The original DemoGirl is very busy planning the wedding of the century, and she’s got a long list of things that need to be handled. One Web site she might want to check out is Divvyus — the site offers a simple application where you can quickly create a shared task list.
There is nothing to sign up for, but you must keep track of the URLs for your Divvy (as the lists are called). You’ll receive a public URL that can only be used to claim tasks and mark them as done. You will also get an admin URL where you can edit, add or claim tasks.
Divvyus might be helpful for my baby sister…um, I mean for DemoGirl to start delegating those wedding tasks.
To see Divvyus in action, watch the screencast below:
ZipList is a service that helps you quickly throw together your shopping list in a seriously organized manner. You can use it at home on your computer or on the go on your mobile phone.
You can create many lists and each item that you add will automatically be placed into the correct category of where you can find it in the store. For example, typing in “milk;cheese;bread;tomatoes” will result in 3 categories: dairy, bread, and produce. Each item will go into the correct category for you – preventing you from having to run back and forth around the store.
You can use the ZipList bookmarklet to easily add recipes to your recipebox and add items from that recipe to your list. You can also choose to send your shopping list to a mobile phone or email address.
To see how I used ZipList, watch the screencast below:
Remember the days of sending out real paper invitations to your friends and then waiting patiently by the phone for them to call with their response? OK, so some of you are probably too young to remember those days, which is unfortunate since it’s a much more personal way to introduce your event to your friends and family. Evitations are the norm these days and, sadly, the chance of actually receiving an invitation in the mail is very rare.
RSVPhere is a site that wants to blend the convenience of online party planning with the ever-so-rare paper invite.
All you need to do is create an RSVPhere account and add all of your event details. You can even ask questions of your guests that they’ll need to answer when responding – Things like, “What type of wine do you prefer” or, “Do you have any dietary restrictions” are extremely helpful when planning an event. After you’ve added all of your info you’ll create a code that guests will need to respond to your event online. This code, along with an event ID, will be printed on your paper invites that you send to your guests. Instead of sending out a response card (and hoping that nobody loses it or forgets to drop it in the mail) your guests can simply enter the code into the RSVPhere site and respond with a few clicks. They don’t need to sign up for anything and it just takes a minute. As the party planner, you also save some cash on stamps.
To see all of the great features of RSVPhere, watch the screencast below:
Siri is a virtual personal assistant that lives in your iPhone. It can help you find a place to get a bite to eat, show you movie listings, and even remind you to call your Mom on her birthday.
You have two options when using Siri – You can type out what you’re looking for or you can say it to Siri and it will do its best to figure out what you’re saying. For example, you could simply tap “restaurants” and then choose what type of food you’re looking for and where. Siri will grab reviews, menus (if available) and even allow you to add notes to your selection. You can then map it, email it, or save it to your Siri bookmarks. You can also choose the “say it” option and say what you want. I tried saying, “Shutter Island, San Francisco” into my phone and Siri immediately recognized that I was looking for movie listings for “Shutter Island” in San francisco. It brought up theaters close to me and gave me the option to reserve tickets.
You can say things like, “remind me to call the dentist” and Siri should send that info into the reminders section of your account and allow you to add a time for Siri to email you and remind you to call the dentist. This only seemed to work about half of the time. Sometimes it would recognize “remind” and sometimes it would think I was saying “find”.
Another little problem I had was with finding restaurants near me. Siri doesn’t seem to know of any pizza places closer than 10 miles to my house – And that is definitely not the case. It was also telling me that some restaurants were much farther away from my location then they actually are. With that said, this is definitely not a deal breaker for me as Siri does much more than just find restaurants and set reminders. You can request a cab, get the current weather, set dinner reservations, and pretty much anything else that you would have a real personal assistant do. Except this one is free. Get Siri in the iTunes App Store here.
1DayLater is an application that allows you to track the hours you work on projects, the distance you drive everyday, money you spend on groceries, hours you put in at the gym, and anything else you can squeeze into a day.
Using 1DayLater is extremely easy – Enter in hours, mileage, or money spent and then a project/client name and description. A project/client name could be for anything you want to track, so if you’re tracking how much you spend at Whole Foods every week you would put “Whole Foods” into the project/client field. Lastly, add the date and click on “Go”. This activity will be placed into your activity stream for that day and the amount you entered will be added to any other day that you created an activity for that project.
You can view a graph that shows just what you’re spending your time on and export your data for further use. Future features include invoicing information and mileage calculation.
To see how 1DayLater can help you track your life, watch the screencast below:
MemorizeNow is yet another application that I wish existed when I was still in school. It helps you remember short and long phrases of text by training your brain how to read the phrases with different words removed in each sequence. This can be used for something as simple as word definitions to long speeches or poems.
It was initially created to aid in memorizing passages from the bible, but obviously it can be used for just about anything you need to remember.
To see how MemorizeNow works, watch the screencast below:
You see, I’m getting ready for my Mom to come visit me in San Francisco this weekend and now, instead of copying and pasting numerous Google search results of places we should check out into an email, I can simply start composing my email to her and then do Google searches within that message. The search results can all be pasted right into the email, links and all.
You need to go into your lab settings first and enable Google search and make sure your rich text editor is enabled. That’s all there is to it!
To see how easy it is to use Google search in Gmail, watch the screencast below:
First of all, let me say that I will try to make this my last post (for a while) about anything wedding related. It just so happens that I received a note from the founders of MyWeddingBinder yesterday and after using it a bit today, I really feel that it is a very useful tool. Since I spent so much time testing it out I figured it would be worth my time to go the extra mile and share my experience with you.
Disclosure: I am currently planning a wedding so please excuse me if I get over excited. I can’t help it.
MyWeddingBinder gives you a space to plan and organize the details of your wedding. Everything from your guest list, to your vendors, to the seating chart, to your budget – it’s all there to help you keep track of the madness that lasts just one day.
Now I know that there are a lot of sites out there that can be used to help you plan your wedding. The problem with most of these sites, however, is that they do not focus just on your wedding day – they focus on shoving ads down your throat (a bit extreme, but it’s pretty much true) for things like dresses and floral arrangements that most people can’t even afford. What I’ve found (and believe me, I have looked and looked) is that most wedding planning sites put your actual wedding planning in the background and pictures of extravagant ceremonies and merchandise in the foreground. And that’s why they’re free. So fine.
MyWeddingBinder is not free. In fact you can’t even set up a free trial account to test it out. There’s a fee of $29.95 to create your account, but once you’ve paid you have an ad-free, clean and organized space to plan out your special, and costly, day. At first I was a bit turned off by the fact that I couldn’t test the site out before handing over my credit card but then, after they were kind enough to let me use a test account for free, I realized that this is something that’s worth paying for. I’m not sure if it’s worth $29.95 yet, but it definitely made an impact. I think some additional features are needed to warrant the price tag. This is my wish list:
I want a way to customize the table set-up. As it is now there are only round tables available to create your seating chart.
Adding guests is a pain. You have to add them one at a time, click on “save”, and then click on “add guests” again. Maybe add an “Import your address book” feature.
How about a blog to keep your guests up to date on wedding day details?
A section to upload your inspiration photos
If you want to see all of what MyWeddingBinder can do, watch the screencast below:
Google City Tours is a Labs project that has some pretty helpful features for people planning a trip to an unfamiliar city. You can begin by entering in the name or address of the place where you’ll be staying. From there, Google City Tours will load a map with various points of interest that you can walk to from your originating point. Each destination shows an approximate amount of time it should take you to walk as well as walking directions from point A to point B to point C…
You can also remove and add points of interest to the map and include the number of days you’ll be in town so that your sightseeing can be spread out over a few days.
I really like Google City Tours, especially because my Mom is coming to visit me in San Francisco next month and I would love her to map out all the places we can walk to from her hotel. With that said, these are my issues:
How do you save your Google City Tour? I couldn’t find a “save” link anywhere.
Can you share your City Tour with, for instance, the person who’s visiting?
I’d like options to switch from walking to driving to public transit. My Mom is NOT going to walk to the Golden Gate Bridge from Union Square.
Of course, Google City Tours is in Labs, which means that it’s a work in progress. Those are just some things that I think should be at the top of the “to-do” list for the people working on it .
To see Google City Tours in action, watch the screencast below:
Thinkmeter gives you a way to quickly get opinions and advice from friends, family and co-workers. You can ask for opinions on anything from what color to paint your kitchen to what to buy your Mom for her birthday – and you don’t even need to sign up to use it. If you do sign up you’ll be able to track responses and comments left by the people included in your decision campaign.
To see Thinkmeter in action, check out the screencast below:
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