DemoGirl

Hopefully by now you’ve heard about the great online photo editing tool, Picnik.  If not, go check it out now.  Well, they’ve added a couple of new tools to make you look just right in your photos.  Zombify and Bloodstains.  Yes!  You can turn yourself into a zombie complete with a bloodstained mouth.  Since it’s Halloween and all, I thought I’d show you what I would look like if I was a zombie.  Here’s my screencast tour of Picnik’s Zombify effects:

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Thanks Brains!

GetItNext wants to help you find the actual items your looking for when shopping on eBay.  Usually when you search for something on eBay, such as an iPod, you’re bombarded with items like iPod accessories or other useless items that just get in the way.  When you do a search for an iPod on GetItNext, you’ll only get actual iPods in your results.  You can add keywords if you’re looking for something more specific, like a red iPod.  You can also remove keywords if you don’t want, for example,  iPod Shuffles included in your results.  There’s a “find a deal” tab which will only show you items without any bids and less than 4 hours left of auction time.  There’s nothing to sign up for in order to use GetItNext and all of your purchases are still done on eBay so you don’t need to worry about sharing any personal information with GetItNext.  Here’s my screencast tour of GetItNext:

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If you’ve ever wanted to create your own website, but feel it’s too difficult a task, Jimdo may be just what you’re looking for.  Jimdo gives you the tools to create a custom website, and it’s as easy as clicking anywhere on your page and adding text.  That’s not all though.  You can add YouTube videos, a photo gallery, forms, files, etc.  They have numerous layouts and templates to choose from but you can customize your own.  The entire time you’re creating your site, you’ll see it as your visitors will see it, and it’s updated automatically.  The free account allows you to add as many pages as you want, gives you basic statistics, 500 MB of storage, and total customization of your site.  The pro account, for six dollars a month, lets you use your own domain, removes ads, gives you 5 GB of storage, and provides you with an email account.  Here’s my screencast tour of Jimdo:

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YourStreet gives you a way to see exactly what’s going on in your neighborhood – “down to the street level”.  After you choose your location, you’re presented with an interactive map that displays news stories, conversations, and people.  You can see news that happened down the street from you, participate in conversations with people who live nearby, and read profiles of people around you.  Members can add their own news stories and place them exactly where they happened.  Someone even started a conversation simply titled, “Looking for love”.  (Too bad the first person to comment suggested that they hang out at Jamba Juice.)

I made a screencast for YourStreet back in April, when they were more of a real estate guide for neighborhoods.  Obviously the site has changed dramatically since then, and now the name “YourStreet” actually holds a bit more meaning.  Here’s my screencast tour of YourStreet:

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Going to a job interview can be a scary thing.  I can also say, as someone that used to have to give job interviews, asking the questions can be nerve racking as well.  Well, InterviewUp wants to help out both parties involved in the interviewing process.  Potential employees can find and ask questions that are commonly asked during a job interview.  Employers can find questions to ask those potential employees.  Questions that have been answered can be saved and printed out so family and friends can help you rehearse.  Unanswered questions can be saved as well, and when they’re answered you’ll be notified via email.   All of the answers can be commented on and edited so if you think the advice is bogus, go ahead and change it.  Here’s my screencast tour of InterviewUp:

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Jango is a “Social Internet Radio” service that allows you to create custom radio stations filled with only the music you want to hear. You begin by choosing an artist that you like. That will create your station. From there, Jango will recommend related artists to you and you can add them to your player. You can block any songs that you don’t want to hear and rate songs so Jango will know what you want to hear more of. Whenever you’re playing music, Jango will show you other members that are playing similar music and you can instantly start listening to their stations and add them as friends. There are musician profiles and you can easily bookmark people, songs, and artists so you can find them again easily. I have to say, I’ve tried out a lot of Internet radio services and Jango really only recommended and played music that I liked. I’ve been using it all day and rarely had the desire to skip to another song. The only big feature I’d like to see is a way to pop out the player so I don’t have to stay on the Jango site in order to use it. It’s in private beta right now so hopefully that’s on the way.  Update:  The folks at Jango are hooking DemoGirl readers up with access to the private beta.  Follow this link to create your first station!  Here’s my screencast tour of Jango:

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Whrrl is a new online community where you can find and share fun and interesting things to do in your neighborhood.  You can invite your friends or connect with new people in the Whrrl community.  Every location that has been touched on the Whrrl map will have a marker showing you how it ranks.  For example, a green plus sign means the place has received mostly positive reviews but a grey dot means that it has not yet been touched, meaning there’s no activity affiliated with it yet.  You can create meetups at different places and even “check in” to a location to show your friends where you are at any time.   Whrrl is both mobile and Web based so you can use it at any time.  Actually, it took me some time to figure out exactly what to do with Whrrl, which is why I decided it needed a screencast.  Here’s my screencast tour of Whrrl:

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Late last night I came across this article talking about a new site for live music lovers. Well, I’m glad that I decided to come back to it this morning because I would have been up all night trying it out. It’s called Songkick and it rocks. In a nutshell, Songkick is a place to search for and discover live music in your area. Not just any old live music though. Music that you love, and more importantly, music that you listen to on a daily basis. The key is Songkicker – a plug-in that tracks everything you listen to on iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player. Whenever an artist you’re listening to is on tour, you’ll know. You can manage all of the artists that Songkicker is tracking, so if there’s someone you don’t want to see live, simply remove them. Songkick also lists all of the vendors selling tickets so you can compare prices. Here’s my screencast tour of Songkick:

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(source: TechCrunch)

Picnik, a really cool photo editing and enhancement tool, now has a Facebook Application that allows you to edit your photos right from Facebook.  That’s not all though.  You can also edit your friends photos.  Just select one of your friends and then choose any of their photos that you want to edit.  You can add effects, text, frames – all from your Facebook account.  When you’re through trashing editing your buddies photos, you can add it to one of your photo albums, email it, save it to flickr, etc.  Here’s my screencast tour of the Picnik Facebook Application:

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Have you ever dreamed of being on an MTV dating show?  Yeah, me neither.  But just in case you secretly do, you may want to check out MTV’s new flirting site, NextOrNot.  If you’ve ever seen the show Next, you should have no problem learning how to use the site.  Basically, you click through members profiles until you find someone hot.  The more time you spend viewing someones profile, the more points they rack up.  If you really like someone you can select the “I Like” button and the max amount of viewing  time, 5 minutes, will be added to their score.  Members can browse through profiles of everyone, girls, guys, people that have Nexted them, people they like, etc.  At the end of 24 hours, the 2 members that have racked up the most amount of viewing time will win the game.  The prize for the two hotties is a spot on every MTV dating show that airs the next day.  Here’s my screencast tour of NextOrNot:

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