US Army Survival Guide – For When the Zombie Apocalypse Surely Arrives
You don’t have to be a nut-job survivalist to take an interest in survival situations. Shows by guys like Ray Mears and Bear Grylls have raised the profile of surviving in harsh environments, but if you’d like a bit of further reading on the subject, then be sure to check out the US Army Survival Guide. Packed with useful information on everything from finding water to building shelter, it’s an interesting read that looks at survival in all sorts of climates.
VX Messenger Bag – Heavy Duty Protection on the go for your Laptop
As a former DJ, I’ve always been a fan of messenger bags as a way to safely transport stuff safely from A to B. Over the years they’ve evolved from bags used by bike couriers and co-opted by DJs to move records around. The VX Messenger Bag is a hard wearing but stylish looking bag that features a waterproof Cordura outer layer and a load of handy zip-up pockets. It’s available in two sizes and black or slate colours for $249.
Read MoreAirTime – Free Radio Station Suite for Linux
The Internet has changed the whole make-up of radio just as surely as it has disrupted the newspaper business and lowered the barriers of entry to practically zero. I’m no longer restricted to the same old lame top-40 pop stations that operate in my region – I can listen to pretty much any station anywhere at any time. It’s with this ethos in mind that the developers of AirTime have created a free and open source radio automation package which enables anyone with sufficient bandwidth to setup and run an online radio station via the web with simple playlist and scheduling facilities. At present AirTime is only available for GNU/Linux platforms, but once it’s up and running it can be operated by anyone with access to a web browser.
Read MoreEasy Chef – Recipe App with Reverse Search for Ingredients
If you’re anything like me then there are probably many occasions when you’re put your head in the larder or the fridge and wondered what you could make with the ingredients you have at your disposal. Easy Chef addresses this problem quite neatly by enabling you to do a reverse lookup on ingredients – so instead of looking at recipes and working out if you have the ingredients, you start with the ingredients and the app tells you which recipes you can make. It’s available now in the App Store for $0.99.
Read MoreRome2Rio – Travel Routes Simplified
Rome2Rio is an awesome website that takes travel data from airlines, buses and trains and combines it with mapping capabilities to produce a simple answer to the age old A to B problem. All you have to do is type in your origin and your destination and the site will compute the quickest route and display timing and pricing information for every stage.
FlightFox – Human Flight Searches for a Flat Fee
Travelling is great, particularly in this age of cheap international jet flights. However finding a flight that fits your budget in this age of international austerity, is not easy. FlightFox aims to improve on the usual trawl through airline websites with a service that crowd-sources the search for cheap flights. Using a network of over 500 travel experts, you can get them to battle against each other to find the cheapest flight and the cost to you is a flat fee of $29 for simple hops to $49 for more complex trips.
ProxMate Removes Geo-IP blocks on YouTube, Grooveshark and Hulu and is Free
While it’s not a complete solution to the geographic blocking of IP addresses by companies like Hulu, ProxMate is certainly a step in the right direction. It’s a proxy service that comes in Chrome or Firefox add-on or extension format and enables you to quickly circumvent annoying messages on YouTube about a video being blocked in your country and the USA-only service of Hulu.
Using ProxMate to view a Hulu video isn’t the slickest experience but it does work and it is free. To view a Hulu video you enable the service from your browser’s toolbar and then go to view the video in question on Hulu. When you get the region block message you click on the ‘Details’ link and click the Unblock button. It worked perfectly for me first time, though it’s hard to tell how the service will scale once thousands of people start using it at once.
Read MorePulling the Plug – How to Delete Your Account on Facebook, Google+ and Other Social Media Sites
There’s an expression I hear a fair bit, that’s associated primarily (but not exclusively) with big budget action movies which is, the willing suspension of disbelief. What this means is that we all know the story couldn’t actually happen, but we are asked to hit pause on those parts of our brain that suggest something is not sensible. My wife finds this particularly hard and will often say something like, “that’s ridiculous, there’s no way you could fall off a building that high and walk away.”
And now I feel that there’s another phrase we need to get into common circulation, which is the the willing surrender of privacy. What I mean by this is that we all know that Facebook and Google are earning billions from our most intimate personal information, but we choose to let them, because we get globe-spanning social networks out of the deal. The number crunching that advertising agencies are now using to profile us in incredible detail is all thanks to Facebook and Google and the other wannabe social networks.
At this moment in time I’m aware of the way my likes, dislikes and gossip are being used to create commercials for companies that produce flavoured sugary carbonated water but because it all goes on behind the curtain, I let it persist. However there may come a day and it may come soon, where I decide that enough is enough. If and when I decide to pull the plug on the social media sites I’d like to know that there is an exit strategy.
With all that in mind, we’ve had a look at the account deletion protocols for the big social networking sites. So if you decide to stop prostituting yourself at the alter of Zuckerberg’s glorified births, deaths and marriages register and you’ve had enough of Google reading your email over your shoulder, here’s how to opt out.
Read MoreMySocialStylist – Foursquare for Frocks
While I personally have the fashion sense of a crack addict, my better half enjoys dressing stylishly and appreciates feedback from her friends on what she’s wearing. She’d appreciate MySocialStylist, which is an ‘interactive social shopping iPhone app’ that enables you to get honest advice on your outfits, give advice yourself and track fashion ‘finds’ on your shopping sprees. The app’s free and available now.
Mobile Gallery – Your WordPress Portfolio Made Mobile
The WordPress CMS has gained a lot of traction with artists and photographers due, in part, to some excellent portfolio plugins. Now Raygun Design have produced an app that hooks into their Portfolio Framework plugin and reproduces it on an iPhone or iPad. The clear advantage of this is that you can concentrate on building a cool portfolio on your website and not have to worry about syncing your work to your iPad when you want to show it off to someone. The WordPress plugin is $28, but the Mobile Gallery app that displays everything on iOS is free.
Read MoreLeap – Control a Computer in Three Dimensions With Your Natural Hand and Finger Movements
While you were asleep, the future of computer control interfaces arrived and it only costs $69.99.
Read More8bit PopUp Cards
Looking for some inspiration for a card for that geek friend of yours? Look no further - Mini-eco have an awesome homemade solution in the form of these groovy popup cards. All you’ll need is some paper, a craft knife, a ruler and a needle – all the templates are available for download free on the Mini-eco website.
Read MoreTivoli Audio SongBook – AM/FM/iPod
No matter how advanced technology gets, no kitchen is complete without a radio of some sort. The Tivoli Audio SongBook
EveryMe – The AntiSocial Network that Cuts Out the Crap
Facebook addressed the issue by adding groups and Google+ introduced us to circles, but what if you don’t care to share your stuff with random strangers or friends of friends of friends? EveryMe is an antisocial network – a closed bubble in which your posts only appear for those you explicitly wish to share them with. They even block indexing by Google, so those pictures of you getting blown by a stripper on your stag night don’t appear in Google Images. There are iPhone and Android apps all ready to rock and sign-up is, of course, free.
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