Archive for the ‘Web Apps’ Category
Nuclear apocalypse is inevitable, right? Okay, maybe not, but if it were true, wouldn’t it be beneficial to have an iPhone app that could detail your personal radiation exposure. Thanks to a concerned radiologist out of Canada, Dr Mark Baerlocher, and Tidal Pool Software, the reality of such an iPhone app is real.
The application taps into normal exposures to radiation to give you a detailed report of where you stand. Are you glowing green in the dark or have you not been radiated enough? The iPhone application takes measurements from X-rays and CT scans for example. With the simple input of personal information based on your own situation, the application will let you know where you stand and if you are at risk. While not free, this $3.00 application might be worth your money if you’re prone to getting medical tests and are exposed to high levels of radiation.
A bonus to this application is the graph it will create to inform you if you are at risk of cancer based on the amount of radiation you’ve been exposed to. So is this worth it? Entirely up to you. Suffice to say that if you’re consistently going in for procedures or exposed to radiation for any period of time, it would be wise to get the facts, and perhaps check with a doctor.
So you decide the living room needs a make over. The first task? A lick of paint. So it’s off down to the DIY store to fetch yourself some tins of lovely paint. Having spent $40 on paint and brushes, drank 9 cups of tea, kicked over two cans and fell off your ladder you stand back to admire the new paintjob.
Dang! Not looking to great is it?
This is a mistake made my all of us at some point. And yet it could have so easily been avoided if we have of known about ColorJive before now. Basically, you upload a picture of the room you would like to paint (it’s best if there’s good lighting and its of a high resolution). Then, simply select which colour you would like by using their custom colour selecting tools.
I think this is a really great app that saves a lot of time and effort. It also works really well. One would expect it to be buggy or require a lot of manual input, but no; within a few minutes I had great pictures of of painted rooms without any of the effort of actually painting!
Now you have a good idea of what you living room/ bedroom, bathroom or kitchen will look like before you waste your whole Saturday painting only to do it over on Sunday.
The world of computing and IT has made some big jumps in the last decade. The once powerful Microsoft has started to take a backseat to other companies gaining a strong market share in a variety of industries such as Google, Apple, Yahoo, to name just a few. As the playing field changes, so do the technologies, and virtualization has become a way businesses are now doing business.
We’ve seen an increase in cloud computing, reducing the need for physical technology expenditures and manpower to maintain them. We’ve seen conferences, webinars, communication, all taking place online using online applications that help facilitate these needs.
Techinline Remote Desktop offers virtualization services that offer secure and trouble free connections between PC’s across the globe. While a powerful tool at the corporate level, Techinline is also useful for small businesses, saving on travel and other related expenses.
This instant connection to solve your customer’s technical needs is useful especially if you’ve got clients in multiple locations. Why hire someone for each location when the technical needs associated to software can be handled virtually from one location with Techinline.
There are a lot of remote pc apps out there, so add this one to the list and give it a try If you’ve used remote PC web applications, I’d like to hear your take on it. And if you used Techinline Remote Desktop, let us know your experience and if you’d recommend it.
Previously here on Crenk we have reviewed many sites that aim at providing users with a hub for being able to watch movies online without downloading anything. Today we have come across another site that claims to do this the best, FreeMoviesTheatre.
FreeMoviesTheatre pretty much does what it says on the tin and that is provide some great movies users can watch right within their browser. The site itself provides a great list of genres from Animated to Bollywood and Sci-Fi. All the latest movies are there too, plus they have a simple option to download the movies. I would like to see the site have a easier download function instead of using a third party, however if they did this them I’m sure their site would be illegal.
Currently, FreeMoviesTheatre has over 4500 movies online and they are growing fast. Im not entirely too sure how legal this site is, but make use of it before they get taken down!
There has been a lot of talk about Skype and now Gizmo5 this week, so we thought we would let everyone know about 5 new VOIP service that are on the rise.
Truphone (www.truphone.com), London, became the first true Internet calling application in Apple’s App Store when the company introduced Truphone for the iPhone a year ago; it’s now available for the iPod touch, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android devices. Truphone enables free to low-cost mobile calling over available Wi-Fi or local wireless networks for owners of iPhones and other smartphones who travel out of their home service areas. It’s especially advantageous for international travelers who want to make inexpensive calls from their mobile phones wherever in the world they may be. Further, Truphone eliminates the uncertainty of expensive roaming charges altogether, so people who call using Truphone know what they’re paying and what they’re getting. And calls between Truphone users are always free. The company’s Truphone Local Anywhere service, coming later this year, aims to eliminate the high cost of calling other countries by making all calls “local.” Truphone Local Anywhere will become the mobile service of choice — delivering cost savings and convenience — for anyone who travels, or lives abroad and needs to stay in touch with family, friends and business colleagues, wherever they may live.
ShoZu (www.shozu.com), London, is an intelligent social media hub currently used by people worldwide to enrich connections with the people in their lives by effortlessly exchanging video, pictures and commentary between mobile devices and favorite social networks, photo sharing sites and information resources. The company’s patented technology provides fast, easy, one-click uploads of photos and video clips from the mobile to the Web, full-resolution photo and video delivery without compression, an emerging suite of services that push content to the phone, the ability to work in the background even if a connection is dropped, and other unique features that simplify and enhance the user experience. The company was founded in 2000 and has formed partnerships with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem, including Motorola and Samsung.
Boingo Wireless (www.boingo.com), Los Angeles, is the global market leader in Wi-Fi. Boingo makes it easy for consumers to enjoy Wi-Fi access on their laptops or mobile devices at more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide — including airports, hotels, cafes and metropolitan hot zones — with a single account. Through its Concourse Communications Group, LLC subsidiary, Boingo operates wired and wireless networks at 20 of the top 100 North American airports.
Hi Def Conferencing (www.hidefconferencing.com), Hoboken, N.J., from Citrix Online is a multi-party communication service that delivers crystal-clear quality and realism in audio get-togethers. The service uses advanced audio processing of up to 5 times the bandwidth of legacy telephone systems, making it easy to hear the subtleties of participants’ speech, accents and inflection – dramatically improving comprehension. Hi Def Conferencing also brings clarity to what users pay. As a predictable, fixed-fee service, it eliminates the billing surprises typically associated with other conferencing services. For a flat monthly fee, high quality conferencing is within the reach of everyone – encouraging ad hoc group collaboration with family members around the world. Participants access Hi Def Conferencing easily over traditional landlines, mobile carriers or broadband VoIP services, such as Skype.
iotum (www.calliflower.com), Ottawa, is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum’s business is to design and provide a simple, supportive and intuitive environment to enrich business conversations. iotum’s products and services bring greater meaning and productivity to typically stale and static multiparty communications and meet the growing teleconferencing needs of a broad range of customers across many industries. Iotum’s flagship service, Calliflower, makes it easy for people to plan and participate in engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks.
I’m not quite sure when things in the office changed, and why all of a sudden there’s been such a rush to do online collaborative tools for offices. While for some it screams efficiency, for others it screams TRAINING!!! Sadly no matter how much you “train” people to learn the new ways, someone always fumbles and things fall apart.
Nevertheless, this drive for online tools has driven companies like Google, Zoho, Microsoft, and many others to create online office tools that go where you go, and are accessible from anywhere in the world…provided you have an internet connection. So heavily used are these tools that even while on the go, your mobile devices are capable of accessing these tools which allows you to never miss a step.
While the above mentioned are great, and provide a level of collaboration that standard desktop office software does not, there is one that offers an all inclusive internet office for online work, OfficeMedium.
Nope, I’m not talking the crazy office worker who claims to see dead people, not that type of medium. I’m talking about the actual suite of online collaborative office tools that give you more than the standard faire. Aside from the typical presentation, word, and spreadsheet portions, you’re also given access to content management tools, events/tasks/calendar tools, social networking tools for your intranet, file sharing and storage, along with enhanced security to keep what’s happening within the company private.
This online web application is not free, there are minimal costs attached, and from I see, the cost is extremely affordable. But it still begs the question, what companies truly need this type of depth? I think it will come down to the size of your company and the needs it needs to serve. Google and Zoho seem appropriate for what I do, but perhaps a more enterprise level company would turn to OfficeMedium to help keep communication a little tighter within a company.
[Disclosure: OfficeMedium is a sponsor for Crenk]
I recently developed my own blog and it went live the other day following some trouble with the host. Following said trouble I decided to run a speed test for my site to make sure everything was performing as they promised it would. So after a little digging around I discovered webpagetest.org. This website gives you the chance to test you website for performance by entering the few details as seen below in the screenshot.
After hitting the submit button it takes a minute or two to finish testing your website. After this you get some great results such as showing you which type of content is causing delays (ie. Images, Java) so you can remove or compress them. And things like SEO and server response time.
This is a great websites for webmasters to make sure things are running as they should. Check it out at www.webpagetest.org .
We’ve all heard or Bit.ly, TinyURL and the rest. All of them shorten URLs so they can be discreet and fit places (like in the restrictive Twitter posting area). But what about the opposite end of the scale. What about huge URLs? And I mean HUGE.
HugeUrl.com is a website that takes you average sized link and makes it really big. I’m still yet to come up with a good use for it other than to annoy friends and for your own individuality.
I was planning on posting a link here to the Crenk Twitter account or something but when I got the link lengthened at hugeURL.com it was over forty lines long which I though was a bit much to have on the homepage.
Another similar service which I found was http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/ who offer the worlds longest e-mail addresses. Apparently they’re so long that some software and online forms won’t accept them and “people have a hard time typing in your e-mail address” – obviously.
So long story short (pun intended) – go to HugeURL.com if you want ridiculously long URLs which are useful for nothing and go to http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/ for the worlds longest e-mail address.
So Christmas is coming – or so the advertisers would have us believe. Still, it can’t be a bad time to get the office e-cards out of the way I suppose. For the past few years a popular services has ruled the internet Christmas card market – and this year it’s back again.
ElfYourself lets you embed the head of yourself, a friend, family member or co-worker on the tiny body of and elf in scenes such as Crazy Dancing and Hip-Hop Elfs.
However, it has also linked up with Twitter and Facebook so you can share your creations online with your buddies and even distribute hilarious ones among your network via connecting with friends on Facebook or simply tweeting your card.
So what are you waiting for – get over there and Elf Yourself.
Mozillas Firefox Bookmarking Add-Ons make browsing on-line faster, more organized, and more convenient. While there are hundreds of free Bookmarks Add-ons to choose from through Mozillas AMO website, only a handful of them have received a coveted Recommended rating. Features vary wildly, and though some are a slight improvement over Internet Explorers Favorites, others succeed at being both simple and sophisticated.
If you just want to take the bookmarks names off the Bookmarks Toolbar to allow for more bookmarks to appear, Smart Bookmarks Bar 1.4.3 is an okay option. Its straightforward, but doesn’t give you much in the way additional functionality. Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar 4.0 does just what it says. As you get too many Bookmarks for one row, additional rows will appear. Of course as you add more and more bookmarks, you wont have much space left on your screen.
Xmarks 3.3.2 is popular because it synchronizes your bookmarks and passwords and allows you to access and update them on each computer you keep. Plus it supports Firefox, as well as Internet Explorer and Safari. One slightly worrisome feature of Xmarks is that it captures all of your Google searches (and other search engines) so it can interject websites into your Search results (they call this their “discovery service”). Just like Google, it keeps a history of websites that you visit, so security is a concern. Although Xmarks says its encrypted, it doesn’t seem impossible for its server to get hacked and all of a sudden have all of your passwords for sale to the highest bidder on the net.
The best feature of samfind Bookmarks Bar 2.0.3 is how fast it gets you to the sites you visit most often. Its totally customizable, and starts you off with some of the most popular websites already configured. Bookmarks are organized by Topics and its easy to add websites, even letting you drop and drag sites you want to add right from the address bar. You can position the samfind Toolbar where you want it, and you can select the look of websites on the Bar as icons, icons and text, or text. You can also change samfind’s layout to fit several times as many websites as you normally could, saving valuable screen space.
Shareaholic 1.9 supports over 60 social sites, allowing you to choose your favorite social services and access them from a single drop down menu. This add-on is tightly focused on bookmarking/sharing, blogging/publishing, as well as emailing, and link shortening. You can have instant access to shared web pages with the websites in these categories. In this respect it is similar to some of the other add-ons mentioned, although with fewer numbers of websites to interact with.
Mozillas Recommended Bookmarks Toolbars are all free downloads, and they offer a variety of features that will appeal to virtually any level of web browser. Once installed, they can all make repeated visits to the Internet a whole lot quicker and a lot less cluttered. Now if we could only find our car keys
This is quite a weird app I must say – make your own cereal. Interesting. Mojamix are a company that allow you to make your own cereal or trail mix from cereal flakes, dried fruits, nuts and seeds. Basically, you go to www.mojamix.com and click ‘Mix-It’. Customize your cereal and place and order for a bag which should be delivered to you within a few days.
Another thing I liked about this is that when you’re actually mixing your cereal the list of ingredients and the price are listed to the right of the screen so you don’t go overboard. They also offer nutrition facts about each ingredient (best to steer clear of ‘Chocolate Chomp’ I guess).
I think this is a really cool service especially those who like their cereal a certain way and are always trying to get some more dried fruit or nuts out of the box.
You can also buy gift certificates for other people who you know to be cereal maniacs. Imagine Christmas morning when they open a gift certificate for 50 pounds of cereal. Who wouldn’t be dead pleased?
Online communities have since been known as tribes. Thanks to Seth Godin’s famous book of the same title, it’s forced us to think of our online networks and communities in a unique light. Much like primitive tribes of earlier times, we’ve now formed digital tribes where we’ve found comfort in connections with people of similar interests, habits, hobbies, and histories. The tribes we belong to have a simple connectivity of communication that we long to maintain, enter Gigatribes.
The concept of communicating with your tribe is easy to see in networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or even LinkedIn. What if you wanted to share files in a local depository where all of your tribe can have access to? Or what if you only wanted to share with certain members of the tribe? Gigatribes allows you to build your community, much like any other social network, but now you’re able to share large files seamlessly and with out problems.
But there is a problem. How is this different from DropBox? Or maybe ZumoBox? Or any other of the hundreds of file sharing sites. In looking at the application itself I didn’t see anything that really stood out to make this the go to community file sharing network out there.
What it’ll come down to is comfort level and ease of use for your needs. DropBox and Zumobox both have mobile apps that give you access to your files on the go. No such app was found for Gigatribes which already puts this network at a disadvantage.
