Crenk » web app

Strings: Letting you Know What Your Friends Have Purchased, Listened Too or Watched Online

Steven Finch — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:54:22 +0000

Strings is a new startup that aims to help users filter meaningful content across the web. After heading to the Strings site and signing up you are able to download their software for either PC or Mac. Once the software is downloaded you are able to add Trackers to your site, Trackers make it easy to curate everything from the songs you play, to movies you watch, and products you buy.

Strings also has a great sharing option in which you can see what your friends have been purchasing, playing or watching.

Im all for filtering tools that run through the huge amount of internet content and break it down so it only provides you with something that is useful. However, Strings just seems to be a little too complicated and not really well explained. I can see my Dad for example logging on and using this service, cause it just doesnt simplify itself. Its a shame because the design and idea behind the site is pretty sound, its just the execution.

Free Multiplatform Tools To Create Your Own iBooks

Steven Finch — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:12:33 +0000

Being an open source format, ePub books are already widely available on the net. But you can also create your own electronic books in ePub format. Here are two free multiplatform tools to create iBooks – a.k.a: ePub books.

eCub: A lightweight ePub publisher to create iBooks available for Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris platform. Some of the features are:
- creates unencrypted ePub files from text or XHTML files;
- allows editing of the text or XHTML files with a simple internal editor or designated external editors;
- helps to create a simple cover design image;
- optionally creates title, content and cover pages;
- can be run from the command line as part of a build script;
- can convert the book content to audio files (WAV or MP3).
Sigil: Describes itself as a WYSIWYG ebook editor. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Some of the features are:
- WYSIWYG editing;
- Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Split View;
- Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each;
- Table Of Contents editor;
- Multi-level TOC support;
- Currently imports TXT, HTML and ePub files; more will be added with time;
- Currently exports ePub and SGF (Sigil native format); more will be added with time.

Track Airplanes in Real-Time with Casper

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:00:53 +0000

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.

Mobilise Your Blog or Website With Mobify

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:07:10 +0000

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.

TimeMe: Cool Online Stopwatch to Increase Productivity

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:21:37 +0000

Many of us work well under pressure. When I’m doing a long article I can often find myself procrastinating, staring into space and only working sporadically. Using a stopwatch is one of my favourite ways to boost my productivity and motivate myself to get the first draft done within a certain amount of time.

TimeMe is a huge online stopwatch which I have displayed on my second monitor as a constant reminder that the clock is ticking. It pretty much takes up the whole screen along with some basic settings. Users may also adjust timer display (size, colour, width) and sound alarm settings to fit their needs. Simple yet effective.

This is a similar tool to E.ggtimer and the likes.

However, they also offer a downloadable versions so you can run it on your desktop if you don’t like connecting to the web when working or studying. Check it out here.

NBC Help Us Track the Winter Olympics

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:46:35 +0000

The Winter Olympics are well under way now in Vancouver but many of us are having trouble keeping track of both the results and the public reactions to the highs and lows of the games. Well Twitter have announced on their blog that NBC have launched their Olympic Twitter Tracker which allows you to see what’s happening in the games.

“I (@ChloeS) collaborate with our media partners, and have enjoyed watching them weave together new ways of experiencing these events that are even more engaging and interactive.”

This is definitely one of the best ways to follow the games if you can’t get to a television. A lot of us are stuck in school or work, so by just checking your Twitter account you can see what’s going on. The size of the pictures seen in the screenshot above, indicates how much a particular Olympic trend is being tweeted about. There is also a timeline along the top and different sections for different emotions such as those for fans rejoicing and those consolidating each other. Results are also updated regularly.

You can check out a video of the service in action here.

Savings: Best Deal Saving Tool For The Everyday Internet User

Steven Finch — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:25:24 +0000

This morning I came across a great savings site that I thought I would share will all our Crenk readers. Savings.com is a startup that provides some amazing savings across various retailers throughout the world.

On Savings.com users will have access to some of the worlds leading brands and they offer a combination of coupons and just best / reduced deals. If you are after a specific brand or after just a broad range of coupons and cheap deals, then Savings.com is for you.

For example users have access to specific brands on their own individual pages, like Southest promo codes and Travelocity promotion codes. However, if you are after a broad range of travel coupons then Savings.com also has you sorted for that.

Overall im a big fan of what Savings.com is trying to provide the average internet user. The design of the site itself is great and Im a big fan of the fact that they dont have any basic display advertising putting off users, but this could be a great revenue stream for the site in the near future. Some other great features are “you can add tips and great deals and become a Savings.com Deal Expert, earning the respect and admiration of your fellow members. Or contribute to the community by voting and commenting on deals, which also lets the deal experts know you appreciate their savings know-how”.

Savings.com is definitely worth checking out for all Crenk readers.

Annoyances Nixed with Evernote 3.5

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:55:54 +0000

Evernote 3.5 Windows in beta.

When Evernote first came out there was a lot of hype surrounding this all purpose information collector and sorter. Unlike anything that we had really seen before, Evernote allowed users to capture content either in video, internet, or photo, save it and store to the Evernote account and have all devices sync with your account. It was a great way to share information you would need later, or capture something as simple was scribbles on a napkin without actually having to carry the napkin with you. For web surfers specifically the ability to save an entire page along with the URL or just highlighted content allowed us a new way to capture just what we needed without bookmarking an entire site. Evernote really changed the way we capture data on our mobiles and now it gets an upgrade.

Evernote 3.5 for Windows was recently released in beta and it’s nothing significant, but does address a lot of previous annoyances. Evernote has always existed in many formats; an app, a browser button, and a desktop application rounds out how you can find Evernote. The desktop version for windows was nothing fancy, in fact it could be described as clunky, glitchy, with a UI that was not as intuitive as it could be. With it’s Apple counterpart running smooth and clean, it was a wonder why the Windows version could not mimic that same look and feel.

Some updates you will see are as follows:

three views offered for looking at notes: List, Mixed, and Thumbnails
geo-location tags activate a map that slides into place to show its location
interface feels a lot more Windows 7 than its older counterparts
search database has been improved, and you can save and edit your search filters
multi-language spell check

So with these minor improvements we’ve seen a nicer desktop app under the hood. The application is still free, with a paid pro account alternative offering more functionality for the power users.

YouTube to Stream Live Cricket: Indian Premier Cricket League

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:20:08 +0000

YouTube streaming live entertainment – it was inevitable really. The world’s biggest video website was eventually going to push into the market of sites like UStream. For their first outing into this unfamiliar field they’re sticking with a market which is sure to please many of our Indian readers – live Indian Premier League Cricket.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though YouTube are taking any steps to secure broadcasting rights for Western sports such as football (World Cup 2010 would be a great launching pad), Golf, Rugby, American Football, Basketball or Tennis – all of which would have a huge audience. Perhaps they’re seeing how people adapt to watching sports online in a less prominent market before they go mainstream on YouTube.com.

They are due to begin broadcasting cricket on YouTube in March.

So, who would have though the first sport to receive mainstream online broadcasting attention would be Indian Cricket?

Are My Sites Up: Free Website Monitoring Service

Steven Finch — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:22:03 +0000

Are My Sites Up is a new website monitoring service which lets you know when your blog or website is down. Currently the free version of this software allows you to track 5 websites and monitored in 60 minute or less intervals. Are My Sites Up has also released a desktop application based on Adobe Air which helps you check the status right from your desktop. This application will sync with your Are My Sites Up account and retrieve all the accounts.

TweetSwitch Brings IM and Twitter a Little Closer

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:43:32 +0000

Since Twitter got really popular thanks to all the celebs who made it famous, the only way to tweet has been either directly on the website or using an app such as Tweetie. Now however, Comufy, a London based tech company brings us TweetSwitch.

Basically, it enables you to set up your account to send certain tweets to your IM. You can then in turn respond to these tweets from the IM service. Selecting what kind of tweets you want to receive is threefold. You can receive all tweets, tweets where you’re mentioned or replied to (such as @Crenk) or the most important ones, direct messages.

At the moment, some main IM clients such as AOL, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are supported and it’s said to be coming to the ever growing Skype. This is a really cool new feature, effectively creating a switchboard for your Twitter account!

ReelSurfer Makes Video Searching Easy

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:15:44 +0000

Ever watched a movie clip around two years prior then needed it for a project or something? Me too.

Things like documentaries, famous speeches and old fashioned shows are hard to find on sites like YouTube and Vreel – especially when all you have to go on is a quote or extract.

ReelSurfer however aims to change all that. They take a huge volume of content from the Internet and break each video up into thirty second segments. Then, they index all spoken words on the video as though they were text. Thus, when you search for your quote the thirty second segment pops up. You may be asking, why do they bother splitting up the video at all? Well this is purely so you’ll hear your keywords right away. Imagine watching an entire movie whilst praying it’s the right one!

This is similar to AnyClip, however there is one core difference. ReelSurfer will allow you to create your own account for your company or college thus allowing you to upload meeting, lectures etc… This would come in very handy for students looking for information on a chosen topic while revising or an employee quickly catching up on the conference call he missed.

Inbox2: Emails and Social Networks All In One Unified Stream for Free

Steven Finch — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:04:21 +0000

Inbox2 is a new web application that is currently available in beta, in which lets you pull all of your emails and social network communications to a single unified stream.

Currently, Inbox2 is completely free and you can either user their standalone application or a Facebook application. If you already spend tons of time on Facebook, for example, you can add your email, Twitter, and other updates to your Facebook notifications instead, as well as read and send messages from any of your non-Facebook accounts without leaving Facebook’s site.

Inbox2 also integrates well with your existing system, allowing you to import your existing labels and stars from other services like Gmail. It also has support for Microsoft Exchange 2007, and is planning on releasing an iPhone app in the near future (followed by apps for other smartphones). Take a look at their demo video below for a closer look at how it all works.

Explore Prague in 360

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:06:03 +0000

When those world camera were big craze a few years ago (I.e. you could watch your friend wave to your from TGI Friday’s in Time’s Square) I thought that would be that last of it. But recently, most notably with Google Street view which enables you to walk around a city, a new kind of virtual presence technology has taken off. I guess people want to see where they’re going or just take a look around if they’re bored. You can now view Prague in full 360 panorama.

“The creation of this image represents my previous five years’ obsession with all things panoramic,” says Jeffrey Martin, founder and CEO of 360 Cities. “If you’re stuck at home over Christmas, feeling humbuggy and don’t feel like hanging out with your family, you can explore Prague instead.”

360 cameras enable you to view a panoramic scene on your computer and move in 360 degrees. 360 cities is a Dutch company and they created this 18GB panoramic picture of Prague. It was taken from an SLR camera which rotated very slowly for a number of days. In total, hundreds of thousands of pictures were stitched together to form this wonderful creation which has over 18 billion pixels.

“The final image exists as a 120 Gigabyte Photoshop large (PSB) file,”

You can view the image for yourself right here.

Vidque – The Internet’s Premium Video Syndication Site

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:10:50 +0000

While YouTube is definitely your best bet if you want top videos, it can be a little to constantly search and scour in order to find them. Yes the featured video sections helps, but I think I know better solution.

It’s called Vidque. It’s basically the most popular video sites all combined (or syndicated) into one with a touch of social media plopped on top. Here are the basics:

When a video from a popular service (Youtube, Viddler, MetaCafe ec…) reaches the Vidque it can be viewed by clicking on it. You can see a sample of this below. To the right of the video screen you can see options enabling you to either boost the videos rankings of deem it not worthy. This is how Vidque ranks its videos (along with taking the current rankings from the parent sites).

You can also choose to add a video or series to your page and see what your followers and people you follow have added to theirs. This is where the social media aspect comes into play. This idea (like so many others on the site) is once again incorporated into the videos rankings. The more people who choose to add the video to their page the higher it climbs in the rankings.

You can check it all out here.

New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:39:41 +0000

In the battle over email application supremacy, Thunderbird has been one of the most highly developed for web application next to Google’s Gmail. Consistently we’re treated to new releases, updates, and efforts to make the user experience more comfortable and seamless with other email providers as it works to be the catch all for all of our digital communication. Most recently Thunderbird introduced a bevy of plug-ins over the summer that increased the usability of the application, but also made it more fun. Millions of dedicated Thunderbird users keep this email client in constant development and whats being released this week is no exception.

This open source email client created from the team out of Mozilla Messaging has made this email client accessible in over 50 languages and has recently announced over 2,000 updates. Some of these updates are very visible, others work behind the scenes, but there is no doubt that these developers are working hard for the dedicated users who rely on this app as their primary email application.

The biggest change is the user’s ability to search. The refined search allows you to find your email by keyword, sender, topic, and time frame, narrowing down the returns you get. Pin-pointing emails can be difficult, but this new search feature is sure to be a win. Paired with the search function is the ability to work multiple open tabs inside the email client, similar to the Firefox tabbing system. This allows users to keep multiple emails or folders open as they move from message to message.

And these are just a few of the benefits for the new Thunderbird. Be sure to check out Thunderbird 2 or the new release candidate for Thunderbird 3.

Roomatlas Offers New Take on Traveling

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:33:12 +0000

Especially important during seasons of high travel like the holidays, it’s vital that we find a place to stay. Hotels are the primary focus of a web application that Mashable has stated was more helpful than anything else out there. Before you step out the door and onto that plane, be sure to check out Roomatlas!

The site boasts a very robust search engine that can help any traveler find the

deals, the prices, and the locations they want. I found this particular useful myself since I typically go to places where I’m not entirely familiar with the layout of the city. Not only does it show you a map of your destination along with markers signifying the pricing, but you can also do a search by where you want to go. So if I’m going to an expo, convention, family get together, or somewhere for pleasure, I just need to type where I want to be closely situated to and it will geo-locate all the available rooms near that spot. Amazingly useful for anyone not familiar with where they are going.

Their search bar on the far left hand side is pretty standard, offering up options of pricing, number of people, and amenities that travelers might be interested in. You can select whether you want to do a UK or stateside search, but in either case I found this to be amazing accurate. The map that is shown is useful, giving lots of information on the hotels, to include pricing, address, and contact information in case I should want to call ahead of time.

At the top of the screen to the far left is an interesting addition, Wikipedia landmarks, which I found to be geo-tags of anything mentioned in Wikipedia. Just select this box and tiny W’s will appear on the map. Click on any of these W’s for a brief on the article and a link to the full article. An interesting way to explore your surrounding area that most other maps fail to show. I think the community involvement in something like this could be useful for people looking for something to do around town, and not wanting to rely on magazine, travel books, or TV/radio ads. If you want to know where to go, as the locals, and Wikipedia could definitely act as the voice of the locals.

Huge URLs and Crazy E-Mail Addresses

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:53:52 +0000

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.

BedPost: The App To Track Your Sex Life

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:39:30 +0000

Back in the day a simple notch on the bedpost was enough to track how often you got down and dirty. Well now there is a web app called BedPost that lets you track your sex life.

It’s still in its Beta stages but you can sign up for an invitation. Using the online calendar you enter when you had sex, with who, how good it was and how long it lasted. The idea is that after a few months of tracking you can look back and analyse your results such as what days you most commonly got lucky for and at what time of the day it was.

This is a unique app that’s worth a look by the more ‘active’ of our readers. Check it out here at www.bedposted.com .

Escape My Date: How To Leave Your Date With A Basic Text

Dean Sherwin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:16:44 +0000

Ever been on a date, in a meeting, an awkward situation or just bored out of your mind at a party? Well an app called ‘Escape my Date’ can easily get you out of that sticky situation.

Basically, once you have signed up at www.EscapeMyDate.com you’ll be fully equipped to get out of any situation. All you have to do is to send a tweet (which can be done by text or by using a twitter application on you phone) to @escapemydate. The program will then send out your plea for help to a group of your selected friends.

If none of them respond in five minutes for whatever reason (either enjoying seeing you in agony or simply busy) then the program will call you itself so you can fake a drastic emergency and flee the scene.

This is a cool app that you’ll eventually be cursing yourself for not having! It’s available here.

iBible: A Good Web App to Read the Bible

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:36:52 +0000

Reading the Bible, for those who are interested can be difficult in some regards. The most obvious being that the thing is huge with thousands of years worth of literature crammed in one binding, not exactly making it a pocket-sized reader.

iBible is a web app which makes reading and referencing the Bible easy.

Basically, because it’s all so simple and plain; consisting mostly of buttons for each chapter and the rest being text, loading it on any device connected to the internet is quick and easy. This makes it suitable for PC users as well as when you’re on the go such as on a mobile phone using GPRS Internet, a PSP or iPhone.

It’s available in several languages including English, French, German and Polish. The home screen is where you select you language and the screens after this whittle your choice down from Testament, to books, to chapters such as the one I read; Genesis 6.

Meebo – A Web-Based IM Service

Dean Sherwin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:59:35 +0000

Ever been on a buddy’s computer, at work or just in a very low-tech situation? Yet you still want to chat with your friends on your IM service of choice, or perhaps even chat with friends across all the popular IM services at the same time!? Well Meebo is a cool app that I found that will let you do just that.

It’s entirely web-based so it requires no download. All you have to do is go to the homepage and sign in. It will then detect your current friends on what ever service you decide to use and you can start chatting to them using the messaging window (which is basic but what do you expect?).

It supports several IM services such as MSN, GTalk, AIM and Yahoo IM. And it’s not only for instant messaging. Meebo also carries some of the popular social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace.

When you’re actually using it everything is simple and easy to use. It’s no problem at all to get to grips with – which is handy seeing as you’ll likely only use it a few times as a back-up. To summarise, a great web app that will come in handy for the power user but I fear a little outdated for most situations given the amount of mobile tech we have.

Ingboo -Keep it Together

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:35:18 +0000

There are probably a dozen other web apps like it, but none as cool as Ingboo, and none that do their job half as well. Keeping things in the one place isn’t that hard of a task. Just set up some RSS feeds, subscribe to a few sites, create a twitter profile and only use YouTube. Wait, that’s not really keeping things in the one place. That’s keeping things in several places with you hoping it all balances out, right?

Ingboo is a cool new web app that takes all of the feeds you have, your accounts such as your twitter and your online interests such as finding a job, low prices on products or simply flagging keywords for you and puts then all in one place. It’s incredibly simple to use also.

When you first go to the homepage, you’ll see all the services. They’re under tabs such as News, Jobs, Entertainment, Sport and Popular.

Let’s say you click on the YouTube button. You’ll be greeted by the screen seen below. All you have to do is fill out the form and all of the related YouTube videos will be keeps on file for you. Simple. It’s the same process for tweets, jobs, news, entertainment, sport, business, blogs and just about any other website form you can think of!

If you like the online realms to the point where you have things flying at your from all angles, then Ingboo is something you should be seriously considering as your new best friend.

FlightCaster – Predicting Flight Delays

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:19:17 +0000

It’s the night before that big trip to visit relatives, an important meeting abroad or just before you go on holiday. You’re all packed, the taxi is ordered for early the next morning and you’re determined that you will not be late for the airport. All the while you wonder ‘Will the plane be late?’

Most likely. How late? Well nobody really knows. I’m pretty sure that pilots have a conspiracy going to make us all late. They have 500mph on the throttle yet your cruising speed always seems to be 340mph. FlightCaster.com is a new start-up site that aims to predict how late your flight will be; if at all.

There have been services like this before but the difference with FlightCaster is that they don’t just rely on what the airlines say. They take into account numerous other factors such as the weather reports and the average on time rate of that airline and the particular route. Its also dead easy to use. All they need is a piece of flight info such as a flight number and it’ll tell you all you want (or don’t want) to know.

This is a cool little web app that will come in handy. Or it could just make you more depressed as you use an internet terminal at the airport. All the same, I really hope that they release an app for mobile phones for the business people who travel every week. This one deserves to succeed.

Mint Receives $14m in Funding But Still Only In The USA Market, Why?

Steven Finch — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:46:12 +0000

Silicon Alley Insider has reporting that Mint.com has raised another $14 million in Series C funding.

DAG Ventures led the round; Founder’s Fund and existing investors Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and Sherpalo also participated.

Mint founder and CEO Aaron Patzer declined to disclose Mint’s valuation, but says, “it is a decidedly up round.”

He adds: Mint.com is the leading online personal finance tool, now with 1.4m registered users. Mint is tracking over $175 billion in transactions, $47 billion in assets and has identified $300 million in potential savings for its users. Revenues are undisclosed, but are up 8x year over year.

Now that we have a sampling of about 2% of online US households, we’ve also been seeing some interesting economic trends. This data, particularly at the merchant level, has attracted considerable press interest as of late.

Other sites such as Venturebeat, Paidcontent and Techcrunch also reported the news. However, since Mint is already in Series C funding will they ever be in any other market apart from the USA? Currently here in the UK we have a few Mint competitors, but no one has really grabbed the marketshare.