Tools

Mac Desktop In your Browser – Schmedley

by Sujoy on June 17, 2010

Yes you read that right. Okay, if you can’t believe what I wrote, see it for yourself.

Schmedley Web Mac Desktop

Well, it is not a full fledged desktop, but if you are looking for the basic functionalities of a desktop, you get pretty much everything out of the Web version in Schmedley [ visit the link here].

So, there is Weather, Search, RSS, Facebook, Friendfeed, Maps, Stocks, Amazon, Sticky Notes, Bookmarks, Twitter, YouTube and even E-Mail. Everything is configurable in the form of the snazzy widgets as you can see. All you need to do is Register with them. As the header shows, it is in Gamma phase, and I hope the first roll-out will be out soon.

The Movies tab show coming attractions and movie showtimes. The look of your homepage can be customised and the Mac dock at the bottom is very smooth.

Do let us know if you liked this one. Cheerio!

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Top 100 Tools for Learning : 2009 Edition

by Sujoy on January 17, 2010

C4LPT did a compilation of the Top 100 tools for learning for the year 2009 on the basis of Top 10 Tool contributions from 278 learning professionals worldwide.

The list of the Professionals can be found here [ Top 10 Tools lists ]

The following embedded presentation enlists all the awesome tools that made it to the Top 100 in descending order.

So according to the list, Twitter comes at the top, followed by popular sites such as Delicious, YouTube, Google Reader, Google Docs, WordPress, Google Search etc making it to the Top 10. Quite surprisingly, Open Source sound editor – Aduacity is ahead of resources such as Wikipedia, Blogger, Skype and Flickr.

What do you think about this list? Shout it out in the comments.

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So we do have our own daily visited websites. I can’t live without my daily dose of Techcrunch and Lifehacker. And then, there are the usual ones – Facebook, Twitter, GMail etc. Now, although browsers like Chrome, Opera and Firefox with addons do allow users to have a start up Fast-Dial page which has links to those highly visited links, there is still a big link missing in the amount of stuff we want. Of course, that void has been filled to some extent by the father of all start-up pages – iGoogle. iGoogle is highly customisable, with gadgets, widgets and feeds. You can add a lot of stuff to keep your iGoolge engaging, but again, adding too much stuff makes it cluttered and takes ages to load. And not to forget, you have Themes on iGoogle.

Enter a new alternative to iGoogle – 44tips.com, a website run by some awesome developers at picturesque Amsterdam [ I am imagining that they have an awesome view in their office :) ] The first thing you notice about the UI [user interface] on 44tips is that the site design is simplistic, clutter-free and quite minimal – yet, pretty. The colours are basic dark grey and Orange with a twang. Both remind me of Firefox somehow, which means-it works for me. Let’s explore the usability and the features on this website, and if it is worth making it your homepage. Shall we? [Continue Reading]

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What do you use IMDb for?

by Sujoy on October 19, 2009

IMDb just turned 19. Yes, Techcrunch’s article reveals that the IMDb is actually older than the web browser. There’s a long ass explanation to that, which we’ll not be discussing here. But certainly, in these 19 years of web existence, IMDb is one of the most visited websites and also synonymous to the Wikipedia for movie lovers like me. We do have other ‘superior’ movie rating systems such as Metacritic or Rottentomatoes, but IMDb totally belongs to the viewer’s rating and is not limited to critics. And hence, IMDb movie ratings are often considered to be closer to the taste of the audience.
The obvious utility of IMDb is that it is the largest compilation of movies and is not limited to just Hollywood or for that matter Bollywood. Every movie lover I know goes to IMDb first to check out if a movie is worth watching or not, or even to just have a look at initial reactions of audiences on a movie. So, for world cinema lovers, this is the one stop to gather information on movies. But other than the obvious use of viewing a movie’s ratings, what are the other ways that you use IMDb for? I have listed a couple of them below.

[Continue Reading]

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