To make my Google Wave exploration useful, I decided to look around for Wave gadgets that I can use, and actually found a handful of them.   So here goes, 5 Google Wave Gadgets that you will most likely use.

Twitter

You knew this is will be my first useful gadget right? It should be, well at least for me. This gadget gives you your Twitter’s public timeline as a wavelet. Unfortunately, it does not allow you to post tweets, reply to conversation directly on Twitter. To activate this gadget just add tweety-wave@appspot.com to your contact list.  It will authenticate your Twitter account the first time you use it.

Amazon

This gadget lets you search for products on Amazon’s various product category. It’s the best looking Google Wave gadgets I’ve seen so far. And the Amazon bot works fast t00. To add this gadget, just add amazon-withwaves-com@appspot.com to your contact list.

Eliza

If got bored while exploring Google Wave or you’re contacts are not sending you waves, you might find Eliza useful. Yup, it’s the auto-chat bot who is also an auto-shrink. Common, talk to her if you must. Just don’t ask too many complicated questions. To add Eliza to Google Wave, just add elisarobot@appspot.com. Have fun!

Starify

This gadget lets you bookmark Waves which you can then later on list or delete. It uses the following commands – /star’, /list’, and /delete’. To add this gadget to Google Wave, just add starifybot@appspot.com. It could be useful if you’ve created many waves already.

Calcbot

This Wave gadget will come in handy whenever you need to do some simple calculations while in the middle of a conversation inside a wave.  Just add calcbot@appspot.com to your contact list and you’re good to go.

These are just some of the Google Wave gadgets currently available. Using these gadgets on your Google Wave account adds some excitement to Google Wave, especially if you don’t have too many contacts who are in the exclusive circle of early Google Wave users. If you’re not one of them and you want an invite, just shoot me an email with your gmail account and I’ll include you in my invitation list. I still have a couple of invites to throw out.

We’ve highlighted the most popular online slideshow creators…

Animoto – One of the most robust, modern options for slideshows is Animoto which allows you to quickly upload your pictures, select music and the algorithm times the movement of your pictures with your selected movement automatically- it’s like MTV crawled into your computer and designed a custom video for you!

Slide - A slideshow creator made especially for sharing on social networks such as Facebook, Bebo and more. Slide has a wide variety of music options and design additions to amp up any slideshow!

Slideroll – An optional downloadable desktop editor allows users to create flash photo and video galleries that are fully embeddable to your website and allow comments from other users. Add stock music or even your own (with a little code tweaking!).

Monoslideshow – Mono offers one of the most clean, fresh slideshows with no border or you tube-esque visual frames which is perfect for portfolios or professional shows for your website (plus it has Ken Burns effects which is always a major plus). Used by blog platform Tumblr.

Imageloop - An easy slideshow creator, perfect for the beginner or people used to the MySpace interface. It offers preset themes, for example an iPhone theme to make it look like your uploaded pictures are being viewed on in iPhone.

RockYou – Pulls photos you’ve already uploaded to sites like Photobucket and Facebook and gives them a face lift (complete with music) then prepares them to be shared on social networks like MySpace and Facebook.

Smilebox – Add your photos, videos, words, and music and then e-mail, blog, print or burn it to a DVD. Hundreds of templates ensure you’ll get “miles of smiles” from your family and friends.

Kizoa - This slideshow creator is easy to use and produces a nice Flash-based product. My pnly gripe is that it forces your browser window to the max size, and that drives me nuts.

Drupal Sildeshow – Users of this great open source CMS that was recently adopted by the White House, have easy access to turn uploaded images into a JavaScript enabled slideshow.

Dijit – This Web-based widget creator lets you take your own original photo slideshow and post it on your MySpace or Facebook account. You can also allow people to download your goods.

Wix – Taking the legwork out of learning Flash, Wix requires no downloads or programming, and gives the novice a chance to roll out a slick looking slideshow.

Moblyng – A developer of cross-platform games for mobile devices and social networks, the site also features a slideshow creator. Add captions, skins and music to give your photos a unique spin. Grab the embed code and make it mobile.

Which slideshow creators have you used? Share a link of your best slideshow in the comments below.

So it’s time to get cookin’. You have one month to hone those cooking skills and create a tablescape that your guests will never forget.

Check out our 2009 Thanksgiving Roundup to find tips and tricks for making this Thanksgiving your best ever and leave your guests thankful.

Martha Stewart is hands down the authority on Thanksgiving and each year releases special new recipes and decorating tips that will all be released this week (which for Martha fans is huge news)!

Real Simple has great tips for innovative dishes and table settings that will wow any dinner guest.

EHow.com can answer any question relating to Thanksgiving from wine pairings to creating place cards by hand.

MyPunchBowl.com event planning sends out gorgeous (and uniquely modern) invitations via email and manages the whole party process online- you can even order party supplies here.

Country Living shows in pictures 31 creative ways to set and decorate a table which can help you up your game this Thanksgiving!

Foodie View gives you tips and ricks on reducing insanity on Thanksgiving and trust us, it can get hectic, so check this article out before getting started.
NYTimes gives away the butcher’s secret for how to carve a turkey (and it doesn’t involve a mechanical saw at the dinner table).

Beekman1802 has one of this season’s hottest ideas- check out the tutorial on how to turn an orange rind into a scented votive.

About.com is a great resource for vegetarian and even vegan recipes whether for yourself or for your guests.

TheKitchn has a tofu loaf recipe that actually looks good (despite most tofu being less than spectacular).

AllRecipes.com is one of the web’s best recipe resources and even has a community in which you can ask questions (like how do I make a burnt turkey taste good?).

TheKitchn’s 2008 pie bakeoff winner was a sure-to-please pumpkin pie cup recipe that looks to die for!

NYTimes “parties like it’s 1929″ and talks about how to downsize your holidays (which is a relatively common theme this year).

History.com gives you all of the fun facts about Thanksgiving that you should know so you can impress your guests with your vast historical knowledge!

Better Homes & Garden shows you how to use your turkey leftovers in more innovative ways than just sandwiches (turkey tortilla soup? yum!).

Share with us in the comments what Web resources you use for the Thanksgiving season- we’d love to hear them! You can also feel free to tell us what social media tool or gadget you are most thankful for in 2009!

Let’s talk about some of the features and how it could or could not “kill” the iPhone.
The Droid has crowned itself a killer because of its technical features that supersede technical problems the iPhone has such as higher resolution images (taking pics even in low light), a real keyboard (hello!) and the ability to run multiple apps simultaneously.  But is that enough for people that have spent hundreds of dollars on existing (and Droid incompatible) apps to ditch Apple?  Absolutely not, BUT it is grounds for non iPhone users to jump on the anti-iPhone sentiment that is growing in volume.

Droid is more likely positioned to be a BlackBerry killer or a Palm Pre killer than it is an iPhone killer because those purchasing Apple products have an almost religious affinity for anything Apple and wouldn’t consider looking anywhere outside of the sexy looking, techno-music-playing, expensive, hipster Apple stores because of a particular *emotion* invoked as if they’ve made friends with a product and the staff behind that product.

The Motorola Droid has one massive advantage that does resonate in the technology industry- open development.  That means that instead of the roadblocks and closed doors application developers have to go through to become anointed into the Mac App store, and instead of having to deal with the red tape of the Palm company clusterflip, developers are welcomed and encouraged to use the Droid platform openly.  Typically, when the tech sector (led by very vocal app developers) rallies behind a product, the public inevitably follows.

The iPhone has long been hailed as the shiny object du jour, but as developers hop off the bandwagon, there is a chance that an informed public will follow suite, while those that don’t read blogs or care about news but like that their phone is sexy and has an Apple on it will likely stay put.  The Droid isn’t going to kill anything, but it will take away enough market share to be a significant threat.

Verizon has made some interesting moves.  First, on November 6, a second version of the Droid will be dropping.  On top of that, it appears that Droid is not just the name of a device, but the name of an entire line to ‘i-Phone killing’ phones.

The use of the name ‘Droids’ – which are robots seen in Star Wars and several other sci-fi movies is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd..  Off the bat, that gives the whole thing an uber-geeky feel.

And perhaps the biggest negative of them all is the fact that the inaugural Droid is manufactured by Motorola, not exactly the biggest crowd favorite when it comes to phone functionality satisfaction.  Couple that with the fact that Verizon has kept a bigger padlock on their devices than most wireless carriers, and you can understand why this blogger – and many others – are skeptical.

I guess we’ll have our answer in a few days…

Actually, I won’t have my answer in a few a days because I’m stuck with the LG Dare for another year!  Bummer.

Halloween Haunting

Haunt your friends with this Halloween app. Select any Halloween gifts that you think would scare your friend.  Everytime you login you will be awarded with Freaky Funds which you can later on use to purchase other Halloween treats.

What should you be for Halloween?

If you haven’t decided yet what costume you wil be hearing during Halloween, this app will help you by asking several questions that will determine its final suggestion  for what you should be.

Halloween Countdown

Want to have a Halloween countdown clock on your profile, this is the Facebook app to to use.  It allows you to select background for your Halloween countdown clock as well.

Halloween Pumpkins

This app lets you carve a pumpkin and put it on your profile or carve another one and send it to your friends.

Halloween Wars

If you like Mafia wars, this app is a simple taken on yet another war game. But this your objective is to terrorize Halloween night.

Halloween Eating Contest

Challenge your friends into a virtual eating contest featuring some yummy halloween-inspired treats.

Halloween Hatchlings

Kill the new breed of monster hatchlings before the evil Count starts creating a new of monsters and release them to the world.

Halloween Quotes

Pepper your Facebook profile with cool Halloween quotes complete with nice looking background. The app lets you display a single or random quotes.

Halloween Treats

This app lets you send Halloween Treats to your Facebook friends.  You can select various treats such as scary, spooky or funny pictures and animated GIFs. You will be able to unlock more treats eavery day.

Halloween Name Generator

Still don’t know what name to call your self, use this app to get your Halloween Name. Just type in your name, select your sex and select a background to use in your Facebook profile.

Which sexy Halloween costume is right for me?

So you want to join the Halloween fun but could not decide what costume to use that will make you still look sexy? Take the quiz and find the perfect sexy costume that will suit you.

1. Morning, NN twitter, afternoon all

This just doesn’t add anything to the conversation and telling me that you are off to bed is not something that I really need to know!

2. Can you give this a Digg or stumble

We get the fact that you are very proud of the great content you have produced and that you want as many people to see it as possible but the fact of the matter is that you are in the same boat as a couple of other million people on the internet looking for traffic. Join the queue and let us decide ourselves what content we like when we see it.

3. You have no idea how busy I am

We get it you are busy. So is every other person on the planet right now and if you were that busy you wouldn’t have time to write about it on a micro blogging service to a group of what are mostly strangers.

4. I am out having dinner at conference with X and Y

We get the fact that you have hooked up with somebody you are proud to have met and this is a big deal for you but how about you concentrate on having a good time and connecting with the person in question in the real world and stop showing off to your online buddies.

5. #FollowFriday or #musicmonday

I’m really not that in to the ego stroking that is follow Friday. I have never followed anybody this way and there are far better ways of finding music socially that the cumbersome use of a hash tag for #musicmonday

6. Any sort of automated DM

If you can’t even be bothered to write me a human response and think it is a good idea to send me an automated DM linking to your blog or website then you are gone. Simple as that.

7. One more follower and I get to XXX

Forget about the numbers. I don’t care if you are stuck on 9999 or whatever other stupid number it is. The fact is half of your followers are a mixture of spam bots, people pimping their product and people who haven’t tweeted in about 3 months so what do numbers really matter?

8. The raging debate between 2 people you follow

Twitter is not for having arguments in public or polluting other people’s streams. Once it gets to the 2nd or 3rd message take it to DM’s, IM or email. We just don’t need to see 20 back and forths

9. My email inbox is soooooooo full today

Yeah we get it you are super popular and loads of people love you and they are all emailing you multi million dollar contracts and huge business proposals. We all get a lot of email and most of it is junk :)

10. What a goal by XX

I follow people from all over the world so when somebody is giving me blow by blow commentary from an American football game in Texas it really means very little to me.

Guest post:

This post is written by Niall Harbison who is the Co-founder @ Simply Zesty.

Call Me with Google Voice

This app lets you display your Google Voice widget in tab, profile and box. It allows you to make phone blasts to your Facebook News feed, create widget link that you can append to events and customize flash load image.

Call-My-W&ll

This is a simple with one simple and yet useful purpose – it lets you call in your Facebook status updates and then leave a voice status.

Reach Me On My Mobile

A pretty useful Facebook app that allows your friend to contact you through call, chat, text and voice messaging from your Facebook profile. It also prompts you to get online and log-in to your Facebook account for new file sent by your friends.

Telephone

Talk and send instant messages to your Facebook friends for free. You can also leave a voice message to your friends.

Party Line

This is an easy-to-use and useful app that lets you make instant conference call with your Facebook friends.
Jottby Jott, Inc.

Jott

A voice-to-text service app that allows you to capture thoughts, send emails and text messages as well as connect to popular web services through a simple phone call.

GuerrillaTel – Call for FREE

If you’re in the US or Canada, this app lets you make free phone-to-phone calls via your Facebook profile. You simply click on a friend’s picture to connect via phone patch for free.

Talkster Phone Party

This app lets you call a friend or a group of up to 5 friends at once for free. It allows you to use any mobile or landline phone, internationally.

Calliflower- FREE Conference Calls

Another app that lets you start a conference call for free. It allows you to call from home, mobile, Skype or any VOIP service.

Calls & SMS worldwide

Lets you make calls as well as send SMS from your Facebook account directly to your friends. It also lets you friens call you or leave a voicemail to you directly from your Facebook profile.

Share through SpinVox

This app lets you update your Facebook status as well as you Twitter and Jaiku accounts through a simple phone call. It also sends your messages into SMS.

Have you used any of these applications in your Facebook account?  Share with us your experiences by leaving a comment below.

@realtracymorgan – 30 Rock funnyman and SNL alum Tracy Morgan. (49,059 followers)

@redhourben – Ben “I want to be sexier than Tom Cruise” Stiller. (569,859 followers)

@danny_devito – Writer and director Danny Devito has been enjoying the baseball playoffs in Cali. (119,620 followers)

@reggie_bush – The NFL star follows Christ, but you can follow him. (482,956 followers)

@maryjblige – R&B sensation Mary J. has been pitching for AT&T and embraces Twitter. (225,951 followers)

@souljaboytellem - The rapper continues his quest for world domination of all media. (1,709,114 followers)

@jessicaalbaa - Hottie Jessica Alba is one of the few celebs to protect her tweets. (30,656 followers)

@sethmeyers21 – The SNL anchor cracks wise. (40,540 followers)

@questlove - The Roots member is a self-proclaimed “music snob.” (1,011,578 followers)

@jennyfrommtv – Mrs. Jim Carrey has yet to verify her account. (47,663 followers)

@gehrig38 – Outspoken retired baseball pitch Curt Schilling. (14,515 followers)

@droz - Does Dr. Mehmet Oz think Twitter can save your life? Maybe. (63,888 followers)

@peeweeherman – still. going. strong. (111,492 followers)

@joelmchale – From Talk Soup to real TV. (1,413,752 followers)

@elizadushku – Acting hottie speaks her mind. (163,762 followers)

@mrdannyglover - Yes, that’s Mr. to you! (1,135,496 followers)

@Ciara - The young R&B songstress. (223,468 followers)

With thousands of athletes, musicians, movie stars and even politicians online, who has joined recently that  you are excited to follow?  Let us know in the comments below.

Scary Sounds

Now this app has several spooky sound effects to get you into the Halloween mood. It contains various eery sound effects including – Demonic Laughter, Screech and Howl, Wolf Howl, Wicked Witch Laugh and more.  Want to hear all kinds of screaming sound? This app got it.   (iTunes Link)

Halloween Word Search

Here’s a good way to while away time on Halloween’s night. Play a nice little word game with your friends or family on a Halloween theme and backdraft, complete with Halloween background music to set the mood. The words in the game are Halloween-related too.  (iTunes Link)

reMovem Halloween Edition

This game is the Halloween edition of the reMovem game. For this version, it’s a pretty simple game of popping out Halloween blocks by tapping onto two or more similar adjacent blocks. The game features some Halloween background music and tons of blocks with Halloween inspired designs.  (iTunes Link)

Ghost Pop by Jirbo

If the Halloween Word Search is not your type of game, this app might actually appeal to you. It’s a simple game where you need to pop out some white ghosts with red lips before they get into you.  The game allows you to make the ghosts bigger on the game settings. (Price: Free) (iTunes Link)

Halloween Photocraft

Here’s a nice little app that lets you add Halloween effects/graphics  to photos you’ve taken using the iPhone camera. It a fast and intuitive app that lets you crop and zoom, add themed graphics from 21 available themes, resize and rotate your photo using multi-touch controls, and send photos to Facebook, Twitter or email. (iTunes Link)

Ghostbuster

This app is in no way related to the popular movie. But it could be a nice Halloween party game that you and your friends can enjoy. The objective of the game is to capture, well what else but ghosts? The game has some nice graphics and sounds as well. (iTunes Link)

Halloween Deluxe

This app will surely get you into the Halloween mood whether you like it or not. It contains – countdown to Halloween with high quality sound effects, soundboard with 11 scary sounds, costume ideas, trivia and facts, background images that can be used as an iPhone wallpaper, and a nicely designed interface with easy navigation. (iTunes Link)

Singing Pumpkins

Here’s a simple Halloween app.  The objective is for you to lead a group of pumpkin in singing some Halloween tunes.  You can change their singing into spooky sounds anytime you want to. The app features some nicely rendered graphics and fun sounds. (iTunes Link)

Halloween Quick Turn

Another fun game to play during Halloween, this one task you to keep the jack-o’-lantern alive as he bounces straight up and down on your screen. You do this by tilting your iPhone as if you are controlling a steering wheel. It may sound simple but wait till the pace becomes faster and before you knew it, the game might over. (iTunes Link)

iLoseWeight

This app lets you document your fitness and health data and then view the effects of your diet and fitness regimen. It records weight, body mass index (BMI), fat and water relation. What’s good about iLoseWeight is its sophisticated graphic engine which lets you check your weight and BMI in relation to your target weight. It also gives you the option to password-protect  your data, and do back up and restore. (iTunes link)

Daily Burn – Calorie, Workout and Weight Tracker

Aside from helping you find workout programs to follow, this app also lets you track your body weight, body fat, and monitors your body progress over time. But most importantly it keeps tab of all the results of the exercises you’ve chosen to follow. In addition, when you start using this app, you can sync your data with your DailyBurn.com account, in case you’ve signed up with them. The good thing about signing up with DailyBurn is that the app saves all your data on the DailyBurn servers. You can then access your data anytime, anywhere. (iTunes Link)

RunKeeper Free

If you’re way of keeping fit is running, this app will serve you well. It lets you track information related to duration, distance, pace, speed, total rise, elevation versus speed, and path traveled on a map, whenever you do your running activities. The app also lets you store your running history via the runkeeper website. Best of all, the app lets  you share your running achievements to your friends and family via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. (iTunes Link)

Food & Fitness Tracker

This app is an extension of the SparkPeople.com, a popular diet and fitness site, so naturally it syncs with your account in their site if you have one. The app lets you track your food and calorie intake and match it with the site’s 1 million foods stored in their database. It also helps you keep track of your workouts and calories burned, a weigh-in page for graphing your weight and progress over time and gives you detailed weight and calorie reports. (iTunes Link)

Workout Mate Free

I really find this particular app  pretty cool. It  gives you a workout buddy which can count your sets and reps allowing you to enter a maximum of 100 sets and 100 reps. The app automatically pauses after each set and lets you save your workout history as well. And guess how the app does its  job? It counts your reps by traking your movements when you do push ups, crunches, pull ups and more.  All you need to do is to put your iPhone in your pocket and start exercising.

These are just five of the health and fitness apps available for the iPhone. There are still many out there, in fact as of last count these apps now number to around 100. And that’s just for the free ones. There are still a plethora of these iPhone apps in the paid category.

Honorable mentions

You might want to check out also the following apps – Fitness plan, StepTrak Lite, and WeightMan.

Because cell phones have become equipped to do so much more than simply call or text, we’re exploring some of the various ways cell phone users can maximize the potential of their phones.  An often overlooked category is safety because vigilance tends to happen *after* an event, so take a moment and look into these 10 apps and find new ways to use your phone…

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
The Life360 Google Android app was born from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and is an emergency preparedness tool for families that “in less than five minutes, families can have access to a tool that does everything from family GPS tracking, to document warehousing, disaster planning, and emergency messaging.”

Rave Alert calls themselves the “next generation alerting system” for mass emergencies and is employed in places like colleges or apartment communities to alert a large group at one time via text messaging, email, PA system, Facebook and even via Twitter.  It is being adopted most quickly by colleges and high schools in this post-Virginia Tech era.

DRIVING
Cell phone app MotoRiety monitors driver distractions from text messages to phone calls and reports all phone activity, even tweeting about driver behavior while driving.  Aggressive acceleration, miles and idle time is logged and provided in periodic email reports making this tool perfect for parents of teen drivers.

Playsafe is an iPhone app that makes scrolling for music safer and less distracting.  The app turns the iPhone into a large button so users don’t have to scroll through small icons while driving and tapping the screen will play or pause music while swiping to the left or right will change the track.

SAFETY ALERTS
Safety Button is a simple iPhone app that allows users to start the program, push the big red button and it begins tracing the user’s step and reporting to a server.  If the red button is pressed again (in case of distress), the server will send your emergency contact person a panic message containing your position.

Android application SafetyNet is activated when the phone is shaken and can function in panic mode or medical mode even if the app isn’t running which will immediately alert everyone in your “SafetyNet” sending them your position and a distress call.  SafetyNet is ideal for people with medical issues or lone joggers.

FIRST AID
iPhone offers two applications for your iPhone- First Aid for Infants and First Aid for Children, both containing easy to read instructions on topics from protection to blocked airways to CPR and other emergencies.  This app is ideal for parent, babysitters, teachers and more.

MEDICINAL USES
AT&T developed app, MedNet allows heart patients to send data from their heart monitors to Bluetooth enabled phones (on AT&T) and then on to their cardiologist making heart care more interactive.  Heart monitor data interactivity is a great preventative measure.

Although not available on the market yet, we wanted to share a glimpse of the future with you.  U.C. Berkeley is developing and testing a program called Cellscope which is a microscope connected to a cell phone for diagnostics (think doctors in remote areas like a desert, mountaintop or even space).  It can be used “for bright field microscopy, which uses simple white light–such as from a bulb or sunlight–to illuminate samples. The latest development adds to the repertoire fluorescent microscopy, in which a special dye emits a specific fluorescent wavelength to tag a target–such as a parasite, bacteria or cell–in the sample.”  It’s powerful enough to detect malaria, tuberculosis or even sickle cells.  Wow.

Are you currently using any mobile apps that promote safety?  Which of these work with your phone and will you be downloading any of the above?  Let us know in comments!

1. Fitbit- featured in the 2008 Tech Crunch 50, FitBit makes us want to start working out- it acts as a pedometer, measures calories burned and distance travel and even measures sleep quality. Fitbit has a 3D motion sensor like a Wii and is one of the smaller devices on the market that can be worn in a variety of places, and all of your fitness information is uploaded to your Fitbit.com page to track online from anywhere. Fitbit is only $99.

2. Nike Plus- Nike + iPod helps you rock out at the gym while tracking your progress. Hook up your iPhone or iPod to record your running, noting distance, time and pace or connect your Nike+ shoes with built in sensor to track your running progress while the Nike+ voice tells you your progress. Nike+ syncs with your computer so you can track your goals and connect with others focused on their fitness goals also. The basic sport kit starts at $29.

3. Run Keeper- this iPhone app is among the most simple ways to track your fitness activities, not just running but cycling, hiking and skiing. All you do is press start when you begin your activity and Run Keeper will track your distance, speed and duration, syncing to you web dashboard to keep tabs on your fitness progress. One of the cool features of Run Keeper is that it will map your route and email you a link to share with others. Run Keeper is $9.99.

4. Garmin FR60- one of Garmin’s newest products is a wristwatch style gadget that logs time, heart rate and calories from jogging or even syncs with linked fitness equipment to log your fitness regimen. The FR60 is wireless and syncs to your computer automatically when in close enough proximity. It comes in various colors and can track up to 15 straight hours of activity. It’s swim friendly and has a bike mount for cyclists. The FR60 is $199.

5. Vetta RT277- this heavy duty cyclometer tracks current, maximum, and average speed as well as cadence and offers a cumulative odometer, trip distance, ride timer and a simple auto start and stop function. The RT277 has a replacable front cover, easy handle bar mounting and is one of the few on the market that is truly water resistant. The RT277 is $37.99.

6. Timex Ironman Tracker- stay fit with this wristwatch that tracks calories, pace, steps, distance and has the iconic Timex indigo night light which is great for night running. The Ironman has two interval timers, users claim to be one of the most comfortable options on the market. It’s water resistant and is used by triathletes, swimmers and skiers because it is waterproof. The Ironman Tracker is $90.

7. Garmin Forerunner- is a wrist mounted lap tracker measuring distance, time and calories and features integrated GPS displays that show progress on your favorite routes and saves up to 100 of your locations. The Forerunner is pretty cool because it has a virtual partner mode that lets you race against a digital competitor and set goals for distance, pace and time. The Forerunner has a history function that breaks down and graphs your stats and is $121.95.

Are you a runner, swimmer or cyclist? Which tracking device above do you use or plan on checking out? Let us know in the comments what your routine is and how you use or plan on using a fitness tracking device

Dropbox (Free)

This iPhone app just became official last week. I just opened a free web account when the iPhone app came out, so I immediately grab it from the iTunes Apps Store. Dropbox offers an easy way of syncing your files online and across your computers. It also lets you share those files with people you allow. Specifically, the Dropbox iPhone apps offers the following features

• Access your Dropbox on the go
• View your files
• Download files for offline viewing
• Take photos and videos and sync them to your Dropbox
• Share links to files in your Dropbox
• Photo galleries
• Sync downloaded files so they’re up-to-date

Please note that this iPhone app works with the web version Dropbox service and is not intended as a stand-alone product. If you don’t want to open a paid Dropbox account, there is a free account with 2GB storage.

visit http://www.getdropbox.com

CloudMobile ($1.99)

Cloud Mobile offers easy-to-use and intuitive interface for managing and using your files in the cloud. It supports Cloud Files from the Rackspace Cloud. Specifically its features include the ff:

• Support multiple Rackspace Cloud accounts
• Container count / disk space for account
• List containers
• Create new containers
• Delete containers
• View container detail: object count, disk space, CDN info
• CDN enable / disable containers; set TTL; CDN URL
• Upload photos and movies (direct capture / library) from your iPhone to a container
• List objects in a container
• Delete objects
• View object detail: size, tag, content type, modified
• View / add / edit / delete object metadata
• View / play objects supported on iPhone: images, audio, video
• Links to Cloud Files and Rackspace Cloud status pages

Soonr (Free)

This is one of the first cloud storage iPhone apps that I installed on my iPhone. It lets you access, view, collaborate, search and print your files from the Soonr cloud servers. It offers automatic continuous backup of your PC or Mac files. Features of the Soonr iPhone app are the following:

• Dashboard shows team activities at a glance helping you prioritize your time
• View 42 documents types fast, without downloading large files
• Project Folders quickly organize files into online workspaces
• Share project folders with team members
• Create links for public viewing
• Full text search across computers and projects with advanced filters for more accurate results
• Continuous backup with versioning and remote restore capability
• Print from your iPhone to any shared printer
• Send a fax with your eFax account
• Email attachments into your online Projects
• Integrate with contacts on your iPhone or Outlook on the desktop
• Event notifications with SMS

Soonr offers a free account with 2GB online storage. It allows you to setup two other people to collaborate and access your files. For more access and storage you need to open a paid Soonr account.

http://www.soonr.com.

Box.net (Free)

Box.net is one of the most popular file sharing and collaboration service on the web. It’s iPhone app was also recently made available and it lets you easily access your files from anywhere and securely share content with anyone. Box.net’s lets you do the following:

• View your Box content on-the-go: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF files, images and Box Web Documents
• Share direct links to your Box files and folders with any of your iPhone contacts
• Monitor updates to your Box account – see when someone’s uploaded the latest copy of that contract you’ve been waiting to see
• Upload images from your iPhone’s photo library or camera roll – great for sending a picture of your whiteboard notes to a shared folder on Box, letting you collaborate with colleagues

Box.net offers a free account with 1GB of storage. You can register at http://www.box.net.

ZumoDrive (Free)

ZumoDrive for the iPhone goes by the tagline – “Supersize your iPhone.”  If offers a free account with 1GB of storage. It supports various files including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and PDF. Conencting to the site using your iPhone is also fast via Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE. ZumoDrive also promises that your files are protected by encryption and stored safely on redundant servers. Other file formats supported by ZumoDrive include -  PDF, TXT, Keynote 09, Pages 09, Numbers 09, code files (and other plain text files), music files, JPG, TIFF.

MobileMe iDisk (Free)

This iPhone needs no further introduction. It is connected to Apple’s MobileMe services. It allows you to assign a password to your files before sharing them.

MobileMe’s features include:

• View files on your iDisk
• Access Public folders
• Easily share files from your iPhone
• Quickly access recently viewed files
• View iPhone-supported file types–including iWork, Office, PDF, QuickTime and more. (Files larger than 20MB may not be viewable.)

Of course, MobileMe iDisk requires MobileMe subscription which is kind of pricey. If you want to test the service first you may register for a trial account which will last for 60 days.

Visit the MobileMe site – http://www.apple.com/mobileme.

1. Mint.com- among the simplest of online financial managers, Mint lets you see snapshots of your financial habits from shopping trends to individual transactions. Mint gives you suggestions of how to save money based on your spending and allows users to easily set up text alerts for going over credit limits or when an account lowers to a specified amount. Mint allows you to get your balance via text message and offers investment management from your 401k to brokerage accounts.

2. Rudder.com- offers a savings widget, a spend meter and even a bill tracker for upcoming bills due. Rudder offers emails with your account information without your having to log in which is great for the traveler whose email goes to Blackberry. Rudder is set up to give users a quick outlook of their finances without having to log in to the website and focuses on keeping the process as simple as possible.

3. Buxfer.com- is a personal money tracker connected to your bank account and credit cards that can tell you not only how you’re spending your money but tracks IOUs with your friends or other businesses. Buxfer can tell you your account balance on the go or even let you report cash expenses via text message, twitter, facebook or a web application on your cell phone.

4. Money.Strands.com- formerly known as Expensr, Money Strands claims to make money management “fun and easy.” Money Strands allows you to set up a budget and track your progress toward your financial goals much like a work out program. Money Strands offers a recommendation engine for services from credit card offers to complimentary products. Money Strands offers a network of people in your financial situation to connect with to bounce ideas off of and give or share tips with.

5. BudgetPulse.com- free tool for tracking finances, budgeting and even scheduling online payments in advance. Categorizing and tagging your finances lets you create 3D graphs and charts to visualize your spending and income. BudgetPulse stands out because of advanced features like managing recurring transactions as well as allowing users to split transactions.

The Rotorblog team has no idea if the economy is on the right track (though we hope it is!). What we do know is that the fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century in a shaky economic environment makes it imperative to keep track of your finances. A simple pen, pad and calculator no longer do the trick. Take advantage of some of the free tools listed above and you should be able to weather the storm.

Have you ever tried an online financial tracker? What was it like for you and do you still use it? Let us know in the comments below!

Honorable Mention:
MoneyTrackin

You’ve probably heard or read about the tragic typhoon incident that happened in the Philippines’ capital last weekend. The typhoon caused heavy rainfall sending floods all over Manila and leaving almost 500,000 families homeless and at least around 150 people dead.  The fatality could have been more if not for the barrage of information, call for help and communication brigade done by Filipinos through the help of social media tools.Five prominent social media tools were heavily used during the height of the event either to call for rescue, situation advisory, donations and simply to update on what has been going on, especially since electricity was immediately cut-off.  Take not of these social media tools, as they are proven to be useful not just for playing online games and meeting people but also for saving lives during times of tragedy.

Twitter

Twitter tops the list of the online social tools used widely by many Filipinos to disseminate information during the tragic event. Flood victims trapped on top of their roofs or second floor of their houses call their friends and loved ones not affected by the floods to rescue them or at least tell them that the y are safe. Those who got a text message or call from their friends and family who could not watch TV start spreading information via Twitter.  The Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro continously checked his Twitter account to check updates on the situation. One prominent news and public affairs TV program (ANC) setup a Twitter account (@ANCAlerts) to receive Tweet Alerts from those affected or from other Filipinos who got distress call from their loved ones.

When everything has stopped and relief and rescue operations started, Twitter was still used to spread words on who to rescue, where to drop donations, what relief items were needed and all those sort of things. There was a downpour of volunteers and relief supplies, thanks to the barrage of Tweets that spread across the nation and to those Filipinos in other countries who wanted to help. Even celebrity Twitters pledge their help via their Twitter accounts.

Facebook

Aside from Twitter, Facebook is also one of the most used social network by many Filipinos. There are around 1.5 million of Filipinos in Facebook. And that day, if you happen to have Filipino friends on Facebook you might have seen the slew of status updates from these Filipinos pertaining to the incident. Filipinos on Facebook exchanged information, relayed valuable updates and called for help and donation through their Facebook status updates. Some even called out to Filipinos to stop playing Mafia Wars and Farmville and to clear out their Facebook Walls and Statuses of silly things and instead were asked to post updates on what’s happening around the flooded areas.

Google Maps

To help in locating their loved ones who were still trapped in their flooded homes, several Google Maps of the affected areas were immediately created using Google Maps. TV Networks and News Media used this Google Map heavily to locate trapped victims. Typhoon Ondoy Situation Map for Metro Manila

Google Docs Spreadsheet

To help Filipinos overseas as well as other individuals in how to donate and helped out financially with the relied and rescue operations, this Google Docs Spreadsheets on “How/Where to Hep Out Ondoy Victims’ was pretty useful.

Other social media and online tools that helped Filipinos during the Ondoy Typhoon incident include:

Plurk - Plurk is very popular among students aside from Twitter. And it was also used by many Filipinos to spread information and news updates regarding the different places that were affected by the typhoon and floods.

YouTube

Those who are on higher grounds took videos of how quickly floods rose up, how cars were swept away among other things. These people quickly uploaded the videos on YouTube and Facebook.

For more videos, just search “Ondoy” in YouTube.

Blogs, blogs – Of course, if you’ve been following blogs owned and maintained by Filipinos, you must have read so many posts about the tragic event since Saturday and even until now.

These are just some of the social media tools heavily used by Filipinos and other individuals during the height of the tragic flooding in Metro Manila the past could of days. They are the new media in the Philippines and perhaps in other countries as well. These social media have surpassed the usefullness of TV and Radio when it comes to bringing up to date information and news during a time of crisis.

I was shocked this morning when I read in the LA Times that Disneyland, Disney World and the Disney Cruise Line were rolling out an official blog. For a company that seemingly has its meat hooks in every aspect of entertainment, it’s amazing that it took this long to join the blogosphere. Better late than never!

The new blog will focus on rides and attractions, exclusive videos and photographs. You can also expect detailed coverage on calendar events taking place within the United States.

According to the blog, “Expect to hear from a variety of Disney Cast Members who work each day to make that ‘Disney Difference’.”

Comments are moderated and the site is headed by chief blogger and social media director Thomas Smith. The goal is to have a centralized and “official” repository for everything Disney.

Whether you love or hate America’s most popular mouse, an open forum of everything Disney has the potential to generate some interesting dialogue, along with a boatload of traffic.

That leads us to the question of the day…

Are there any major companies that you can identify who have not yet embraced social media?

Odds are if they haven’t yet, they will soon!

Let’s take a look at the top options in the free video editing software market.

1. Apple iMovie is highly acclaimed, especially by social networking video creators. iMovie comes with any new Mac purchased and is known as one of the simplest editors, designed especially for producing video quickly. iMovie lets users scan clips, isolate the desired portion and drop clips into order. Users no longer have to deal with rendering time, rather iMovie creates crossfades and titles instantly, and users can even send their final video directly to YouTube.

2. Microsoft Movie Maker which automatically comes on virtually all PCs, offers easy drag and drop editing and numerous add-ons to the software. Movie Maker is popular because of the many artistic and corrective options for video as well as a configurable interface. Movie Maker supports AVI/WMV input and is one of the few editors that can capture DV from a camcorder.

3. Video Spin is a free video editor download frequently compared to Movie Maker but is praised for its title editor and artistic effects. Video Spin allows users to instantly upload video to YouTube or Yahoo Video and functions completely on a drag and drop interface which is easy for a beginner yet advanced enough for the more tech savvy. There are add-on features that are available for a fee. The program is manufactured by Pinnacle Systems, creator of many different types of video software.

4. Wax is used as a free-standing app or as a plug-in for other video editors like Adobe Premiere. It can create 2D and 3D special effects like explosions and 3D text, and is known for its simple user interface. Wax is worth looking at because it allows users to output video in AVI, MPEG, WAV and even flash while some editors only output as AVI files. There are also neat features such as RotoMate which allows you to rotoscope/paint over video with fully keyframmable shapes and masks, Shatter, where you can create explosive effects and Particle Generator, where you can generate various natural particle effects like fire, smoke, and rain.

5. Zwei-Stein video editing offers a large library of special effects and transitions and has a superior cropping option. Zwei-Stein is known well for its ease of use and stability. It is not one of the more well known editors but is a simple option that is fast and doesn’t overuse computer memory. The download offers a 256 track video editor.

For the beginning editor or hobbyist, the free editors that come with new computers are often the superior option, but plug-ins are always a good supplement. Users should be watching for simple programs that are easy to use and the five above are just that!

What video editor do you use? With so many on the market, which is your favorite and which would you *not* recommend to others?

1. RCA Small Wonder- hailed as a less expensive competitor to the Flip, it offers a swivel screen so users can view the video as it is being shot, it has an SD card slot for expanded memory and now allows users to post directly to YouTube. A DVD recorder doubles as a Small Wonder Direct Dock with one-touch functionality.

2. Kodak Zx1- is great for outdoors because it is water-resistant and has a major advantage over a Flip cam in that it is still photography ready rather than exclusively video. The Kodak Zx1 also comes in colors such as blue, pink, black, red and yellow and has well protected USB, SD Card slot, AV-out and HDMI output features. The cam runs off AA batteries and is NOT Mac compatible.

3. Sony Webbie- feels more like a traditional camcorder which may be more comfortable to some. The Webbie offers a large swivel screen and shoots in high resolution, backed up by an insertable memory stick. The Webbie offers still photography (5MP) and video and has a better battery life than many of its competitors. Media is saved on Memory Stick PRO Duo media, a proprietary drive for Sony products.

4. Samsung HMX-R10- easily has the most unique designs and looks more like a rounded Jetsons gadget than a camcorder. (You’ll either live it or hate it). It has a tilted lens, fits in a pocket, has expandable memory with an SD card and can record in full HD. The HMX also allows still shots along with video and offers superior color and noise accuracy over many of its competitors.

5. Creative Vado- offers 8GB of memory and a removable, rechargeable battery. The Vado has a HDMI cable to connect with and has a larger screen than a Flip although they share the USB flip feature. The Vado is one of the least expensive options on the market yet is frequently compared to a Flip cam. Built-in software allows you to edit videos on the fly.

6. Sanyo Xacti- is among the best camcorders for sports or action because it is fully waterproof (designed for underwater filming/accessory purchase necessary) and films in horizontal or vertical mode depending on how a user holds it. Some models offer 1080p filming, the highest resolution available in handheld camcorders on the market. As an owner of this cam I can tell you that the video quality is best outdoors with low to moderate motion. Also still shots are shaky and on a massive delay. The 3.0-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD monitor gives the cam the feel of a more expensive video camera.

With thousands of options on the market, tell us what HD camcorder you are using and why? What features are most important to you- social sharing, quality, durability, battery life? Tell us in the comments!

Guess what I told him? I said he doesn’t need a personal blog. He can do all those things just by creating a Facebook account.

To be honest, it was a spur of the moment reaction. After teaching my friend how to create a Facebook account, it finally dawned on me – Facebook indeed has become a personal blogging platform. And I could think of 5 major reasons why Facebook is the new personal blogging platform.

1. Chronologically Arranged Blog Posts – You can create pseudo blog posts using Facebook’s status updates right? It doesn’t limit your updates to a certain number of characters like Twitter. And Facebook even automatically parse long updates and gives you a “read more” feature.

2. Photo Attachment to Status Updates – Facebook status updates also lets you attach related photos to accompany the texts  content of your updates. Or you can even post just photos with a caption which can also be considered as a regular blog posts (aka status updates)

3. Restricted Readership to your Facebook Friends – Since we’re talking about personal blog here, most likely we want to have a restrictive readership. Facebook of course has that facility.  As all your updates are accessible only by your Facebook contact.

4. Comment/Like Features – If you’re going to use Wordpress you’d probably need to find a post-rating plugin to enable your readers to rate your blog posts. If you use Facebook, it’s an embedded feature called – “Like”. As for comments, I don’t have to tell you that Facebook has a great commenting feature. Even better is the fact that Facebook comments are spam-free. Not unlike the usual blogging platform.

5. How About Categories? – Like I Said, my friend wanted a personal blog, so Categories is not really relevant when you are running a personal blog, right? And besides Blogspot.com didn’t have the category feature at first, right? Do you agree? Or you have any other idea on how to have this feature on your Facebook personal blog?

There you go, five major reasons why you can use Facebook if you want to start a personal blog with restricted readership. Did we miss anything?  If you have something to add to the reasons why Facebook is becoming a personal blogging platform, feel free to leave a comment.

And don’t forget to get your personal name as your Facebook account name, in case it is still available.

Tweetdeck- currently, the industry favorite is Tweetdeck not only because it syncs with an iPhone, but because it has grouping functions for people and search terms, all colors are customizable, and Tweetdeck is integrated with Facebook, yFrog, and even MySpace. New updates allow users to drag photos into the update bar without any download steps, URLs are automatically shortened, and language translation options are now built in. It is by far the most robust option on the market.

Seesmic- supports multiple Twitter accounts on the same screen and has amazing Facebook integration that lets you comment and “like” without having to visit Facebook. Seesmic allows groups of people and searches and offers unlimited saved searches. Seesmic is interesting because like Tweetdeck, it is constantly adding upgrades and improvements.

Destroy Twitter- this is a single account client that allows grouping for people or search words and is a simple, streamlined way to Twitter from your desktop and there are even themes available to download to customize your experience.

PeopleBrowsr- is a unique take on Twitter in that it offers the ability to export, get stats on groups, and even allows you to sort columns of users by number of followers or by their Twitter name. PeopleBrowsr integrates across multiple social networks allowing you to update many places by updating in one spot.

Tweetie for Mac- is a clean and simple, no fluff client that shows threaded conversations, lets users flip between multiple accounts, multiple services and allows for saved searches. Tweetie for Mac lets users post videos to yFrog and takes up very few resources on your computer.

Mac Lounge- like Tweetdeck, this client syncs with your iPhone. Mac Lounge is a simple, single column interface that allows saved searches and offers unique drag and drop categories to reorder.

Twhirl- although Seesmic Desktop has taken Twhirl’s place and it is no longer being innovated, it is a simple single column interface which color codes DMs, @ messages and user sent tweets, making it easy to understand for a beginner. Twhirl supports multiple accounts and integrates with FriendFeed, Seesmic and Identica and even allows users to save searches.

Twibble- is a single column interface that pulls multiple accounts into a single location so no toggling is necessary. It can be tricky, but hovering over a tweet gives users the options available, including which account to respond from. What’s interesting about Twibble is that your tweets can be filtered for keywords and the dgrag and drop photo upload feature is a timesaver.

Digsby- windows supported, Digsby pulls Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn updates of all of your friends together in one place so users see in one glance what is happening in all of their social networks simultaneously without visiting each site. What many people don’t know however is that Digsby features email and IM integration, making it a standout client.

Eventbox- supported by Mac, EventBox is innovative in that it pulls Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, Reddit and Digg together in one place allowing information junkies to not only follow their social network contacts but to see in real time updates from across the blogosphere.

What tools do you use when you Twitter and which do you think is the best Twitter client?