Cool Sites & Apps


Android

  • Apps.DoubleTwist.com – a web based front end to search the Android market. This is valuable because usually you have to own an Android phone first to search the market, which makes sense, unless you are using the market itself to make your decision about whether to buy one.
  • AppBrain – Discovery web page for Android apps through search, categories, and rankings. Also enables one click purchasing of apps from the page that will auto sync to your Android phone. I believe this feature is Froyo only. Also it’s social. Share the apps installed on your phone with friends.
  • LauncherPro – An Android App that is a cool way to customize your Android Experience especially if you love the phone such as the Droid X, but don’t necessarily like the phone maker’s customizations such as Motorola’s “Blur” interface. Word of caution: If the default launcher isn’t showing up in your list of apps, such as in Blur’s case, if you install and run Launcher Pro, you can’t go back to Blur without re installing everything. So make sure you want it or make sure like in the Nexus One’s case you are able to switch back and forth between launchers.

Back-Up & File Syncing

  • Backupify – Secure your online life. Twitter backup is always free.
  • Carbonite – Now everyone can survive a computer disaster. Works automatically and quietly in the background, backing up every new file added to your computer. No effort on your part.
  • Dropbox – File syncing, sharing and backup that rocks.
  • Expandrive -ExpanDrive acts just like a USB drive plugged into your Mac or PC. It lets you open, edit, and save files on remote computers from within your favorite programs.

Blogging

  • Posterous – The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email. Will automatically distribute posts to Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr, Flickr, your personal blog, and a variety of all of your social media presences. “It’s just so simple.” –Leo Laporte, Net@Night podcast

Business

  • Amplicate - collects similar opinions in one place; making them more likely to be found by people and companies.
  • Buzzr.com – Easier but full featured CMS system for small businesses and individuals. Built on top of Drupal, but easy to use for non tech types. A usability layer on top of Drupal, with all the power of Drupal, which rocks, but not intimidating to use.
  • Ceevee.com – quick & painless résumé management. The smarter way to create and share your resume.
  • Elance.com – Hire, manage, and pay experts to do your work.
  • Snapily – Create personalized business cards with special effects like 3D and video.
  • CompareMyDocs – Compare, recombine, and merge your document versions.
  • Yola – Create a great looking, professional website for your business, that also has room to grow in sophistication and design, with easy to use tools that anyone can use.

Computer Repair & Trouble Shooting

  • BrokeMyiPhone.com - Dude specializes in iPhone/iPad repair. I saw him take apart an iPhone 4 and put back together all 50 pieces as if he could do it in his sleep.
  • iFixIt – Self Repair made Easy.Free Detailed Step by Step Manuals for Apple Repair and TroubleShooting

Communications

  • Fonolo – Fonolo lets you skip the phone menus when calling large companies. Connect to the right person with less hassle!
  • Google Voice – Get one number that calls all of your other numbers, free calls in the U.S., low international rates, free SMS anywhere, voicemail and text messages sent and transcribed to your inbox.
  • Phonetag – Like the opposite of Google Voice. Calls to any of your numbers go to one number, place, and email. Voicemail transcribed by a human. For those who prefer email to voicemail. Keep a record of your all of your voicemail forever.

Design

  • 10 Web Design Bloggers You Should Follow (Mashable.com)
  • 24Ways.org - is the advent calendar for web geeks. Each day throughout December we publish a daily dose of web design and development goodness to bring you all a little Christmas cheer.
  • 99designs.com -Need something designed? 99designs connects clients needing design work such as logo designs, business cards or web sites to a thriving community of 45,000 talented designers.
  • Aviary – Creation on the fly. Photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more
  • CSS-Tricks.com – A web design community curated by Chris Coyieur
  • DesignTutorials4U – Web Design Tutorials & Journal
  • CreativeLive.com – free online creative education. Photo, design, fine art, programming more.
  • Google Font Directory - Free, Open Sourced, Custom Fonts for your Web Page. Hosted by Google so that they render correctly on most browsers.
  • I Design Your Logo.com – You buy a day, and they devot that entire day to designing your logo, then they blog about it, twitter about it. Rates vary. They’re about in the $200 range as of now (5/29/10). They go up $2 per day. I don’t know how that works, if that’s to infinity or what. But check them out. I like their work, and their attitude.
  • SEO Mofo – Best page I’ve come across for detailed instructions of designing your own Custom Twitter Background, if you want to give a crack at it yourself.
  • StressLimitDesign – Don’t know much about them, but @ChrisBrogan mentioned he got his logo done there

Education

  • All About the iPad – Blog by Don McAllister, a noted Mac user educational expert.
  • CreativeLive.com – free online creative education. Photo, design, fine art, programming more.

Entertainment

Feed Readers

  • Flipboard – This is an iPad App. It makes your personal feeds look like a Magazine. It’s the perfect way to consume your feeds in a casual, serendipitous way. Makes reading your feeds fun.
  • Paper.li – This is a web based app. It’s like Flipboard except makes your feeds into a “Newspaper” feel.

Firefox Extensions

  • Feedly – The ultimate homepage. Feedly weaves your favorite content into a fun, magazine-like start page.
  • Firebug – Web development evolved.
  • Noscript – Provides the most powerful security available in a browser
  • PowerTwitter – Makes Twitter better. Shows link content inline, and gives other features of a Twitter client.
  • Yslow -analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages.
  • Xmarks – Synchronizes your bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers and platforms.

Fun

  • FourSquare – The place to stalk your friends and unlock your city.
  • MovieClips.com – Search 12,000 Movie Clips Legally from 6 Studios.
  • Stachetastic – Add a mustache or beard to any photo. Absolutely realistic!
  • ShirtsTasteGood – Funny T-Shirts/ Youtube Inspired T-Shirts
  • Symphony of Science – Using Music to teach science. Makes it fun, and its very inspiring. Great for kids.
  • URDB.org – The Universal Record Database. an open platform for world records. We welcome you to get involved, whether discussing records, beating records or setting new ones of your own.
  • WhoseVoice.org – Voice recognition expert blog. Ever wonder whose voice it is in that commercial, movie, or other event? This blog figures it out and the juicy gossip behind it.

Hardware

  • Atlona Technologies – Wired and Wireless Video Converters. Connect older Mac’s DVI to Mini Display Port. Wirelessly connect laptops to HD TVs in HD Quality
  • Logitech Anywhere MX Mouse. – Best mouse out there, especially for Mac users.
  • OtherWorldComputing – Innovative memory and storage solutions for Mac.
  • Speck Products – Wonderful cases for iPads and iPhones including the new iPhone 4

Internet

Iphone/iPad Apps

  • AppBox Pro -AppBox Pro No.1 Paid App in 40 Countries! Is huge set of applications which has 18 apps including Battery Life, Clinometer, Currency Converter, Date Calculator, Days Until, Flashlight, Holidays, Loan Calculator, Periodic Calculator, Price Grab, Random Number, Ruler, Sale Price, System Info, Tip Calculator, and Translator. $.99
  • Pinball HD – #1 PLACE IN USA TOP PAID APPS DURING THE FIRST SALES DAY! RECOMMENDED BY APPLE IN “WHAT’S HOT” AND “WHAT WE’RE PLAYING”!
    5 OF 5 STARS EVERYWHERE! Incredible graphics. So much fun if you love Pinball.
  • ReelDirector –  Video editing for iPhone3GS! Like iMovie for the iPhone. ReelDirector makes it simple for everyone to create movie right on iPhone 3GS. With a drag-and-drop timeline, multiple text watermark styles and 27 pro grade transitions, you’ll turn your scattered video clips into polished movies in just minutes. $7.99
  • River of News – Best news reader for iPad. Connects to Google reader. Saves out to all the popular book marking services.
  • Stachetastic – Add a realistic mustache or beard to any photo. Fun!
  • Say It and Mail It – Record and email voice memos using your iphone or ipod Touch. Use it to email reminders to yourself or email messages to anyone.
  • TweetReel – Share Videos on Twitter with the new Iphone 3GS
  • Tweetero – A Twitter Client that also supports Video and Photo Tweets on the yfrog platform

Music

  • Streampad(Who Has It?) – Sites that utilize the Streampad Music Player. A great glossary of innovative music sites.
  • FredWilson.fm – By the innovative venture capitalist, Fred Wilson. Plays great indie, Creative Commons licensed music. Indie musicians can even easily submit their music to his station via his convenient drop box.
  • GrooveShark – Cool place to stream music. Kind of like an online iTunes. Search songs, stream them. It’s free.
  • IndieBall.com – Indieball is the web’s best place for outstanding, innovative, eye-opening indie pop. You can even download their tracks for free.
  • PolluxApp.com – If you’re using iTunes and not using Pollux, you’re missing out. Never worry about organizing your music library again.
  • Tuneage – Tuneage aims to broaden your musical horizons, be it brand new music or music that’s forty years old.
  • Spinner – Free MP3s, Interviews, Music News, Live Performances, Songs and Videos.
  • Swift.fm – Helps you discover, share, and enjoy new music. Very interesting and useful discovery tool.
  • Youtube Music Discovery Project – And Playlist Creation Tool

Photo-Editing

Software

  • AlternativeTo –  Alternatives to Windows, Mac, Linux, and online software
  • Formulate Pro – Overlay text and graphics on PDF documents. Great for filling out forms.FormulatePro helps you open and write on PDF documents. You can fill out any PDF form document, drop in graphics, scribble with the mouse or a tablet, save and print.
  • Screencast-O-Matic – Screencast-O-Matic is the original free and easy way to create a video recording of your screen (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install!

Search

  • OpenBook – Search all things that are public on Facebook.

Travel

  • Everlater – Record and share your travel experiences with Everlater. It’s fun and free!
  • HipMunk.com – Way better flight search. Much friendlier interface. Treats you like a person. You’ll stop cringing at buying tickets online.
  • Lastminute.com – Save up to 70% on last second travel deals!
  • MySkyStatus.com – While you’re in the air, MySkyStatus sends altitude, location, departure and arrival updates automatically to your Facebook and Twitter pages. It’s travel made social and it’s easy to set up.

Twitter

  • Brizzly – The BEST way to experience Twitter. A web based Twitter client with a rich array of features like in line media, grouping, push and threaded DM’s and mentions, link expansion, and more!
  • Vidly – The best way to share videos on Twitter
  • TwitterClaims – Somebody has the username you would like? TwitterClaims will monitor for you and email you when certain usernames that you’ve selected become available.
  • MrTweet – Great site that helps you find interesting people to follow based on what you are interested in.
  • MyLikes – Helps you leverage the energy you put into twitter by recommending things that you like and getting paid for clicks. Controversial. Some are against inserting ads in tweets, but it’s only one per 24hour period, and you can tweet what  it is that your really like about a product or service. So puts integrity back in the game.
  • SEO Mofo – Best page I’ve come across for detailed instructions of designing your own Custom Twitter Background, if you want to give a crack at it yourself.

Utilities

  • SuperDuper! – Heroic System Recovery For Mere Mortals
  • Clamwin – Free Anti-Virus Open-Source Security for your PC
  • iPhone-Explorer - Want to put your iPhone or iPod Touch in disk mode? Use an iPhone as a flash drive? iPhone Explorer is an iPhone browser for Mac that lets you browse the files and folders on your iPhone as if it were a normal USB flash drive or pen drive.
  • Transmit – Best file transfer client on the planet. Including but not limited to FTP. (Mac Only)

Video

  • Anyclip – Find any moment from any film, instantly.
  • Fliggo – Create Your Own Video Site in Seconds
  • Mag.ma – Must Watch. The Current Top Videos to Watch Right Now.
  • MovieClips.com – Search 12,000 Movie Clips Legally from 6 Studios.
  • Know Your Meme – Documenting Internet phenomena: viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more…
  • Vidly – The best way to share videos on Twitter.

Webcams (HD)

  • Logitech – Quickcam Pro 9000 – Get razor-sharp video with ultra-smooth Autofocus and high-precision Carl Zeiss optics. (Crisper image, but less frame-rate)
  • Microsoft Lifecam Cinema – This full-featured webcam, with ClearFrame image-processing technology, delivers smooth, detailed 16:9 video in full 720p HD quality and crystal-clear audio. (Better frame rate than the Logitech, but less crisp image)

Web Dev/Authoring

  • Aptana Studio – The Web Developer’s Choice -Why are Web developers world-wide choosing Aptana Studio? They’ve discovered that Aptana Studio offers unprecedented support for Ajax combined with today’s popular Web platforms. Download Studio standalone or plug it into Eclipse to see for yourself. It’s your choice.

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