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Luis Sandoval is a Media Strategist and Founder of Advantj Media based out of San Antonio, Texas. He writes on topics related to media and technology for a variety of sites around the web and publications.
While social networks are great at connecting people and bringing them together for various aspects, sometimes a nice site is what you’re looking for. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and such just don’t server your needs, and perhaps you’ve tried the Ning communities to no avail.
For those of you out there that are collectors of various things such as stamps, bottle caps, dolls, coins, or just about anything else, Colnect is for you. This social networks brings togethers collectors from around the world to buy, sell, trade, and share stories and locations with people. This niche specific network is amazingly popular, so if you’re a collector and missing that special, cornerstone piece to your collection, perhaps this network can help you complete your empire!
Remember the days of sitting in a classroom or auditorium listening to long drawn out lectures on topics that you just did not care for. College requirements dictated that you sit in this class and pass before you “pass GO and collect $200.”
Now with Lectr, you have the ability to find the topics you like, and listen some some of the world’s best recorded lectures on any topic. These degreed professionals were recorded and now the community benefits by having their lectures shared with the entire online community.
Topics range from Physics, Chemistry, Math, Biology, and Criminal Justice. These recordings come from some of the most prestigious colleges and universites from around the globe, all at your fingertips.
Give it a try, get your education on, and learn something!
All of us with an iPhone or iTouch know the addiction of downloading applications. For those of us with the 1-click purchase mode have probably found ourselves just clicking away before we realize we’ve spent some major money on what we think are useful applications.
For the rest of us that don’t have that luxury and are happy to play with free apps, perhaps this site is for you. AppGiveaway is a site that offers you promo codes to get iPhone apps for free or at deeply discounted prices. This is a great site to be introduced to apps that perhaps don’t get a lot of press, or get lost in the shuffle. The site introduces its readers to unique games, productivity apps, financial apps, etc.
Give the site a try and explore what they offer. I won’t say every app they offer promos for are worth it, but it’s a matter of introduction and taste, what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.
Give it a try and let us know what you think!
There’s a lot to find when surfing the net late at night, and thanks to RSS Feeds, a lot of the internet can come to you with some nice key words.
For those of you that want to sharpen your skills in searching, perhaps get more power out of Gmail, or even maximize your RSS efforts in Google Readers, this interactive guide is right up your alley.
This guide is not necessarily supported by Google, but they are aware of it, and having used some of these amazing “hacks” to get out of my google applications, it works and you’ll be happy to have used it.
Read the GOOGLE GUIDE!
How many of you have thumb drives lying around with little use for them? Perhaps you’ve got several external drives that you have to keep plugging in and unplugging when you are not using them. This frustrating experience cycles because there’s never been a suitable solution for all this.
If you’ve not checked out PogoPlug, then this little device could be a life saver for all of you. PogoPlug is a device that allows you to plug all of your USB devices to it and via a portal, you have access to all of your data from any computer/laptop in the world.
Before you throw them away, take a look at PogoPlug and keep all your data accessible. The PogoPlug comes in at a reasonable $99 offering easy setup, easy sharing, and the kicker…iPhone access for those needed to access their PogoPlug on the go.
With the release of the Palm Pre not even a month ago, the biggest attraction in the earlier stages was the ability to run multiple apps in the background as you navigate your device. Chances are, people are using their mobile devices much like they use their desktops or laptops, with multiple applications open, cross referencing their needs and multi-tasking as necessary. This functionality has escaped most mobile devices until the Palm Pre really focused on this ability in its new handheld device.
Is it the best execution, perhaps not, but it’s a step in the right direction!
Those using the iPhone have long griped over the lack of push apps and the ability to run apps in the background. While there is no sign of any progress on the background app idea, there seems to be more development in the “push” sector.
After reading TechCrunch’s article on how AIM for iPhone is coming out with push support, it’s noticable that more apps in the future will be offering push support to allow users to still get their messages, emails, and updates without actually having the app open.
Is this long overdue? Perhaps. Is this a suitable replacement for the lack of apps running in the background? Probably not.
What are your thoughts? What apps do you use that you wish has push functionality?
For a long time YouTube has been the king of the video search. There have been numerous other video sites, and like the rest, they all fall short in their ability to really attract a wide audience onto their site. Recently I was made aware of Clipta Video Search, in what appears to offer a better interface than YouTube and offering more diverse results.
Clipta also offers distinct categories to make it easier to find videos with less of a chance that a mislabeled video would be placed under any given category. The community on here appears to be active and there is definitely some control behind the scenes to offer the users a better experience. While it may not rank as high as YouTube for your video searches, give it a try!
It never fails that sometimes when I try to import my music CD’s that I don’t have the right album art to show in my music player. When it comes to music I’m picky, and I like my music to be labeled correctly, ratings, rankings, album names, and definitely album art.
If you’re like me, then All CD Covers might be the place to stop in order to fill the missing void of album art you might have in your playlist. With over 100,000 album art and growing, there is a good chance you’ll find what you need.
As an added bonus they also offer movie and game cover art for all of your media. It’s a nice one stop shop to get yourself caught up and make your file listings attractive and cataloged just right.
I’ve been a big fan of Behance products offline, for my meetings, site sketches, and to-do list from time to time. Now they are tackling productivity online with their new online app and comparable mobile app to always stay on top of the things that you need to do daily.
Action Method was introduced this year as the premiere application to manage your projects, tasks, planning, and meetings. The application allows you to create projects, create tasks, assign tasks, and manage a calendar. If tasks are falling behind you can nudge the people to whom you assigned them to in order to remind them of deadlines. Color coding is a big winner for this app as it’s easy to find what you’re looking for with alternating colors.
Have an iPhone or iTouch? No problem, your web application syncs with your mobile app so your to-do list is never far away. Incredibly useful and sure to improve with future updates, the app is free to download, and free for up to 50 tasks, premium service for unlimited tasks comes in at $12/month or $99/year.
Imagine the ability to entertain yourself without loading up your browser, without loading up a game on CD, but rather using your own desktop as the battleground for a game of authentic Asteroids, using your desktop.
Adobe Air makes it happen and over on the UK’s Sci-Fi website, they are offering an amazing Asteroids replica using your mouse cursor as a ship, and your file folders as the asteroids. As your folders come crashing into you, shoot them to scatter your files across your desktop for more target practice.
Do you lose your files?
Nope, they just temporarily disentegrate as you release your frustration on presentations, projects, reports, and spreadsheets. Give it a try, destroy bordem for good and have a blast…literally.
There is no doubt that the market is becoming overrun with social networks. While there is value in a great number of them, after awhile they all starte to look the same. With only slight variations it makes a person wonder why one would be different from the rest if they are all so similar. That being said, the grand-daddy of the social network medium, MySpace, might be on the endangered species list.
It’s no surprise that during an economic crunch that “re-structuring” is inevitable, but recently we’ve seen a large number of the U.S. staff released from the company, and now the wave appears to be hitting Europe. After reading an article on TechCruch it got me thinking if MySpace is even relevant anymore.
It’s become a marketing ground for new bands, comedians, and other entertainers. The playground to the 15 and below crowd, it fails to reach the depth that other social networks like Facebook have reached in recent years. Much like AOL was a pioneer and has slowly been phased out of importance, is the same happening to the social networking pioneer MySpace?
Do you still use MySpace? If so for what? Do you find it relevant in your life, why or why not? I’d love to gauge the readership of Crenk and find out if MySpace is even a blip on the radar in terms of connecting with people.
It’s come often during my late night work sessions that energy drinks just don’t 
do it, and soda is just overdone, not to mention sludge for the body. After a long time of coding, designing, writing, or developing, I just want to take a break, relax and kick my feet up to some good tunes, or a good movie. Nothing scratches that itch better than a good glass of wine.
I’m by no means a wine expert, so I can either fumble my way through wines I will mostly not like, or I can turn to the experts of Hello Vino and adapt my tastes, my menu, or my event to the wines that will make it a success. Hello Vino has added a mobile app that has helped me select a wine on the go while I’m shopping for an evening with friends or just with my wife. The application does a great job of pairing wines, giving you reviews, and pricing it for you to find exactly what you need on so many levels.
The database consists of over 1 million unique wines, all of which will surely find their fan base on the go always on the hunt for the perfect wine.
