Cool web services and sites we really like.
Notify.me is a new online service which tracks sites and services you are interested in, and delivers updates to your mobile phone, IM, email inbox or a dedicated desktop app. So for instance, you can set up a tracker for your Facebook or Flickr accounts, as well as various sites you enjoy reading. Think of it as a glorified RSS reader on steroids. The cool thing is the ability to deliver updates to your mobile phone, as this gives you…
Open Source Rails is an excellent online gallery of free open source Ruby on Rails projects for you to peruse and enjoy. There are lots of great free web applications and tools listed (including our own Hobo project of course) and the search and ratings system make it easy to locate valuable cool free applications for your needs – photo galleries, helpdesk, time trackers, even the occasional game and much more. Definitely a bookmark for web dudes. Open Source Rails features an easy to…
Need to Meet is a new online meeting scheduler which is designed to make is super simple for multiple people to set up and agree a meeting. It’s not a new idea of course, Doodle, Tungle and WhenisGood are also in the same space, but the UI of this newcomer seems nicer to use. Much nicer. Setting up a meeting is literally a 40 second task, and you get a map of the location and email links for invitees all thrown…
BandCentral is a new portal for managing your band. It’s pretty ambitious, and allows you to control a calendar, money, fans, merchandise, gigs, tours and your social networks all from one interface. The service basically offers total control over all aspects of keeping your band running, except of course the massaging of the egos and anxieties. There’s a free version for up to 4 users, but you don’t get all the cool gig and money stuff until you cough up £5.99…
The mighty Google has just announced the WebM Project, which delivers an open source (i.e. non-proprietary) video standard for the Web which will allow people to embed and view any kind of video content without worrying about patent lawyers, licenses and all that sort of stuff. The eventual idea is to have a <video> tag, just like <html>, which will let anyone embed a video clip in a web page free from licensing or patent restrictions. What, you didn’t realise…
Openbook is a simple and very effective demonstration of why Facebook can be so damaging. Sure there are lots of privacy settings available, but for the average person they’re a mystery, which is why people publish things they later regret. Do a search on this site to see the kind of stuff which you probably wouldn’t want the world to know. What is Openbook? Openbook draws attention to the information Facebook makes public about its users via its search…
Teambox is a new open source project team collaboration application which provides task lists, project chat, file upload, and project archives in one Twitter style interface. The choice of this simple UI was very clever, and works extremely well, and the feature set is very cool, although it looks as though it’s aimed at projects which have a fairly large team involved. For many of us smaller project types, I’m thinking Skype, Pivotal Tracker and Campfire is pretty much all you need…
Viamente Route Planner is an awesome online tool which lets you optimize a delivery route for multiple vehicles and destinations. Yep, just like the big boys can do. The app is based around some very clever algorithms and Google maps, and gives small companies a really valuable way to save costs, energy and make maximum use of their resources. Set up is absolutely easy, just enter in the number of vehicles you have (the free version gives you up to…
This Wired article, Facebook’s Gone Rogue, really sums up the growing anger at the arrogant abuse of power that Facebook is starting to exhibit to both its users and the Internet community in general. Zuckerberg may think that the company is too big to fail, but he could be in for a shock. No-one is suggesting that tens of millions of users are suddenly going to close their account, but there’s definitely a growing number of people thinking about it. I…
The Humble Indie Bundle is superb on so many levels. It’s a collection of 5 excellent DRM free video games which you can buy for whatever price you want, and the proceeds will be sent to your choice of either a children’s charity, the game developers or a mix of both. It’s a time limited offer, so hurry up and grab the offer in the next few days. And let’s hope they do more of the same, as it’s an awesome…
Spotify Next Generation is a major upgrade of the most awesome Spotify music streaming service. What’s new? Well you can use the program as a free library for one thing. That means you can add your own ripped and stored music tracks into the Spotify playlist manager, which is awesome, especially if you find you’re missing some tracks from your favourite. There’s also lots of social networking stuff with Facebook sharing, and a friend to friend track sharing feature which sounds like fun. You can find…
Songr is a new meta music search freeware program which lets you hunt for tracks and albums on 15 search engines across the Net. It’s fast, efficient and gives you the choice of either streaming or downloading the stuff you find. It will also auto extract audio from YouTube videos, and let you even search for a track by lyrics. Search results are ranked by reliability and relevance, and you get the full associated data including data rate, song length…
Tal.ki is a brand new embedded forum service for people with websites who want to add more of a community feel. The beauty of it is, all you need to do is embed one line of Javascript into an HTML page and you’re done. Instant forum. Nice tool. No account registration needed. Your forum will be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other services so members can skip registration. # Engage your website’s visitors Turn passive blog and content…
Embedit.in (geddit?) is a new service which makes it super easy to embed documents into a web page. Just upload the doc, customise the look and size, set privacy, print and download settings and stick the embed code into your blog post or website page code. The result is a nice little box with the document inside which can be read, navigated and operated on accordingly. You get annotation tools and analytics as part of the package, as well as…
Ooh I like this WallWisher online noticeboard thing. It’s like a cross between Netvibes, Post-It Notes and a cork wallboard. It’s instant to set up, and adding a new video, image or note is as easy as double click and edit. Messages are limited to 160 characters or less, and you can make your wall private or public. Oh and there’s a choice of backgrounds. Why? Well family chats (private or public), To-Do lists, personal notes etc etc. There’s an RSS…
