I am a runner. I have been running since high school cross country and track. Back in those days we kept logs of our distance and times in a notebook, but, like all things, technology has made sweeping changes to all of that. Ten years ago, perhaps a little more, Garmin teamed up with Timex for a GPS watch that could track your runs — I spent something like $300 on one and it was cumbersome to wear, plus had spotty coverage.
Fast forward to today and things have changed dramatically — GPS watches do not require that big armband transmitter I once wore and data can be uploaded directly to fitness programs and web sites without the user needing to even lift a finger.
While there are multiple solutions to handle this, the one I have chosen to use in recent times is called Map My Run — the maker also offers similar services for bicyclists, walkers, hikers, triathletes and general fitness gurus. Registration is free, though there are premium services available for a price. All of these services also offer mobiles apps that are available for both Android and iOS as well. (more…)
With the advent of the smartphone, we are increasingly taking more and more pictures all the time. What makes it even worse, or better depending on how you look at it, is that smartphones are starting to get better in picture quality and almost rivaling mid-level digital cameras. Then we have apps like Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, etc., where we can take and host our pictures for free or for a nominal fee. Needless to say,we all have quite a collection of pictures that we have taken over the years in a variety of different places. Some of them are in Instagram, maybe some on Facebook, and others on our computer.
Over the past year, there have been a few services that have come up that are willing to host your photos and gather them from all of these different places and charge you a fee to do that. Now, granted some of these services have been around for years, Flickr and Photo Bucket to name a few, but it has only been recent that developers are seriously targeting this market for the everyday user. For example, the web app that I have been testing out, Trovebox, caters to and targets the everyday user who wants a place to store their photos. Unlike their competitors, they have some features that set them apart, but will it be enough to convince people to make the switch? Let’s take a look.
One of the things that I truly love about social media is how you can make connections with people that you have never met before in real life. For example, my editor and I live on practically opposite ends of the earth, we have never met face to face, but yet, I feel like I know him decently well. It is amazing how many people I have been able to connect with and share ideas and talk tech through social media. There is something about it that makes people feel “safe”, and they can let their guard down and be themselves.
Over the past year or so, I have started to see a different type of social media avenue crop up around the web. These are sites where you can throw out a question to people, and you let the power of social media help with getting you an answer. There are formal sites like Branch and Quora that are set up for this, and then you have informal ones like Twitter and Facebook where you can solicit feedback as well. But, the app that I have been testing for the past few days, Yabbly, takes a somewhat different approach and so far, I like what I see.
I woke up this morning, grabbed my iPhone to check the news in Reeder — which is powered by my Google Reader account — only to find at the very top that Google is shutting down Google Reader, for good, on July 1, 2013. They said it’s because too few people use it, which is rather ironic since most of us heard the news via articles synced in Google Reader.
Of course, it’s been a rumor for some time that Google Reader might be the next Google service to hit the chopping block, but it’s not just a rumor this time. Rather, is the first thing the Google Reader team has posted on their blog since 2011. That should, in itself, tell part of the story. And rather than beating around the bush about it being shut down, Google Reader will now warn you itself, rather starkly, that it’s going away. It’s really, really real this time.
That’s terrible news, since most RSS apps for desktops and phones are powered by Google Reader, and Google’s service was so popular that it practically pushed all alternatives out of the market. FeedDemon has already announced that it’s being killed as well, since it’s powered by Google Reader sync, even though years back it had its own sync engine. Google pushed most other RSS readers out of the market, and is now killing their own RSS reader app. It’s not a good day for RSS, a service that’s already been tough enough to convince people to use, and Google+ isn’t a good alternate unlike what Google apparently thinks according to a former Google Reader product manager.
So what do you do? Quit subscribing to RSS feeds? Nope. I sure won’t, and we sure hope all of our RSS subscribers here won’t, either. The good news is, there’s a ton of other great RSS services out there today, ones that have come online in the past few years or held on even though Google Reader remained dominant.Here’s all the info you’ll need to find a new service and get your feeds moved to it, pronto, before your Google Reader subscriptions are lost.
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 web has opened doors for many ways to share content. Up until a few years ago, when one gave a presentation and wanted others to see a visual, they had to have a projector. It was just a given. Now, though, with most people carrying an internet connected phone or tablet around these days, a projector is hardly a necessity.
Presentation.io is an app that’s actively trying to help make projectors less needed, in the board room, classroom, and anywhere else. If you remember, a while back I reviewed Canvas Dropr, an app from the same people who created this web app. The two apps have some similarities, but Presentation.io is a somewhat stripped down version of Canvas Dropr designed just to present ideas, speeches, and anything else you want to show to others. Let’s take it for a spin to see how it works and how it can possibly benefit you.
When I first heard of App.net, the idea didn’t appeal to me. I’m not the kind of person who pays for a social network because I’m not that serious about chatting with people online. Sometimes Twitter is very useful, though. I use it to chat with a few people each day and even though I’ve taken breaks from it time to time, I always end up going back because I like the simplicity. That’s what App.net promised, along with a third-party API, so why wouldn’t I like it?
Since I didn’t want to pay for the service, I simply dismissed the thought of trying it out. Then a way to get free access was officially added. You have to be asked to the network by a current member, and there are limitations to storage and following counts. All in all, it sounded like a fair way for me to get a taste of this fresh site.
I was invited to this free tier by Andrew Kunesh, one of our other writers here at AppStorm. I’ve been using the service since the day its “freemium” version was announced, but I actually don’t use it every day. I’m going to explain what I like about App.net, followed by what’s holding me back from visiting the site every day. (more…)
It’s a new year, and paid digital magazines and newspapers are still the talk of the town online. Traditional media has been hurt by the internet, with subscriber numbers falling and advertising dollars moving online (or disappearing entirely). But then, there’s a growing number of publications with paywalls around their content (like the New York Times), and tablets have given a new boost to digital magazines.
The most interesting thing, though, is the new players. There’s totally new digital magazines, such as The Magazine, launched by Marco Arment of Instapaper fame. It launched on the iPhone, but recently got a web-focused makeover that lets you subscribe online and read articles in your browser or download them in eBook formats. There’s also new long-form journalism efforts such as MATTER, a great new digital publication that brings one long-form article per month, which you can get via a subscription or directly through Kindle.
Last year, we asked if you subscribe to any digital magazines, and over 30% of you said that you did at that time. With all the new choices available now, though, we’re wondering if more of you are subscribing to paid digital publications. Or, have you found that digital editions of magazines didn’t live up to your expectations, and canceled your subscriptions?
If you are subscribing to digital magazines, we’d love to hear which ones you love in the comments below!
Consumer support can be messy, and it can make or break an organization. With this in mind, developers have covered the web with countless help desk solutions, each promising to be different from the other. But in reality most of them were mere copycats, offering basically the same features with little variation beyond their stylesheet.
Freshdesk does an excellent job at bringing something new to the world of customer support, and has received critical acclaim across the board. Here at Web.AppStorm, they have bagged a prestigious score of 9 out of 10, and we loved their simple approach to Customer service.
Today we are going to talk with Kiran Darisi, Co-founder of Freshdesk. Keep reading to find out the story behind Freshdesk, how it was developed, and what’s in store for the future.
Anyone working with two or more computers, a phone and a tablet will know just how useful Google syncing can be. By signing into your account you can access the same information – emails, contacts, tasks and more – on multiple devices.
But what about if you have more than one Gmail account and want to share contacts between them? Forget manually copying and pasting, or re-typing out scores of names and address. Soocial is a service that can do the hard work for you.
