Archive for April, 2010
Get Fast Access To All Your Google Tools In Chrome With MyShortcuts
The main reason for me to shift from Firefox to Chrome was the speed and performance it was offering me. At first it really didn’t had any extensions and I was not able to improve my work productivity but as soon as the extensions hit the market I was one of the many people I know who migrated from Firefox to Chrome.
I had been doing my research on some of the Google extensions and stumbled upon a super add-on known as “My Shortcuts” which grabbed my attention and after testing it I can easily say it is the best Chrome extension I have ever used to handle Google tasks. It allows you to access your favorite Google application with just a click of a button.
To get started with My Shortcuts click here and then click “Install”.
This will add a new icon on right top hand side of the browser.
By clicking this icon you will see a drop down menu with all the tasks you can perform such as New Email, Google Contacts, New Doc and much more with just a click of a button. Here is how this drop down menu looks
Now for example if I want to manage my Google contacts, all I will need to do is click on Google Contacts. This will open a new page where I can easily manage my contacts.
Similarly sending a new email is just a click away. As soon as I clicked “New Email” it opened a new page where I can write/send my email.
I would personally recommend my readers to get this extension because it really is a time saver and promises to improve your productivity.
Easily Share Videos To Facebook And Twitter From Your Cell Phone With Thwapr
Facebook and Twitter users who own smartphones often are on the lookout for applications that can complement their social media usage. One way in which our social media accounts can be made more active is by developing a simple method to record videos on our cellphones and then share them on our social media accounts.
To perform this function you do not need any fancy application to install. The only things required are a smartphone with a web browser, and the knowledge to use Thwapr.
Thwapr is a free website currently in its beta stage that facilitates users to share cellphone recorded videos on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Thwapr does not require users to install any applications. The procedure is performed simply using text messaging and the web browse.
To take advantage of this free service, users first need to create a free account on Thwapr (by clicking on the big green “Register” button on Thwapr’s homepage).
We then link our Thwapr account with our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Afterwards video sharing is simply a matter of 3 east steps.
Step 1 of sharing videos through Thwapr requires obtaining a video. There is no restriction that this video should be on your cellphone. It can be on your computer as well.
Step 2 involves emailing the video. The email process can be significantly faster if we create an email on the server of our mobile service provider. We can then use this email to send a message (with our video attached) to me@thwapr.com.
Step 3 is when we receive a text message notice that tells us Thwapr has finished processing our video. We can then view our final video and choose to share it on Facebook or Twitter.
Currently Thwapr works on more than 200 phones across major carriers in the US and Canada. If you are in the US or Canada, give Thwapr a try and use the comments to let us know what you think.
9 [More] Powerful Image Editing Web Apps You May Need to Bookmark
Few days ago, I have blogged about Tired Of Photoshop’s Complexity? Try These Free And Easy Apps For Your Photos and after a great response I am coming up today with another post to fill up the demand of more image editing tools.
Yes, There are some more image editing tools that I am sharing with you guys. Well its a fun for free isn’t it? These tools are easy, free and less complicated than many complicated desktop based image editing tool out there, and I should not forget to mention the thousands of their version coming ever now and then, and you will be paying more for more complexity. So, these tools can help you out for free and because they are web based so you can have them wherever you have internet with you. Try these tools mentioned below and I am sure you will end up thanking me.
You are welcome if you want to share more free image editing tools that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
FotoFlexer
This tool is very useful it provides you many effects, fonts, shapes, distortion, retouch, layers and doodling. Just visit this app and you will enjoy it.
Phixr
This tool contains many useful effect like fun effect, color effect, camera and lens effect, holiday effect etc.
Picmagick
Its an online photo editor that allows you to make ordinary or simple photos look wonderful within a few clicks. It will surprise you how fabulous your photos can be and how easily this can be done.
Picresize
Its an online photo resize tools, you can easily crop and resize your photos online.
Pikipimp
Pikipimp lets you add many ready made blings, text, glitter and animations.
Aviary
Aviary is very useful and powerful tool which lets you edit image, color, audio, effects and vector.
LunaPic
Lunapic is an image editor and animation tools which uses Java Applet to create many animation effect to your photo. You can share these images to many famous social networking site as well.
Gickr
Gickr has a simple, easy to set up widget that creates an animated GIF of your Flickr photos.
ImageEditor
Use this online image and picture editor application (or “photo editor”) to edit your images, photos or pictures. You can create new pictures, new images, retouch or edit pictures & photos, add text to pictures or just make simple edits and image adjustments to your pictures like picture crop, picture or photo resize, add text to a picture and a lot more.
I am sure all these tools are working on Safari and FireFox. Well thats it for now folks, now I am thinking of writing something about free application of 3D Modeling. So please give me your suggestion and comments if you want more free useful apps and please do not forget to mention the type of app you want as well.
KartMe Is A Great Way To Organize And Share Your Favorite Online Content With Other People
We see social media sites popping up everywhere today. Beginning from Orkut, I now have accounts on more online social networks than I can count. The essentials of all social media are the same: stay in touch with your contacts and share interesting stuff you find online. Some social media sites are for content-specific sharing. For instance a forum that allows only health-related discussions or a social media site that promotes video games and is for video game enthusiasts. These sites provide great interfaces for sharing the material they support.
Recently however I have found a social media site that has come up with an intelligent way for users to share a variety of material. I am referring to KartMe.
KartMe is a wonderful social media site that lets users sign up for an account and create containers. These containers are called Karts and can store 3 types of things: web addresses, products, and places.
These Karts are a great way to share our favorite content with other people. The Karts let us create a heading for a number of shares and keep adding material to that heading. Let me give an example. Suppose you want to share with your friends how to bake a chocolate cake. You can create a Kart titled “My Guide on how to Bake a Chocolate Cake;” then add your blog entry’s URL to the Kart followed by the product links of everything used in the cake and the locations of the stores those products can be purchased from. In no time you will have a little library of chocolate-cake guide for everybody to see.
These Karts can be helpful to anyone who is looking for a great product about anything or a great restaurant or location. This is precisely why the homepage of the site has various Karts organized in categories which are easy to browse.
In my opinion KartMe is more than just a social media site – it will soon become your go-to place for anything you want to buy or any place you want to visit.
Take A Chance To Win Personal License Of SWF & FLV Player PRO
Eltima Software is running a contest, where winners will get 15 personal licenses of SWF & FLV Player PRO (worth $19.95 each). Well, you guys know what SWF & FLV Player PRO is. Lets say it once again for n00bs.
SWF & FLV Player PRO is a smart Flash Player, enriched with numerous options and controls for viewing and managing Flash movies and videos. One of the main benefits of SWF & FLV Player PRO is the ability to save Flash Animation from the web directly to your computer. So if you want to download and save your favorite videos from such sites as Youtube, Matacafe, Google Video or other, SWF & FLV Player by Eltima is just what you need.
When downloading SWF animation SWF & FLV Player PRO allows you to preview all the external resources your file may be using ( it may open and play other SWF or FLV files, load images, etc).After looking into them you can either download initial SWF file, or SWF file with all its external resources, or just external file you liked.
More than that, with SWF & FLV Player PRO you can make a screenshot of the favorite moment and even convert the whole movie into the series of screenshots.
Last but not least, SWF & FLV Player PRO allows playback of SWF/FLV files in full-screen mode and feel yourself at cinema while being at home with your cup of coffee.
This contest will run from April 20, 2010 to April 27, 2010 and we will select the winners randomly by running MySQL query. Result can be announced any day before April 30, 2010 so keep visiting here or subscribe to our rss feed to get the latest updates. To participate in the contest and win free license of SWF & FLV Player PRO, All you have to do is just :
1. Just leave a comment to tell us why you like SWF & FLV Player.
2. Use valid email ID in the email box.
3. Not necessary, but you can subscribe to our rss feed and follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well. (To track this contest and for future updates)
4. And thats it!
So what are you waiting for now? Let’s participate in the contest and good luck!
Now Watch TV Channels From All Around The World Free Of Cost With TvTube
Do you have a high speed broadband connection but not know how to kill your boredom? What if I told you that you could view any one of countless television channels from all parts of the world using only your broadband internet and without spending a penny? Surely you could find at least one interesting program on one of those countless channels, a program that will entertain you and help pass your time.
Watching any channel from around the world is exactly what can be done using TvTube.
From sports channels to documentary ones, TvTube is a great resource for TV channels. The channels are categorized nation-wise and genre-wise.
At the site’s homepage we can see channels being currently watched, most popular channels, and the recently added channels.
A search box is also located in the top right of the homepage which facilitates finding any channel we are looking for.
Clicking on the name of a channel starts its broadcast within a player in the browser.
Below the channel’s feed there are links to channels that are related to current one being watched. The relation can be that of the genre or of nationality.
Some channels on TvTube will require your web browser to have the Windows Media Player plugin to be installed which can be obtained here.
TvTube not only provides us a gateway to pass our time but also a resource to learn about other countries through their television media. By sorting channels categorically, the site also simplifies the process of finding channels we are looking for.
Pay TvTube a visit and let us know what you think.
10 Excellent Free Web Apps To Create CSS Forms and Grids
CSS forms and grids are something web developers and designers usually employ to create great webpages. If a developer starts writing the code for these forms, it becomes quite a difficult process. That is exactly why numerous online CSS form creators exist, to make the developer’s job easier.
These online CSS creators range from free to paid websites. If one was to explore all the options, it would take a lot of time. Fortunately for my readers who design websites, I have gathered a list of 10 free CSS form creators that competently perform the task they are designed for.
Read my gathered list, find out which one of these entries suits your needs best, and use it to make your job easier.
You are welcome if you want to share more Web Apps To Create CSS Forms and Grids that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.
CSS3 Generator has a drop down menu on its homepage which asks the visitor the element they want to create. Once they select the element (border, box, etc) the options to create it are shown below the drop down field.
Grid Layout Generator gives users a number of options that create a custom grid. The generated code can then be in HTML or CSS, whatever the user chooses.
nP’s grid generator has a friendly interface with the adjustable options located in the top right. Once we have created our desired grid, we can obtain its CSS code or download it as a PNG image file.
With Blueprint Grid CSS Generator, users can specify their grid dimensions and details in the given fields and click on the “Generate CSS” button to have the resultant code automatically copy to the clipboard. A side-window displays the code as well. Download a PNG image of the grid is also possible.
Layout Generator is the parent website of the abovementioned Grid Layout Generator. It provides us with a wider range of options from which we can select our layouts.
The CSS Creator web tool gives us an impressive number of options to choose from for our layout. We can modify various settings of the layout and achieve the result we desire.
CSS Form Code Maker will facilitate developers looking to create tableless forms that are a little colorful. A demo is available on the site that acts as a tutorial for designers unable to understand how the site words.
This site lets users modify the options of their form and preview them in real time. Form Style Generator is going to help designers view the effects of their changes as they make them.
ZURB is another site with user friendly tools. On the left pane we have the options to modify; on the right pane we have a view of our grid; beneath all of this our CSS code is displayed once we click on the “Get the Code” button.
FAARY is a free online CSS form builder that gives users the option to type in required form fields in a text-area then click on “Generate.” A preview of the form can be seen on the right pane. If the form is satisfactory, its code can be downloaded by a link located below the “Generate” button.
iSyndica:Upload Photos to Multiple Stock Photography Sites from One place
Stock photography and videography has become a decent profession in recent years and many talented photographers earn online by selling their work. Clicking photos and videos is fun and interesting, but to sell them is not an easy job. You must have a portfolio and a solid social media presence so that people know that you exist. They can see your work and eventually, interested visitors will turn into future prospects or clients.
Why Photographers Need Stock Photography sites and Online Agencies?
The first and simplest reason is exposure. It’s far better to use Flickr rather than a blogspot blog to showcase your work. If you portray your work at the right place, you will reap more returns and value because your work will be viewed by more visitors.
The second and most important reason is security. There are hundreds of thousands of copycats out there who will steal your work if you lay it open on Flickr or any other social media website like Facebook, Twitter etc. Consider a situation when a photographer uploads his work on Flickr and someone just downloads and sells it to any other company or at ebay. The photographer would not be able to know when his work is sold illegally. And if he happens to track that person who stoled his work, will he have any proof that the photograph originally belongs to him?
This is where stock photography sites come into play. You submit your photographs in various stock photography sites and display your work to a large number of people. Their is no issue of content theft as your photographs are watermarked with your brand and registered under your name. If someone is intrested, he may choose to buy your work or contact you directly.
About iSyndica
iSyndica is a cloud based media distribution company which helps users to promote, syndicate and track their content on multiple established channels. This includes 25 most popular stock photography sites, 7 video agencies and 10 stock illustration agencies.
Here is what the company has to say about themselves:
“iSyndica eliminates the need for you to upload your files to several sites. You upload with us, we store it, we distribute it and we provide you with statistics. All in one place!”
The service is built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the virtual distribution server (VDS) is awaiting patent approval.
How it Works?
iSyndica helps you simplify the process of submitting the photographs to multiple stock photography sites, all from one place. You can create your portfolio and then distribute it on multiple photo sharing sites, without losing credits of your work. As soon as your image is uploaded, your image is sent to all the stock agencies in a couple of minutes. Next, go to these sites one by one, pick the desired categories and hit submit.
This is useful because you don’t have to open all the sites and submit your work one by one, which becomes unmanageable after some time. In addition to distributing the content, iSyndica provides you with important statistics.
Uploading Photos: The site supports only the JPEG format for uploading photos. The maximum file size is 25 MB per image and the minimum image size is 4 Megapixel.
Managing Your Catalog of Photos: The Catalog is where you get to manage your images, change the metadata information and also syndicate them to custom channels. Basically, there are two types of channels -sales and promotional.
The sales channel offers an interface to sell your items. The “Syndicate”
function allows you to mark your items accepted or rejected by the stock agencies.
Promotional channels are used mostly on social sharing platforms, where you can put your items to show them to a different public. You can use the “Promote” link from the menu bar and watermark the images before sharing them on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and the like.
Using Channels to Track performance: You can use custom channels within your iSyndica dashboard to track the performance of your work in different sites. A “channel” is simply one of the places you distribute your content to, for the purpose of sharing and/or selling it. To add or configure a channel, click “Configure Channel” icon on the Channel list. Next, supply the login details of the site where you want to submit your work. iSyndicate will validate and store the login credentials for future use and once you upload a photo, the site will use this information to submit your photos to the specified site.
Analysis: The Tracking and analysis section, looks very impressive and you can can see the performance of your work in different stock photography sites. This includes charts and bar graphs which shows your projected earnings, number of downloads, revenue etc.
In the premium plans, new data is updated up to 12 times a day. The free plan offers twice daily updates up to the end of your subscription trail date. All he sales are shown in USD which is based on daily currency rates. The charts considers some important factors like day of the week and compares it with overall trends so you get precise data.
Integrate additional services on top of the stored contents using iSyndica AP:
Using the iSyndica API, you can create great applications on top of iSyndica’s Virtual Distribution Server. The API is free to use and works on Oauth so you can use the application to promote your work and your brand on social media and sites that support Oauth authentication. The API allows you to perform a wide range of functions- from uploading photos, applying distribution rules, collecting reports, modifying product metadata etc. More information can be found here.
Affiliate Program: After registration, you are automatically enrolled in the iSyndicate affiliate program. Your affiliate link is http://vds.isyndica.com/affiliate/<username>
Supported Sites and Agencies
Currently iSyndica supports photos, videos and illustrations. Following is a list of all stock photography sites which the service supports:
Stock photo agencies:
- 123RF®
- ArcticStockImages®
- Bigstock®
- CanStockPhoto®
- Facebook®
- FeaturePics®
- Flickr®
- Fotolia®
- Shutterstock (using iSyndica’s generic connector)
- Picasa®
- Polylooks™
- TwitPic®
- Catooh®
- ClipDealer®
- Crestock®
- Cutcaster®
- Demotix®
- Dreamstime®
- Graphicleftovers®
- iStockphoto®
- MostPhotos®
- MyStock®
- Photobox®
- Pixmac®
- Rodeo®
- ScanStockPhoto®
- Shutterfly®
- SmugMug®
- Stockfuel®
- Veer®
- Vivozoom®
- YayMicro®
- YFrog®
- Zenfolio®
Supported video agencies:
- CanStockPhoto®
- Facebook®
- Flickr®
- Fotolia®
- AlwaysHD®
- BlipTV®
- Catooh®
- ClipDealer®
- Pond5®
- RevoStock®
- Stockfuel®
- Twitvid®
- Viddler®
- YFrog®
- YouTube®
- Shutterstock (using iSyndica’s generic connector)
- istockphoto (using iSyndica’s generic connector)
Supported stock illustration agencies:
- 123RF®
- Bigstock®
- CanStockPhoto®
- Facebook®
- FeaturePics®
- Flickr®
- Fotolia®
- Picasa®
- Polylooks™
- TwitPic®
- ClipDealer®
- Crestock®
- Cutcaster®
- Dreamstime®
- Graphicleftovers®
- Photobox®
- Pixmac®
- Stockfuel®
- Veer®
- Vivozoom®
- YayMicro®
- YFrog®
Supported stock audio agencies:
- AudioSparx
- AudioMicro
- Catooh
- ClipDealer
- Pond5
- RevoStock
- Stockfuel
In addition to the above sites, iSyndica supports upto 20 customized generic FTP channels. You can transfer your items to any FTP server of your choice.
Pricing and Plans
Subscription Levels and Credits:
There are different subscription levels which depends on how many uploads you do in a specified period of time. You can try the service using the free subscription option, which lets you upload 200 credits per month. 1 credit equals to 1 website where your content is submitted. So if you upload only one image and submit it to 10 different stock photography sites, it will cost you 10 credits in total.
Here are all the available plans to choose from:
The premium plan is affordable and costs only 79$ a year. You get 20 GB of storage space and customizable promotion on social media websites like Twitter, Facebook etc. If the premium plan looks too costly, try the standard plan for only 19$ a year. This includes all the features of the premium plan except the customized social media promotion and secure FTP uploads.
If you don’t want to start with a paid plan right now, you can always try the free trial for 15 days. Here are all the features which you get in the free trial period:
- 2 GB secure data storage
- secure backups and export functions
- daily sales and revenue reporting
- custom FTP settings
- 200 free credits
- social network promotion
Overall, the site looks very good and provides service of high value. If you want a simple interface to submit your work to multiple stock photography sites, iSyndica is a great option.
Try it yourself today: iSyndica Signup
LetterGenie: Easily Generate Letter Templates For Your Contacts
While emails are taking over physical letters, the conventions of business letters’ formats are still being followed. An official email often looks exactly like a business letter. The person who sends out these emails is often an assistant and the system works something like this: the assistant opens up a predefined template and then fills out the receiver’s details each time. Since it is a business letter, there is absolutely no room for error on the assistant’s part.
With TheLetterGenie, the boss no longer has to rely on the assistant to get the job done right.
TheLetterGenie is a web service that eliminates the need for somebody to fill out the receiver’s information in a letter. Instead of a single template being used for all contacts, TheLetterGenie can be fed our contacts, and then we can specify the template to be used for each contact. This way when we begin writing a letter to a contact, all we need to do is type the body of the letter – the salutation, receiver’s information, and the rest has already been filled out.
The site has been developed to work hand in hand with Highrise which is an advanced contacts management system for businesses.
While there is a free plan available at TheLetterGenie, businesses will find the paid plans to be more suitable. Considering the convenience, the pricing is quite economical.
TheLetterGenie can greatly assist any business or boss to minimize the risk of typing mistakes in business letters.
10 Fun iPhone Apps You May Want To Be Entertained
This post will make you busy in a fun way when you are free and looking out to spend your time in more interesting way. Here we are listing down some fun apps for your iPhone or iPad to enjoy your time. This is the post in which you will know about 10 Fun iPhone Apps You May Want To Be Entertained.
You are welcome if you want to share more fun apps for iPhone that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.
Do you want to find out what is the best hairstyle for you and your friends? With Hair MakeOver you can try on many different kind of hair styles and hair cuts in less than a minute on your iPhone. There are 32 32 hairstyles that you can try in this app.
Friends Around Me is a free mobile app for interacting with friends 24/7 across social networks and for meeting new people nearby or across the world through an interactive location-based search. This is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese languages.
A versatile and FREE mirror application. Unlike other apps this has no needless frames to reduce your viewing area. You can choose the background color for the optimum reflection depending on your ambient lighting. This can also function as a flashlight.
Lie Detector Scan can tell if a person is lying by their pulse and body heat from their fingers. You can have your friends and family put their fingers on the scanner and start asking away. When they release their fingers from the scanner you will hear the systems voice give the results. Unlike most lie detectors the person does not have to answer basic yes or no questions.
Want to know how old you are? Calculate your age in: Years, months, days, hours, minutes, or even seconds. It has Facebook, Twitter and Email sharing option so you can share these details easily.
This could be your one of the best fun app in this list. You choose one out of 6 cards, The magician inside the app will read your mind through your iPhone, and the program removes your card from the stack.
This app makes hilarious pics of your friends or yourself in unbelievable places. You can put them next to a charging bear, friendly sumo, steamy hottie or wherever you want.
Compass is a a measuring instrument which indicates the cardinal points under the sunlight.
Would you like to change your voice in strange and wonderful ways? Voice Changer Plus lets you do just that. Just pick a voice and make a recording. If you want to try a different voice, there’s no need to record again. Just pick a new voice.
6501 Crazy Facts have more than 6001+ of those facts, ranging from science to people, from weather to the human body, from animals to just weird tidbits. There are literally hundreds of random, fun, and bizarre facts packed into this application! Since there is no need for an internet connection, you will always have these facts at the your disposal.
