Web apps are great productivity tools.
Marci Lisa, originally uploaded by Marci Maleski.
Well, usually.
Sometimes, they’re just incredibly fun toys. Cameroid is one of those. The site allows you to take snapshots using your webcam and immediately apply filters, scenes or frames. Once saved, you can add them to Cameroid’s public gallery, send links to the photos or download them as JPGs.
I uploaded the rest of my pictures to my photostream at Flickr. I think they’re pretty funny but then again, I’m on my second beer.
Evernote - this is your brain on steroids.
Saying that I love Evernote is like saying I love oxygen.
There are an increasing number of times that I find my mind to be simultaneously everywhere and nowhere at all. I have mounted a dry erase board on my front door with a checklist - coffee, lunch, phone. I have left the house without one or another of these items on far too many occasions. For me, Evernote has become an invaluable tool. And, scatter-brained or not, it’s a fantastic way to store and organize notes.
You may be thinking that you can do all of that with any number of task list apps. But part of the power of Evernote is its OCR capabilities. Take a photo of a street sign or upload a photo of a cool saying on a t-shirt. Once it hits Evernote’s servers and is cataloged, you can simply search your notebook by text. Type in “stupid” and up pops that great Bush tee you saw. Upload scans of your receipts to organize your spending. It’s really limitless - check out this blog post to see how other people are using the service. And from Evernote’s own suggestions:
* Create new notes using desktop, web, and mobile versions of Evernote
* Take a snapshot using your camera phone or webcam. We’ll even recognize the text in the image.
* Clip entire webpages, screenshots, and just about anything else you can copy
* Drag and drop content into the desktop clients for Mac and Windows
* Email notes directly into your account using your personalized email address
* Scan receipts, recipes, tags, brochures, and anything else into Evernote
* Record audio wherever you are and listen to it whenever you want
Evernote is cross-platform, so the info you clip on your Mac at home will be on the PC at work. You can get it from your mobile device and everything syncs within moments. The basic service is free. Zero dollars buys you 40MB of monthly storage, each month. That’s 480 MB/year. Not too shabby - think 4800 mobile pics. They have recently introduced a premium subscription at $45US per year that increases your monthly allowance to 500MB. Either membership option gives you access to the all of the available tools, desktop or web.
It’s your brain - everywhere you need it.
I’m an arrogant prick!
CrunchGear » Archive » Like gadgets? You’re probably an arrogant prick
w00t! Another epithet to add to my profile!
- A pious Prius driver
- A Mac snob
- An arrogant techie prick
Awesome! Wanna make something of it?
A wag of the finger to Target
After a couple of months of trying to resist, I bought myself a really neat solar system picture yesterday. It just makes me smile with the robots and the spaceships and the green glitter. And I had a spare wall in my computer room which is where my nerdiness all hangs out.
One thing I hadn’t noticed was the tag on the back:
Because we all know a girl wouldn’t want it unless it was a princess riding a pink pony, right?
It’s 2008 and we still have this kind of gender stereotyping. No, I don’t have kids but I really want to see girls being given the opportunity and encouragement that they need to develop an interest in science. And little messages like this just further reinforce the perception that “science is for boys”.
Not cool, Target. Not cool at all.
Spreading the luv…
June 17 is Download Day. The folks at Firefox are hoping to set a Guinness world record for most downloads in a 24 hour period. As part of my “yay, free software” thing, I’m more than happy to pitch in.
I’ve been using a beta release of Firefox 3 for a bit now and it rocks. It’s fast and the new address bar is an amazingly useful tool. Not only does it autocomplete the URL you’re typing, but it also pulls up visited pages that include references to keywords. I’m not explaining it well - you just have to try it. It helps when you know you’ve seen a page about something but can’t recall where it was - start typing your search word and bang, it’s there.
Part of the coolness of Firefox is being able to add extensions - like the ScribeFire one I’m using right now for this post. Developers are updating their plugins to work with the new release so if you already use Firefox, you shouldn’t lose any of your faves.
So, help set a record and get yourself Firefox on June 17!
What to do, what to do…
I brought my MacBook into work with me today, only to find that I apparently work in a lead-lined building. At least writing doesn’t require net access. There are so many times that I get ideas during the day to write about but by the time I get home, they’ve sort of faded away. I could throw ideas into Evernote for later if I could A) install the desktop client or B) upgrade the browser. Alas, corporate systems are locked down to the point where I can’t even change my wallpaper.
On the upside, I’ve just noticed how much longer my battery is going to last without running AirPort. Nice.
I’ve been considering adding a page to this site that would be some of my recommendations for cool (and usually free) software or web apps that I come across. Since I don’t always have stuff to blog about, at least that would give people a reason to stop by and give me a chance to share some neat stuff. I just have to sketch out a framework for myself so it’s got a bit of structure.
One of the latest I’ve been playing with is Woopra. If you have a site, you can register for the private beta now. Not only is it the most complete site monitor I’ve ever seen, but you can tag and even interact with your visitors. Since my site is very low traffic, I don’t usually manage to be online at the same time. I’ve seen the world map running in the background of GeekBrief TV and it’s really cool to watch all of the lights blinking on as people visit the site. (I, on the other hand, had to IM my Mom to hit my site so I could see it in action.)
Yeah, I think I may just add that page. I need some way to spread the nerdliness around.
Can you stand one more iPhone article?
I think the folks over at Buzz Out Loud nailed it with today’s show title - “iPhone hangover day”. I was so, so thankful for the non-tech podcasts I had lined up today. I did listen to more than my fair share of iPhone news before I switched over to “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” - hilarious as usual but even more notable as the first time I’ve ever heard the term “tramp stamp” on NPR.
Overload acknowledgment aside, I will absolutely be in line on July 11 for my iPhone 3G. The speed is a welcome upgrade since Pittsburgh isn’t exactly a wifi motherlode. The main reason for me, though, is that my puny little 4GB phone is just not going to be able to handle things like the applications store since I pretty much fill up what memory I have with podcasts and a whole three CDs. Honestly, if I had gotten the 8GB model I probably wouldn’t be as eager to upgrade. GPS is nice, but I rarely travel. Apple didn’t make any changes to the camera, which is one thing I use quite often. The most compelling factors for me are the 3G network, 16GB memory and…well, it’s pretty.
Even though most of the reviews I’ve come across don’t seem to like the white model, there’s something about the white one that is just so much more “Apple” to me. And besides, if everyone else hates it then they shouldn’t sell out quite as fast. I settled once - it’s not happening again.
Me, as defined by a t-shirt
ThinkGeek :: Enough Social Interaction
Tags: thinkgeek
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Apple luv
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Creative Commons
This work by Marci Maleski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Addicted to Placebos, LLC - 2008