Archive for the ‘Applications’ category

Don’t lose track of your eye-candy!

January 12th, 2009

People have different ways of saving websites that are in one way or another, inspiring to them. Some will bookmark, some will save a current image of what the site looks like, and others will regret never bookmarking that site when it comes to mind a few months later.

websnaps RealMac Software has come up with a solution to your unorganized image woes. LittleSnapper (Mac only) allows you to snap a certain section you need, or snap an entire webpage that you are currently viewing. You don’t even need to leave your browser–you can do it all using the commands available to you through it. You also have the ability to tag your images. So you remember all those logos you saved? Now you won’t have to worry about sifting through your lolcats to find your logo snaps.

You also have the ability to add text, lines, shapes, highlighting and more to your images. Don’t fret about having all that markup on it, LittleSnapper allows you to hide it easily, as it’s markup additions are non-destructive.

Not a Mac user? You have some alternatives you can try out although nothing to the extent of LittleSnapper (that we’ve been able to find.) There are few options that give you the capability that LittleSnapper can. Some will perform a few of the actions, where others won’t. Our closest alternative to Windows can be done a couple of different ways.

If you’re looking for an easy way to save the current page you’re viewing and you’re using Firefox you can take advantage of an add-on that’s available for it. Abduction! allows you to take a screenshot of the page you’re viewing–whether you want a portion or 100% height/width of it, you can chose. From there you can either save it to your desktop in organized folders, or you can take advantage of some webapps.

Scrnshots.com allows you to add screenshots you take to your profile and tag them. Not only that but it gives other members the chance to comment on them, or even add them to their own favorites list. They also provide an upload utility that gives you the ability to upload your images without having to go to their website; The only downfall is that it’s currently not a batch-uploader. So if you’ve got hundreds (or maybe thousands) of images, it might not be the quickest for you. Flickr can also be used as you can create sets, and tag your images too.

Do you think you have a Windows alternative to LittleSnapper? Let us know by leaving a comment!

FeedDemon – RSS News Aggregator

December 8th, 2008

I’m an avid user of RSS feeds for most of my resource websites (like wpcandy.com, nettuts), video streaming services (hulu.com, fancast.com), and more but the problem I was facing was that the web based reader could not keep up. I was using Pageflakes to view all of my feeds, but between the slow loading time for the site, added with the amount of feeds I had, it was no longer feasible.

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My option was essentially nix RSS feeds altogether or find a [Windows] desktop application to handle my feeds. After much googling around, a friend finally recommended that I look into FeedDemon. It’s a Windows (98 and higher) application that would be one stop for any and all of my RSS feeds. Upon downloading FeedDemon and installing it, you are given the option to setup a NewsGator Online account which gives you the ability to be able to access your feeds on your desktop application from a web browser on any computer. Neat, right? You also have the ability to install FeedDemon onto any other [Windows based] computer, and sign your NewsGater account into it–this gives you the chance to synchronize all of your feeds, so you won’t have to sift through RSS feeds that you may have already read.

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With FeedDemon you have the ability to add categories, and then add your feeds into those categories. Each category you are also given the opportunity to chose a theme for how it’s styled. But the best part is that you don’t even have to leave FeedDemon ever, to read a full feed (and not just an excerpt.) FeedDemon integrates Internet Explorer (whichever version your PC has) and uses IE to view websites that you click within FeedDemon whether it’s to read more of an article from your RSS feed, or a link that was included in a post you were reading.

The one last advantage might not be for all users, but there is even an iPhone application called NetNewsWire. Again, you are able to use your NewsGator Online account to sync your feeds.

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