Yes, we are all very busy these days.  And with each new day, there seems to be some application created to make our lives even more busy.  Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes find Twitter actually makes me less productive.  One of the downsides of following a lot of people in twitter is that you sometimes waste lots of time just sifting through all of the tweets.

Twitter for Busy People wants to help make it simple to see what’s going on.  There is nothing to sign up for.  Just go to the home page and enter your Twitter name and you’ll see a listing icons from people you are following (up to 500).  Hover over an icon and you can see that person’s latest tweet.  You can even see an entire conversation thread.  Twitter for Busy People also offers a bookmarklet that will make it easy for you to check in on the latest updates.

I can’t say for sure this will save you time because I’m not a heavy Twitter user, but at first glance it does seem to streamline things a bit.

To see Twitter for Busy People in action, click on the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

Alice.com is a new service that can help to keep your pantry, cleaning supplies, and toiletries stocked by reminding you when you need to purchase common household items, and then shipping them to you.

After you create your free account, simply browse through the different “rooms” that have items you need to stock up on.  For example, in the bathroom you would find toilet paper, dental floss, toothpaste, shaving cream, etc.  You can browse through products by brand, price, and even coupon savings.  Since Alice automatically applies any coupons available to your order, you don’t need to worry about searching online for one.  There are a lot of products available and I was able to find almost every brand that I already use, and most were offered at a lower price than I would pay at my neighborhood drugstore.

Alice will also allow you to select how long it will be before you think you’ll need the item again, and will send you a reminder to re-order so you don’t run out.  Did I mention the best part yet?  Shipping is FREE.  Yep, I said free!  This means that you can set up your account filled with all of the basics that you’ll always need and simply click a few buttons to have them sent to you.  Right now I have laundry detergent, toilet paper, candles, and hand soap on the way.  Not only were the prices great, but free shipping means that I don’t have to carry this stuff up to my apartment.

The only problem I had with Alice.com was that it never said when I would be receiving my items.  I kept waiting to get some sort of notification after I had put in my credit card information, but all I got was a “Thank you for your order” and a printable receipt.  I looked in the FAQ’s but couldn’t find any info there either.  I also sent them an email but have yet to hear back.  So now I’m sitting here with very little toilet paper, wondering if I should go to the store and stock up for a day, a week, or a month.

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

[via TechCrunch]

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):

[via: Webware]

BabyLoggr… it makes me thing of a beer for babies (mmm… baby lager), but really it’s a useful app for helping new parents keep track of what their newborn is doing.

When my children were new, we used a big chalkboard to keep track of their eating and sleeping habits, but we couldn’t track more than one or two days on it.

BabyLoggr makes it easy — just sign in via your Google account and add a baby.  Now you can start entering in feedings, diaper changes and sleep habits.  You can then go and look at previous days to make a comparison.  The majorly sleep-deprived parents of multiples can add more than one baby.  You can also add custom activities.  The site does show an example of adding a picture to the baby’s chart, but I just couldn’t get the darn thing to work for me.

Quick and easy is the name of the game when you are caring for a new baby, and BabyLoggr seems to fit the bill.

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

Amplify is a cool tool that lets you create clips that show what you are reading online.  You can either log in using OAuth on Twitter or you can create an Amplify account.

You’ll then have to install the utility that will allow you to grab snippits of Web sites.  Now you are ready to go.  You can clip text, portions of text, pictures and video.  You can select items from multiple sites to include in one clip.
Amplify gives you the option to sync up your posts with Facebook, Twitter, ClipMark and Delicious so that when you create a new clip a link to that clip will be posted on those sites.

You can easily share your clip log (or clog) with others and they can comment on your clip.  I think it’s a pretty cool way to take bits and pieces from interesting sites without having to send someone multiple urls.

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

WiseStamp is a Firefox Add-on that helps you create a custom email signature filled with links to your other online presences, your IM usernames, and even your latest blog post.  As of now it works with AOL Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail.

After you install it, you just need to set up your signature.  You can add almost any information you can think of: images, links to your blog, and phone numbers.  You can then select vairous social networking sites that you belong to and add those as well.  For example, I added a link to my LinkIn profile, my Flickr photos, my Twitter account, and my Facebook profile.  You don’t have to stop there though.  You can add your YouTube videos, your Digg profile, your Ebay store, and more.  You can also create a signature for business and one for pleasure.

After you’re all through creating your card, you’ll see that the info you added to it will automatically attach to the end of your email.  It’s really a simple way to show off your other online profiles with very little effort.

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

If you are planning a large event where you need a customizable online invitation, there are lots of options out there.  However, if you are sending out a quick invite for a BBQ, or if you want to find out what your friends think of your new boyfriend, you might want to check out Yarp.

Yarp provides a very simple invitation and survey Web site.  There is no sign-up.  Just select either Invitation or Survey, enter the event information and you are ready.  You can then email the yarplet — you do have to enter in each email address and send it out through your email client — or you can copy the link provided and send that out via Twitter, Facebook or some other site.  When the recipient clicks on the link they can then answer yes or no to the event or survey — there are no maybes at Yarp.

Yarplets are tracked with browser cookies, so if you want to save the location of your yarplets, you should jot down the private URL provided.  When you go to that private address, you’ll see a listing of all of the yarplets you have created.

If you want to see Yarp in action, click on the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

I was browsing KillerStartups and they mentioned a URL shortener called Zly.me.  Yes, there are plenty of URL shorteners out there, but what I like about this one is the bookmarklet that allows you to shorten the URL of a page you are one without leaving it.

Just drag the bookmarklet link up to your bookmark toolbar and now you have an easy way to shorten a URL.  You can quickly share the shortened link on Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon and Twitter.  According to the site, the Zly.me bookmarklet doesn’t support IE 7.

Zly.me also allows you to password protect a link, add a custom alias to the link and include a Share Bar.  The Share Bar allows people visiting your link to easily share it with others, or they can just close the bar if they don’t like it.

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

SuperMinder allows you to set reminders for anything you need to remember, and have them sent to your email or cell phone.  There are no extra bells and whistles – just set your reminder and get on with your day.

In order to sign up, all you need to do is enter in your email address and select a password.  You’ll be brought right into your account to start setting up your reminders.  Of course, you still need to go into your settings to send a verification to your email and/or cell phone in order to receive the reminders:) .

To set a reminder, just select the day, time, enter in what you need to remember, and choose to be reminded through email or SMS.  That’s it!  It’s a super clean interface and is straightforward in what it’s supposed to do.

It appears that you only get 2 SMS reminders for free, and after that you’ll need to purchase additional credits.  8 bucks for 30, 13 bucks for 50, and 25 bucks for 100.  There’s not really a lot information on this pricing scale that I could find, so they may want to post some sort of help or FAQ page to help out their users.

To see SuperMinder in action, check out the screencast below (best viewed in HD in full screen):

Thanks to a tip from KillerStartups I checked out the fitness Web site DailyBurn (formerly Gyminee).

There are a great many Web sites available for people who are seeking help with their diet, and I’ve joined one or two of the pay services in the past.  Most of these services fail with me because their meal plans suggest things like waldorf salad for lunch.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to whip up waldorf salad on a Tuesday afternoon — usually it’s just soup at my desk or a cup of cottage cheese and an apple.

DailyBurn does offer a Pro account ($15 for 3 months), which offers things like meal planning, PRO workout programs and no ads.

A free account will allow you to quickly enter and track the food you eat every day.   If you enter an item, the site will come back with a list of possible matches.  The matches I checked on were relevant and they included all the nutritional information.  The exercise log allows you to enter an exercise each time you do it or create an exercise that you regularly engage in so that you can simply hit a button each time you complete it.

I have to say that the free offerings on DailyBurn are more than enough to me.  The Web site says it will take me 6 weeks to reach my goal and that’s just enough time before my vacation to Healdsburg!

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