Demo Girl

Brightkite allows you to share where you are, at any given moment, through the Web or SMS.  Like Twitter, you can also post a note sharing what you’re currently doing.  Unlike Twitter, your friends will be able to see where you are when you’re doing these very important things.  Besides just posting your location and notes, you can also post photos, see other Brightkite users around you, and you can update to Twitter at the same time.  All of this can be done from the Web or from your mobile phone.  You can customize your privacy settings so you’ll only receive posts and “check ins” (where you are) from your friends or, more importantly, trusted friends.  Trusted friends is a feature I think Twitter should add because it allows you to let certain people see certain information.  For example, if I wanted to only let my close friends know where I was going to get drinks after work without having to send them all a direct message.  All around, I’m really loving Brightkite.

I will say that while Brightkite is nice to look at, it’s a little cluttered for my taste right now.  There is a lot going on and it’s going on all over the place.  Also, giving people a way to “check in” to a location right from the main page would be nice. As it is, you need to either go to your saved locations and select check in or search for a location and then check in.  Since a main focus of the site is checking in, I think that button should be more prominent.  Giving people a way to check out of a location would be nice as well (what if they leave a bar and don’t want to check in when they get to the next one?).  It is in private beta so I’m more than willing to see where Brightkite goes.  Here’s my screencast tour of Brightkite:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 5m8s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

Update Scanner is a Firefox Extension that will alert you whenever a Website has been updated.  It installs an arrow icon in the lower right hand corner of your browser window.  When a site you’ve added to Update Scanner has changes, it will turn purple and you’ll see a small toaster notification.  You can add a site to be alerted about with a right mouse click or you can add sites manually.  You decide how often you want Update Scanner to check for updates – anywhere from every five minutes (not recommended) to once a day.

Now I know that most Websites have an RSS Feed, but that’s really not all Update Scanner can be used for.  If there’s an interesting comment thread you want to keep your eye on but don’t really want to subscribe to it in your Feed Reader, you could have Update Scanner notify you every hour with changes.  You could do the same for threads in a forum.  If you have a friend (or Mother) who doesn’t really understand the whole RSS thing, you could install Update Scanner for them and add the few sites they may frequent.  Then just show them how they’ll know when there’s new content “because the cute little arrow will turn purple, Mom!”.  Here’s my screencast tour of Update Scanner:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m48s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via MakeUseOf]

Chilirec is a service that records music from various Internet radio stations and allows you to create playlists to listen to from the Chilirec player. When you first get started, you need to select what Internet stations you want Chilirec to record from – there are currently 351 available. Chilirec will then begin to add music to your account from these stations. Music is added quickly and you can begin listening by dragging and dropping songs onto the Chilirec player. You can also do a search for music by artist, song, or genre. You can create playlists and download songs as MP3 files.

It would be nice if the Internet radio stations could be broken down by genre because browsing through 351 stations is a bit tedious. Other than that, I can’t really complain. I’ve been using Chilirec for about 2 hours and it’s already recorded almost 8,000 songs that I can listen to whenever I want. Here’s my screencast tour of Chilirec:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m31s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via GO2WEB20]

Last weekend I went to a great dinner with a bunch of fancy pants.  When the bill came (I didn’t realize we’d ordered the platinum cheese plate) some credit cards were thrown down for credit card roulette.  What this means is that the owner of the card that the server picks out of the pile, has to pay the entire bill.  I did not throw my credit card in because, frankly, I didn’t even have enough money in my account to cover the bill.  Out of 12 people, only 5 put in their cards.  What I later learned, is that if you didn’t put your card in, you need to give the loser your share of the bill.  Seems reasonable, right?  Wrong.  I still owe the poor guy 40 bucks and I don’t know if he ever got money from the rest of the people who didn’t put their card in.  Enter Buxfer:

Buxfer helps you track your money and keep track of who owes you what.  You can sync it with your credit card and bank accounts so you can see exactly where your money is being spent.  It allows you to send and receive payments using Amazon Payments so your friends can’t use the excuse that “they don’t have the cash on them right now”.  The most useful part of Buxfer is that you can do all this from the Web, SMS, Twitter, and your iPhone.

So, to my friend who got screwed at dinner last weekend, these screencasts of how to use Buxfer on the Web and with the iPhone, are for you:

Buxfer for the iPhone

Buxfer on the Web

If you’ve jumped on the FriendFeed/Twitter wagon but you’re not all that impressed with Alert Thingy or Twhirl, then you may want to have a look at MySocial 24×7.  It’s a Firefox Extension that allows you to connect with your FriendFeed account in your sidebar.  You can view what your friends are posting all around the Web, share links, add comments, and even reply to Twitter from MySocial 24×7.  It’s really a handy way to quickly see what you’re friends have been up to, especially if you don’t want to download applications like Alert Thingy or Twhirl.  Here’s my screencast tour of MySocial 24×7:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m21s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Walabok allows you to receive video or audio messages from your blog readers or email recipients.  All you really need to do is add a Walabok button to your website or insert it into your email signature.  There is no sign up either – just enter in your email address and Walabok will send you the code to copy and paste into your site or email.  When your blog visitors or email recipients click on the button they’ll be able to quickly send you a video or audio message.  You’ll be notified of Walabok messages through the email you initially provided and all of your videos are stored in a Walabok account.  You can play them over and even reply with a video or audio message.

When I initially went to Walabok.com I was disappointed because there’s not much there to look at.  I decided to enter my email address into the little box to see what would happen and I was pleasantly surprised.  It’s an easy way for almost anyone to leave you a video message, with little or no effort.  Here’s my screencast tour of Walabok:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m37s

Want this screencast on your site?  Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via eHub]

CamTwist is an application that allows you to add special effects to webcam video.  It works with services such as Stickam.com, Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, and Skype and adds effects like bubbles, flames, earthquake, and bullet holes (sweet!).  It requires OS X 10.4 and is completely free to use.

I don’t own a Mac, but thankfully I found a screencast put together by David over at Tech-Recipes.  There’s a YouTube video below and a higher resolution video here.  If you know of any Windows compatible software that compares to CamTwist, please share in the comments.

[via Tech-Recipes]

Taboo is a Firefox Extension that allows you to easily save a tab you want to return to later. Taboo not only saves the tab but it also saves it exactly as you were viewing it. For example, if you were in the middle of reading a long blog post and needed to close the tab, you could save it with Taboo and then be able to return to the exact spot where you left off. It also saves any form fields you may have been filling in. All of your saved tabs are displayed as screenshots and you can view them in a grid format or on a calendar, so you can see what you saved on a particular day. Here’s my screencast tour of Taboo:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m21s

Want this screencast on your site? Click here to get the code for this and other DemoGirl screencasts!

[via Lifehacker]

While talking to my Mom the other day, the subject of text messaging came up. She said that she doesn’t understand why anyone would send a text message over making an actual call. I tried to explain to her that sometimes you just don’t want to talk to the person – you just want to relay a quick piece of information without getting caught up in all the chit chat that comes along with making a phone call. She said, “Oh, Ok” but I know she still thinks it’s a dumb idea. I completely disagree. The thing is, that sending a text message is still sort of an interruption and you usually feel some sort of response is necessary. Even if you just text back, “Ok, thanks”, you still have to involve yourself in the conversation somehow. This is why SlyDial is so sneakily cool.

SlyDial allows you to call a person and leave them a voice mail, without their knowledge. All you need to do is call the SlyDial number and when prompted, enter in your friends number. You’ll hear a quick advertisement and then you’ll be connected to your friends voice mail, all without their phone ever ringing. I tried it out a few minutes ago on my friend who lives in Hawaii and it appears to have worked. You could use SlyDial to call in sick to work and not worry about talking to your boss, to cancel plans with a friend you don’t really like, or to leave a birthday message for a relative you hate conversing with. The possibilities are endless. SlyDial is in private beta right now but you can sign up here to try to get early access.

[via Webware]

Recently, I’ve started listening to NPR on my laptop when I go to sleep at night and when I wake up in the morning.  I’ve always needed some sort of background noise in order to sleep and having the TV on is just too distracting.  NPR is great, but I think Stitcher is going to be my new morning online radio.

Stitcher allows you to listen to stories from popular blogs and Websites such as TechCruch, VentureBeat, The Onion Radio, The Weather Channel, and much more.  When you first log into Stitcher, you’ll see stations that you can choose from (ie: sports, comedy, Silicon Valley Professional) and within those stations are various streams of audio from specific sites.  You can create a favorites list of all your favorite content so all you need to do is press play.  Over time, Stitcher will learn what you like and suggest stations to you.  Of course, the best part of Stitcher for most of you out there is that you can listen to it on your iPhone which could make your morning commute a little more enjoyable.  Stitcher is currently in private beta but if I get my hands on any invites, I’ll pass them on.

[via Mashable]