11 Useful Web Apps
Rocketboom Tech
Hi, I’m Elly, and I thought it would be interesting today to do a different kind of tech show, because I got a lot of emails with questions from you guys. So I wanted to show you the applications that I use everyday, at work. I’m in front of the computer over 8 hours so I’m a little bit of what you would call a power user and these are some of the lesser known applications.
For all of you Twitters, and I know there are a lot of you out there, there’s something called Twitdeck. I just found it a few months ago. It is fully customizable, you can see all of your replies, all of your direct messages in one spot. You can shorten URLs, it is tough to see some on the Twitter page, Twitdeck makes it so easy!
Because I watch a lot of different Twitter accounts, like the Rocketboom Tech account, or my own account, even KnowYourMeme, it’s kind of messy to sign in and out of different accounts, so there’s this website called cotweet. You sign in there, you add all of your Twitter accounts, you can other people like Jeannie or Ken Yata, and we can all go in and see what Tweets we have been sending. We can send them out to other people from one spot.
Because I’m very busy Tweeting, and instant messaging, and working of course, I have lots of applications open on my desktop and I’m also listening to music usually. With that there is something called Sizzling Keys. It is a free download and you just use simple key strokes to change the song, the artist, the album, the volume. I also made my little dialog box that pops up when I change the song a nice light purple.
Because I’m between work and home all the time and I use this computer for some personal stuff and then I use my personal laptop for work stuff, I need an easy way to sync up files or transfer them back and forth. So Dropbox is something that I use. It’s an application that has a shared folder. So I can take an entire movie that I might need to edit and I’ll put it in the Dropbox and I can pick it up at home or vice versa.
There’s also a service called drop.io which is a web-based application that also works in a similar way but Dropbox seems to work a little faster. It depends on what you need. Working with video a lot, I come across certain videos that I know the next time I go back to that site, they’re not going to be there. So I use something called Download Helper. It sits in the Bookmarklet section of my browser, and I just click a button and it pulls that video and puts it into my desktop so I can have it for future use.
And to capture all the sets for the show I am using something called Snapz Pro, which you can also use to capture videos or still images, screen shots, or whatever you want and we’ve been using it at Rocketboom for years. It cost a little bit of money but it is definitely worth it, and I suggest you try this if you want to do your own podcast or some kind of show.
Another great tool that’s browser based is called Aviary. Aviary is something similar to Photoshop but it is much less expensive, actually I think you can get beta versions of it for free. One thing I like using it for is blogging. I use a Bookmarklet that I have in my browser, and I just download the page and it sends it directly over to Aviary and then I can edit it immediately and then just upload it to my website. You can do a lot of fun squiggles quickly, Perez Hilton style.
Most computers have firewalls and they are really difficult to configure, so that’s were Little Snitch comes in. You can monitor everything that is getting pinged to the outside world, you can either allow it or disallow it. So I’m sure you can come up with some kind of good use for that application. I will let you figure that one out on your own.
So with all these applications that I mentioned, and I have many more in my applications folder, how do you remember them all, how do you open them quickly? What I use is something called Quicksilver. Basically, you just use a quick key stroke and it will find the application for you, or files or folders, and you can manipulate those. It’s just a real easy tool, it’s intuitive, you don’t think. I think they say you act without thinking. Thanks for watching and I always love getting suggestions, or tips or questions. You can email me at rbtech@rocketboom.com and then also I’d also like to you to some of favorite lesser known applications like I’ve talked about today in the comment section so that way we can share the wealth, spread the knowledge, thanks, bye!
Source video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKjl6TsJRIE&feature=fvhl
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A Critical Review of the Movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This Eric Moro (Editor-in-Chief, IGN Movies) and Jim Vejvoda (Senior Editor, IGN Movies), and we are here to review the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film that does exactly that. It is the origins of Wolverine pre-joining the X-Men through the Weapon X program and his ademantium claws. We both were highly anticipating this film and we are both equally disappointed.
It is lackluster, uninspired action, some bad action direction and it just shoe horns so many characters. It is a big, missed opportunity. It is better than X-Men Last Stand.
We have some big names in this film. Hugh Jackman is back as Wolverine, good as always but he relies too much, on what we know about him from past films. He has not completely developed as a character on a story script level.
We have Lib Schreiber as Saber Tooth who is fine, but the character is one note, he is a snarling beast. If he had a moustache, he would twirl it. Danny Houston is fine as the character of Stryker the character Brian Cox played in X-Men II. But then again it is Jackman’s show and he carries it fine and he is really the only reason why it is a watchable piece of entertainment.
I agree with you, Schreiber’s performance was the one that bummed me out the most. As Victor Creed/Sabertooth, I understand they really wanted to play up the full animalistic side as he is represented in the comics. However, whenever he would fight he would get down onto all fours and do this wolf like thing that was just so poorly executed in my mind.
Bad action direction in the movie. There is over abundance of wirework stuff, which I thought had gone out of style a long time ago, except for the last scene, the climactic battle scene. It looks like they put all their budget into that one and it paid off, it was a good scene.
Not only on the budget and effort, but it made me wonder, because I agree it was the best choreographed fight scene. But somebody else directed that!
It does make me wonder, but I guess we will never know. So let us talk about…
You touched on all these mutant characters and it is almost as if the filmmakers went through the comics and said what are the popular characters we can pigeonhole, shoehorn in this movie?
Yes, there is a lot of arbitrary inclusions that make me wonder, was it just about action figures and spin offs? Deadpool is in there and Ryan Reynolds plays him. He is fine but when it comes to the end when he is transformed. Any actor could have played him because he is covered up in make up, Gambit is in there, the Blob is in there, but then again they are all kind of shoe horned in.
And it messed with the chronology. As a comic book geek for me, I loved seeing Gambit in the film. He had a little bit bigger role than I thought he would be, so I can potentially see him in a spin off film.
But this is set like in the early 1980s, he is like in his 20s, if we bring him up to modern day he is going to be Tommy Lee Jones.
Pretty much, so I did not appreciate that. Why don’t we wrap this up? Give us your star ratings and some final thoughts. Overall, I am going to give it two and a half five stars, it is not the train wreck I was expecting. It is middle-of-the-road action movie. It is passable entertainment, but I want it more than passable entertainment. I want it to be damn good movie and I did not get it.
Source video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4SslslEXrw&feature=related
