Demo Girl

If you’ve been toying with the notion of starting your own blog but are afraid that it’s too hard to set up and post new content, then posterous is probably just what you’ve been looking for.  Posterous allows you to not only create your very first blog post just like you would send out an email, but keeps it that simple every time you want to share something new.  To get started, just send an email to post@posterous.com.  Type your post title in the subject line and add your post text in the body of the email.  You can attach photos, MP3 files, and documents.  Then hit “send” and you should immediately receive an email from posterous with a link to your new site where your email has magically turned into your very first blog post!

You can continue on creating blog posts by emailing post@posterous.com but to really have control over your new site, you’ll want to click the link in your email that says, “Click here to set a password for this site”.  From there, you’ll be able to create your own URL and add a password so you can edit posts and customize your site a bit more.  You can create a short profile and change the name of your site and include a tagline.  You can also subscribe to other posterous sites which have been recommended to you.  If you included an MP3 in your emailed post, posterous will automatically embed a player on your site.  Posterous also recognizes links from YouTube, Google Video, Justin.tv, Vimeo, and Omnisio and will automatically embed the video on your site if you included a link in your post.  People can also comment on your posts, which you’ll receive email notification of, and you can reply to comments directly from your email.

Sure, posterous sounds a lot like previously reviewed Tumblr, but it’s a lot less complicated so it has a good chance of getting the attention of users that didn’t jump on the Tumblr bandwagon last year.  Here’s my screencast tour of posterous:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m10s

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

[via TechCrunch]

Here are three sites that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, other than the fact that they all require you to type in some text in order to use them.  Happy Friday…

Soungle is a search engine for sound effects.  It’s pretty straightforward – Enter in the sound you want to hear, like a cat yell, and, if available, Soungle will give you a page of sound effects that you can download for free.  I’ve actually been looking for something like this for a while, so expect to hear some of Soungle’s effects in my screencasts in the future.  [via MakeUseOf]

Wordle allows you to make stunning word clouds out of any text you enter into the site or out of a del.icio.us users tags.  You can customize the font, layout, and colors and save it to the Wordle gallery.  Another idea I had was that you could make a word cloud out of a poem, print out the word cloud, and write the poem on the inside like a card.  Cheesy?  Probably.  I turned my word cloud into my desktop background and it looks pretty neat, if I do say so myself.  [via Lifehacker]

Tinypaste gives anyone a simple way to get around Twitter’s 140 character rule by shortening your text.  So, instead of creating a tinyURL to link to your blog post, I suppose you could write out a blog post on tinypaste and create a link that way.  Tinypaste doesn’t specify that its sole purpose is for Twitter so you can use it for anything you like.  The most useful part of tinypaste is the Firefox Extension that allows you to create a link to any text you select on a web page. [via Download Squad]

To see all of these awesome “word related” applications in action, watch the screencast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m46s

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

Jogli calls itself “the search engine for music” and I think that’s a bit of an understatement.  Jogli gives you access to over a half a billion songs and 12 million albums which you can play for free and create playlists to listen to later.  So yeah, it searches, but it also allows you to build a huge music library that you can access anytime you’re online.

When you initially search for an artist, like Radiohead, you’ll see all of the available albums which you can simply click on to start playing from start to finish, or you can select certain songs to create a playlist that you can customize.  You can add albums to your music library so you don’t need to search for them later.  From what I could tell, Jogli grabs the music from YouTube, so not all of your results are going to be perfect.  What’s great though, is that if you get a version of a song that’s not what you wanted, you can choose to “get alternatives for this song” and then select a better version.  On the homepage, you’ll see other users that you can click through to see some of their playlists, but as of now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to add people as friends so you can easily see what they’re listening to.  I’m assuming that feature is on the way.  Here’s my screencast tour of Jogli:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 1m32s

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

[via TechCrunch]

What is one to do when one is forgetful?  Well,  you could set up reminders on one service for birthdays, another for wake-up calls, and another to help you remember all of the other little things you think of throughout the day.  You could also create alerts for everything you need to keep up on in one place, Alerts.com.  Yes, as the name suggests, Alerts gives you one place to set up alerts for birthdays, gas prices, low airfare, hotel rates, weather, press releases, RSS feeds – you see where I’m going with this?  After you create your account, you simply select the various items you want to set alerts for.  You can enable your email and SMS and choose how you want to be alerted for each item and select specific days and times for each alert as well.  One feature I think is great, is that you can turn on “do not disturb”, and with one click, all of your alerts will be disabled until you choose to turn them back on.  You can also set specific time frames to shut off your alerts.  As of now, there are 15 different services you can choose to be alerted on and more are in the works.  If there isn’t one listed that you need, you can create a custom alert.  All in all, it’s a great place to get yourself on track with everything you need to remember but there’s one huge feature missing – a way to set alerts from your mobile device.  Here’s my screencast tour of Alerts.com:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m31s

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

[via Mashable]

If you were one of the more than 8 million people to download Firefox 3 in 24 hours, then you deserve a little something, don’t ya think?  Thankfully, the people at Mozilla haven’t forgot about us little people who, even though may be a little perturbed that all of her bookmarks were lost, made this happen and are rewarding you with this amazing certificate.  That’s right, just go here and enter in your name and you’ll have proof that you helped Firefox set a Guinness World Record.  Actually, anyone can make a certificate, whether you downloaded Firefox 3 or not.

Yesterday, in my world, everyone seemed to be talking about Firefox 3 and whether or not they had downloaded it, how great it was, and the problems they were having.  But after I left my make-shift office to meet some friends to watch the AMAZING Celtics/Lakers game, I realized that not everyone was as pumped up about Firefox 3 as I was.  As we huddled around the table, one person said, “so, did everyone download Firefox 3 today?!” and the other 6 people sort of looked at each other and one even said, “oops!  I forgot”.  I then briefly mentioned how 90% of my bookmarks were lost and how one of my most needed features, that allows you to quit Firefox but save all of your tabs, didn’t even work.  So, even though Firefox seems to have broken a world record for most downloads in 24 hours, it doesn’t seem to be a priority for everyone, and I’m probably going to switch back to the previous version later today (thanks Paul!).  With that said, I still decided to create a screencast showing off some of the features you’ll see after you download it.

Let me start with the “awesome bar”, as Mozilla likes to call it.  The awesome bar is what is also known as the address bar in your browser, or what my Mom likes to call, the place where you type in “Google”.  It’s supposed to predict what you’re looking for by suggesting websites you frequent and bookmarked sites that you’ve tagged, right when you start typing.  So, if I simply type a “g”, Google would appear first, since that’s the site I frequent most that starts with the letter “g”.  At first I was really annoyed with the awesome bar because there’s no way to disable it and when I create screencasts, I don’t need a list of websites appearing when I’m typing in my address bar.  Thankfully, this morning I came accross a video showing how to turn it off!  I can see how it will be useful, but it’s not for me.  Firefox 3 has also made bookmarking and organizing sites easier and allows you to search for and install add-ons right from your “tools” add-ons menu.  There is increased security, quick zooming in and out, and a better way to manage your passwords.  If you’d like to see what else Firefox 3 has in store for you, watch the screencast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m18s

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

A couple of months ago, some friends and I were looking to have a nice dinner, some drinks, and good conversation, but we couldn’t find anything open.  The problem was that it was the middle of the week and it was after 10pm, and a lot of places in San Francisco aren’t open all that late during the week.  I don’t know why, but that seems to be the case.  Well, we ended up at a restaurant/wine bar that had nice ambiance, but the food left something to be desired.  We had no choice in the matter, though.  We just couldn’t find anything else that was open.  This brings me to GeoSpot – a service that allows you to do a deep search so you can not only search for where to eat, but where to eat NOW.

It’s a very basic concept, actually, and you can use it at home or on your mobile phone.  You enter in what you’re looking for (ie. pizza, cookies, martini), where you want to eat/drink it, and what time you want to do it (ie. now, 6am, after 10pm).  GeoSpot will give you a list of results that are only able to service you at the time you’re requesting.  You can even search for related results, view business information, and get directions.  Now, this may seem like a novelty if you’re at home and you have the time to search for a specific restaurant and see what time they serve until.  But, if you’re out and about and need a giant burrito to soak up the 15 tequila shots you just did, then GeoSpot on your mobile phone may save you a nasty hangover in the morning.  Just be warned that the GeoSpot blog says it’s really focused on the San Francisco Bay area for now.  I didn’t know that until just posting this. Here’s my screencast tour of GeoSpot:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m2s

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

[via CenterNetworks]

It’s finally here, folks!  Friday is upon us.  This is no ordinary Friday though, because if you’ve looked at the date on your calendar you’d see that it’s Friday the 13th!  Spooky, and for me, not so good because I got into a bit of a fender bender this morning while moving my car for street cleaning.  I’ll save my thoughts on street cleaning for another time, and get right into the three services I covered in today’s quickcast.  (The accident was not my fault, btw, this woman lost control of her car due to her annoying clogs that she was wearing instead of regular shoes. No offense to clog-wearers, just don’t drive in them )

Moboganda is event planning for you and your friends without the hassle of signing up for a service.  All you need to do is name your event, set the date and place, and you’re done.  Just send the URL of the event that you created to your guests and they can respond right on that page and subscribe to the RSS feed to see who else is coming.

FlickrSender is a Firefox Extension that allows you to right-click on any image and instantly send it to your Flickr account.  End of story.

Twitzer is another Firefox Extension that lets you cheat on  the Twitter 140 character limit by adding a URL to the rest of your lengthy story in your Tweet.  Your followers can just click on the link and it will open up a new tab to shortText.com.  Again, end of story.  To learn all about these cool services, watch the screencast below and have a great weekend!

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m7s

[via Lifehacker]

When I was in high school, and on and off there after, I would religiously take my car to the same mechanic, no matter what the cost.  I trusted him to no end because he seemed so honest.  I found him because he came across my Uncle on the side of the road, who had taken a nasty spill on his bike, and took him to the hospital.  Once I found out that he owned a repair shop right near my house, I knew that I would always have him work on my car.  I believed everything he told me and I never questioned the price, but I really have no idea if he was being honest or ripping off the ditsy blond who never remembered to change her oil.  Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t trust people, because that’s a quality in myself and in others that I admire, but I think you should give RepairPal a look before handing over the cash for your next car repair.

RepairPal gives you estimates on what you should be paying and it breaks it down by parts and labor.  You’ll see dealership and independent shop comparisons and even reasons why a certain problem may be affecting your car.  The information is based on your car type and location, but unfortunately there isn’t a lot of information for cars older than 1990 and the estimate range can be quite large.  One reason the estimates may be so far apart, in my opinion, is because dealerships generally charge a lot more because they use name brand parts, but I could be wrong.  RepairPal will also show you repair shops in your neighborhood and there’s an opportunity to read and write reviews. (I couldn’t find any reviews but RepairPal is brand new so I’ll give it time for that.)  You can also store all of the repairs and maintenance you have done on your car and leave notes for future reference.  If you’re into learning about your car then there’s an Auto Repair Encyclopedia which tells you all about the things that make your car go.  You can also print out your estimate and take it with you, although I don’t know how many mechanics are going to be happy about that.  Here’s my screencast tour of RepairPal:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m51s

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

[via Webware]

Retaggr allows you to create a virtual business card, that you can put almost anywhere on the web, and share all of your web activity, in one organized location. Your profile card contains any information you wish to share because it’s all customizable. You can add your social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, your microblogging services like Twitter and Tumblr, video sites, photo sharing sites – anything you can think of. The best part is that all you need to do is enter in your username for these sites and if you have a lot of them enabled in friendfeed, retaggr will automatically add them for you. Besides websites, you can also add any sort of widget to your profile card, all you need is the URL or HTML code. One thing I really like about retaggr is the way this information is presented. Every service you add is represented by an icon on your card and when someone clicks on it, they can view your information without leaving your card. If you add the email icon, people can email you right from your profile card. It’s all pretty much self-contained.

A couple of other features are useful to website and blog owners because it allows them to find out more about their visitors and allows visitors that are retaggr users to sort of participate in the site. If you retaggr enable your site, any time another retaggr user leaves a comment, a little information “i” will appear next to their name. When you or another visitor hovers over it, they’ll see the retaggr profile card. There’s also photo tagging available, so any time a retaggr visitor comes to your site and sees someone they know in a photo, they can draw a little box around them and add their name. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any sites with photos that were retaggr enabled, so I couldn’t test that feature out.  Here’s my screencast tour of retaggr:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 4m33s

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