Demo Girl

Mahalo is a new type of search engine that is completely controlled by actual humans. Instead of receiving a long list of results after doing a search, which typically contain numerous spamy links, you’re taken to a web page that contains links that have been hand picked by the Mahalo Guides. The top of the page contains the top 7 links to various sites which contain information the guides feel are relevant to your search. There’s a lot more here though, so I recommend watching my screencast.

Mahalo is Hawaiian for “thank you”, and as a former resident of Hawaii I can sincerely say Mahalo for the soothing design of the site and the lovely logo with the plumeria flower, one of my favorites. Mahalo is the start up of Jason Calacanis and you can find his result page here. Here’s my screencast tour of Mahalo:

Flash Demo 3m

If you live in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, or NYC, then you’re probably either really stoked or really weirded out about Google Maps new feature, Street View.  It lets you see your city just as you’d see it if you were strolling down the street.  But beware…just when you think you’re all alone in your car, your living room, whatever, you really may be having your photo taken and Street Views zoom feature works great.  Here’s my screencast tour of Google Maps Street View:

Flash Demo 2m23s

Note:  Google has their own video demo of Street View but I like doing things my own way .  You can watch it here.

Tshirt takeaway is a service that allows you to design your own t-shirt, choose the amount of commission you wish to receive from sales, and promote it on your website or blog with a nifty widget. It’s extremely easy to use and they do all the grunt work. Your readers can simply click on the widget, which contains an image of your design, and purchase the size shirt they desire. Tshirt takeaway creates the shirt, ships it to them, and sends you your cut of the commission via PayPal. Here’s my screencast tour of tshirt takeaway:

Flash Demo 3m30s

I know, I know, I’ve been so quiet this last week.  I’m so sorry for the lack of new screencasts. But, it just so happens that I do have somewhat of a life outside of DemoGirl and right now it’s moving me to California.  It’s just been crazy packing and getting everything in order.  In the mean time, I hope you’ll enjoy all of my previous screencasts, there are quite a few, and I’ll be back to work next week and will again spew out screencasts like there’s no tomorrow.  Have a great holiday weekend!

Interclue is a browser add-on that gives you a preview of the content that’s attached to a link you’re about to click on. You have total control of when you want to enable Interclue and you can really customize the amount of content that will appear when you hover over the “linkclue”.

I have my mixed emotions about link previews because I feel that I browse the web very quickly and I don’t know how much time I would spend examining links. But, what I did find cool was that I could browse a site like craigslist and quickly go through classified ads without having to click on anything. You get all the information that’s included in the post just by hovering over the link. The fact that you can easily turn Interclue off and on is also a big plus. Here’s my screencast tour of Interclue:

Flash Demo 2m50s

Tripbase is a travel site that gives you ideas on where to take your next vacation based on your interests. You decide how important nightlife, shopping, dining, nature, and tourist attractions are to you and Tripbase will spit out some ideas.

You can also do a more filtered search to include your budget, time of year you want to travel, and the weather you’d expect during your stay. Here’s my screencast tour of Tripbase:

Flash Demo 3m8s

Whether you travel internationally on a weekly basis or if you just took your first passport photo, vayama is a really useful site. It focuses only on international flights and allows you to search for one or many international destinations. Vayama also provides city and airport maps, transportation information, and information about the city itself. Here’s my screencast tour of vayama:

Flash Demo 3m33s

Explode is a service that brings like minded people together through social search. Users create profiles which can include the URL’s of social networking sites they belong to as well as their main blog or website. You can find people with the same interests as you by doing a search and you’re in control of who adds you as a friend. Anyone can comment on your “comment wall” but you can create collections, or categories of friends, and in order to comment, or “nudge”, people in your collection you must be mutual friends. Explode also has widgets that you can put on your website or blog to increase your sociability.

Another nice feature is that they allow you to log in with your OpenID or your user ID from AIM, WordPress, VOX, etc. Here’s my screencast tour of Explode:

Flash Demo 4m

Well, I don’t have a hundred invites but I do have three.  I would like to give the invites to DemoGirl readers so please let me know what your favorite or not so favorite screencast I’ve done is and why in the comments.   If you’re not sure what Spock is don’t worry, you can watch my Spock screencast here.

Phozi is a free service that lets you take photos from your computer, mobile phone, or webcam and quickly add fun backgrounds and stamps. You can then share your creations on your blog or favorite social networking site. It’s a bit like the site cameroid, a service I made a screencast for recently.

Phozi claims to be an online photobooth and it’s pretty close. The only thing missing is your three friends trying to sit on your lap attempting to fit four heads into a tiny little camera frame. Here’s my screencast tour of Phozi:

Flash Demo 2m43s