new one I can not help but try it out. So was the case recently when I happened upon WriteApp, which bills itself as a “distraction-free editor”. It boasts support for markdown, live preview, public notes, post by email, and much more. Plus it is free to use, though you need to register for an account. It was something I knew I’d have to check out. (more…)
Think of getting yourself a website – how would you go about it? Some might suggest employing a web designer, but a growing range of folks would be confident about creating their own website, thanks to the proliferation of WYSIWYG, do-it-yourself services like Weebly, Moonfruit, or Basekit.
The DIY route doesn’t always provide the best results, though – professional designers, whatever their preferred medium, still tend to produce the best-looking and most creative end products. It is strange, then, that there is a distinct lack of WYSIWYG services aimed specifically at the professionals.
Perhaps Webydo can start to change that. Webydo features Photoshop-style layout creation, drag-and-drop controls, and an enticing freemium pricing model. But can Webydo really be the breakthrough product for designers wishing to unleash their creativity on the web?
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.
How many photos do you have littered across various devices and services? The ease with which we can now snap photos means that most of us now have thousands of images dotted across numerous online services.
Sick of having to jump from one site to another just to find the image you’re looking for? Trovebox is here to help. Consolidation is the order of the day as this is a service that enables you to pull all of your images into one place for ease of access.
The web is chock-full of cloud storage services these days, and that’s actually a good thing: you can choose from a vast range of apps with different features and pricing and opt for one that suits your needs and budget perfectly. I personally prefer Dropbox because it lives on my desktop, syncs files across all my devices and allows for easy file sharing with clients, colleagues, bandmates and friends.
Suyara is the latest contender to enter the ring, and comes in a-swinging with multiple plans for home and business users, a flexible file management UI, file previews and more. Today we’re going to pair up this new service from Spain to see how it fares against the heavyweights, and whether it can knock out the competition. Let’s glove up!
Between the desktop, web and mobile, there are so many different apps that can help you create and manage tasks. Many of them offer the ability to collaborate with a team as well. So, if a tool is what you are missing in your quest to stay productive, lack of choices is never going to be the problem.
But, every team has its own requirements. Some prefer planning to the boot with every single aspect of the tasks jotted down. Some might prefer to go with a big picture view, focusing mainly on understanding where things stand at any given time. From the looks of it, DropTask appears to be a web app that can help people who prefer to track tasks at a glance. Let’s take a closer look.
Posterous is getting shut down in just a couple weeks, so if your blog is still on Posterous, it’s time to find it a new home. The good thing is, there’s lots of options today. WordPress is one obvious solution, since you can import Posterous sites directly into both WordPress.com blogs or WordPress on your own server. Many other blogging tools have import tools, too, including Tumblr, Squarespace, and my personal favorite, Kirby.
The most Posterous-like option, though, might be Posthaven, a brand new blogging service started by Posterous co-founder Garry Tan. We interviewed Garry about Posthaven last month, and now that the service is open to the public, let’s take it for a spin and see if it’s the perfect new home for your old Posterous blog — or perhaps for a brand-new blog.
