Demo Girl

We here at DemoGirl aren’t just into reviewing Web applications – we also create many custom screencasts for Web companies.  On top of that, we’ve been very busy creating tons of  tutorials for Butterscotch.com.  If you haven’t checked out Butterscotch, definitely take a look.  Besides a huge library of tutorials they also have shows like The A-List, hosted by Amber MacArthur, Lab Rats, hosted by Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers, Miss Download, hosted by Cheryl Poirier and much more.

Here are some of the Websites we reviewed here on DemoGirl (in screencast form of course!) in 2009:

I just read over my post from Dec. 31st 2008 and, if I had a tail it would be between my legs.  Seriously, I’m ashamed of myself.

I’m not so much ashamed that I didn’t actually accomplish everything (or anything??) on my list but I’m ashamed because I feel as if I didn’t even try very hard to change my habits of years past.  Stop drinking coffee?  Yeah, that lasted about 2 days.  Spend more time being “artistic”?  Nope, the canvas and paints are still packed away, possibly even further back in the hall closet.  Work on improving my writing?  If you’re still reading this then you’re probably shaking your head thinking, “why didn’t she at least work on her writing?”.

I guess I didn’t really put a lot of thought into the list I came up with last year.  I don’t even know why I wanted to stop drinking coffee – I drink one cup a day, I think I’ll live.

So this year  I decided to come up with things that I WILL ABSOLUTELY accomplish in 2010.  Things that, if are not accomplished, will have a very negative affect on my life.  If these things don’t happen then I may actually vanish…

1. Pay parking tickets in a timely manner.
2. Plan a wedding.
3. Marry this guy .
4. Build an office space.
5. Purchase an iPhone to build a wider range of possible clients. Demo iPhone applications.
6. Get an invite to Google Voice.
7. Quit my gym membership.  I haven’t been in 6 months.
8. New design for DemoGirl. (I know. We’ve been promising this for years but things come up!)
9. Unfollow noisy people on Twitter and not feel bad about it. (I’ve already started this one.)
10. Stop bringing my laptop to bed with me. (Should be easy once I get my iPhone )

There you have it.  10 things that I really have to do in the next year to ensure my survival, for both personal and work-related reasons.

Happy New Year!!  I hope to see you right back here in 2010!

Creating multiple profiles in your Netflix account isn’t new – but it’s something that I found myself setting up for my (soon to be permanent!) other half yesterday.  He was logged into my Netflix account checking to see what I had coming up in my queue, but then he started clicking on watch instant videos and I realized that he was  going to muddle up  my recommendations!

Then I remembered about creating profiles in your Netflix account.  I quickly set one up for him and told him to rate, review, and watch as much as he wants…logged into his profile.  Of course, then I realized it may be useful for you to see how easy it is to set up profiles for everyone in your family.  See how below (please excuse my hideous voice, I have an awful cold):

Google Chrome has a lot of Extensions worth checking out, but these are three that I find myself using throughout the day.  Don’t expect a lot of bells and whistles here, folks – these three Extensions just help me get things done a bit quicker.  Watch the screencasts that follow the brief introduction to see how they can work for you:

The Picnik Extension for Chrome allows you to easily take screenshots and edit them using the online image editor Picnik.com.

The Session Manager Extension gives you a really handy way to save your browsing sessions so that you can come back to them later – without having to bookmark a bunch of sites.

Tab Menu is an Extension that allows you to easily sort through, organize, and even close your tabs within a drop-down menu in your bookmarks toolbar.

My Weekly Browsing Schedule is a Firefox Add-on that allows you to create a schedule of when certain Websites should open in your browser.

After you install it you just need to go to “tools” then select “My Weekly Browsing Schedule”.  A window will pop open so you can add the URLs to all of the Websites you want Firefox to remember to open for you.  You can select specific days of the week and times for each Website or you can choose to open certain sites whenever Firefox starts.

There are other options for personalization such as creating a delay before the sites open and you can choose whether or not to open a Website up in a new browser window or tab.

To see My Weekly Browsing Schedule in action, watch the screencast below:

Readtwit allows you to turn your Twitter stream into an RSS feed.  It  removes shortened URLs and allows you to read the actual content right in your favorite feed reader.

First you need to connect Readtwit to your Twitter account and then you can easily subscribe to the RSS feed it creates.  You can also create filters to remove certain people you follow from your feed as well as remove specific hashtags.  The only real feature that I see missing is the ability to create a feed that only includes specific people – or a way to create a feed for a specific list that you’ve created on Twitter.

To see Readtwit in action, watch the screencast below:

ShinySearch allows you to create a customized homepage with almost zero effort.  It comes loaded with links to most email services, social networking sites, news sites and popular Web destinations.

All you need to do is go to ShinySearch.com and select a theme and give it a name.   There’s no sign up and no need to enter in links to all of your favorite sites.

ShinySearch does have quite a few themes to choose from, but I want to note that I use the term “customized” loosely.  It appears that the only thing you can customize is the theme – which isn’t necessarily bad because it seems to have links to most sites that I visit regularly.  With that said, I would like to see the ability to remove sites that I don’t use and add ones that aren’t listed so that it is truly customized to my needs.

To see ShinySearch in action, watch the screencast below:

Scribbly is an application that runs on Adobe Air which allows you to quickly take notes and then email them to yourself with one click.  Its feature set still leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s still a useful little tool and worth a look.

After you install it you just need to click on the icon located in your system tray and add your email address to the settings so Scribbly will know where to send your notes.  You can jot down notes, copy and past links and even quickly add a time-stamp by clicking on the clock icon.  That’s really about it.  I do have my own requests for features, of course:

• - The ability to add multiple email addresses so I can send my shopping list to my boyfriend fiance .
• - A button so that I can clear the list – right now it seems that I have to delete items myself.
• - More control over how Scribbly behaves.  I’d like the option to have it go away after inactivity instead of having to hit the Esc key.

To see Scribbly in action, watch the screencast below:

[via Digital Inspiration]

With the New Year quickly approaching (less than a month away!!) I decided it would be a good time to find a new tool for establishing healthy habits – out with the bad and in with the good!  That takes us to Rootein (pronounced “routine”), a service that allows you to create and track tasks, or Rooteins.  The premise behind Rootein is that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit so, hopefully, after using Rootein for about a month you’ll begin to effortlessly perform these tasks, thus forming a healthy habit.

After you sign up for a free account you just need to enter in a Rootein – anything from running 2 miles every day to remembering to call your mom.

You can create as many Rooteins as you’d like and then simply select the one that you’ve done and mark the date on the calendar.  Every time you perform one of your Rooteins just check in and then continue on with your day.  You can create reminders so that you never forget to, say, water your plants.

To see Rootein in action, watch the screencast below: