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I’m not only a confessed app junkie, I’m an email hoarder, too. I just counted the number of accounts in Thunderbird and there are a whopping 19 email accounts that I monitor for various reasons. That’s not to mention my various social media accounts. As you can guess, I am always on the lookout for the next great app and I may have stumbled upon one.
Enter Unified Inbox, a new app designed to bring all of your inboxes together. It’s currently free in invite-only beta, and let’s find out how Unified Inbox can wrangle your email and social media accounts and keep you on top of your game. (more…)
The world wide web can be a dangerous place for me at times, especially when I see a cool new product. I have a hard time when I come across a cool iPhone case, or some other cool gadget that I just “need” to have. I know I am somewhat obsessed with technology, but I always feel like I have to have the latest and greatest. Granted, I don’t go too overboard and I make sure to stay within my limit and there are times when I have to save the item that I want for later and actually save up for it.
There are a variety of ways that I have tried to save things that I find on the internet that I want to buy later. I have bookmarked websites and I have also tried to use sites like Pinterest and Clipboard as well. Needless to say, for whatever reason none of the things that I have tried seemed to work well. So, a little while back I found out about Wanelo, which is a place where you can store things that you want to buy. But it is more than just that, it is kind of like Pinterest, but more of a niche service. Let me show you what I am talking about.
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.
When I first started to use Twitter about three years ago, I saw it more as a social tool, a place where I could let people know what I was up to and see what my friends were doing as well. It took me a good five months or so to truly realize how powerful Twitter could actually be and how beneficial it could be for me. I finally understood that it was more than just a place to tell people what I just ate, but it was a way where I could almost instantaneously get news and breaking stories on just about any topic that was going on in the world.
Fast forward a couple of years, and Twitter has continued to evolve. Not just the app itself, but the way that Twitter is used has changed. Take, for example, the hashtag. At first, it was a nice way for us to label tweets as we wrote them. But over time the hashtag has become a powerful way to aggregate tweets and to cut through the noise.
Now, there’s apps built fully around Twitter hashtags, such as Tagboard. Tagboard specializes in this and is able to hone in on making hashtags even more powerful than they already are.
One of my favorite rituals is to wake up early in the morning, while the rest of the family is sleeping, make a nice pot of coffee and sit down and read the tech news of the last 24 hours. This is something that I have been doing for the past three years or so, and it is my time to just sit and be. I love using Google Reader to collect all of the tech news that I am interested in reading and over time, I feel like I have crafted a pretty solid list of blogs and news outlets to stay on top of the latest and greatest.
But, how I consume all of this information is a little more difficult than putting together a list of great tech blogs to read. For me, Google Reader on the web just doesn’t cut it. I tend to do most of my reading on my iPad Mini and I have been faithful to The Early Edition because I liked their newspaper layout and the settings. The other day, I was introduced to Feedly - the web app – by my editor, and I was instantly hooked. It’s a nice, iPad style news reading app for the web, one you should be sure to try out.
If you use Facebook, chances are you’ve written about what’s going on in your life, RSVP’ed for events, liked your favorite groups, posted photos, and more. You might have your education, employment, relationships, religion, and favorite quirky quotes listed for all the world to see. If you’ve tagged photos with location and people, you’ll have quite a clear record online of the people you spend time with and the places you’ve been. Or, you might just have a history full of spamming your friends for help growing carrots on your flourishing fake farm.
Either way, there’s a ton you can find out about yourself from your Facebook profile, data that’s sitting there ready to be mined. It used to take going to each of your friends’ profiles to find out this info, but with Facebook’s new Graph Search, it’s just a click away. We’ve just gotten access to it, so here’s a quick look at the newest iteration of the world’s most popular social network, and how it might affect the way you use it. (more…)
Over the past couple of years I have built a pretty solid, interactive group of people on both Facebook and Twitter, including close, personal friends and others that I have met through various opportunities. I appreciate the most that I can throw out an idea or question to my friends on both networks, and I can usually get a wide range of responses. Sometimes you get recommendations from someone that are just awesome ideas, while others confirm that your original hunch was correct. Either way, you’ll end up with a ton of things you want to try out.
With the new year arriving, I started to make some lists for myself and our family, goals that we want to see ourselves accomplish over the next year. As I started down this process, I was making all kinds of lists, and remembered an app called Well.io that helps you create lists with a social twist. The gist behind Well.io is that you create a list and have others help contribute to it, which lets you get ideas from friends in a more structured format than what I’d been doing.
Christmas came and went, and maybe you got something that you didn’t exactly want or need. Or, did you get something that will possibly replace what you already have? Well, you can go the traditional route and use Ebay or Craigslist to sell your stuff, but I decided to try a different route this time around. I have been hankering to try out a new web app that is similar to the two that I just mentioned, but yet a little different.
I like to use Craigslist because it is easy to post, but I hate the fact that you have to meet with someone to give them what you are selling and it can only be used locally. With Ebay, there are so many fees and it seems like it takes forever to post there. Junkio takes the good parts about both sites and combines it into one. Let me show you around and you can see what I am talking about.
In this digital age, inviting friends and family to a special occasion is now as easy as sending them an email or a link to a web page. For those who prefer a modern way of sending invites as opposed to the more traditional ones sent by post, Erly is a great option. The web service is free, easy to use and flexible enough to suit any event that matters to you.
Let’s see how Erly puts out great event invites that is sure to catch anyone’s attention.
After popstar Justin Timberlake and Specific Media purchased Myspace in 2011, Timberlake promised to return the network to its glory days. He wanted Myspace to be a place where users can find music, bands and other art which is created by the people, for the people. Myspace as a whole took its time in creating this new network. This is because, over a year later, we’ve finally been introduced to the invite-only beta build of the new Myspace.
After I received my invitation to the service a couple weeks ago, I was really excited to give the service a thorough test. When I saw the promotional video for the service a few months before, I really started to think that New Myspace has some serious potential, though I was prepared to prove myself wrong due to previous disappointments with the classic Myspace. After about a week of using the service and interacting with a few friends on the network, I’m finally bringing you my full thoughts on the service. Did it really live up to all that I thought it would be?
