DemoGirl

Today I was talking to Molly and the subject of $100 jeans came up.  I really could use a new pair of jeans — two of mine have some major holes that I did not pay extra for.  I usually figure how many hours it would take me to work for a “want” before I decide to buy it.  Now I have another tool… The Real Damage.

The idea behind the site is simple — find out how much your debt will actually cost you.  Just enter the dollar amount you are thinking of charging and The Real Damage will present to you the potential cost of the purchase if you are adding it to an existing balance.

However, personalization is key — you can modify the default APR, balance and any additional money you’ll pay each month. If you pay off your credit card balances every month you already know how much you are paying for something.  But if you are adding debt to your debt, this tool might give you an idea of how high your mountain could get.

Give it a try… but remember it’s only a guide and I’m not a math whiz so I can’t say it’s 100% accurate.

[via:  lifehacker]


Are your kids getting enough reading time this summer?  Maybe your children would read more if they were featured in the stories.  MeeGenius! gives parents the chance to customize some classic stories — like Goldilocks and the Three Bears or Jack and the Beanstalk — and then read them online or on your iPhone.

You can add your child’s name or even change the story.  The classic tales have been modernized quite a bit — in Hansel and Gretel the witch is merely locked in a closet and there is no mean stepmother — but they might be nice for very small children.

The audio playback feature is what I like.  My kids love audio books, and on MeeGenius! the words are highlighted as the narrator reads them.    MeeGenius! might be great in the car if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone and you download the app.

Watch the screencast to see MeeGenius! in action.

[via:  go2web20.net]

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: 

TechCrunch posted a story today about Google Moderator being available on YouTube and I decided to test it out.   The learning curve is not very steep — just go to your channel modules, enable moderator, post a request for ideas or suggestions and then wait for your subscribers to respond.

DemoGirl gets a lot of screencast suggestions every day, but we don’t usually see the same request from two different people.  Molly is often busy with custom work and weeding through all these suggestions can be time-consuming.  This is where I think Moderator on YouTube might be useful  — by providing us with a way to have our readers help us determine what people want to see covered here.

Check out the screencast here: 

If you have a suggestions, check out our Moderator series on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/demogirlmo

I love that there’s one day a year dedicated to celebrating our wonderful Mother Earth.  One day a year when people will remember to bring their reusable grocery bags to the supermarket, think twice before buying that ginormous bottle of water imported from Fiji and one day when people will remember to put down the lid on the toilet.  Do you know how much water can evaporate out of the toilet when the lid is left open? Do you?? And thank goodness there are a ton of “green” iPhone apps to help us do our part. (Yes, I’m being snarky but I really am a hippy vegetarian so it’s OK   )

Here are my two favorites that I stumbled upon today:

Cruelty Free (iTunes link) is a helpful app for people who want to be sure that they are buying products that are NOT tested on animals. 

Find Green (iTunes link) is an app that helps you to find green businesses in your area.

Check out the screencast to learn more about the Cruelty Free and Find Green iPhone apps:

If you’re one of the unlucky (or lucky, depending how you look at it) individuals that is required to put on a clean, crisp dress shirt every day – and often find yourself struggling to find a shirt that actually fits correctly – then Blank Label may be just what you’re looking for.

Blank Label is a web-based application that allows you to pick the fabric, style, and measurements to create your very own custom dress shirt.  It took me about 10 minutes to create a shirt the first time I used it, and the price seems relatively fair – even though I’ve never actually bought a mens dress shirt before.

To learn more about Blank Label, watch the screencast below:

If you’re a freelancer you may find it hard to determine a fair hourly rate to charge your clients and still make a decent living.  You don’t want to overcharge because you need to remain competitive – however, if you undercharge clients you won’t be able to to do things like pay rent and buy groceries.

That’s where the FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator comes in.  It helps you calculate what you spend annually on business expenses, personal costs for things like rent and car repairs, and how much you want to put into savings each year.  It combines this information with how many days and hours a year you work, along with the percentage of hours you can actually bill people, and spits out an estimate of how much you should be billing your clients.

To see how the FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator can help you make more money, 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:

As some of you may know, I’ve got wedding planning on the brain.  And it’s stressing me out.  A lot.  Thankfully there are a ton of online tools that are easing a bit of the stress.  I honestly don’t know how anyone planned a big event, like a wedding, without the help of the Internet.  I don’t even want to think about that!  I can’t even think about that.  This leads me to the event planning site MyPunchBowl.  I knew that MyPunchBowl was a great site for planning parties and managing events, but I didn’t know that they had an entire section dedicated to weddings! (Thanks Paisano!)

MyPunchBowl Weddings gives you a quick and easy way to send out engagement announcements without the cost of expensive save the date cards.  In fact, it’s completely free to use (although there is a premium account which gives you more customization and ad-free announcements).

I’m not quite ready to send out save the dates, but when I am I think this just may do the trick.

To see MyPunchBowl Weddings in action, check out the screencast below:

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: