Demo Girl

MobileRSS syncs with your Google Reader so you can keep up with all of your favorite blogs and websites at all times.  There’s a free version and a pro for $2.99 (iTunes links) which I’ll show you in the screencast.

After you install it and sign in with your Google account it will automatically sync up.  All of your folders, tags, shared and stared items will be in place along with people who you follow.  MobileRSS works a lot like Google Reader and you can also share items via email, Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, and more.

I installed both the free and paid-for versions and am happy with both.  If you’re unsure about spending the money then install the free version, it works great and will give you a feel of what you get for your money.

To see MobileRSS 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:

Card.ly gives you a really easy way to create an online business card containing links to all of your online profiles.  Card.ly doesn’t stop there though – you can also add contact information, an ‘about me’ section, and RSS feeds.

When you sign up, you’ll select a custom URL.  Mine is www.card.ly/molly.  You can then add your usernames for the various social networking sites you belong to like Digg, Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook.  The next step is to create your ‘about me’ section and then add as much, or as little, contact information as you want shown.  You can add your personal Website, your address, phone numbers, and IM usernames.  Lastly, select your design and your page will be set and ready to go.

There is a free account (which is what I used for this screencast) and a paid-for subscription option.  Paid accounts get access to more themes, they’re ad-free, and you can use a custom domain.

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

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Guzzle.it is a type of news feed dashboard that allows you to select specific topics that interest you, and create a page filled with articles and images about those topics.

You don’t need to sign up for anything in order to get started.  Just select a bunch of topics that you want to read about – I chose screencast, Camtasia, running, vegetarian, NIN, and Social Media.  Those topics aren’t really related, but that’s OK because you can create separators and drag and drop various topics underneath the appropriate section.  When you’re all through customizing your content you can create your page.

You can easily switch to an image view for each of the topics and remove them any time you need a change.  After you create your page, you have the option of saving it by creating an account.

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

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[Thanks for the tip, Paisano!]

I have a problem.  I’m addicted to real estate sites.  I’m constantly checking on what my home value is or searching to see if anyone has bought the house across the street.  If you are actually looking to buy a house or sell your house, though, Dwellicious may be a good tool for you.

Dwellicious  — like Delicious for real estate — is a real estate bookmarking site that helps you keep track of that house you saw on Craigslist or Zillow last week.  If you had an account with Dwellicious you would simply have bookmarked it –  it would have been added to your Dwellicious page which you could share with your mother who would criticize your taste.

Dwellicious is set up to work with many popular real estate sites, like Zillow, Yahoo, Craigslist, Trulia and many more. The cool thing about the site is that bookmark listings on your Dwellicious page are automatically updated whenever the property data changes — change in price, availability or the addition of photos.

Go ahead and check out the Dwellicious screencast below (best viewed fullscreen in HD):

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Start.io allows you to create a custom homepage, filled with links to all of your favorite Websites and blogs.  You can customize the way your page looks and even choose to be notified when a site you have listed has new content.

When you create your start.io account, you’ll choose a username which will be included in your homepage URL.  From there, all you need to do is create groups and add links to each group.  For example, I created a group called “Music” and added links to my Blip.fm account, MixTape.me, and Pandora.  When I click on my home button in my browser (I set my start.io page as my homepage) I’ll now have access to all of my favorite Websites and blogs.  I can click on a link and be brought to Twitter, Facebook, etc.  You can also choose to have start.io put a little marker next to any of the sites that have new content since the last time you visited.  It doesn’t give you a preview – it just lets you know that there’s something new to look at.

You can customize the way your page looks with one of their available themes and, if you’re so inclined, edit the CSS to give it more of a personal touch.  You can also create your own theme from scratch.

The only beef I have with start.io is that when I click on “Logout” it brings me to another page which states, “Are you sure you want to leave?”.  Yes, I’m quite sure I want to leave which is why I clicked on Logout to begin with.  It’s a very minor detail, and I’m afraid that start.io is receiving a lashing from me because of all of the other sites that do this as well…I just can’t keep my mouth shut anymore.

Other than that, I’m quite happy having start.io set as my homepage .

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

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[via Download Squad]

ReminderFeed is a simple tool that allows you to send reminders right to your feed reader.  It’s free to use and is pretty much hassle free — meaning you don’t need to create an account to use it.  Just type in what you need to be reminded of, and subscribe to the feed.

Just give your reminder a title, a start and end date, and a description.  Optionally, you can also add a link and include a password if you want to password protect edits to your reminder.  ReminderFeed will then generate an RSS feed that you can subscribe to and share with others.  It’s a great way for anyone to quickly set up a reminder that won’t get lost in your inbox or sent to your already overloaded calendar every day.

To see ReminderFeed in action, watch the screencast below:

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Click Here To Watch Better Quality 1m46s

If you use an RSS reader and you’re a fan of Adobe Air Applications, then you may want to check out Apprise.  With Apprise, you can read story summaries, read the full story on the webpage itself, and share stories with friends via AIM and Twitter.

After you install the application, you can add your feeds manually by entering in the feed URL, or you can have Apprise fetch the feed URL for you by entering in the website URL.  You can also import/export feeds in OPML format.  You can add your Twitter and AIM credentials so that you can share articles with friends with a couple of clicks.  If you want to share a story over Twitter, just click the Twitter icon, add a short tweet to go along with the link, and click on “submit”.  To send an article to a friend via AIM, just click on the IM icon, select an available buddy from the list, or enter in a screen name.

Another feature that I really like is that you can sort through stories based on a specific author or topic.  This is really useful if a blog you read has multiple authors and posts on many different topics – Now you can just pick who and what you read about.  You can also do real time searches within all articles.  To learn more, watch the screencast below:

[via KillerStartups]

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Click Here To Watch Better Quality 2m45s

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]

ReadAir is an application built on Adobe Air that brings your Google Reader to your desktop. First of all, it doesn’t resemble Google Reader in any way, aesthetically speaking. It has a lot of the same features that Google Reader has, but in a much sleeker interface. You can log in right away with your Google account and all of your feeds, tags, stared and shared items are ready and waiting. There are a few things missing though (I think, because I don’t use Google Reader). You can star items but it doesn’t seem that you can share them in ReadAir. Also, you can’t use any keyboard shortcuts and it doesn’t seem that you can drag and drop feeds into folders or rearrange feeds with drag and drop. ReadAir is still in very early stages, so I’m anxious to see what features they add next. Here’s my screencast tour of ReadAir:

Click Here To Watch The Screencast 2m9s

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