Posts Tagged
Collaborate
I admire app developers that are willing to take a fresh look at what they have developed after releasing something for a while. It shows that they are passionate and believe in what they are building, not only for themselves, but for the general population as a whole. In my opinion, it takes a lot to be able to swallow your pride a little, take in user feedback and be willing to tweak a product or app so that it can better meet the demand for the user.
The reason why I am reflecting on this is that I have been using Kippt for the past couple of days and have been really impressed by what they have done to their app. They haven’t necessarily done a full facelift to it, but they were able to analyze how well the app worked and took user feedback to produce an even better product than before. If you are unfamilar with Kippt, we did a review on their old version a couple of years ago.
As an educator who is obsessed with technology, I am always looking for ways in which my class and I can use technology to help enhance their learning. I am also looking for ways to utilize the web with students as much as I can because it usually offers two things that are great for education. One, with the web, apps are usually accessible where ever there is a browser available, and that means students have no excuse to be able to access it. Two, most times, web apps are low cost or even free, which with education, is a huge thing being that budgets are always tight.
So, when I got to play around with Padlet for a couple of days, I really got excited for how I could use this both in my personal life as well as with my students. Padlet takes the concept of a blank piece of paper, and lets you put whatever you want on it and share it with people. With the web, this takes this “blank piece of paper” concept and lets you do even more. Let me show you more about what I am talking about.
Lists may not seem like the most exciting basis for a website, but everyone has the need to create some form of list from time to time. List creation and management need not be a solitary affair – there are countless scenarios in which two or more people might want to make use of the same list.
From shopping lists and to-dos to project management and itineraries, Organisr is an online tool that replaces those all-too-easily-lost scraps of paper that probably litter your desk. (more…)
The internet continues to amaze me all the time, and that is one of the reasons why I love it so much. What really gets me passionate about consistently using the web is the ability to do things in a virtual world that before wasn’t possible. Take for example the topic of collaboration. In years past, you wouldn’t dream of being able to have a company or business where the people who work at it are all in different states or countries.
A perfect example of this is Web.Appstorm, where although I have been writing for them for almost a year now, I have never met my editor or the other writers face to face. Yet, we are able to work together and produce quality content for all of you to read.
So where am I going with this? Well, the internet has given us the opportunity to have no boundaries when it comes to getting work done together. One web app to help with this, called Dispatch, has given us the ability to collaborate on documents and other things regardless of whether we work in the same building or miles a part, and all we need is an internet connection.
As the web continues to get better and better, something that I take for granted a lot of the time is the amount of information that is on it. It continues to amaze me at how I can type in a random question or phrase and usually always find an answer very quickly and easily. Add on top of that the increase in blogging and how easy it is for someone to set one up, you will soon have an internet with an almost infinite wealth of knowledge.
But, what about those times where you want to ask a specific question to people, and you want to gather information and opinions in somewhat real time? Yes, a Google search can help with that, but it doesn’t always get the job done. Enter in a web app called Branch, where you can ask questions in real time and get answers from the millions of people around the world. I have been able to test it out over the past week or so, and I have learned some interesting things about it and how it works.
Cloud services are a dime a dozen these days, and all of them promise you wouldn’t have to carry a flash drive in your life. But how do you keep track of them? Sure, most have mobile versions of their apps and you can always use that on the go. However, seeing them all in one tool seems to be asking too much – or is it?
Hojoki is a web app that allows you to see a feed of all activities in your cloud apps, bringing together your Dropbox, CloudApp, Zendesk, and Basecamp, and more. It’s in Public Beta and is free for now – with a future pricing plan in store. So how does it work? Read on to know more!
It’s no secret; I’m a fan of ZURB’s work. Their latest? StrikeApp. This particular app makes it easier than ever to create, share and collaborate on lists, all without ever signing up or handing over any “required” information. Let’s jump over there and take a look at ways you can use StrikeApp.
In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting PSDvoid. Here’s how the developer describes PSDvoid.
Just entering our 3rd phase of testing we have started our invite only Open Beta of the world’s first PSD Publishing, Sharing, and Collaboration web app. Our site does all the work of creating thumbnails and preview files to cut down on your time. We allow you to license your work with a Copyright, Creative Commons, or Public Domain, select a category, and tags.
Read on for more information and screenshots!
Would you like a better way to edit documents and collaborate on ideas? Emailing notes back and forth is a mess and wikis can be complicated to use. Plus, neither of these let you see your team’s document changes in real time. Google Docs now allows collaborative editing, but it makes it hard to get a sense of what was added and when.
For a time, Etherpad was the king of online collaborative writing. No matter where you and your coworkers were, you could log in to the same Etherpad, edit together in realtime, then playback the document revisions to see how the document progressed over time. Then, a couple months after Google Wave was announced, the Etherpad team was bought out by Google. Their code was opensourced, but their original site was shut down and, before long, Google Wave was canceled and opensourced as well.
Today, if you’d like to keep using Etherpad, you could obviously install and run the opensource Etherpad code directly on your own servers for your company or personal use. However, running it directly can be difficult, and if you just want to get started writing collaboratively, you’ll want something easier to manage. There are then a number of sites that let you use the original Etherpad code on their own servers. Some of these services simply use the original Etherpad, while others have taken it and expanded its feature set.
Sync.in is a great service from Cynapse that has taken the original Etherpad and given it a fresh theme, a desktop launcher to access your pads easily, social network sharing, and more. Let’s take a look at the service and see if collaborative writing has been given a fresh start with Sync.in.
Sometimes the easiest way to explain something to someone is through a picture. However, most diagram drawing apps are either easy to use, but limited in features or full-featured, but have a steep learning curve.
Enter Creately, a full-featured diagram drawing app with a user friendly, intuitive interface. In addition to that, Creately prides itself on being the picture equivalent of a document collaboration app, allows for easy co-working and sharing of diagrams.
In this review, we’ll take a closer look at Creately and examine some of its nifty features.
