With Slice Bookshelf, you can easily track the books you’re purchasing and reading, discover your friends’ recommendations, and swap books with others!

For those of you who are as hungry for new books as I am, Slice Bookshelf is a new social tool you should check out. This platform allows you to discover new reads and share your favorites with friends–and you can even swap books with other users to get great new books to read for free.

The makers of Slice Bookshelf call it a “social reading experience.” To sign up, simply log in with Facebook and Slice Bookshelf will automatically build your library from books you’ve liked. You can also import your lists directly from Goodreads. What sets Slice Bookshelf apart is that it’s less about curating your own history and more about discovering brand new books that fit your tastes. If you give Slice access to your email, it will automatically add all your book purchases, instead of you having to manually tell the platform what books you’ve recently purchased.

This feature is no surprise when you look at the parent company’s main shopping app, which has a similar feature. By using Slice, you can track your online purchases in one place instead of constantly digging through your email to look for shipping tracking numbers, receipts, and more. Slice Bookshelf is simply the book extension of this tool.

When you see a book that looks interesting on Slice Bookshelf, click the title to view more information about it, including a description and its rating on Google. You can also rate the book yourself, mark it as a book you want to read in the future, or add it to one of your bookshelves, and users have the ability to leave a review directly on Slice Bookshelf for their friends to read.

Another interesting feature of Slice Bookshelf is that if one of your friends owns the book, a button will show up on the book’s profile page that allows you to request to borrow it. If none of your friends own it, you can also click a button to purchase it on Amazon.

“A great book stays with us long after we turn the last page, and the experience is made even better by sharing with friends,” said Scott Brady, CEO and co-founder of Slice. “We built Bookshelf with social connections at the core, so recommendations come from the people you know and trust.”

To learn more about Slice Bookshelf, check out the their recent press release.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

If you provide tech support, you can now use the new Remove Desktop feature on Google+ to connect with your customers.

How frustrating is it when you’re trying to fix a tech problem for a customer over the phone? Now, Google has made it a little easier. In my opinion, the Hangouts feature is by far the best thing about Google+, and earlier last month, Hangouts got even better with Google introducing a remote desktop feature. If you have a business where you provide any kind of tech support, you can now do so easily on Google+.

Previously, Google had a remote desktop feature available as a Chrome plugin, which was helpful. However, when helping people with tech issues, you often are speaking to people who aren’t very tech-savvy. It was frustrating to have to walk them through installing a plugin (and sometimes even installing Chrome first) before even attacking the original problem.

Remote Desktop via a Google+ Hangouts is much easier. The first time, you’ll have to click the “add apps” button and choose to add Remote Desktop, but after the first time, it will appear on the left-hand side of the Hangouts window. Then, when you connect with a customer you want to help, simply start a Hangout and send them a request via the app. An accept/decline notice will pop up on their screen, and after they accept, you’ll be good to go.

So far, users (myself included) have had mixed feelings about the new Hangouts Remote Desktop feature. Although it’s easier to connect with your customers via this feature, since there are no authorization codes or programs to download, but if the user you’re helping doesn’t use Google+, you’ll still have to deal with explaining how to sign up and start using the Hangouts feature. Whether or not this will be a problem for you really depends on your target market.

Something else to keep in mind: the window for controlling your customers’ screen is the size of the Hangout window rather than being fullscreen, so it can be difficult to see what you’re doing at times. If you’re going to use Hangouts to provide support, use a computer with a large monitor.

This tool can also be helpful for virtual assistants. If you have a VA, you can give that person access to control your computer for updating, program installation, and more. Just make sure you’re always working with someone you trust, especially if you walk away from your computer while they’re making changes!

Remote Desktop via Hangouts isn’t perfect, but having this feature for free is definitely nice and a step forward. In the coming months, it will be interesting to see whether or not this feature takes off and what Google will do to improve it.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Google Reader is shutting down, but these seven alternatives can help you stay up to date with your favorite feeds.

The Google Reader shut down is a complete drag, but there are plenty of alternatives to Google Reader if you want to stay up to date on all the blogs you love to read. Many options even allow you to import your feeds straight from Google Reader, so it’s easy to make the switch before Google Reader shuts down on July 1, 2013.

Here are my favorite options:

Feedly

When Google first announced they were sending their feed reader our to pasture, the most common advice I saw was to switch to Feedly. Many people were already using this feed reader and for good reason: Feedly offers easy content sharing on social networks, several layout options, and apps/extensions to fit whatever browser or device you use. It takes a little time to get used to Feedly if you’re currently a Google Reader user, but once you get the hang of things, it’s pretty sweet.

NewsBlur

NewsBlur is like Google Reader with a shot of espresso. It has a similar interface, so it’s an easy switch for Google Reader users, but it also has some extra features, like the ability to create a “blurblog” of the content you like best and want to share. The downside? The amount of feeds you can subscribe to is capped for free users and you can only see 10 new stories at a time. To get unlimited access, you’ll need to upgrade to premium, which costs $24 per year.

The Old Reader

Built specifically to replace Google Reader, The Old Reader is a great option if you want something as close to Google Reader as possible. On the downside, there are currently no mobile apps yet, but The Old Reader looks and functions so much like Google Reader that you might not care. You can even use many of the same keyboard shortcuts and it brings back the Google Reader function of allowing you to follow other users and subscribe to their feeds.

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire has been around since 2002, and it’s still a favorite among Mac users. I’m a PC user myself, but from what I’ve heard from Mac fans, NetNewsWire is great if you want a really simple reader option, but it’s a little outdated if you’re looking for more bells and whistles.

Leaf

Leaf is another option for Mac users. This isn’t a good feed reader for those of you who want something extremely similar to Google Reader, but it is a good choice if you’re looking for something a little different! Leaf displays feeds in an almost Twitter-stream way. Leaf also allows you to save to Readability, Instapaper or Pocket.

NetVibes

If you’re looking for lots of function and want a more professional feed reader that includes data, tracking, and brand monitoring options, check out NetVibes. This reader offers both free and premium services, and even if you’re a free user, there are lots of options to make this reader your own. Upgrade to premium and you have a complete tool for monitoring what’s happening online.

Twitter

If you just have a handful of blogs you like to follow, don’t overlook Twitter as an option! You have to manually add feeds with this option, but I find it works really well to keep track of the 10-20 blogs I read most often. Here are my directions for turning Twitter into a feed reader.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Click & Grow smart garden technology makes it easy to grow herbs and flowers indoors with very minimal effort on your part.

The idea of a “smart” garden is super attractive to me. I’ll be the first to admit that my thumb is closer to black than it is to green. Last year, in my attempts to grow some herbs for my kitchen, I killed mint. Yes, mint. For those of you out there who are not gardeners, mint is invasive, like a weed, and nearly impossible to kill. I found a way.

Yet, I do like fresh herbs and vegetables, so I’ve been looking for a solution to my natural plant-killing tendencies. A Click & Grow Smart Garden might be just what I need!

Click & Grow uses a specially engineered “growth medium” instead of normal potting soil. This nanotech material is engineered to give plant roots the access to the right amounts of nutrients, water, and oxygen. You just fill the reservoir with water and the garden will do the rest. The new Smart Herb Garden version, which was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter, also has a special LED growing light that looks natural and uses only six watts of energy, which means that your new garden only takes about $5 to run for an entire year. The older Click & Grow gardens, currently available on their website, use four AA batteries.

Click & Grow starter kits currently sell for $79 and you can choose from basil, chili pepper, cockscomb, or mini tomatoes. You can get refill cartridges for any of these plants, or for several other types of flowers or herbs. Refills cost $20 each. The new herb garden grows three plants at a time, and these smaller cartridges are projected to cost $5 to $15 each (under $10 on average).

A pretty cool feature beyond growing the plants is that you can activate your Click & Grow Smart Garden online to track your growth. They’ll send you tips on keeping your garden happy and add you to the map of gardeners around the world using Click & Grow.

This seems like a great solution for anyone lacking a patch of soil or outdoor space for potted plants, and as they point out on their Kickstarter page, Click & Grow is also perfect for people who travel or get too busy to worry about watering plants. It seems like it would be extremely hard to unintentionally kill your Click & Grow garden, even if you’re the worst gardener in the world.

I enjoy a challenge.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Skydog is a new router and mobile app allowing you to optimize Internet performance and monitor how your family is spending time online.

Want to take back control of your family’s Internet usage? Check out the successfully-funded Kickstarter project Skydog.

Skydog is a new router and moblie app from PowerCloud Systems that allows you to see who is using the Internet and how. By using the mobile app, you can set up an alerts system, which is perfect for parents who want to ensure that their kids aren’t spending too much time online. Skydog can also help you analyze Internet performance so you can better handle problems as they arise.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with Skydog:

• Set time limits for social media, gaming, and other activies
• Block content that is inappropriate for your kids
• Schedule time for educational Internet use and time for entertainment use
• Optimize performance for gaming
• View the sites your kids are visiting
• Receive alerts if someone new connects to your Internet

You can set up Skydog so it doesn’t just alert you, but it can also alert other members of your family as well. So, if your child hits his or her gaming limit, you can have Skydog send them a warning to stop playing on Facebook and start studying.

Because lots of kids, especially teens, now have their own smartphones and tablets, it’s nice to see exactly what sites they’re surfing when you might otherwise not even know they are connected to the Internet. Exactly what is your 15-year-old looking at from his iPhone at 2 AM?

I like the idea of Skydog from a security standpoint as well. Because you can see exactly who is connected to your Internet, it’s easy to see if there are any unauthorized users and give them the boot.

Also, I find it pretty great that you can optimize your Internet for the most important activities. I work from home and it can be frustrating if someone else is watching a movie on Netflix while I’m trying to upload something for work and I’m slowed down. With Skydog, I can schedule time when the Internet is optimized for me, so I can get work done faster even if others are also connected. The Skydog community is also a great place to ask questions if you’re a not familiar with optimizing your Internet.

Skydog was successfully funded in mid-May via Kickstarter and will be available later this year. Will you be looking into this option for your home?

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

The 3Doodler is the first 3D printing pen in the world, making 3D printing affordable from the comfort of your own home for the first time.

3D printing technology has possible applications in just about every industry, from fashion to healthcare to automotive. But what if you could, in an affordable way, print your 3D creations from the comfort of your own home, much like we can print text documents or images now?

The first step in making personal at-home 3D printing affordable for consumers is here: 3Doodler, a cool new 3D printing pen from WobbleWorks.

As opposed to other 3D printing machines that are currently available, like the $2,000-priced MakerBot Replicator, the 3Doodler will be available for just $75. You aren’t going to get the precise, complex results with this pen that you would with a high-priced printer or a service like Shapeways, but the 3Doodler is just downright cool. Check it out in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQWyhezIze4

The masterminds behind 3Doodler are Peter Dilworth and Max Bogue, who previously worked primarily on robotics projects, such as Butch the Dino. The project launched on Kickstarter with a goal of $30,000, which was reached quickly. The 3Doodler went on to raise over $2.4 million from over 26,000 backers, including 1053 who donated the minimum $1 amount just to be a part of the project, even though a pledge of $50 – $75 is required to receive a pen.

The 3Doodler uses 3mm ABS or PLA plastic as “ink” and although 1kg spools cost $30 to $55, a little plastic goes a long way with this pen. You can expect to get about 11 feet of doodling out of just 1 foot of plastic. You can also buy smaller $5.99 bags of plastic directly from the company, which is great if you want to try out lots of different colors. Right now, there’s only one pen tip available, but WobbleWorks plans to introduce more sizes in the future. Worried about wasting plastic while you get the hang of it? Don’t lose too much sleep over it; the pen has a slow speed for beginners and more complex doodles and any plastic is recyclable anywhere that takes number 7 plastic.

The possibilities with 3Doodler are limited only by your creativity. You can trace designs and pick them up right off the paper, create designs out of thin air, or even use the pen to fix broken plastic items, sort of like welding.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

The Barman is a new device for your home bar that makes pouring your favorite drinks, even complicated recipes, easy.

If you’re anything like me, you like hosting people at your house more than you like going out to the bar. The problem? Unless one of your guests is an experienced bartender the drinks are always either sub-par or require a lot of tedious measuring to make. Now, the Barman is available to help us homebodies pour the perfect drink every time. This project was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter and adds a little high-tech fun to any home bar!

Says the makers of this nifty device and companion mobile app,

“Everyone wants to be able to mix great drinks quickly, easily, and precisely the way they like it. Whipping out a large recipe book and measuring shots with jiggers is a pain. You have to look at the recipe, hold the jigger in one hand, the bottle in the other, trying not to over-pour, then look back at your recipe, and so on… It’s not an easy task.

The idea for the Barman came to me in 2007 while struggling to make the perfect Long Island Ice Tea for my wife. I thought, there has to be a better way to easily mix drinks accurately.”

To use the Barman, simply set your glass on the device, choose your favorite drink, select the size you’re making, and follow the pouring directions. As you pour, there’s a status bar that shows you how much you have left to go and the drink is lit up with a green light. The Barman will alert you when to stop pouring each component of your drink for the perfectly mixed cocktail by telling you to stop on the screen and by turning red. Like your drinks a bit stronger than normal? Want to customize your own mix? You can do that too, and program the Barman to remember your drink so you can make it again in the future!

When you make a new drink, you can also share it with your friends. So, if they also have the Barman app, they can download your recipe and make the drink at home too.

Another great feature of the Barman is that you can tell it what you have in the house and it will display a list of drinks you can make. If you don’t feel like running to the store for supplies, this is a great option.

Is the Barman a must-have device for your home? Maybe not, but it certainly is fun! And at the Kickstarter price point of just $49 (or $59 is you want four liquid pourers as well), you really can’t go wrong.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

StoryPress is a new mobile app that makes it easy to record, save, and share your life story via a recorded diary or prompted interviews.

When someone passes away, so much personal and family history is lost. StoryPress is a new app that hopes to combat this problem. By recording your story with this easy-to-use tool, you can capture that special spoken history for future generations.

You don’t have to be tech-savvy to use story app. The process is very simple – just download the app and start recording as prompted by the app itself. Because this tool is so easy to use, it is perfect for older members of your family who may not be comfortable with most recording options out there. When you’re done telling your story, it is automatically saved to the cloud, which can be shared with friends and family.

What I like most about StoryPress is that you don’t have to be worried about having nothing to say. You can record a personal diary if you’re feeling chatty, but if you tend to clam up when you hit the record button (like I do), you can instead go through one of the prompts. StoryPress will ask you questions, and you simply answer them. It’s an easier way to record memories than sitting down and being pressured to just start talking.

You can also create interviews of your own and have friends and family answer your questions. Because everything is stored in the cloud, you don’t have to be in the same room to work with your loved ones to record stories. Just create your interview questions and send them off to your interviewee of choice to be answered at their convenience. This would be a fantastic tool for creating a special gift for someone when celebrating a milestone achievement. For example, imagine asking family members to record memories of a child that is then given to that child when they graduate. Or image friends sharing memories of a couple that you compile to be a wedding gift. Get creative!

StoryPress also makes it easy to share your recordings. They can be private, for just your closest friends or family members, or you can broadcast them on Twitter and Facebook.

As the makers of this app say, “A voice, unlike anything else, has the power to bring a story to life.” Long after a loved one is gone, these recordings can help you feel like they are still alive. Someday, your great-great-great grandchildren could hear your voice talking about your life, even though you aren’t around anymore to tell stories in person. This app has the potential to be extremely powerful for your family, so check it out.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Give Your Calories is a new app from Action Against Hunger that allows you to “donate” your calories to help end world hunger.

“Clean your plate! There are kids starving in Africa!”

I had a teacher in elementary school who was fond of yelling that whenever we didn’t eat our vegetables during lunchtime, and it never made much sense to me. It wasn’t like she was going to wrap up my leftovers and ship them to malnourished children in third-world countries! But as I got older, I realized that what she really meant is that we should appreciate what we have.

Now, there’s an app for that. (Come on, are you really surprised?)

Give Your Calories is a new app that allows you to donate your calories to people who actually need them. The concept is simple: take a picture of your food, and the app uses image recognition and a barcode scanner to calculate the calories you’ll be consuming. Then, it converts those calories into a donation amount, which you can choose to give via PayPal to the charity Action Against Hunger. You can manually add any snack or meal you photograph that isn’t recognized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjIHG2VBJ5g

The app recommends a donation of $1 for snacks that contain fewer than 200 calories, $2 for snacks up to 300 calories, and $5 for snacks up to 400 calories. For every 100 calories you consume past 400, the app adds another dollar.

Action Against Hunger has an A grade from CharityWatch and has four stars from Charity Navigator. They have 4,600+ field staff workers in over 40 countries around the world. Your donations go toward programs to treat and prevent malnutrition, provide access to safe water, respond to emergencies, provide long-time solutions to farmers in struggling communities, and more.

Give Your Calories is also a way to open your eyes about the foods you eat. Often, we don’t realize how many calories we’re eating, So, if you’re struggling with a diet or trying to eat healthier foods, Give Your Calories is a great options. You might think twice about ordering dessert if you have to not only pay for it, but also donate money!

To date, nearly 200,000 calories have been “donated” world-wide. You can get Give Your Calories now for iPhone, and Action Against Hunger is working on an Android version as well.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.