Justin Roselt - Media and Design » apps

Flock to the rescue

JR — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:22:08 +0000

At first I put it down to my Internet connection speed but then I started using Safari instead for a few weeks. There was a noticeable increase in browsing speeds and render times of websites I was visiting. It was a big change going to Safari from Firefox as there are no where near the amount of plugins available as there are for Firefox. Though personally I think it is a much nicer browser to use.

This changed again today when browsing my RSS feeds for the week I randomly came across an update to the Flock browser (powered by Mozilla Firefox). Now I had used this many years ago and at the time did not think much of it. Well a lot has changed over at planet Flock and the browser is now well advanced and contains many included addons and social networking abilities. Its load times seem to exceed Safari and its rendering of websites is very similar to Safari. It has now replaced both Safari and Firefox on my PC!

Twitter tools and more

JR — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:49:44 +0000

It seems to be popular or at least sound like you know what you’re talking about when it comes to the Internet you have to have to Twitter.

Twitter is without doubt a simple, ground breaking web app trend of the past six months. It has a practical, professional and personal place within the social media circles and is accessible to all with a mobile data or Internet connection of some kind. The interesting thing for me is how far the adaptation of web tools based on Twitter has come recently. Not sure what I’m talking about? well take a look at Smashing Magazine’s post on 99 essential Twitter tools and applications. You may be surprised!

Of course, you can follow me on Twitter.

Page Capture Widget

JR — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:19:58 +0000

A simple to use screen capture widget that requires only the URL of the page you want to take a grab of. While on the PC I use the an addon for Firefox to take complete grabs of websites, however I have been looking for one to use on the Mac for a little while now and this takes the cake.

Some features from the website:

Captures entire web pages no matter how long they may scroll for.
Easy to use: type or paste a URL – hit Return or click the logo.
Uses Safari’s powerful and fast WebKit rendering engine.
Check for new versions by clicking the version displayed on the back.
Automatically resize the image (default is 50%).
Free!

Available form Apples Dashboard Widgets downloads page.

Design Credit

iiQuota iPhone app

JR — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:03:29 +0000

Came across iiQuota iPhone app this week. A handy little app if you’re casually interested in monitoring your Broadband and mobile usage on the go on your iPhone.

Does not support all ISP’s or mobile phone providers. iiNet, Telstra, OPTUS, Vodafone and Internode are only supported at this stage…

TweetDeck

JR — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:19:56 +0000

For me, this changed today when I stumbled upon TweetDeck. Utilising Adobe Air, it is a nice way to manage your Twitter service and comes with many integrate features. Looks the same in either Windows or Mac (thanks to Adobe) and is easy to navigate and use overall.

It also comes with Facebook integration. Still in Beta phase but really does not matter, it’s another top app.

TweetDeck website

Happy Easter!

Google mobile sync

JR — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:00:28 +0000

Not long ago I wrote an entry about My Memova, a free calendar sync web app. It is primarily a contacts backup and syncing application, main benefit being it is free. It is also very simple to use and setup on the device – in this instance, an iPhone. I still think this is a great web app, however this week I set myself up with Google mobile sync and personally think it is fantastic!

It comes into a class of its own if you are running Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.6) as you can set it up in iTunes to sync with your Gmail contacts. Once you have done this you only need to set up the exchange server on your handset. In my instance I am only using it for my contacts and calendar (which now replaces the My Memova setup). My email is IMAP on the device using Gmail (as I have recently given Google Apps away as no longer needed).

Enabling Push data access on the device ensures your contacts are synced at all times and now means I have one set of contacts, backed up in 3 seperate locations. I can also edit my contacts on any device or App and they are automatically updated on the other. Something I have been after for a while now.

Supporting most popular devices, you can’t go past this as an essential contact management tool.

Visit Google mobile sync

DeskLickr: My new favorite app!

JR — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:04:36 +0000

So you all know I am addicted to Flickr… Well something else you may not know is I never understood why people get all caught up on the image they have on their desktop. When do you ever see it! For the most part I have always just had a boring color as the background on both the PC and Mac. Well that changed today when I discovered my new favorite application DeskLickr.

The app randomly rotates your desktop from a selection of Flickr groups or image sets of your choice. The thing I like most about it is it’s an easy way to discover new photos and inspiration, and you don’t have to do anything. I think it’s pretty cool!