Cool web services and sites we really like.
If you look around in any large city you’ll quickly notice that we’re almost drowning in waste. Not just the obvious trash that goes into bins and gets landfilled every week, but also food, furniture and clothing, we throw out such a lot it’s embarrassing. Especially when so many others have so little.
Bobble heads are everywhere. On desks, in cars, windows, just everywhere! Cartoon characters, actors, and mini versions of yourself. Well that last one may not be as plentiful, since you’re clearly in a class of your own. But now, thanks to Mixee Labs and their Mixee Bobbler service, you’ve got the chance to make your very own real life WeeMe avatar. Ooohh…we hear you say.
Whether you’re a learner or a pro musician, you can never practice too much. In fact, the brutal truth is, unless you practice regularly, you’re probably never going to be fully satisfied with your playing, no matter what instrument you favor. That’s why it’s great when we find services which offer to help you practice and have fun at the same time.
The taxi business is under threat from lots of places, but the worst has to be the new upstarts like Uber and Lyft. These crowd-sourced transport services use clever computer algorithms to compute fares and make pick ups really easy, and really cheap. No wonder that the conventional cab companies are going nuts. But it tends to be hard to know which service is actually going to be cheaper for you per trip, except now there’s a way.
You know stuff, right? All kinds of stuff probably. And even if it’s not mainstream TED talk worthy, there’s a good chance it could be useful to someone else in the world. Well now there’s a new way to share that info with anyone willing to pay you for a short 12 minute Internet call.
Every day we hear about yet another attack on some part of the net or another, whether it’s huge breaches like the one at Adobe last year, or smaller attacks on shopping sites. The result each time is a little bit more information goes into the cracker database, a username here, a password there. Now you can find out whether your details have been breached, and if so where.
Traveling is great fun, but sometimes it can be hard to really experience a new place without ending up doing all the conventional ‘touristy’ stuff. And even if you try and go off the beaten track, it’s hard to find out what’s worth doing and what’s not. Now there’s a new service which aims to connect locals with visitors to help you discover great places and things which tourists won’t know about.
Hands up if you’ve got a bicycle lying around in a shed or hallway somewhere which you haven’t used for months? Or what about those of you who’re visiting friends and would love to join them on a weekend bike ride but don’t know how to get hold of a bike easily? Sound familiar? Those are the kinds of reasons that caused Spinlister, an online rental app and service for bikes and surfboards, to happen.
Sorry we’ve got to say it…sometimes GIFs can be a lot of fun. There are times when a whole video is too much, and yet a still image doesn’t say enough, and that’s where these animated images come into their own. The problem is making them. It can be a real hassle trying to grab exactly the few seconds you want. But not any more.
Summer is almost over but there’s still a few days left to squeeze in some fun. Sure there’s probably not enough time to visit a far off exotic location, but certainly a weekend getaway or a day trip. So in the name of spontaneous summer adventures, here are our top five apps to make the most of that last minute summer getaway.
It can be pretty annoying if you want to visit a website and you can’t access it for some reason, especially when it’s hard to know whether it’s just your fault, or whether the site is down for everyone out there. That’s why there’s a few services available which offer to help you find out the truth behind the problem, but now there’s a rather cool newcomer on the scene.
Picking a baby name is really, really hard. You have to agree with at least one other person if not legions of family who all want to weigh in. Now you no longer have to worry about whether or not the greatest struggle of modern times will befall your child. With Awesome Baby Name, you can choose from a list of names that still have open domain names, thus ensuring that your baby won’t have to struggle to come up…
No matter how much technological progress we enjoy, there’s always a group who prefer to keep things real, and maintain things the way they used to be. So for instance, we still have our vinyl lovers, and those who prefer a good radio play to a night out at the nearest IMAX. Hardly surprising then that email and snail mail might get together too one day.
Making websites has definitely become more of a science than an art nowadays, what with the popularity of things like WordPress, Weebly and other site makers. But even with these systems there’s still a ton of work needed to actually make a site look good, as anyone who’s struggled with a WordPress theme will tell you. If you’re not a designer, the results can quickly and easily become horrible.
Am I the only one who reads long form articles any more? I suspect not, and I guess also that like me, most people find it difficult to fit in this reading before their lunch break is over. Or I see something I want to read and email it to myself to read when I have the time. So I end up with fifteen emailed links to sort through at the end of the day. Pocket is an app that…
![Pocket lets you read, watch, and explore the web when you’ve got time to spare [Freeware]](https://www.redferret.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Pocket-Devices.jpg)
