DemoGirl

PowerTwitter is a Firefox Add-on that provides you with some much needed features within your Twitter account.  It allows you to search Twitter right from your homepage, view media in-line, and expands links within Tweets so you know what you’re clicking on. I’ve been using PowerTwitter for a few months now (previously reviewed here), and so far I’ve been relatively happy with the feature list.  Last night I noticed that there was an updated version that had been released and after I installed it, I realized that even more features had been added.  Unfortunately, what I didn’t find was any sort of help or detailed list from PowerTwitter explaining just what I was looking at.  They do have a Get Satisfaction page where users can post questions and report any problems they might be having, but there is no real documentation of how to effectively use PowerTwitter.

Some of the notable new features are:

• Saved recent searches
• Post photos right from your Twitter account
• One-click ReTweet
• Shrink URLs quickly from your account
• PowerTwitter settings so you can choose what features of PowerTwitter you want to use

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

[wpvideo UlccSzbk]

If you belong to multiple social networking sites where you’re constantly adding photos and video, then Pixelpipe may just make your life a little bit easier.  Pixelpipe is a service that allows you to easily upload media to various services across the Web, from one location.

After you sign up for Pixelpipe, you’ll need to enter in your credentials for the various sites where you normally upload your media.  Currently, Pixelpipe supports 41 services including WordPress, Blogger, flickr, YouTube, and facebook.  Pixelpipe will know which services accept photos, videos, and which accept both.  You can add a title, caption, and tags as well.  The entire process just takes a minute and the end result is all of your media added to multiple services with very little effort on your end.  To learn more about Pixelpipe, check out the screencast below:

[viddler id-2793607b h-451 w-545]

Click Here To Watch Better Quality 1m32s

[via ReadWriteWeb]

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]

Have you ever wanted to add a nice reflection to your photo but thought that it would be impossible to do without photoshop? The thing is, you don’t really need photoshop to do basic editing because of all of the new web based applications. You can edit and add effects to your photos today with services like Picnik, Aviary, and even Photoshop Express. But what about for the really simple task of just adding a reflection? I found two services today, that do just that, and only that.

Picreflect allows you to first choose the settings for your reflection, like transparency, size, and background color. Then you just need to upload an image or enter in a URL and it automatically generates your image with a lovely reflection, which you can download. The only downside to Picreflect is that every time you want to adjust the settings for your reflection, you need to go back and re-set everything and upload the image again. Real-time reflection image editing would be very cool, but it’s so easy to use that I’ll take it anyway.

WaveMyPic instantly adds a reflection to your image but it also turns it into an animated GIF, so it looks like a pool of water. WaveMyPic is even easier to use than Picreflect because you can’t really customize it at all. You just need to upload an image and WaveMyPic does the rest. If you like looking all psychedelic and tripped out then you can share it on your social networking site or email it to friends.

Both Picreflect and WaveMyPic are featured in the screencast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m5s

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

[via simplespark]

Friday has arrived, and not a moment too soon. I don’t want to bore you with complicated applications that will help you work better – I want to show you some tools that require very little brain function that you can use over the weekend. In this quickcast, I’ll show you 4 applications that do just that.

SuperLame gives you a super cool way to add caption balloons to your photos. The entire process is fast and really enjoyable. You can even choose to have the balloon outside of the original image.

SensibleUnits is a ridiculous application that shows you random items that are the same size of whatever measurement you type into the search box. For example, if you type in 25 feet, you may get results such as, 1.7 London buses stacked one on top of the other. Another interesting fact is that 500 lbs is also the same weight as 45 average domestic cats. Good to know.

Epicurious has a new “Seasonal Ingredient Map” that shows you exactly what’s currently in season in whatever state you live in. I just learned why lemons are so darn expensive in California right now – they’re in season in December. That just doesn’t seem right for some reason. What about all the poor kiddies and their summer jobs as lemonade stand owners?

Bradicon needs very little explanation because it only does one thing. It turns almost any image into an icon. The entire process is quick and the only thing you need to do is select the image from your computer. From there, Bradicon instantly turns it into an icon that you can download. [via Lifehacker]

To see these 4 applications in action, watch the screencast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m45s

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

It’s Friday, and you know what that means! It’s time to show you some useful applications in the quickest amount of time – hence the name, quickcast. Today I’m featuring some Applications built on Adobe Air that I think are pretty useful, and fun. One to make reading your RSS Feeds more exciting, one to help you listen to Muxtapes on your desktop, and one that will allow you to take hideous photos of yourself sitting in your room.

Snackr pulls random items from your RSS Feed and streams them along your desktop in a ticker-like fashion. You can import your feeds or add them manually and you can read stories easily by clicking on them. It’s pretty much never ending so if you’re easily distracted, you may find yourself staring at Snackr instead of actually getting any work done. You can edit the settings of the ticker to have it sit on any side of your screen and you can easily minimize it if it’s getting in your way.

MuxMaster is an awesome compliment to Muxtapes, the service that allows you to make cool MP3 mixtapes to share with your friends. MuxMaster automatically provides you with 10 Muxtapes that you can browse through to discover new music. If you don’t like those, then you can select another random 10. If you know the name of a Muxtape you can enter it in and MuxMaster will load that along with other relevant Muxtapes.

Fotobooth is a fun application that allows you to instantly take photos with your webcam and add effects to them. Even better, fotobooth works with Flickr so you can instantly upload all of the photos you take to your Flickr account. Every time you snap a photo, it’s dropped onto the application and will stay there until you delete it.

To see these applications in action, watch the screencast below:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m40s

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

[via freshAIRapps]

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!

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]

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

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

[via Webware]

Animoto is a service that helps you create amazing videos out of your photos with very little effort.  There are just a couple of steps involved because Animoto handles the creative side, resulting in really cool videos.  All you need to do is upload photos from your computer or grab them from one of the supported photo sharing sites.  You can drag and drop your photos into any order you like and even place a spotlight on specific photos which will tell Animoto that you want these photos highlighted in the video.  The next step is adding music.  You can upload music from your computer or select music from the Animoto music lounge.  Give your video a name and a brief description, and you’re done.  You’ll need to wait a while for the video to produce, but the end result is worth the wait.  You can embed the videos in your blog or social networking site, email them, export them to YouTube, or download them.  There are so many ways Animoto can be used – from promoting a product that you originally only had photos of to creating a fun music video of you and your friends on vacation.  Animoto is free for a 30 second video and 3 dollars for a full length, which I think is a more than fair price.  Here’s my screencast tour of Animoto:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 3m17s

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

[via TechCrunch]