DemoGirl

I finally got my invite for Pinterest this week and I’ve been having so much fun exploring all of the beautiful pinboards that early users have created.  It’s easy to create your own boards — when you come across something that strikes your fancy simply use the bookmarklet to “pin” it to your board.

If you find something you like on another person’s board (there is plenty to like) you can let them know by “liking” the item or “repinning” it to your own board.

I’m thinking Pinterest is going to be a great help for me in planning Molly’s upcoming bridal shower:)

I do have 10 invites — so let me know if you want one.

View the screencast here: 

Adobe Ideas (iTunes link) is an app for the iPhone and iPad that helps you quickly sketch out design ideas on a blank canvas or a photo.  There’s also a handy color palette generator for use on a new photo or an existing one. It’s completely free so even if you’re not very creative (you’ll see my level of creativity in this screencast ) it’s still fun to use and can be useful for sharing simple design ideas with others.

To see the Adobe Ideas app in action, watch the screencast below:

Photoshop.com Mobile iPhone App is a free and easy to use photo editor.  You can use it with new photos you take or on photos already in your camera roll.  Use it to quickly add effects, crop images and more.

Check out the screencast to see more:

CameraBag ( iTunes link) isn’t free, but it’s so fun to use that I  think it’s worth the $1.99 price tag.  It allows you to add awesome filters to your pictures almost instantly.

Check out the screencast to see more:

TiltShift helps you take any scenic photo and make it appear as if it’s a miniature scale model.  At just $0.99, I couldn’t pass it up.

Check out the screencast to see more:

HotPrints gives its users an easy and inexpensive way to create photo books from your Facebook or Bebo pictures.  And now the company is offering you one free HotBook per month.

The free books are ad-supported, but the ads will be inserts that you can remove — they wont be printed next to your photos.  But if you don’t like the idea of ads included with your book, you can pay $2.99 plus shipping.

A Facebook app will allow you to drag and drop photos from your own albums or from albums of your Facebook friends.  You can play around with themes, backgrounds, covers and borders.  I was able to put together a book in just a few minutes.  I’m not sure if I’ll go for the free version or skip the ads and pay a few bucks.  But either way, the books seem like a good deal to me.

To see HotPrints in action, click on the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo Ma9M6PRJ]

[via: techcrunch]

Stupeflix is a fun site that helps you  create movies out of your images and video.

All you need to do is add your media and Stupeflix does most of the “editing” for you.  You can add text and music to your movie and download it when you’re done.  The entire process should only take a few minutes, but could take more if you want to add a lot of media and/or detail to your movie.   All of this is done within the Stupeflix Editor, and you can choose how much work you want to put into it – you can choose transitions and colors, or you can have Stupeflix do it for you.

When adding media you have the choice to upload your own, add URLs to images on the Web, or you can choose images from Flickr.  There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how much media you can add or the length of the final video – which is really nice.  When you’re done editing your video you can choose to have Stupeflix produce a large video that is YouTube ready, a medium size video which is iPhone ready, or a large or medium flash video.

Stupeflix is free to use and doesn’t require any downloads.

To see Stupeflix in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo twsh0TwB]

Yahoo Meme is a Microblogging service from Yahoo that recently launched in English.  Basically, Yahoo Meme gives you a way to quickly post text (140 characters), images, videos from YouTube and Vimeo, and MP3′s (you can only link to an MP3 on the Web).  These items can quickly be reposted by other users and commented on.  It’s currently invite only, but once you receive an invite you can sign in with your Yahoo credentials.

You can create a brief profile with a title and description of your Meme, a photo, and that’s about it.  You can choose to follow other Meme users so you can keep up with what they’re posting.  The reposing feature works quite nicely, and you can keep track of conversations about an item by viewing the comment thread.

When I got the invite to Yahoo Meme and signed in, my first thought was, “So…it’s Tumblr without all the features?”.  That’s pretty much what I still think, even after browsing around the site for a bit today, but I’m willing to give it some time since it’s still in the very early stages of development (I hope).

To see Yahoo Meme in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo cDHM0Z5W]

Pictaculous is a great little tool for creating color palettes out of images.  Whether it’s your favorite family photo or your favorite Website logo, Pictaculous can generate a color palette out of it in seconds.

To use Pictaculous, just upload an image and click on “Get My Palette”.  You’ll then be shown the color palette pulled from your image as well as suggested color palettes from Kuler and COLOURlovers.  You can use this data to help create a design based on your Website logo or to simply create a design around your favorite photo.

You can download the Adobe Swatch File and email it to friends or co-workers.  There’s no sign up involved and the whole process literally takes seconds.

To see Pictaculous in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo LoC2vWCU]

[via MakeUseOf]

Futz.me gives you an easy way to send yourself reminders, links you want to revisit, and even images right from your address bar.  You can have items sent to your email address or via text message.  Anything you want to send to your email or phone can be sent by simply adding Futz.me/yourusernamehere before the URL or text in your address bar.

All this and you don’t even need to be signed into your Futz account in order to use it.  A one time sign up and you’re good to go.  When you sign up, you’ll select a username which is how Futz knows what account to send the items to.  So theoretically, since you all know my username is molzy, you could send me links or notes without even knowing my email address.  All you would have to do is type in Futz.me/molzy before whatever you want to send me and it will pop right into my inbox.  (Of course, I don’t use the email address that I used for this screencast so please don’t send me anything ).

There are a lot of ways you can use Futz.  There don’t seem to be any set rules – and that’s one of the reasons I like it  so much.

To see Futz.me in action, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo LnZeTu2E]

[via: Webware]

Robo.to allows you to create a virtual business card, complete with your own video avatar.  It gives you a place to share your flickr photos, your location, and your other online identities, as well as updates to Twitter and Facebook.

After you sign up for an account (which is currently invite only) you’ll be able to pick a username which will act as part of your Robo.to domain.  You can see mine here.  You can then record a couple seconds of video that visitors will see upon arrival to your site.  You can record multiple videos but the last one you record will be the first one that appears.

You can point out your location on a Google map, add your latest flickr photos, and choose to push updates you create on Robo.to through to Twitter and/or Facebook.

I had fun yesterday and today testing out Robo.to – but it is definitely invite only for a reason.  My flickr photos won’t show up.   When I update to Twitter only the text goes through so no one would have any idea what I was talking about since there’s no link to my Robo.to page or video.  There are also some much needed features missing like the ability to delete a video, control which video appears first when someone visits your Robo.to page, and some sort of privacy setting if I don’t want just anyone to be able to see my page.  If these features exist, I could not find them.

If you want to see Justin’s Robo.to page, click here.  It’s cleverly done, and should give you an idea about what type of video you can create to act as your “calling card”.

To see Robo.to in action, click on the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo 2rAXOjOi]

A lot of my friends from high school, and even earlier, have found me on Facebook.  It’s a great way to see what each other has been up to and possibly even begin a new friendship, as adults.  With the good, there is also the bad.  Some of these friends don’t understand (or maybe don’t care) about your privacy when doing something as simple as tagging you in a photo.  Yes, I’m talking about the photo they find of you from 10 years ago where you’re  in a hotel room after prom, beer-bonging a bottle of champagne.

Sure, the two of you may laugh at it, but will your straitlaced boss or your fragile Grandma be laughing?  Unless you have a boss like mine, I’m sure they wouldn’t.  Once you are tagged in a photo, everyone who is your friend, and the friend of your jerk-friend that tagged you, will see the photo.  You didn’t put the photo up, but it’s still being blasted out to all of your Facebook friends simply because you were tagged.

As of now, there isn’t a way to approve all photos where you are tagged before they are posted.  I don’t know why – it seems like a very easy fix.  There is a lengthy discussion page on the matter here.  Why not just have an option to opt-out of allowing people to tag you in photos?  Why can someone post an image of a cheeseburger, and tag me as said cheeseburger?  As a vegetarian, I find that offensive and gross.

In the meantime, there is a way to get the tags removed quickly with a few changes in your settings.  To see how, watch the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

[wpvideo sIUYcSH7]