What’s New in TweetDeck v1.3?

March 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

TweetDeck has always been the most popular answer when people asked “What’s the best Twitter client?” It had multiple accounts support, media display, scheduled tweets, and a bunch of other features that made Twitter power users pee their pants. However, ever since TweetDeck was acquired by Twitter, the set of features was noticeably stripped down to almost bare essentials. There were still columns and multiple accounts support, but a lot of the good stuff just went away. Until TweetDeck v1.3.

List Management

Your everyday casual Twitter users mostly don’t use lists to enhance their tweeting experience, but for power users, list management is essential. In TweetDeck v1.3, list management is given a significant role in the overall experience as users can now add, delete, and edit lists in a more intuitive fashion. Lists are also integrated into user profiles so you can easily add Twitter users to lists without going to the List Management window. It’s a big victory for power users everywhere!

Interactions

The Interactions section has been on Twitter’s web interface for a while now and finally, it has found its way to TweetDeck in the form of a new column. All types of interactions like when your tweets are favorited and when you are followed, retweeted, added to a list, or mentioned can now be viewed easily in one clean Interactions column. This feature would make those of us who don’t want to miss anything that’s happening with our Twitter accounts happy.

Activity

Similar to the new Interactions column, the new Activity column shows you recent activity not on your account but on the accounts of people you follow. You can see when they follow new people, when they add users to lists, or when they favorite tweets.

Media Previews

While we can already preview photos and videos in the old TweetDeck, the experience has been improved in the new version. Photos and videos can new be viewed right in TweetDeck in a large media player-like display. The days of tiny windows with tiny photos are gone. This feature can be disabled if you don’t want to see media previews when using TweetDeck.

Edit and Retweet

The old RT style of retweeting where you can add your own comments on a tweet before you post it is back. It seems a lot of people are still more comfortable in retweetnig other users with their own comments rather than the single-click retweet button way. The feature didn’t really go away even after the new method of retweeting has been embraced by a lot of users, but it is now given equal footing in the TweetDeck landscape rather than just being an alternative to the new retweet method.

How to Get the Update

For TweetDeck users on Windows, just close the application and once you restart, an auto-update will bring you the latest TweetDeck version. For Mac OS X users, you need to go to the Mac App Store’s Updates section where the new TweetDeck update should be available. Just grab it and you’re done. For those using the Chrome app, a simple restart of the browser should initiate an update for TweetDeck. Finally, for those who are using the web interface of TweetDeck, just refresh your browser.

Filed Under: social networking Tagged With: ,

Sony SmartWatch: When You’re Too Lazy To Check Your Android-Powered Smartphone

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you think taking out your Android-powered device out of your pocket or your bag to check who’s calling you or which app sent a notification is too much work, then here’s some good news: you can do all of that just by looking at your watch. Of course, we’re not talking about any type of watch. We’re talking about Sony’s SmartWatch.

What is this sorcery?

The SmartWatch is basically your Android device’s second screen. When it is connected to your Android device, it can receive notifications from some choice apps, tell you who’s calling or texting, show you who’s sent you an email, and even let you control your music player.

Its 1.3-inch OLED display gives you enough space to see the notifications and control the device via multi-touch controls. This color display may not have the quality you would consider perfect, but it is functional and generally, it’s easy on the eyes.

How big is it?

It’s bigger than your average watch but small enough not to call attention to yourself and your weird taste in accessories. The main SmartWatch unit has a clip that holds on to a nice black watchband. The white clip and the black frame and display gives it an elegant yet hip look, but it would have been better if the display and the frame shared the same shade of black for a seamless and sleeker look. With the main unit having 36 mm x 36 mm dimensions and a thickness of 8 mm, you don’t have to worry about it being too bulky because it’s more or less the same size as most large watches.

Features

Other than being your smartphone’s second screen for notifications, the Sony SmartWatch also lets users access SMS messages, emails, and social networking services, specifically Twitter and Facebook. Music player control is not the only way to control your Android device’s features. Basic call controls are also possible via the SmartWatch as you can reject, mute, and take calls using the headset.

How long does the power last?

At full charge, you can use the SmartWatch continuously for one full day. Typical usage will keep the battery running for 3 to 4 days. On standby or low usage, the battery can last up to about a week. You can charge this nifty device through a well-hidden USB slot.

Compatibility

If you’re wondering if this neat device can be paired up with devices that other than those running Android, the answer is no. As for the specific devices themselves, Sony has a complete list on their website. The SmartWatch’s “perfect partners” are Sony’ own Xperia devices but is also compatible with devices from Motorola, Samsung, and HTC.

Usability

Being that the SmartWatch is not your typical everyday device, it may require some time to learn. It can also take a while before you can become comfortable with the gestures required to operate and access the different features and controls of this wonder watch. Unfortunately, some aspects of its usability cannot be saved by familiarity and time, like the fact that clicking on some notifications does not lead you directly to where you expect to go. Basically, this watch just tells you there’s a new missed call or email but it’s up to you to navigate to the actual menu where you can see the missed call or email.

The Bottom Line

With all its neat features that can make your daily life a little bite more efficient, you would think getting there would be easy too. But unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It may take a while before you experience the convenience benefits of the Sony SmartWatch. You can get it for $149.99. And oh, did we mention that it can also tell time?

Filed Under: gadgets Tagged With: , ,

Jolicloud Me: Gather All Your Stuff in Your Own Personal Cloud

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s nice that most of our digital stuff right now like photos, videos, and documents already live in the cloud. I’m not talking about Heaven because I’m not sure if digital files have souls. I’m talking about the digital cloud that you can access from anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection. The problem with this current setup is that our stuff lives in different clouds. There’s Google Documents, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and an endless array of web apps and services. It’s convenient but not convenient enough. Until you meet Jolicloud Me.

Your Personal Cloud

Jolicloud Me lets you collect all of the stuff that you have posted on a range of services including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Picasa (with more services to come) in a single online space. It pulls all the things you uploaded and all the links you’ve posted into a single dashboard where you can access them without jumping around multiple services.

Benefits

The obvious benefit of Jolicloud Me is that it’s easy to bring all of your stuff together. Just log in, choose the service you want to connect to, and Jolicloud Me does the rest.Having everything you posted on your multiple online accounts in one place makes it easy for you to access them whenever and wherever you want.

Possibly the best feature of Jolicloud Me is its search feature. It indexes everything that it has collected from your accounts and it basically gives you your very own personal search engine for your digital things, which is pretty convenient if you have a considerable amount of stuff online.

You can even organize your photos, videos, and documents into collections. On top of that, you can share these collections and see other people’s collections as well. Think of it as Pinterest on steroids.

Devices

If the name sounds familiar, Jolicloud Me is actually from the same people who brought us Joli OS. This cloud service comes pre-installed in Joli OS so if you’re on that platform, you will most likely get acquainted with Jolicloud Me soon enough.

Of course, it’s not limited to Joli OS devices. Jolicloud Me can also be accessed via desktop and laptop computers, iOS devices, and Android devices. Support for this range of devices means you will have maximum accessibility no matter what device you are currently using and from wherever you are currently located.

Actual Usefulness

Jolicloud Me is pretty new and it is actually still in beta phase so we still can’t say if it can really be useful to have your own personal search engine for your stuff in your very own cloud. However, from the looks of things, it will be very convenient for people who are fairly active in posting stuff online and who want to keep everything organized in one accessible place.

The Bottom Line

With support for more services like Dropbox, Evernote, Tumblr, YouTube, Spotify, and other services coming soon, and with an intuitive interface, Jolicloud Me looks like it is going to be the most efficient personal cloud service around. The real question is would there be enough people out there who would be interested in curating their own content into searchable collections?

Filed Under: cloud storage Tagged With: ,

5 Things That Should Excite You About Internet Explorer 10

March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been playing catch-up with the more popular — and dare we say “modern” — web browsers out there like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome for the last few years. It has been a laughing stock before the last couple of versions because of its knack for being an enemy to web designers everywhere, mostly because it basically has its own set of standards. Yes, the last couple of versions have improved a lot and it remains to be one of the top three web browsers in terms of usage worldwide, falling behind Firefox and Chrome, but it seems like Internet Explorer is finally doing its own thing and not just trying to catch up with the Chrome and Firefox’s features. Here are five (5) things about Internet Explorer 10 that should tickle our fancy:

1. Total Immersion with Metro

The Metro style experience in the forthcoming Windows 8 promises an immersive navigation experience. This smooth and almost effortless way of navigating through your system can also be found in IE10. It is designed to let users focus on what content they browse and not how they browse, which means that there’s a possibility that users may actually forget that they’re using a web browser, or at least a type of web browser as they know it right now.

2. Super Sensitive

IE10 and Windows 8 have been designed to be experienced on mobile devices that support touch technology, but this doesn’t mean that Microsoft has forgotten about you keyboard-typin’ and mouse-wieldin’ people out there. The Metro style has been optimized to offer the smoothest touch browsing experience possible and the most responsive keyboard and mouse navigation so far in the history of Internet Explorer.

3. Navigate When You Need It

To bring the focus more on the actual websites you are browsing. Internet Explorer 10 gives you all the space you need to view the website by having the navigation bar disappear when you don’t need it. It slides back out when you need any of the controls on the bar such as buttons for Back, Forward, Stop and Refresh, pinning sites to the Start screen, and the address bar.

4. Charms

Windows 8 introduces Charms, which are basically common actions that you will most likely continue doing even in this radically new computing experience. Some of these Charms, four to be exact, are supported within IE10 itself. Aside from the highly intuitive navigation bar, the Charms bar also only appears if you need to use the Share, Search, Devices, and Settings Charms.

5. Site Tiles

The Windows 8 Start Screen is not just a prettier version of the usual Windows desktop. It is literally where you can start working or browsing. It’s just like those home page services that give you an easy to access home page on your browser where you can access all kinds of services without opening multiple tabs first. Instead of just having handing links to applications, you can also have links to websites you have pinned via IE10.

The Bottom Line

For people who have been frustrated with earlier versions of Internet Explorer and have found solace in the arms of another web browser, it’s going to be hard to trust IE again. However, Windows 8 and all the cool new developments are compelling enough to make people try IE10 at least. Probably.

Filed Under: web browsers Tagged With: ,

Couple Street: The Social Network For Two People

March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’re not tired of social networks yet, maybe you’ll have the time and the energy to join another one. This time, maybe you should build a network that only includes one other person — your lover. That is the premise behind Couple Street, a social network that aims to help you organize your couple life and have private and intimate conversations with your lover.

How It Works

We’re not exactly sure if we can call it a social network since there are only two people involved. There’s a community section, yes, but you can only discuss different topics with other people using Couple St. but you can’t add them to your network. This is strictly a service for you and your lover in terms of sharing content and communicating privately.

Features

The features are divided into two groups: For Me and For Us Two. Under the For Me category is Wishlist and Reminder. Wishlist lets you list down stuff that you want, possibly birthday or holiday gifts you want to receive from your partner. Reminder is a similar feature. It’s practically the same feature but with a different name.

The For Us Two features are much more compelling, obviously since this is a couple-centric social network. Your couple home page is a lot like your Facebook Wall (no Timeline craziness here, kids) because it’s a stream of content that you share with each other like photos, links, messages and even questions.

There’s also a Calendar feature that lets you create events with optional email reminders. It’s not as detailed as Google Calendar but it’s useful enough to be one of the smartest additions to Couple Street’s features. You can also export your calendar in iCal format, which is neat.

So far these features make Couple St. look like a social network for new couples or couples who aren’t too serious but think that participating in this type of social network is kind of cute. However, for more serious couples, Couple Street also offers two “serious couple” features.

Expenses and To Do

To Do lists are not for everybody, especially for young couples. Creating tasks and grouping them together in three categories (Shopping, Travel, and House Chores) sounds like something more mature couples would do. The same can be said about the Expenses feature which lets couples list down their individual expenses and arranges the data in a nice little table. An archive of expenses can also be accessed so if managing and monitoring your finances is something you love doing with your partner, this will hit the right spot.

The Bottom Line

Couples living apart would definitely find Couple St. useful with its communication and collaboration features while couples living together will also find some of its features useful for daily tasks around the house. If you’re a couple who have OCD as one of the things you have in common, then Couple Street totally makes sense. Otherwise, it may be hard to add this “social network” to your stable of other social networking sites.

Filed Under: social networking Tagged With: ,

Sidengo Lets You Build A Website And Embed It Anywhere

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sites like Flavors.me, About.me, and Retaggr let you create a landing page for you as an individual or as a professional. You get to include links to your social networking profiles and your portfolios, and essentially, it’s your single-page business card on the web. It is convenient and efficient especially if you have a lot of profiles on different sites and you want to list them down in a neat and attractive fashion. This approach is used by Sidengo, but instead of offering a landing page to users, it lets you create an entire website.

What does Sidengo do?

Like About.me, Flavors.me, and similar landing page builders, Sidengo focuses on letting users build pages without requiring technical skills in design and coding. Unlike the sites mentioned, Sidengo lets users create a full blown multi-page website as opposed to a single landing page. Other than that small detail, the process for building something remains the same: use a WYSIWYG editor to customize text, links, and images to a page and create additional pages if necessary.

For people who want a simple website, Sidengo makes it possible to establish one without hiring web developers or learning how to write code. Anyone who knows how to use a computer can essentially build their very own website in minutes.

What is included in these “simple” websites?

You can have your pages collect data from your visitors via Wufoo.com forms. Photo galleries, video streaming, Powerpoint slide viewers, and social media integration can all be added to your Sidengo website. Now you know that this really isn’t just a landing page builder.

Aside from building the actual website, you can add a favicon and use your very own domain for it. There’s even an iOS icon included so you can have your website stand out from the rest of the Internet. As for hosting, you don’t have to worry about that either. Reliable hosting is included in all Sidengo accounts.

What makes it different from other similar easy website builder services?

Sidengo may sound like your garden variety website builder with an exotic name, but it offers a feature that makes it worth looking into at the very least. This feature lets you embed your entire Sidengo website in any place on the Internet that you can think of, including Facebook. Yes, you can embed your entire Sidengo website in your Facebook Page, letting your page stand out from the rest.

How easy is it to use, really?

Even if you’re not used to WYSIWYG website builders, you can rest easy as a tutorial runs when you first access your website after signing up. It basically shows you all the sections of the builder that you will need to build your website. Once you’re used to the whole builder, you can build more websites without creating a new account as Sidengo allows for multiple sites per account.

How much does it cost?

For now, all Sidengo accounts are free. It won’t be free forever, though.

The Bottom Line

Having full control over one’s website is essential for some people, especially if they are running highly dynamic sites like online stores and news sites. However, for people who simply want to deliver content in a more streamlined fashion, not to mention they’re doing it in a straightforward manner, Sidengo is a must-try.

Filed Under: new sites Tagged With: ,

Posterous Joins Twitter

March 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Once Tumblr’s distinguished competition, Posterous has kind of fallen behind the tumble blogging giant in terms of popularity and buzz. In that battle, we can comfortably say that Tumblr came out on top. But Posterous marched on and didn’t stop their vision of letting people blog and share content more while working less.

Spaces

Just a few months ago, Posterous launched Spaces, which is pretty much the old Posterous blogging platform that still focuses on simplicity and ease of use but with an added focus on sharing photos in a more intimate manner. It was sort of like a major re-branding effort but it still failed to catch the attention of the masses.

Joining the Flock

A few hours ago, Twitter has announced that it has acquired Posterous. Both Twitter and Posterous have released their individual announcements on their respective blogs and we just can’t help but notice that both announcements share an identical paragraph:

Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

It’s still not clear if Posterous Spaces will survive this acquisition but reading Twitter’s announcement hints at the fact that they acquired Posterous for the people and not necessarily the technology. Looks like the Posterous people will be working to “build a better Twitter” for all of us and not a more interesting Posterous.

What are we losing?

Let’s just say that Posterous Spaces is shutting down soon, would we miss it? It allows for multiple Spaces (blogs), each can be customized separately with themes and even a custom domain. Privacy for each space can also be modified in the settings. Tumblr has us pretty much covered on this front.

What we will probably miss about Posterous Spaces is the autopost feature that automatically publishes your Posterous Spaces content to your other social networking accounts. We’ll also miss sending content via email hassle-free. We will miss the efficiency and simplicity, as well as the kind of flexibility that even Tumblr can’t touch.

In terms of content, it looks like the Posterous folks are already preparing a way for users to download their stuff off their Spaces. There seems to be no reason for users to worry about losing their content in the near future. Let’s just hope that it is as painless and quick as the process of importing content from other platforms such as Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, and TwitPic.

What does this mean for the other blogging platforms ands the rest of the Internet?

We’re guessing it would not mean a lot to the likes of Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress. Those three blogging platforms are pretty much the kings of the blogging hill and the eventual loss of a less prominent platform would mean close to nothing to them. The blogging world will move on, and on a larger picture, the Internet may not even remember this in a few months especially with newer Internet darling hogging the spotlight like Pinterest. Hey, we can’t have a blog post without mentioning Pinterest. It’s the unwritten rule.

Filed Under: blogging Tagged With: ,

Create And Share Beautiful Virtual Business Cards With CardFlick

March 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Old fashioned business cards may feel nice to the touch but once they accumulate, they can become bulky and they will take up space. Eventually, they will become a hassle no matter how useful and pretty they are. A much more efficient solution, especially in today’s mobile digital world, is to use virtual business cards. There’s no printing involved and they can be created faster, possibly costing you nothing but a few minutes of your day. This idea is what CardFlick is banking on as an online service that lets you create and share easily virtual business cards.

How exactly does one share a virtual business card?

CardFlick lets you share your virtual business card to other people who are also using the app. All it takes is a simple upward swipe on your card, seemingly sending your virtual business card flying out of your mobile device. Anyone with the CardFlick app near you will receive your virtual business card and it’s their choice whether they want to keep it or not. Be careful when and where you flick your cards, though. You’ll never know when stalkers are close by.

How does one create these magical virtual business cards?

You can design your virtual business cards using the online Instacard creator. You can choose any of your Instagram or Facebook photos as your background photo. You can also upload a photo from your hard drive if none of your Facebook and Instagram photos work with your vision. This online Instacard creator also lets you customize the text color, accent color, profile image, and your personal and business information of course.

You can also create your card using the mobile app with a single tap. You can pick from any of the dozens of professionally designed card designs from some of the most awesome designers in the world. Do note that while you control the information and images on your card, it still follows a basic design layout. For a completely customized design for your virtual business cards, you would have to go Pro. Don’t worry, though. While CardFlick is still in beta, the Pro version is still free.

On which mobile platform does CardFlick run?

CardFlick is currently available for Android and iOS mobile devices. Whatever device you have, as long as it has the CardFlick app, you can share your virtual business card immediately.

What about people who do not have the CardFlick app?

You can still share your beautiful virtual business card to people without the CardFlick app. Just go to the Flick screen and choose the Email option. Enter the email of your friend or business contact and they will receive your Instacard in their email inbox.

Does one need to resend their business card if they have updated their information?

No. If you update your info, all the people who have already received your business card will have your updated info as well. There’s no need to resend it.

The Bottom Line

CardFlick has the potential of changing the way people exchange contact information. It’s cheaper, more efficient, and environmentally friendly too. So, all we see is benefits unless you really like the feel of a real business card in your hands.

Filed Under: smartphone apps Tagged With: ,

PayPal’s Intelligent Wallet Is Coming

March 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

PayPal has never completely redesigned its architecture. To be more specific, the PayPal wallet we see now is pretty much the same system PayPal has launched when it started 13 years ago. Pretty soon, a new Intelligent Wallet will be unveiled and the folks at SXSW 2012 will be the first people to get a glimpse of the future of PayPal.

Sam Shrauger, PayPal’s VP of Global Product & Experience, will be presenting a demo on this new intelligent wallet and he promises to show attendees that this new system will give users the ability to free, personalize, and share their digital money. Basically, users will have the ability to make their digital money work for them the way they want to. There’s not a lot of concrete imagery here obviously but it does sound pretty exciting. Fortunately, Shrauger has told us via the PayPal blog what we can expect from this seemingly revolutionary development in digital money.

Separating Purchase From Payment

One of the most exciting new features that will be included in the new PayPal wallet is the option to switch funding sources, change installment plans, and apply different sources of value after the actual purchase has occurred. This means within 5-7 days, you can still change your mind in terms of which funding source you will use to pay for your purchase, installment options, and sources of value like gift cards, loyalty points, airline miles, and more. If it’s still not clear to you what this feature can actually do, you can think about the fact that you can buy something from a store using your PayPal account, take what you bought home, use it, and have the luxury of having 5-7 days to change your mind about how you are actually going to pay for it.

Spending Rules

Splitting your digital money in groups, setting rules by purchase amount, and tying specific payment instruments to specific merchants are now possible with the new PayPal wallet. This level of control over your money is like opening different bank accounts and signing up for different credit or debit cards but without all the time and effort required to do it. You can do all of it with one account once the new intelligent wallet drops.

Personal Lists

PayPal is not just a tool to manage your money anymore. Personal lists now make it a tool for managing your entire shopping experience as it lets you create lists you want to purchase, compare prices, and of course, search for items. These lists will then have a second function as the PayPal wallet will alert you of the special deals and coupons for the items in your personal lists.

The Bottom Line

PayPal’s new intelligent wallet is not about replacing existing ways of payment, but it’s offering a more efficient way of managing digital money. The flexibility that this new intelligent wallet offers seems too good to be true. We can’t really say for now as the new features will only be rolled out in a couple of months, but we can all agree that it all feels like big change is coming in the world of commerce and digital life.

Filed Under: ecommerce Tagged With: ,

PinClout Is Now PinReach

March 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest yet, you must be new to the Internet. If this is the case, let us get you up to speed: Pinterest is where you pin images and videos that you like on boards that represent different categories. It started out by being the place where girls pin pictures of nice shoes, pretty dresses, nice little houses in the woods, and other girly things. Now that the rest of the Internet has noticed, everybody’s jumped on the bandwagon and it’s no longer just about sugar, spice, and all things nice. Pinterest is now being used as a marketing tool for brands and it has reach the level of prominence that earns users a certain level of clout. Enter: PinClout.

What Is This PinClout You Speak Of?

Different types of metrics about the use of Pinterest suddenly became important since marketing is now involved. PinClout was developed as the analytics service for Pinterest and it seemed like a genius move for its developers. However, “PinClout” sounds a lot like Klout which is currently the most popular analytics service for a bunch of social media services including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The folks over at Klout totally know this which is why they sent PinClout a cease-and-desist letter.

Oh No! Legal Trouble!

While PinClout is not the only service that can be described as “Klout for Pinterest”, it certainly sounds dangerously similar to Klout, or at least that’s what the folks at Klout say. Some people thought that was the end for PinClout, which just launched about a month ago, but that’s not the case. The simple solution was a change in their name, hence “PinReach”.

What Else Changed With The Name?

Nothing, actually. PinReach is still a source for Pinterest analytics and influence. It still offers the same tools for understanding activity, monitoring trends, and gauging impact initially offered by PinClout. It still updates user Reach scores daily, giving users valuable insight in their Pinterest statistics.

What Are The Features Of PinReach?

PinReach gives you a Reach score that can go as high as 100. This score is derived from several details such as total number of pins, total number of repins, total number of followers, total number of boards, and more. This score can be shared directly to Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest directly from the user dashboard.

The PinReach dashboard also includes a table of your most popular boards which features the number of followers, the number of pins, the number of repins, the number of comments, and the number of likes for each board. Along with this table is a chart of your recent PinReach score history that goes back 7 days. This chart can be directly printed and exported as an image directly from the user’s dashboard.

The Bottom Line

People who are anal about their Pinterest stats will love the simplicity of PinReach. With how things are going, it doesn’t seem the name change didn’t really affect usage on the service. The only thing that got hurt in the process is the feelings of PinClout’s founders. They’ll get over it.

Filed Under: social media Tagged With: , ,
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