I was sceptical when I first heard about this new web app. The ability to track airplanes in real-time? Surely it would only track a handful, have plenty of bugs and not live up to expectation at all. I was wring.
Casper, which is set up as a demo on the website, shows you the movements of all airplanes coming and going from Schiphol airport in the Netherlands and flights over Dutch airspace. However, the program can be calibrated for any airport using an ADS-B receiver which can be bought from many hobby shops and online. The program will then interpret this information and display all flights relating to that airport. You could do this yourself at home.
The program is really light weight as it uses Google Maps to run and works really well. This is definitely a great app for all aviation enthusiasts and those interested in a little bit of fun.
The Internet has pretty much revolutionised fitness and healthy living. It has both busted many myths and crated some. With all the crosswinds of information available, an inevitable vortex has been created leading to a lot of confusion. Most people don’t know how many carbohydrates they should take in or why. Well SimpleFit is a new web app which aims to change all that in a simple, minimalistic way.
Firstly, you tell the app what kind of routine you’re looking for and in put some information about yourself. It will then churn out a fitness plan which is quite basic at the start and increases in its difficulty as the weeks and months progress. You can see a sample one below.
You are encouraged to log into the service to record your achievements and workouts and also to see what lies ahead for you the next day. All of your results and stats are recorded on the site and can be viewed in numerous forms such as graphically below.
For anyone trying other fitness apps which don’t seem to be working out, you should give SimpleFit a go to see if simplicity works for you.
Over the past year or so, there has been much talk about paid subscriptions coming into effect for some of the bigger websites. Undoubtedly, this will begin to work its way down the scale. Hopefully this will improve web content and keep some faith in media which democracies rely on. So, what if your website needs a subscription service to keep afloat?
Well you could spend thousands of dollars getting in developers to set one up for you or you could use Recurly. This is a service which will enable your users to subscribe to your blog, pay their fee each month and thus have access. There is no need for your to manage or oversee anything once it’s set up as Recurly will handle all new subscriptions, fees, payments, outstanding bills and customer support.
You can also either embed the service seamlessly on your site using their API or have your subscription redirect to their site.
It is free for the first fifty subscribers and after that you can either pay a flat monthly fee or give Recurly a small percentage of your revenue intake. For bigger publications, the flat fee will work out best. So if you’re looking for a way to set up a paid subscription for your blog or website in just a few minutes, check out Recurly here.
ECwid is a web app which allows you to easily create your own store which you can integrate within your website in minutes. Basically, it’s like Amazon Associates (mostly because it’s powered by Amazon) except this has much better easy-to-use tools installed and is also easier to use for novice users when it comes to integrating your ecommerce store within your website.
Once you have created an account you just select what products you would like in your store, tailor the layout and colour scheme to your tastes and then click ‘Finish’. You’ll then be given HTML coding which you can copy and paste into a page on your website to embed the store. This will then act as your very own store on your website as though your developed and integrated it yourself.
The program also allows you to track invoicing, customers, accounts and other such important data to see how your store is getting on and how it can be improved.
It can take months, even years to learn how to use Photoshop properly. And all most of us want to do is edit the holiday photos to reduce sun glare or fix some red-eye. Pretty basic stuff by Photoshop standards.
Well now there is a cool web app called Citrify which acts as an online Photoshop alternative and it allows you to digitally enhance photographs on both a basic and advanced level.
As you can see above in some of the pictures, you can massively change skin tones, reduce glare and shine and even make photos look more ‘artsy’, just as you would with Photoshop. I found this web app surprisingly easy to use and very quick at processing the images as compared to other services which leave you waiting for ages for changes to load.
You can also get creative with your pictures by adding and removing elements or changing colours of certain areas like the mans skin was turned green in the picture above.
If you just need a quick brush up tool for your photos then you should check out Citrify.
The EBook Market is hotting-up very rapidly with every man and his dog looking to make a quick buck (pun intended) on this new way of reading. Amazon revolutionised eReaders but now ASUS have announced their DR-900 EReader at CeBIT today.
ASUS, who are rapidly making a name for themselves with low-end electronics such as netbooks, may well be the perfect candidate to bring EReaders down to an affordable level. This new model will have a huge touch screen (1024 x 768 pixels), WiFi with a 3G option, 4GB of internal memory and a great interface from the screenshots I’ve seen.
It will support numerous popular file formats such as PDF, TXT, ePUB and Mp3 (there is also a 3.5mm headphone jack). I think this will be a great device. We’re still waiting to hear exact prices and launch dates from ASUS. I would be surprised if it wasn’t out by late summer.
Skiing is a great holiday and there’s almost nowhere better in the world to do it than in the Rocky mountains along the west coast of the USA. PackLate is an online web app offering you discounted trips (focusing on the holiday type mentioned above although there are others) at the last minute. Here’s how it works.
The hotel manager notices he has a room empty. Rather than have it sitting idle and loosing revenue, he’ll list the room as available on this website at break-even price, or there abouts. This way, both parties win. You get a cheap holiday package and the hotel has their vacancy filled to cover expenses.
I must point out that while the site is frequently updated and there is a timer on each ad as to when it will be down-priced next, it’s best to nab them while you can because they don’t stick around for long.
This is a great app for those who love ski holidays and don’t mind leaving at a moments notice! Check it out here.
A big part of writing online, and even just being alive today, is knowing what’s happening around the world. One way I do this is to set up Google Alerts so I know what’s happening in my field. Another way is to use an online tool to see what’s being searched and posted on the Internet such as Trends Buzz. This is how many news firms pick up stories in far away lands quickly.
As you can see from the screenshot above, it takes note of what people are searching for in Google and Yahoo!. They also have Twitter monitored so you can find out what’s happening there too which is significant considering news spreads fastest on Twitter. Then, smaller sites such as the New York Times and Alexa are covered followed by smaller search engines.
The service is currently in public Beta and it will be interesting to see what the team comes up with once its ready for the full launch.
More and more people are accessing the web via their phone. Statistics show that the iPhone and other smart phones are leading the field in the US and Europe where as cheaper Java cell phones are number one in Africa and South America. By making a mobile version of your website you are putting yourself ahead of the competition by giving your users an extra feature. One which could earn you extra ad revenue.
Mobify is a free service which allows you to do this in less than five minutes. Basically, it takes your website or blog and compact it into a basic format so it ill load easily on mobile devices. You’re also given a custom URL so your users can access the site. You can see a sample website above on the left and it’s mobile version created using Mobify to the right.
There is a premium version which offers more customisation and you can keep your won URL so users can access the mobile version through m.yourblog.com. This is a great service and it’s well worth a look if you want to offer your visitors an extra level of compatibility.
News is spreading that the most popular netbook creator, Asus, will be launching three new Eee PC netbooks at CeBIT next week in Germany. The three new machines are said to be 10 inch screen models and have some exciting features.
For one thing, 14 hours is rumoured to be the battery life of one of the business models and will have an aluminium chassis with a brushed effect as seen above. Another model will have some premium features such as a fingerprint reader for increased security and will be the thinnest netbook Asus has ever created. USB 3.0 will also be standard on the netbooks.
Finally, matt displays and wider touchpads are the order of the day over at Asus.
I for one am becoming more and more fond of netbooks. They fill the gap between smart phone and laptop to keep us happy on the train or just act as a backup. What OS these new machines will be running is sill to be announced. More next week when we get some more information from CeBIT.
There’s nothing more frustrating when you’re in the middle of Photoshopping an image than discovering you haven’t got the right type of brush or texture. I mean, the basic ones will only do for basic image editing and forget about compositions. What you need is a library full of great brushes and textures. Just look at some of the great images created above using them.
BrushEezy is a database of thousands of Photoshop brushes which you can download and install. These range from the basic for things like creating great looking skies and to the complex such as composing modern art or website design.
Most of the sets are user submitted. I seen some great ones such as funky brush stylings and even a tool to create very realistic blood spatter. Each set can be previewed and downloaded for free. The brushed tend to have at least one hundred or more in a set so you can create your perfect designs. The community also vote to rate each set so you know what they’re like to use before you download them.
This is a great Photoshop recourse and a must use for any amateur or professional.
As reported here on Crunch Gear, concepts for Electronic cars are popping up all over the place. Some look like the creations of a sci-fi fiction writer. But you know what? Some seem like viable forms of transportation.
The thing that annoys me about all this jazz concerning global warming and emissions is the fact that the politicians are addressing all the right problems bar one. The most important one at that.
The image. As of now, it’s not cool for an 18 year old to hop into a tiny lithium powered car to go to college. But I think if they spent more time creating a sense of image and maybe lowered the driving age for electronic vehicles (in European countries) to sixteen and slashed insurance costs because it’s not like they’re going to be speeding any time soon, then these things would take off as cheap, viable forms of transportation. Right now, they’re hippy mobiles and uncool.
Unfortunately for mother nature, we don’t live in a dictatorship and nobody is just going to go out and buy these things to solve what is an invisible and speculative problem. What we need is for three-wheeled electronic, two-seater cars to be cool. Much like the Volkswagen Beatle and camper van were popular back in the 50s and 60s.
