DemoGirl

FaceRoller not only wants you to tell everyone, “what are you doing” but also to show them what you’re doing.  That’s right, it’s like Twitter, but better, but not really.  Let me explain:  With FaceRoller, you simply snap a photo with your webcam, add an update (what are you doing) and your photo will automatically be geotagged with your location as well.  Now everyone will know where you were when you were doing it.  You can also snap photos with your cell phone, upload photos from your computer, and email them with your own FaceRoller email address.  There is also Facebook and Flickr integration so every time you post an update, your photos will be added to a FaceRoller photo album on both sites, if you allow permission to do so.  You can add people as friends, follow their “Rolls”, and subscribe to the RSS Feed so you’ll always be updated.

Now for the problems I had with FaceRoller.  There’s no privacy.  Every time you post a snapshot, it goes right to the public page and there’s no opportunity to delete it or mark it for only certain people to see.  When you reply to a snapshot, it goes right to the top of the public page and doesn’t say who you are replying to or what you are replying about.  There’s also very little explanation of what you’re supposed to do with FaceRoller — kind of like how no one knew quite what to do with Twitter last year.  With that said, I do like the idea of FaceRoller and would love to know what you think of it as well.  Here’s my screencast tour of FaceRoller:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m58s

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[via Webware]

First, I’d like to say that the only reason I found out that chat had been enabled in my Facebook account is because I was taking a break from work and remembered it was my move in Scrabulous. Yes, I was goofing off but only good came out of my slacker tendencies and I have still yet to make my move. I digress…Now I don’t know if chat is available for everyone yet or just those with very few friends (like me) but I have it so I thought it would be best if I showed it to you. It’s simple, straightforward, and none of my deadbeat friends were online at the time so I have still not actually chatted with anyone. Hopefully you still want to see what it looks like. Here’s my screencast tour of Facebook chat:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 1m57s

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Stylish is a Firefox Extension that allows you to easily edit the way a website looks.  After you install it you can browse through styles that have already been created for popular sites like Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia.  Once you find a style that you like you just need to load it into Stylish and when you go to that page, you’ll see the changes.  If you’re familiar with CSS then you can also create your own style to be loaded into Stylish.  You can also edit existing styles with the advanced options.  Here’s my screencast tour of Stylish:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m42s

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I want you to take a moment and check out what your current screensaver is.  Now, I want you to understand that it’s nowhere near as cool as DropClock.  Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit but seriously, it’s pretty neat.  With DropClock, every minute of real time is displayed as a number dropping into water in “super slow-motion”.  Here’s a screencast so you can see for yourself:

[via GeekSugar]

About a week ago I noticed that my WordPress.com dashboard looked different. At first I thought it was a mistake because I hadn’t heard about any updates. Boy was I wrong. Where was I when they were making the decision to redesign the dashboard? Who cares, I love it and I want you to love it too and understand all of the features. The best part is that I don’t even need to make a screencast because Matt Mullenweg already made one! So, I’m a little late in the game on this one, but I thought since I use WordPress.com I should probably share a screencast involving WordPress.com.

(Updated) Twitter started off like a confusing but fun way to keep up with what your friends or favorite bloggers were doing. Slowly more and more people started using Twitter and with that, many applications were built to accompany it. I call them courtiers. Here’s some that I like:

Twits Like Me helps you find other Twits who may share the same interests as you based on your updates. You can choose to exclude Twitter followers already included in your friends list if you don’t want to be matched up with someone you already know. I didn’t select this when trying out Twits Like Me and not one of my Twitter friends was on the list. I guess opposites attract.

Twubble wants to help you find more people to follow and it bases friend recommendations on your current set of friends. You’ll see Twubble slowing trolling through your friends friends and then it will come up with a list of people you should be friends with based on various connections between your friends. I tried it out and Twubble actually suggested a lot of people that I should probably be following. It’s just so hard to make the first move sometimes, ya know?

TweetCloud allows you to make a fun tag cloud of all of the words you use in your Twitter updates. It’s interesting because you’ll see what words you are, perhaps, overusing. For example, I frequently use the words “thanks”, “think”, and “need”. Strangely enough, the word “totally” wasn’t there and that’s one word I know I use way too much when speaking. Good to know that I’m not polluting my Twitter followers with my “valley girl” speak. (According to some members of the Digg community, I am like totally a valley girl, OMG!)

GroupTweet allows you to create and inner circle of friends to send and receive private Twitter messages. You need to create a new Twitter account for your group and activate the appropriate privacy settings to keep your updates protected. Then just register your group Twitter account at GroupTweet.com and tell the people you want included to follow your group. If you want to send a message to all group members just send the group name a direct message. Pretty handy for co-workers or family members.

TweetStats gives you statistics of your tweet activity in the form of graphs. You can see how many times you tweet per month, average tweets by day, and average hourly number of tweets. You’ll also see how many times you reply to other Twits and your most used interface. To view your TweetStats, you just need to enter in your user name so you can also check out stats of anyone else you’re following.

Tweet Scan lets you do real-time searches for Twitter posts.  So, if you forget a link or tweet that you thought was interesting, you can simply do a search.  You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for your search term and have results emailed to you.  You know what?  I did a search for DemoGirl (I know, I know) and I found some people I haven’t even heard of talking about me!  I am soooo popular. (Thanks, Amit!)

More noteworthy Twitter courtiers:

Post Like A Pirate – Converts your updates into priate talk. Who doesn’t like a little pirate talk?

TwitterMail – Get your very own TwitterMail email address and whenever you send email to that address it will be posted to Twitter. Your Twitter replies will be sent back to you via email.

TwitterLocal – See who’s tweeting around you. Check out the screencast here.

TwitTown – The unofficial Twitter community where you can find even more Twitter Courtiers!

The Adobe Media Player is an Adobe Air application that allows you to stream and download video from mainstream and online networks. Some of the videos are available to view offline so you can add them to your favorites and view them any time. You can also subscribe to other video on the web by entering in the feed URL. If you have your own videos you want to watch in the player, you can upload those too. Some of the networks included are CBS, Wired, blip.tv, Food Network, HGTV, PBS, and Adobe TV, to name a few. The content isn’t overwhelming, but it sure is a sweet looking application. Here’s my screencast tour of Adobe Media Player:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m40s

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Twiddla is a tool that allows you to mark up Web pages, images, or start fresh on a blank canvas. They provide you with the basic tools you’ll need like shapes, clip art, and a drawing tool but you can also upload your own media. You can visit Web pages from within Twiddla and mark those up too. There’s a chat feature so you can collaborate at the same time. Twiddla sessions can be left open to the public so anyone can join in or you can make them password protected and invite specific people. There’s a bookmarklet so you can mark up a Web page on the fly and you can add Twiddla buttons to your site so your visitors can have some fun too. It’s really easy to get started and you can try it out first in the sandbox. Here’s my screencast tour of Twiddla:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m39s

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There are many to-do list applications out there but some of them have so many features that just setting up a simple list takes too much time.  For those of you who just want to type out a list and go on with your day, these two applications may be just what you’re looking for:

Todopub allows you to make simple lists that you can view online or on your mobile phone.  Set up is as easy as typing in a task and then deciding if you want to send it to an email address or to a phone.  You can also view your tasks in your Todopub account.

Doomi wants to stay out of your way by living on your desktop.  It runs on Adobe Air and allows you to type in a task and then set a timer for an alert.  When it’s time for you to complete your task a little window will pop-up and let you know your time is up.  When you’ve completed a task, just check it off and it will disappear into the completed task area which you can clean out at will.

Both of these to-do list applications are featured in my Friday Quickcast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m35s

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If you use public transportation on a daily basis or if you’re traveling somewhere in the future where public transit will be how you get around, you should definitely check out HopStop. Before you get all excited and start planning your trips, let me point out that it’s only available in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., and San Francisco (YES!). If you’re not in one of those areas, I apologize but for everyone else, please read on: HopStop allows you to get detailed itineraries using buses, subways, or your own two feet. The best part about HopStop is that you can have the directions sent to your mobile phone so you can view them as you’re traveling. If you create an account you can save frequently used addresses, view previous trips, and have access to HopStop mobile whenever you’re out and need to find out which bus or subway to take to get to your next destination.

I know that Google Transit is out there and it actually covers a lot more than HopStop. It doesn’t, however, cover a lot of major cities that HopStop does cover – including my beloved San Francisco. Since I’m selling my car right now and will be using public transportation a lot in the near future, HopStop is going to be a lifesaver for me. The fact that I can have my itinerary sent to my mobile phone is another huge plus. Here’s my screencast tour of HopStop:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m51s

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