Kashoo, from the Vancouver-based developers of the same name, is one of these systems. It helps users say goodbye to the days of slow and complicated accounting systems and promises to save every user 5 to 10 hours a month when it comes to doing the books. This is a bold claim, so I took the test version of Kashoo out for a spin to see how it fared.

Setting Up

Kashoo allows you to try before you buy and you can sign up to a 30-day free trial via their website. Setting up your company is really easy — simply enter your company’s name, e-mail address and country and Kashoo will do the rest. There’s also an option to choose the default currency and, to my joy, the fiscal year as well. Unlike most countries, the UK (where I’m based) has a completely archaic fiscal year which runs from 1 April – 31 March every year (and that’s for businesses; for persons it runs from 6 April – 5 April!) and I was really glad to see the option there, making Kashoo a great option for businesses around the world, not just those based in the United States.

Setting up my Kashoo account.

Kashoo will also integrate with several web-based service providers, though for the moment these are confined mostly to a number of Farm Business Consultants groups scattered around Canada. I would have liked to have seen integration with more established services, such as e-filing with national tax authorities, such as the IRS and HMRC.

Once you’ve set everything up, you are redirected to the main screen of Kashoo — the Dashboard — which gives you an overview of your company’s bank accounts, cash-in-hand and credit cards and allows you to quickly enter an invoice or any income or expenses.

The main screen of Kashoo, showing the Dashboard.

Running down the left-hand side are quick links to commonly used actions (such as adding a new income or expense), your reports (which we’ll look at in a minute) and any add-ons. It’s probably worth noting here that Kashoo integrates with external accounting services such as FreshBooks and payroll providers but unfortunately, most of these seem based in Canada and are of little use to anyone not living in the Great White North.

Working With Transactions

Transactions are handled really nicely within Kashoo, and as this is a feature you are most likely to be working with on a daily basis, it needs to be fluid and concise. Any transactions can be sorted either by income or expense and categorised by their date, the customer, the currency and so on. You can also assign transactions an individual account, which comes in extremely useful when it comes to reporting (which I’ll look in a bit more detail below).

Entering a new transaction.

Kashoo also gives you a quick overview of any aged receivables (sorted by date) and, when you start adding more customers and transactions, both income and expenses will also be grouped by category as well. This gives you a brief snapshot of how your books are without having to produce a full report — a really useful feature in my opinion. Other options when it comes to transactions include transfers between accounts, balance adjustments and check printing.

Reporting

One of the most important features I look for in accounting software, whether web or desktop-based, is the ability to produce accurate and detailed reports. Any business owner will know that when it comes round to tax season, being able to fill out your annual return correctly is extremely important, and the choice of accounting software makes a big difference here.

Kashoo allows you to generate reports on a number of different topics, including aged payables/receivables (i.e. those that are due), balance sheets, profit/loss accounts and transactions. All reports can be customised by date and currency (if you’re using multiple currencies, that is) and they can be exported to either Excel, CSV, PDF or HTML format.

Viewing my profit and loss report.

Another useful feature is the Change Log. This essentially tracks every single change made in the Kashoo system by user, allowing system administrators (or anyone who is interested) to look back through the records to see who made what change. Each change also receives a unique ID, allowing it to be tracked easier.

On the Move

Kashoo also comes with a separate iPad app (available on the App Store) which allows you to manage your books on the go, wherever you are. You can view your bank accounts, add new invoices and expenses and generate reports all on the move — a really useful feature.

Kashoo on my iPad.

There no iPhone version, unfortunately, but I feel that for such an app, it deserves a place on a bigger screen. I’ve tried doing my books on an iPhone and it’s actually quite difficult — especially when it comes to viewing reports and so on (4 inches is simply not enough). There’s a flip side to the iPad version though, although the basic version is completely free (and integrates well with your Kashoo account), you’re limited to 20 transactions a month. The “premium” option, which gives you unlimited transactions sets you back an extra $49.99 a year.

I was quite disappointed at this, as I would expect from a fairly expensive service (Kashoo costs $15 monthly or $144 yearly — it’s currently on promotion) that an iPad app would be included for free — with no restrictions, too. Sure, 20 transactions does sound like quite a lot, but if you’re booking multiple daily incomes and expenses, then this figure will soon get consumed. I hope the developers will reconsider their pricing strategy regarding the iPad app, as I think an extra 50 bucks on top of the existing $144 you have to pay for a yearly subscription is a little steep.

Final Thoughts

Kashoo is a shining example of just what web accounting software should be like: powerful, accessible from anywhere (including from iPads, if you’re willing to pay of course) and packed full of features. The execution of the app is top-notch yet I would liked to have seen integration with more web-based services (not just those in Canada) and a rethink of their iPad app pricing strategy.

The app earns a very healthy 8 out of 10 rating and I can see it finding its home in a multitude of different business scenarios. Sure, it’s probably not as powerful as a fully-fledged accounting system but for web-based offerings, it’s one of the best you can get. You can always try before you buy (no credit card needed) which I highly recommend you do, because the results are pretty impressive — Kashoo is certainly an app that will make you come running back for more.

One new app that can make communication simpler, in many ways, is Collaaj. It’s an app that lets you communicate to others using video, audio, and your Mac. It’s the collaboration of Skype combined with the simpleness of email, in a way that’ll help you get your point across to others better than you could with just text and images but without having to be online at the same time.

We’ve taken an in-depth look at Collaaj over at Mac.AppStorm, using the Mac app, but it’s equally great even if you’re only working on the web. Read the full article to get the scoop on why you should try out Collaaj.

Continue Reading at Mac.AppStorm…..

That’s where Clipping Magic comes in. It’s a web app that does one thing well: taking the background out of your images. What was once a complex tool that required expensive software is now something anyone with a browser can do in seconds.

Magical Clipping

Clipping Magic is a web app that’s amazingly free, especially considering that its competitors are several hundred dollar image editors. All you’ll need to do is drag-and-drop your image into the browser to get started. Once this is done, the image is loaded and displayed in two instances in the interface, one shows you the original image while the other is the edited one without a background. The top row of buttons that appear on the interface start with three marker options: red, green, and erase. By choosing these markers (the red and green ones) you can mark which sections of your image you want included in your result and which sections (the background) you want excluded in your result. The size of these markers can be set using the same row of buttons.

You use the markers on the left instance of the image. Simply use the red marker to mark sections you want removed and use the green marker to mark sections that you want included in the image. The eraser marker can be used to remove the green and red sections that you have marked.

As you can see in the image above, a yellow line is shown that indicates which regions have been marked by the application. This region is determined by the spots that you have used the markers on. In order to better refine the boundaries of this yellow line section, you can opt to use the Refine menu from the top row of buttons. By default, it is set to automatic but if you wish to refine the edges manually, you can do that as well.

As you keep on using the image, its real time preview is displayed in the right instance of the image. Here you can clearly see what you are doing right or wrong and which edits should you make or revert.

In order to further enhance the image, you can zoom in (as much as you want) and make sure that the selected part is as accurate as you want it to be. The smallest brush size is of 10px and if you think it may not be the best size for you to select small areas from any image, just zoom in as much as you want. The brush is relatively smaller in the zoomed in more.

When you are done editing your image, you can click on the Download button from the top row of buttons in the interface. This prepares your resultant image and makes a mini window appear with a Download Result button.

Clicking this Download Result button begins the download of your resultant image in the PNG file format.

The Verdict

Not only is Clipping Magic absolutely free to use, but it also an absolute charm to use! Having a web app that offers a mighty useful function like this is hard to come. It might take some time for a new user to get used to ClippingMagic’s interface but once you do, it hardly takes a few minutes to remove the background from any image. Like every other service, ClippingMagic has a limitation as well. The default brush sizes provided by the application may be enough for the majority of images but there should be a brush size control as well.

In conclusion, bookmark Clipping Magic and visit the site any time that you want your image’s backgrounds removed: you will definitely be left satisfied with the results! Do share with us your opinion about ClippingMagic in the comments below.

Indeed it would be, and that’s why we’re looking at Finance41, a lesser-known personal expense tracking app that’s built for speed and ease of use. Packing nifty features like budgets, natural language input, tags for categorization, spending analysis and support for multiple currencies, this app is great for international users and makes light work of monitoring your money.

Overview

Finance41 allows you to track your expenses by first entering them into the app and then looking at where your money is being spent every month. The app is easy to learn and is perfect for anyone who wants to stay within budget, and can be accessed on desktops and mobiles (via a mobile site or the Finance41 Android app). Plus, it’s free for the first month so you can try it without spending a dime.

Finance41 features a simple-to-use interface

Getting started

Finance41 may not look like much, but more than makes up for that with a highly usable site, which features a simple interface that displays a month’s worth of data in a single pane. You can get started tracking your expenses without even registering, and there’s even an in-app presentation that takes you through the workings of the app. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can sign up to save your entries — it’s completely free to use for the first month, after which you’ll be limited to three transactions per day unless you subscribe to a paid plan.

You’ll want to first set up your accounts, which is as simple as clicking the + button on the left and giving your new account a name and balance amount. Once that’s done, you can start adding expenses by entering the amount, adding tags for easy categorization, optionally including a description and choosing the date of the transaction. If you’re in a hurry you can use the quick entry mode and simply type in natural language — for example, ‘-500 Mum’s Birthday Present on Tuesday’ and the transaction will be recorded correctly.

You can also income or transfer transactions the same way, and transactions can always be edited or removed if necessary. If you’ve been tagging all your transactions religiously, you’ll be able to look at all the expenses, incomes and transfers under any tag you choose — this is something I use to track how I much earn and spend from my photography gigs. You can also add recurring transactions such as your monthly rent and salary, so you don’t have to enter them repeatedly.

Tagging and Budgeting

The Tags pane allows you to view all your tags for the month, along with transactions within each. You can hide tags that you don’t need to keep an eye on, and also delete, rename or even merge tags easily using the edit pop-up pane. Finance41 allows you to create a monthly budget for any tag you want so that you can see how much you’ve got left at a glance — all transactions added to a tag with a stipulated monthly budget amount will show up in the tag view along with the amount remaining in that budget for the month.

Add, edit, merge or remove tags with ease

Visualize your habits with charts

When you’ve logged a good number of transactions, you’ll be able to use Finance41′s visualization tools to see how much you’re spending — there’s a pie chart that displays tags as sections within the pie, and you can use an adjustable slider to indicate the date range you’d like to look at. There are also line charts to show you the state of affairs on either your accounts or tags, based on the date range you choose. These charts make it easy to spot spending trends and habits, and also help you budget your income accurately.

Select relevant tags and adjust the date range in Finance41′s charts to visualize your spending

Using Finance41

I found Finance41 to be really easy to get used to, and the app includes all the features I need and none that I don’t. The charts make it a breeze to visualize what I’m spending on, and I’m slowly learning to cut down on buying snacks because I spend way too much on them! And while I enjoy using the web app to log transactions, I frequently use the excellent Android app to do so when I’m on the move. Plus, you can export data as a spreadsheet at any time, which users will find handy when doing taxes or working with accountants who need to know where your money goes.

Conclusion

Finance41 is great at what it does, and allows you to get your expense tracking out of the way quickly and easily. Subscriptions cost $2/month – $/2.50/month (for 1 year and 6 months respectively), which sounds reasonable but is actually a touch more expensive than that of its close competitor Toshl Finance, which includes similar features as well as mobile apps for multiple platforms and costs $19.99/year. Even then, the difference isn’t much at all. I highly recommend you try the free trial for yourself to see if it fits your workflow — you don’t even have to register. Happy saving!

Picturelife is a new startup founded by OMGPOP’s founder Charles Forman. It permits users to backup their photos from different devices. Currently, the service works with iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac. Once installed, it automatically creates a backup of all your photos online so that you can access them online.

Packages and Pricing

Picturelife offers users with 5 GB free space that can upload almost 1700 pictures. The service offers users with two pricing plans; Premium and Premium Plus. The Premium Plan costs $7 per month and allows users to host up to 34000 pictures or 100 GB, while the Premium Plus Plan costs $15 per month with the storage space of 300 GB.

Getting Started

At the onset, it requires you to get registered by signing up for an account on Picturelife. After registration, you will be redirected to your Picturelife dashboard from where you can access all your uploaded photos. If you have trouble organizing your photos, let Picturelife handle it for you. From the sidebar, you can view your photo based on categories including timeline feature that shows all the photos sorted by date, all pictures, albums and places.

Using Picturelife

If you want, you can even import images from multiple image hosting websites including Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Smugmug, Tumblr, Twitter, Google and Foursquare. You just need to select the service you want to import images from and login with your credentials. It will automatically import all the photos from that service and will save it in a new album. In case of Facebook, it even imports photos in which you are tagged in by your friends.

If you have not installed the PictureLife’s desktop application, you can also manually upload photos from your computer. To upload pictures, click on the upload button in the bottom left corner and browse all the files you want to save.

To get more details about any photo, click on it and select Info. It will show you all the details about the photo such as upload date, sharing options, people who can view the image, download options and more. By default, all the photos that are uploaded on your Picturelife account are private, unless you want to make them public. You can also move the photos from one album to another or download it to your computer.

From Picturelife dashboard, you can also post the photos on different image hosting sites. Click on “Post to” button and it will show you all the supported services. You just need to enter the details about the image and share it with your friends. If you want, you can even email the photos to anyone you like.

It also permits users to hide images from the timeline. From the picture information window, just click on Hide button and it will remove the image from your library. It will not delete the image, if you want to view the hidden image, just click on the wheel icon and select “Show Hidden Photos”. You can unhide the images from the same picture information window.

From the settings, you can view all the sessions. Just click on the wheel icon from the sidebar and go to the Advanced tab. From there, you can manage all the devices you are logged in. If you want, you can even connect Picturelife to your Amazon S3 account.

Things that  I dislike about Picturelife

I did install Picturelife on my iPhone and uploaded a few photos. One thing which I really don’t like about this service is that after giving it a permission to access the camera roll, it  automatically uploads any new photos you take with your phone.

In case of desktop application, when you install Picturelife, you have to select a default photo and video folder, any image in that folder will be automatically uploaded on Picturelife. It will not show you any popup message or ask you before uploading anything from your computer.

Final Words

Picturelife can be a useful photo backup solution, but they still have to work on some issues and bugs. One bug which I came across was that the image did not appear in my gallery right away after it was uploaded. I had to refresh the page multiple times before the image appeared in All Pictures folder.

Despite these few downsides, it can be a useful service for photo savvy users. I really like the way it displays the image and its interface. It’s simple and user-friendly and allows users to import photos from popular image hosting sites.

We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below if you have tried Picturelife.

Timely is a beautifully designed time tracking app that’s intuative and simple. You’ll be able to track the time you spend working with no fuss from your browser or its iPhone app. Whether you’re working on your own projects, or collaborating on projects across your whole company, Timely makes keeping track of the time spent on everything simple.

When it comes time to make your reports at the end of the month, Timely’s right there to make things easier. You can use it to make customizable reports on how long everyone on the team worked, either all together or in individual projects. Then, you can take the data to your other apps easily with CSV export. It’s everything you need to keep track of your team’s time and put that data to work.

We gave Timely a 9/10 in our recent review, and we think you’ll like it if you give it a try.

Start Tracking Your Time with Timely!

Ready to start tracking your time? You can signup for a free Timely account to give it a month trial, then you can keep tracking your time starting at $10/month for solo users or $25+/month as a team. With the time you save and track, it just might pay for itself!

The problem now is, you’re often left wondering what cloud storage service you stored your files in, especially if you’ve signed up to many of them to take advantage of all the free storage. If you ever decide to consolidate it all down to just one cloud service, you’ll have quite the frustrating time trying to get everything downloaded and reuploaded.

That’s where CloudHQ comes in. It’s the service you need to keep all of your cloud storage services synced.

Introduction

CloudHQ is an excellent web service that provides internet users with the very useful feature of synchronizing data across multiple cloud services. Amongst the cloud storage sites that CloudHQ supports, there is Google Drive, Dropbox, SugarSync, Evernote, SkyDrive, Box, Basecamp, Gmail, and SalesForce. You can sign up for an account on CloudHQ and then begin connecting the web services that you want synchronized.

Features and Usage

To create an account on the site, you must start by connecting a service to it. All this step involves is dragging a service in the required region and providing CloudHQ with the necessary authorizations. While adding two accounts, you can specify whether to carry out a two-way synchronization or a one-way synchronization. The former means that the web app will match files between both connected services and fill in the missing gaps whereas the latter means that the gaps will be determined by the files in only one of the services. With your accounts connected, you are able to quickly view the used space and total storage capacity of the account – a quick guide that helps determine whether or not a cleanup is required.

In addition to automatic syncing, the site features a very clean navigation interface that allows users to view all of their files in any one of the connected accounts. The leftmost pane of the interface lets you select the account and the right pane loads up the files it contains. The files that appear in the right pane come with checkboxes alongside them. This enables you to select any file that you want. Files that you have selected can be operated on, according to your choice, in a variety of ways.

For example, in addition to simply viewing / downloading a file, you can view its information. This information lists the file’s modification date, whether or not sharing is enabled on it, the type of the file, and the exact number of times that the file was shared.

Another operation that can be performed on the files you select is Copy. This feature can be dubbed “manual synchronization” as it lets you copy files from one web service to another. All you have to is mark the checkboxes against the files that you need to copy, and then click on the Copy To button that appears on the page. The resulting interface will ask you to specify the copying destination of the file. The destination can be chosen as another cloud service account that you have created or another location in the same service where the files are originally present.

Pricing

CloudHQ offers users with a 15-day trial for Personal and Premium plans. Personal plan supports 1 account connection for most of the services that are mentioned above e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. A browser extension is also offered by the free package. After the trial period, you must pay for the service depending on your plan which starts from $9.90 per month (or $99 per year). The premium plan features multiple account connections, support for more services, managing multiple users to facilitate collaborative efforts, and integration with Google Apps Admin.

Verdict

If you have accounts on multiple cloud storage services, would it not be convenient to simply have the files in your Google Drivel storage automatically synchronized in your Dropbox account for better accessibility and organization? Having it all done automatically for you is certainly something that will attract a lot of computer users. Regardless of what computing platform you use, this web service will suit anybody who uses multiple cloud websites. Take CloudHQ out for a test drive – you will not be disappointed.

I recently came across Weekplan, a minimalist app for planning tasks in weekly intervals. The app, inspired by the Seven Habits mantra, encourages you to sort and assign task priorities so you know what you need to focus on within a week’s time.

Weekplan is simple to get started using, with a free plan and signup with your Google account. The interface is simple and functional, with the left column for listing roles and goals, and the rest of the page is a weekly calendar where you can list down, edit and mark your tasks.

A Calendar With Focus

The default view shows the current week in a grid, but you can go to the previous or next week by clicking on the tabs beside the current week. Tasks are easily visible within the boxes, and adding them is as easy as typing on the text field on top. There are two buttons to mark a task as either important or urgent (or both). Once done, simply hit Enter to put it in the list.

A weekly calendar for your tasks

You can later edit the entry by clicking on the pen icon beside it to bring up the Task Details window. Here you can edit the date, assign a role, enable recurring tasks (Pro account only) and even upload a file. Tasks can be dragged around to move them into another date, and the button to the left of each task marks it as done.

Editing tasks in the Task Details window

Tasks can be assigned to roles. Roles can be any aspect of your life — be it personal or professional — that your tasks can be categorized in. These roles are listed on the left hand column, and you can filter tasks by assigned roles. I find this approach extremely useful, since I use it to determine which ones need my immediate attention.

While task managers usually encourage you to get things done, Weekplan allows for a little procrastinating room with a feature called “Demote to Someday.” This is the drawer button next to each task. Demoted tasks appear in a pre-made list called Someday, and you can view them by clicking on the Lists tab on the top right corner of the screen, below the app’s menu bar.

Put away tasks that cannot be accomplished within the week

Reflecting On Life Goals

A notable feature in Weekplan is its built-in journal/notes feature. On the menu bar, there’s a Do link on the top right corner, right beside your user name. Clicking on this takes you to the Journal page.

This page gives you a space to write down your thoughts for a particular day — whether it’s challenges you had to get them done, or why you are not able to do them. This approach in task management is something that’s not seen in other apps, and if you’re the type who wants to seriously achieve your goals, then this feature might help you understand yourself and what you need to change to help you move forward.

The journal page is a way to reflect on how you handled tasks

Weekplan also has a feature called Goals of the Week. You can hover over a role and add a weekly goal for that role. This will be considered the utmost priority for that role within the week. When you add a goal, it goes right below the role.

Make a general goal to guide your tasks

Work Alone Or Work With Others

Weekplan also supports Workspaces, a way to share your calendar to other users for collaborative task and goal management. Users are sent an email invite to join a workspace, and they can login using their Google account or set up a free account with Weekplan to start adding tasks to the shared workspace.

Work with others to accomplish a collective goal

In a shared workspace, users appear as roles on the left column, instead of the defaults usually seen in a non-shared workspace.

More options for a Pro account

All features mentioned above are available for a free Weekplan account. Upgrading to Pro, however, does have its perks. A Pro account supports subtasks, integration with other web apps, recurring tasks, and syncing with Goggle Tasks.

You can buy a Pro account by either paying $8/month, $30/6 months and $36/year.

Some UI Quirks

Although the Weekplan interface tries to be as clean and minimal as much as possible, there are certain actions that can be a bit accessible. For instance, deleting a task shouldn’t have to be as tedious as it is at the moment. To delete a task, you’ll have to click on the pen icon to go to the Task Details window (which pop ups and covers the calendar) and hit the Delete button from there. This function is just as commonly used as marking tasks as done, so a similar button might be a small improvement.

Conclusion

It’s no doubt that Weekplan has set itself apart from all other task management app by narrowing down your to-do lists to seven days. As the Weekplan’s web page describes the app, it provides “a week view strikes the right balance between giving enough space to plan and a time window short enough to focus on execution.” For anyone likes to write down their tasks in a weekly calendar (and I mean those actual weekly planning notebooks made out of paper), this app is a digital version of that — and sometimes that’s exactly what we need.

If you listened to the claims of startups and entrenched tech giants alike, you’d be led to believe that it’s terribly hard to find and listen to music today. That’s anything but the truth, of course. If anything, it’s easier to find and listen to the music you want today than it’s ever been.

There’s the older, traditional route of buying music on CDs (and even records, if you’re an audiophile), and that still works perfectly fine today. There’s free over-the-air radio, complemented with internet radio often from the same stations. You can likely find most songs you want to listen to in music videos on YouTube, and can keep the song forever with music downloads, either directly from artists or from stores like iTunes and more (as well as less legitimate sources, which are the real reason music industry leaders keep searching for new business models).

But that’s not enough. Now, we’ve got an insane selection of music subscription services, where for a low fee per month you can listen to every song imaginable, and then some. You won’t own any music, but you’ll have more accessible than you could ever listen to. There’s also brand-new in-between services like the new iTunes Radio that give you auto-generated radio streams of songs in a genre you like, with options to buy the songs if you want to listen to them again.

It’s getting to be a bit too much, and sometimes one could wish for a return to the simplicity of just flipping on the radio. So what’s your favorite way to get music nowadays? Are you still listening to traditional radio, buying songs directly, or subscribing to music services? Or are you using a mix of all 3? We’d love to hear your thoughts on music in 2013 in the comments below.

Fortunately for internet users, the web provides a wide variety of feeds subscribing services to choose from. With Google Reader shutting down, people might be looking for something that is not only a replacement but a ‘fresh’ replacement, to be more precise i.e. that is new, has an appealing interface, and is just as functional as Google Reader. Here to be that very replacement is a service that offers all that and much more called InoReader.

What is InoReader?

InoReader is a simple and easy to use RSS reader that allows users to subscribe to their favorite RSS feeds. It even allows users to import feeds from any other RSS reader, including Google Reader. If you start using this web service, then InoReader just might become your favorite feeds subscriber in no time at all. This web application provides its users with all the best of RSS feeds and functions that can be performed on them. From a simple yet appealing interface to social integration and sharing, the service comes equipped with an impressive array of features.

Registration

In order to begin using this web application you must first create an account on it. This can be done either via your Google account or by connecting your Facebook account. When you sign in for the first time, you will be shown a screen that reminds you of the fact that subscriptions are yet to be added. As with nearly all other feeds subscribers nowadays, InoReader also provides you with the option to directly import your feeds from Google Reader.

Importing Feeds

Importing feeds from Google Reader or any other RSS reader is pretty simple and straightforward. To do so, just click on the wheel icon in the top right corner and select Import/Export from the dropdown menu.

The application provides users with a wide range of options to import/export your RSS feeds. You can either upload the subscriptions file or connect InoReader to your Google Reader account. Let’s just use the Upload feature, browse the location of the OPML files and wait for the InoReader magic to happen.

Usage and Features

With your feeds added (in any way that you opted for), you can choose the controls present in the leftmost pane to navigate the application’s feed entries. You can easily access all articles that appear in your subscribed feeds, you can access your favorites, you can check out the entries that you have broadcasted on your channel, or you can filter the feeds according to each website RSS that you have subscribed to.

The center pane of the application is where you will the list of article entries populated. Images are shown wherever available and the article titles are accompanied by a short summary of what the entry is about. You have the option to choose from the expanded view or the list view.

The view seen in the image above is the default one. With each entry, you get options to add tags, vote it up, mark it as read, add it to your own channel, add a comment to it, email it to a friend, or share it on your favorite social network. To view the maximum number of article titles in the visible region of the webpage, you can opt for the list view by clicking on the list view button from the toolbar.

In addition to the controls that appear on the left pane, you can filter articles using the built-in search feature provided to its users by the website. The Search bar can be accessed from the top row of buttons on the website’s interface.

From the mini window that houses the Search bar, you can also enable features to directly have all entries in a particular web feed emailed to you. The top buttons let users mark entries as read too – either all entries can be selected or that of a particular time period. Coming back to the interface options, there are certain themes offered by this feeds subscriber. These themes can be accessed from the bottom right corner of the webpage. You simply click on the dropdown menu and pick the theme that you want to switch to.

For further control over the reader’s interface and how things function, you can access the preferences menus and control various aspects of the app’s behavior from the Reading tab. These modifiable options include whether or not to automatically mark items as Read, whether to show extended article content, whether to embed attachments, and a lot more.

The extension also offers users with a wide range of extra tools to play with. If you want, you can just drag and use the InoReader bookmarklet to easily subscribe to any website you want. The service also has an extension for Google Chrome that helps users find out about unread articles in InoReader. You can even use the RSS reader extension by Google with InoReader.

Keep a Track of Things

If you scroll back up to the filter controls screenshot that appear in the app’s left most pane, you will notice an entry title “Statistics” that we did not cover there. This excellent feature of the website helps you keep a track of your readings. More specifically, you can get a breakdown of the articles you have read alongside the ones that you have not yet read. A bar graph is displayed according to the various time periods e.g. last month, weekdays, and time of the day. Against each feed you will find the percentage of read articles and various other pieces of information. Eventually, these stats can help you analyze which feeds you do not pay attention to or are not interested in. You can then remove those feeds from your subscribed ones and reduce the clutter in your reader, if there is any.

Is it Worth Using?

So should you or should you not start using InoReader to subscribe to your feeds? I would say you definitely should. From a sleek interface that does not get in the way to social media integration and sharing, InoReader has covered a lot of ground. The fact that you can directly import your feeds from the Reader will make the transition even easier. And the statistics record that is kept by this web app will definitely help people in analyzing their online readings. Take InoReader out for a spin and see for yourself all the amazing stuff that it has to offer!

If you tried InoReader, we’d love to hear about your thoughts in the comments below.

When I first came across FaveBucket, it seemed to offer the perfect marriage: Pocket’s lovely interface and Evernote’s robust tagging and categorising abilities. What’s more, it also offers an ability to password-protect bookmarks. So how does it actually fare in real-world?

Getting Started

When signing up for FaveBucket, it asks you to connect your social networks for built-in social sharing functions as well as other features, which we’ll get to later. Then, you’re taken to your FaveBucket account along with a starter page that asks you to drag-and-drop two bookmarklets to your bookmarks bar: ‘FaveBucket’ adds a page to your collection; and ‘my FaveBoard’ takes you to all your bookmarks.

I would have preferred extensions for Chrome or Firebox browsers to this solution. First, these bookmarklets look quite ugly in the bar, since they don’t even have favicons. And second, there doesn’t seem to be any way for them to remember logins, so each time you start your browser, you will first have to sign into FaveBucket.

Bookmarking A Page

The actual experience of adding a link to my FaveBucket was quite pleasant. Clicking the bookmarklet activates a sidebar that is clearly inspired from Windows 8’s Modern UI, as it slides in from the left with its flat, stark colours.

Choose a bucket (or category), add your tags, and key in notes if needed. Couldn’t be simpler.

This is where you start categorising and annotating your bookmark with three tools:

a) Bucket: Buckets are essentially categories, with preloaded options such as Family, Photography, Videos, etc. Of course, you can create your own.

b) Tags: Type tags for your bookmark (three maximum), or choose from the list of auto-suggestions FaveBucket will give.

c) Notes: A lot of times, I save a link and forget why I had bookmarked it. Notes is a very handy feature for that.

The whole process is quick, but I can’t say it’s entirely painless. I used FaveBucket on Google Chrome and the sidebar always trouble when there was a video on the page, as the video would appear over the bar, making some text unreadable and some options unclickable. Here’s an example:

This bug meant the Bucket options couldn’t be clicked, and the tags couldn’t be seen

The FaveBoard

The FaveBoard itself is the best bookmark interface I have used. The default layout is a bit like Pinterest, with each link appearing as a card with an image and text under it.

Take the mouse over the image and you are greeted with four options: Heart, Share, Open and Details.

-Heart lets you add the link to your FaveBucket favourites.

-Share gives social sharing options for the link.

-Open will open the link’s original website in a new tab.

-Details is the most interesting of the lot. It opens its own minimalistic reader, with options to ‘read, view, share’. It’s clearly inspired by Readability and does a good job of providing a pleasant reading experience too.

Going back to the card, you will find a little arrow at the bottom-right corner, which gives further options such as its tabs, deleting the card, updating the captured image, or marking it as confidential.

Browsing the FaveBoard

Apart from Home (all cards) and Loved (the bookmarks you ‘hearted’), there are three other options in FaveBoard:

-Inbox stores all the links shared with you by other FaveBoard users via email. It’s a handy collaboration feature.

-Confidential requires a password to sign in, thus protecting your more precious links. I found this feature particularly cool because it means even if your kids grab your laptop, they can’t see certain bookmarks that may not be suitable for them.

-My Social is apparently meant to draw in favourites from your different social network accounts, but this just didn’t work for me. The page remained blank throughout.

Choose the buckets and then choose the tags, or simply choose the tags directly

The other way to browse FaveBoard is through buckets and tags, which are listed on the right. Tap a bucket or a tag and all the links under it will be shown. You can even drag-and-drop tags onto a link to add that tag to it. It’s a lovely, sophisticated interface that is an absolute pleasure to use.

And of course, there’s the search engine. I was pleasantly surprised when it did far more than just search by tags or headlines: FaveBucket search will scour through an article and find the keyword you are looking for too! It’s a robust search feature that those who bookmark a lot of stuff will find very handy to have.

In Conclusion

FaveBucket is the perfect app if you are someone who thinks Pocket is too limiting in its features, or Evernote is too intimidating and not eye-pleasing. It has plenty of options for archiving and tagging, a great search engine to make the most of your bookmarking habits, and throws in a Confidential mode for links meant for your eyes only.

This is what I imagine it would be like if Pinterest and Evernote had a baby

That said, FaveBucket is still in its infancy and riddled with bugs. For example, the issue of needing to sign in every time. Then there was the ‘My Social’ feed of FaveBoard which didn’t work at all. And the videos that appear over the FaveBucket sidebar are just annoying. Plus, I didn’t quite understand why the tags had to be limited to three per bookmark.

Still, the app is worth installing and using if you’re willing to put up with these small issues, because what it offers in return is a powerful bookmarking app that looks really good.

Evernote’s great today, but it’s traveled down a road that’s been rocky at times. This week, though, the company’s gotten one of technology’s highest honors as it received an Apple Design Award for its Mac and iOS apps. We’ve taken an in-depth look at the company’s journey at our sister site Mac.AppStorm, tracing it from its roots as an app for taking handwritten notes on a tablet PC to a service that’s award-winning on the most design-concious OSes.

If you’re an Evernote fan — or just like learning more about the stories behind apps — this is an article you should take a few minutes to read.

Continue Reading at Mac.AppStorm…

One of those apps that can help people connect and work together is one called Kollaborate and it does exactly what the name says. It is a web tool to help people collaborate with each other in real time, so that they can work together. I had the chance to take it for a spin and I was intrigued by its possibilities.

Getting Started

The whole goal of Kollaborate is that it would give a team of people the opportunity to work together or share things over the web and to be able to work in real time on something. When you first set up your account, you are going to want to invite others to your session so that you can start working with them. You can invite people by entering in their email and they will get a link to click on to join the session. When they join, you can see that they are there and now you can start working together.

Inviting others to collaborate with

Collaborating With Others

Once your team is in the session, this is where the real magic of Kollaborate happens. There are a variety of different ways to interact with each other and share items. When you first start, you will have a blank canvas to work with and one of the things you can do is add a document or image to work on. There are a variety of web services that you can pull in images, videos, or documents from. You can connect to them and then start sharing them with your team.

Some of the different web services that you can use

Secondly, you are giving a couple of editing tools to edit your canvas. There is a text tool that you can use as well as a drawing tool that can be used to edit your canvas or give feedback on a document or image. The font in the text tool can be changed, as well as the color, size and placement. The other feature worth noting is that when you draw something, someone can click on that drawing and make a comment on it.

Examples of some of the tools that you can use on your canvas

When it comes to communicating with each other, Kollaborate gives you a variety of options for this. If you don’t want to interact verbally, there is a chat feature where you can “talk” with each other on a project. If you prefer hearing someone’s voice and interacting that way, there is a audio only feature or a video and audio option. I found that the video and audio option worked well in my testing and had no problems with it.

Chatting with others

Makes Collaborating a Breeze

One of the things that I couldn’t help thinking of as I was using Kollaborate was how easy it was to use. In the field that I work in, people are somewhat hesitant to use new technology, but when I showed this to them and we started to play around with it, they could easily navigate their way and actually found it fun to use. One of the things that I could appreciate about this app is that they kept it simple. You didn’t get overwhelmed by too many features or it being too complicated to use. I felt like they gave you the right amount of features to use. I could upload a document or grab an image from a web source quickly and it was easy to interact with others.

One of the things that got me really excited about this app, is that it could be used in a variety of different settings. I cannot wait to use this in my classroom next year. When students are having trouble with something, this will be a great way to help them outside of class. This is a great tool for small businesses that need to work with each other or with others that aren’t necessarily in the same place. And since it is very easy to use, I think you could find that this could be used by more people than just tech professionals.

Final Thoughts

Even though I have been gushing about Kollaborate, I do know and understand that it isn’t for everyone. It definitely doesn’t have the pro features like some other collaboration apps have. There are apps like Go To Meeting or join.me that are a little more powerful and offer a few more key features. Kollaborate charges $9.99 and $29.99/month for their two different plans at the moment. I wish they had a cheaper plan, so they could tap into the mass market more or even education. Overall, it is a great tool to have and I think with the addition of a few more features, it can be a worthy competitor.

These days, each and every individual uses a bunch of cloud apps to communicate, collaborate, share, and store data. Apps that tend to integrate with popular third party solutions to create a productive synergy have a bright and lucrative future ahead.

Azendoo positions itself as one such productivity app that taps into the power of popular cloud apps like Evernote, Dropbox, Box and Google Drive. It’s a useful tool that brings together everything else your business is using for productivity so you can use that data in your projects.

Pricing

Azendoo Plans

Azendoo is decently priced. It follows the industry standard user subscription model that comes in two variants. Basically, the amount of storage space determines if you have to pay $5 or $9 per user. The free tier lacks some of the bells and whistles, but comes with a generous 5 user limit.

Getting Started

Azendoo offers a true one click sign up option using your existing Google Account. Once you signup with Google, the app automatically gets access to the content available in your Google Drive.

Creating a workspace is a four step process, which is made further easier by a help wizard. Except for referring to tags as Subjects, the process of getting started is fairly simple.

A Colorful Workspace

The user interface of Azendoo is gorgeous and is definitely the most colorful one I have seen in quite sometime. The background in particular is a riot of colors and is a nice change from the regular light and pale color schemes.

Before connecting to the cloud services, I wanted to load up the workspace with a good amount of tasks. And, it was incredibly easy to do as well!

Organizing Tasks

Like every other team collaboration application out there, tasks form the basic building blocks of all projects. Usually, tasks will be created under milestones and surprisingly that feature is still in development and will be available in paid plans only when it’s ready.

Adding Tasks to the Calendar

When you add tasks, you don’t have to fill in any meta data. In fact, you are not forced to add any in the first place. Type in a task and hit Enter and all tasks are automatically added to the current date. Later, when you need to add more details to a task, double click on it and there is a whole bunch of useful extras to add to it. Recurring tasks and reminders are two that got my attention. The rest of the standard features like adding comments, deadlines, description etc. are all there.

Got tasks that have deadlines other than today? Just drag and drop them in their respectives dates or weeks in the calendar views. It’s a very practical decision to show the days of the current week in one section followed by rest of the weeks in the month. Makes a lot of difference from organizational and design standpoints!

Cloud Connections

You can connect to Evernote, Dropbox, Box and Google Drive accounts from the Settings page. It goes without saying that Azendoo doesn’t store your login credentials and all authorizations happen using OAuth.

Sharing Files from my Dropbox

Connecting these accounts won’t change anything in the user interface. The controls for social sharing are all there at the right places. Once you activate the integrations, the share buttons in the task metadata and comments sections come to life. Hit up the respective icons of the cloud accounts you have connected to and a sleek a file explorer will present itself.

Sharing from my Google Drive

From the file explorer, it’s just point and click to share with the team. I connected to all services except for Evernote. I have to admit that the UI design of the sharing design perfectly crafted and is a pleasure to use. Azendoo file explorer respects folder organization and you’ll find the files where you have stored in the first place.

In addition to communicating with the team via comments, you can also ask for feedback and opinion using polls. It’s a pretty basic yes or no question that masquerades as a poll, but is more than enough in most scenarios.

Final Thoughts

Azendoo makes it easy to keep your team in sync on projects by sharing updates, files & ideas. It’s a fairly decent task management app and is priced attractively. Azendoo strives hard to be visually appealing to the user. The calendar view in particular is a great example. Graphical representation of task division, progress etc. will add to this effect and to differentiate the app further from the ton of competitors.

And, I wish they keep adding more cloud apps to their toolkit. Springboard integration is one thing that I am very much looking forward to in the future updates. Azendoo for sure is a great companion for teams that lean heavily on the cloud for collaboration.

What It Costs?

Timely offers users with a wide range of packages to choose from. No matter if you are working as a solo freelancer or if you want to manage a group of team of unlimited size, Timely has a package that will suit your needs.

To get started, Timely offers a 30-day free trial after which you must purchase the plan depending on the size of your team. The price ranges from $10 per month for solo account to $75 per month.

Getting Started

To get started, you must sign up for an account on Timely. The registration process is fairly simple and requires you to enter your personal details along with the company information. It provides you with a company specific domain e.g mycompany.timelyapp.com, which can be accessed by the members who are invited to Timely. Along with other basic details, you also have to select your desired currency and the hourly rate.

After registration, you will be redirected to your dashboard from where you can easily log hours, manage users, create reports and much more.

But before you log hours, you must create the project you want to track the billable hours for. You just need to go to the Projects Tab and select Create New Project. You will then be asked to enter the details of the project such as its name, hourly rate, company name and time budgets (the available time in which the task must be completed). You can also add non-billable projects in this application.

After creating the project, you will be able to log hours worked on the specific project from your dashboard. All you need to do is click on Log Hours button and it will bring a toolbar from where you can select your project and manage the time.

After the project is complete, just go to the Projects tab and move it to archived folder. The archived projects stay in your account until and unless you delete them. You can view your archived project under the Archived tab in the Projects window.

Depending on your subscribed plan, you can also invite users to collaborate on any project you are working on. To view the complete list of users, you just need to go to the Users tab and you will find the complete list of users. Over here, you can also invite more people.

Generating Reports

At the end of the month, it is very important that you know how much you made during the month. Timely allows you to find out how much money the company has made during a specific month along with the billable hours worked. You can customize the users who collaborated with you on any specific projects. Later, the reports can be saved as Excel (.xls) files and can be shared with other team members as well.

Mobile Access

Timely app is also available for iPhone (free of cost) that allows users to track their time on the go. You just have to launch the app, select the project and log hours. You can also view the sent reports in this application.

In the End

I must say that Timely has impressed me a lot with its simplicity and user friendly interface. A person with no experience on how to use a time tracking application can get used to Timely in matter of few minutes. Although I do think that they need to offer more exporting options. Another thing which I don’t like is that you cannot add/create new projects from its iOS app, you can only log hours and manage projects.

As time is money, you have to make use of your time efficiently in order to make lots of bucks. Additionally, it is very important for someone who is working as a freelancer because they have to manage time properly so that they can complete multiple tasks for different clients in the smallest amount of time.

If you have tried this application, we would love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments below.

In many cases, the blog style of presentation works perfectly well, particularly when it comes to time-critical content. That said, it can hardly be the only worthwhile method of digital publishing – true creativity cannot be achieved if everyone has to use the same template.

ReadyMag is a new service which aims to fix this problem with a blank canvas, in the form of a digital magazine. Web based, but very mobile-friendly, this invite beta startup is hoping that, given the right tools, many of us will want to publish our content in a linear, self-contained format. But is print-shaped publishing really the next big thing in online content?

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

The Network

Whilst magazine creation is the key feature here, let’s look at what ReadyMag offers us first – the Discover stream. This area is home to the most popular creations of other ReadyMag users.

ReadyMag’s Discover area is somewhat desolate, but the quality is high.

At present, the selection is relatively minimal – not entirely surprising, given the limited access ReadyMag is allowing to its beta – but there are enough publications on show to get an idea of what is possible with ReadyMag’s design suite.

The Discover area also provides ample opportunity to experience the service from the reader’s perspective. Each user has a vanity URL, home to a stylishly clean profile page which features all of that user’s creations. Click on one of the magazines, and you are taken through to the window-filling front cover. Navigation is arrow-based on desktop (white arrows are placed at the extreme sides of the browser window), and swipe-based on tablet. I found that magazines, particularly those with large images, took a little time to load, although the wait is not interminable.

Having read and studied many of the pre-existing publications on ReadyMag, I have to say that the format is impressive enough to be something I would consider using for my own writing or photography.

The Editor’s Desk

Okay, so enough with the gawping at other people’s work. It’s time to create something of my own.

Open the “Create” section of ReadyMag, and you are presented with a completely blank screen, with the exception of a dotted line which demarcates the area in which you can place content.

ReadyMag’s design area is a blank canvas (although templates are available)

All the action happens at the bottom-left of the browser window, where sit all of ReadyMag’s editing controls. The basics come first – an easy-access menu of your pages, undo and redo buttons, and a basic information pop-up which allows you to edit your title and add tags.

The grid and guide options in ReadyMag’s design area are extremely customizable.

ReadyMag does have some pretty neat tricks up its sleeve when it comes to formatting your creation, though. Pages can be set at a standard size, or be allowed to scroll downwards a set number of pixels. Equally, ReadyMag offers numerous grids and guides, each with snap-to functionality, making neat alignments a great deal easier. Even page backgrounds are highly customizable, with the option to fill the page with a solid colour, an image, or, very impressively, a video.

You can even fill your ReadyMag pages with videos.

The most important feature to be tested, though, is how ReadyMag deals with content. As you might expect, text is one of the options available, and, again, the accompanying feature-set is impressive. Text boxes, like all ReadyMag content, can easily be size-adjusted, and a good range of fonts is on offer. Along with standard formatting options, such as bold, strikethrough and italics, your text can include links. The biggest boon for writers here, however, is the option to split text into multiple columns.

Images can be uploaded directly, but ReadyMag also offers handy Instagram and Flickr importers, as well as built-in Google image search. Images can be pushed forwards, or to the back, and ReadyMag includes a very respectable selection of photo filters, as well as a cropping tool. The only, but significant, issue I can spot here is that you can’t make an image a clickable link, but this may be for reasons of reader usability.

Videos can also be added to your magazine, although only YouTube and Vimeo videos can be used, while Soundcloud is the only way of getting audio into your publication. Magazines can include shapes, too, the options being square, circular, triangular and a line.

The final content options are social media based. Both the Twitter and Facebook widgets are, essentially, the official embeddable offerings, with the only modifications being some small revisions to their style. This social aspect, though, is incredibly impressive, and a killer feature for ReadyMag, especially when you consider that you can include Facebook comments.

Publishing

You can be the best editor in the world, but it won’t mean a thing if no-one reads your creation. Hence, it makes sense to check out the ways in which your ReadyMag publications can be shared.

All of your magazines have their own public URL, which you can share wherever you like, but Twitter and Facebook sharing is built in to ReadyMag, as is direct emailing. There are a couple of more innovative options available, though. Any page on ReadyMag can be turned into a Pinterest-shareable preview image, and you can embed ReadyMag publications wherever you can include the HTML snippet. I can imagine folks basing whole websites around their ReadyMag creations.

Look – glorious columns of text!

It must also be noted that a planned feature is to be able to charge for access to magazines, opening up ReadyMag to be utilized effectively by professional content creators.

Conclusion

Magazine-building with ReadyMag is both easy and enjoyable. Critically, though, the magazines which you can create with this service genuinely work well, look good and are easily shareable. The ReadyMag network profiles are also nicely designed, and the upcoming ability to charge for magazines will provide the service with a new dimension.

There are areas for improvement, of course. The network is somewhat desolate at the moment, mostly due to the invitation-only nature of the beta. Equally, small omissions when it comes to building your masterpiece – no clickable images, no direct audio upload – are frustrating, but only when viewed through the prism of ReadyMag‘s general excellence.

The big question is, though, should you switch from blogging to ReadyMag publishing? Given its relatively early development stage, I’m not sure whether ReadyMag is refined enough to be a standalone way of publishing your content. As a supplement to more traditional web publishing, though, a ReadyMag publication is a brilliant way of sharing your content. Additionally, if development continues on this service, an increasing number of bloggers, photographers and other creative types may finally be tempted away from the decade-old blogging format – and quite rightly so.

Well, I got the chance to play around with an app called Postable, and it may have solved my problem. It gives me the opportunity to use my computer to write and create cards to send to people, so that way I won’t have to waste time writing them. Better yet, my wife will be happy that she won’t have to write my cards for me. In the end, it could be a win-win situation. It just might be what you need for Father’s day this Sunday, or other special days coming up.

Getting Started

One of the first things you are going to want to do when you first sign up for Postable is to get your contacts into the app. You can do this by importing your address book from your computer or you can also manually add addresses. Postable also gives you a link that you can share with others where you can make them do the work, by adding their info themselves. I like this option, especially for special occasions like weddings, instead of having a guest book, you can have an iPad or laptop set up where guests can get their information entered into Postable.

Adding contacts to Postable

Writing and Sending The Card

Before you actually start to write cards to people, you need to choose one appropriate for the occasion. Right now, Postable only has thank you cards that you can send to people for a variety of occasions. I am sure in the future they are going to be adding more so that they can expand their business.

Choosing a card

Once you find one that you like, you have the option of sending it to one person or to a group of people. You can now start to write your card, by choosing one of your contacts or by adding one manually. There are also a variety of fonts that you can choose from that look like actual handwriting, to try to give it a more authentic feel.

Writing your card

When you are done writing all of the cards you need to send out, you are now ready to pay for them and send them off. Each one, at this moment, costs $2.00 and postage costs $0.46. Once you are done purchasing them, your card will then be sent off through snail mail. The person will then get a real card in the mail that actually almost looks like a real handwritten one.

Paying for your card and postage

Could This Work?

I personally really like this service for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t have to write cards and the person I am sending them to gets a quality, physical card from them, and we all know people throw them away 5 minutes after they get them anyway. Secondly, Postable, is actually cheaper than going to the store, finding a card you like, and then mailing it off. Most now days are easily in the $4-7 range and so with this service, I am actually saving some money. I think where Postable can get a little expensive is if you are sending out a lot of the same card to people. Most times you can buy the same card in bulk at the store, which will be cheaper than this route.

The trick for Postable is to be able to offer a better selection of cards and to be able to offer certain ones in bulk. The goal is that they have to be able to convince people that it is going to be worth it rather than doing it the old fashioned way. Will Postable gain a lot of traction? I am not sure, but I do think they meet a need for people. You do have people like my wife, who are purists when it comes to cards, and absolutely loves to get hand written ones from people. You probably won’t win that group over. But, if they can somehow convince others that this is the way to go to send out the occasional card to someone, then they might have something.

Final Thoughts

In the end, I really liked the service and I thought it was well done. Yes, I am not the hugest fan of writing cards, but putting that aside, I really thought that Postable did a good job of giving you an app that was easy to use and navigate. I liked that I could easily get in, write a card and send it off to someone in a matter of minutes. I would love to see them continually improve their offerings and continue to think outside the box on how they could attract more customers.

Would you use something like this or does this take away from the sentimental value of getting a “real” card? Would you get offended if you received a card like this? I am interested to hear your thoughts, so hit us up in the comments below.

Simply put, Safestacks allows you to securely store, manage and share passwords and other important info with your team and clients. Usernames, passwords, expiration dates, domain names, software licenses and just about anything else. You can even set email alerts when important dates are approaching (great for domain name expirations and contract renewals).

You can then add as many accounts your team and clients need, so everyone can get access to exactly the data they need, all of which is live updated from your main account. And, best yet, it’s all backed by their Unlock Code Security™ – meaning that your sensitive info is encrypted using an Unlock Code that only you know. Not even the folks at Safestacks can access it.

Secure Your Data with Safestacks Today!

Safestacks is secure, fast and shareable. You can get started with a free 30-day trial of Safestacks, then customize it with your company’s branding and get your secure data added for your team. Then, if it works for your team, you can keep using it unlimited for just $12/month!

I’m sure you have all seen it: the spreadsheet abyss that is tucked deep into your office network. You know, where all the spreadsheets are linked and only one person knows which bits you can edit to get the results you need and which bits if changed by one decimal point will ruin all of the sheets and linked calculations.

So, the obvious solution is a database. The way that databases are designed allows for separated data, layered processing above it to calculate anything that you need, and best of all, they are robust (if implemented correctly) and scale well. “But,” I hear you say, “I don’t know how to design or implement a database!” This is where Ragic! comes in.

The premise behind Ragic! is that you can use an interface that resembles a spreadsheet to create a fully functional relational database with as many tables and forms as you need to get the job done with minimal effort and no programming.

The Ui is clean and easy to navigate

The application does very well with its target of making databases accessible. Database applications are renowned for being all about function with very little regard for form, Ragic steers away from this paradigm, and to good effect:The UI and layout is much more akin to a web 2.0 application. It is quite reminiscent of Gwail with its colour scheme and layout, and this is a good thing. GMail is clean and simple to use so it’s a great choice for inspiration.

The Application

Interactive tutorials are provided to allow you see how the system works and they teach you a good deal of the skills required to make a project work in Ragic!. The tutorials run you through creating forms (where data is entered) and also tables (where data is stored). With these tools you are set up to start experimenting with your own requirements in mind and learn the system in more depth.

The interactive side to the tutorials is very well done, each step is highlighted and detailed in a popup tool-tip so you can see where you need to go next and what you need to do. It takes about 1 minute to create a basic form and table pairing that holds clients’ details by running through the tutorial, which is not bad.

The interactive tutorials teach you all you need to know to get started.

Users can be created that allow you to set permissions for each person individually. You can also send a link to your forms to allow the rest of your team to enter data into them as well, but only in the predefined way that you have set up, this is a really important point.

As well as the interactive tutorials that guide you through the initial stages of the development of your database there are also vido tutorials which carry on from there and show you other features and ways of doing things.

More Complex Actions

It’s all very well creating a single sheet (of course, you actually could use Excel for that), but where Ragic! really starts to ahem, excel, is when you start to create other forms for your sub tables and linked tables. These are how you can create an entire system that is really easy to use, add data to, and get data from.

You can add calculations or auto generations to your fields.

You will also be able to add formula to fields or cells, much as you would in Excel, this means that as you enter data into the table those fields will automatically be calculated for you. This works very well, and you can use similar functions to Excel in that you can choose to have a sum of the data, or perform any other calculation.

Reports

This is likely the standout feature of Ragic that will make you want to try it. The report functionality allows you to analyse the data that is held in your database. There are different types of reports which allow you to present the data in the best way for that specific type of data.

Pivot tables allow you to analyse your data

You can create pivot tables which you can alter to represent the data that you want to see, choosing different fields and sets to show in the table. You can also use the reports tool to show charts of your data such as changes over time, or numbers of entries for any given category. this is a great tool and really allows you to gain insight into your database. This would be especially useful if you use this as a stock management tool, or for sales monitoring.

What Could be Improved?

I did notice some inconsistencies in a couple of places. I created a report and the link to it was in a language, perhaps Chinese, which I couldn’t read. There were a couple of occasions when I added a drop down with options that could be chosen and when I went to the form the dropdown was not populated properly and didn’t show any options for the user to choose. I reported it to support so I’m sure it will be fixed in due course.

Conclusion

A very handy application that really does allow database creation with minimum effort as it says. The created product is far more robust than a collection of Excel sheets and allows a lot more flexibility to create a bespoke solution for you company or yourself, as well as a lot more power in terms of reporting and flexibility in the way it’s used.

The developers of Ragic have taken a lot of time to make it appear as an excel spreadsheet to make it more accessible to those who would not even contemplate using a database creation tool before, and for that i applaud them, it works very well.

The free plan allows you to create a simple database of one sheet with up to 1000 entries. This might be enough for simple applications, such as a list of clients and their details spread over a couple of tables, but generally you will need a more complete plans. These can be had from $5/user/month up to $65/user/month. You can also get an onsite install which you manage yourself.

These days, I’ve got multiple devices, each with a finite amount of hard drive space. I’ve got an iPod Classic that can hold everything, but my iPhone and iPads are both much more limited. My Android devices have even less room to spare. Rdio recently saved the day. We reviewed Rdio in 2011, but a lot has changed since then. Read on to find out what still makes Rdio worth the subscription today.

What’s Changed Since 2010?

I’m glad you asked. There’s a ton of new features in Rdio, but what it really comes down to is that it’s the most beautiful of all the streaming services I’ve seen in action. The design has improved over the years; comparing 2010’s Rdio to 2013’s Rdio feels like comparing two completely different products. In fact, I’d go so far to say that Rdio has the best-looking web/desktop apps and mobile apps for any music product, period. On all my mobile devices, the apps are beautiful. And in Chrome, Rdio runs flawlessly and looks gorgeous to boot.

Rdio’s social functionalities and search abilities have also improved. Instead of following people’s playlists, now you can follow what they’re frequently listening to and keep up with all the latest trends. If you’re looking for ideas as to who you might want to follow, that algorithm has been greatly enhanced. It’s easier than ever to find people from Facebook or Twitter. You can search for music labels now instead of just artists and songs, which makes it even easier to find music you’re looking for.

It’s easier than ever to find people to follow.

Rdio now learns the kind of music you like as well. You can give a song a Thumbs Up rating or a Thumbs Down, and the more you do this, the more Rdio learns about what you like and dislike. If you choose to create a “station” (which is like commercial-free music radio) based off one song, the service gets better at figuring out what you like with time. It’s brilliant, because it means that the longer you’re a subscriber, the better the service gets.

One feature that I have a love/hate relationship with is the collection-syncing feature with iTunes (or Windows Media Player) libraries. It requires downloading the desktop app and only takes a couple seconds. I have almost 10,000 songs, and it took about thirty seconds for Rdio to match my collection with its database.

I thought this would take forever, but it took all of thirty seconds. Completely painless.

I love it because it means I can really listen to almost anything in my iTunes library even if I’m on a mobile device or a different computer. That being said, I hate it because there’s tons of duplicates, skipped tracks and a lot of unavailable music from my iTunes library. It’s not a flawless part of the service. But my struggles might not be yours: I’m not American.

International Rollout

Because I live in Canada, I have a hard time finding any streaming service to fit my needs. Rdio is the only great subscription service we have available, but there are tons of artists I simply can’t listen to. Some big bands like AC/DC are nowhere to be found, but smaller indie bands like Groenland aren’t available either. Beyond that, there are some records I can stream but I can’t purchase (like the new Queens of the Stone Age album). There’s clearly a lot of reasons why this is the case, but I know that every American I follow on the service is listening to music I can’t stream. (And to make it worse, Rdio’s beautiful interface, through no fault of its own, ends up rubbing it in.)

It’s only the debut record from Vampire Weekend. Not like I’ll ever miss it anyway. (In case you can’t tell, I adore that album and can’t live without it.)

That being said, there’s also a ton of music I can listen to. I have no problem finding something to entertain myself with. And if I do want to purchase music from Rdio, it will download as an MP3 and often be cheaper than buying it directly from iTunes (sometimes by a couple dollars). I’m not disappointed in the service’s choices by any stretch of the imagination, but it is worth pointing out that it’s not quite as strong in other countries as it is in the States.

Let’s Talk Design and Function

I’d be remiss if I didn’t spend some time talking about the merits of Rdio’s design. They’ve worked hard on creating a web device that looks great on the desktop. They call the album view “immersive,” but I call it jaw-droppingly beautiful. It also looks great on my Retina MacBook Pro.

Rdio’s interface is just beautiful.

And everything is easy to access. There aren’t many hidden buttons in the interface that you have to go digging for. The little touches are what make it really shine: As you listen to an album, songs you’ve already listened to are greyed out instead of white. Text is consistently readable, regardless of the blurred album art behind it.

I can’t give the web app a better compliment than to say that it’s good enough that the desktop app features is nearly identical, but doesn’t feel compromised. I like the web app for convenience, but on my Mac, the desktop app integrates with the media controls on my keyboard. It supports Notification Centre and even has a Mini Player.

One more, for good measure. Look at the background: it’s an out-of-focus, zoomed version of the album art!

It doesn’t matter what app you use though, really: Rdio remembers what song you were listening to and you can carry on from anywhere. As long as you’ve got the Internet, you’re never going to miss out. And even if you don’t have the Internet, you can sync music straight to your mobile devices and take it with you if you want to leave the LTE connection at home.

Final Thoughts

I still haven’t figured out how Rdio fits into my habits as a collector, but it does fit into my lifestyle. It makes it easier than ever for me to keep my fragmented technology synced and try new music out as I please (and I can stop worrying about outgrowing my phones’ and tablets’ hard drives). Not only is it starkly beautiful and simple, it also makes it easy for me to keep up with my friends.

Pricing hasn’t changed since we last reviewed it: At $4.99 a month for the web subscription or $9.99 a month for the Unlimited subscription (which includes both mobile and web streaming), Rdio is one of the best deals out there for music junkies. And if you have doubts, you can give the two-week trial period a shot to assuage your fears. I can’t recommend it more highly.