Weezic – This website is a unique take on music practice. Download and print music sheets, choose your own tempo and then play with a whole orchestra (mp3 accompaniments), or even record your interpretation of a known piece and share it on the site.
To learn more about Weezic and how it can be your best online musician friend, see the video below.
Earbits – This super cool website offers an innovative way to consume music freely online, and discover new artists along the way. What starts out as a simple-looking page with 13 music genres to choose from (there’s also a ‘shuffle all’ option) soon turns into a most rewarding experience that not only looks amazing, but also provides high quality music sounds.
To give you the perfect example of what Earbits is about, see the image below, the listening page for Blues. The most eye-grabbing part here is the image of the artist himself (in this case Boo Boo Davis). The name of the artist will show on the bottom left side of the page, and clicking “view more” will pull you down to an informative bio and discography section of the artist you’re listening to.
In addition, Earbits have worked hard to make sure the social aspect of this service is as best as it can be; you can give each song a thumbs up or down, and when connected to the site via Facebook you can share whole songs with your friends, even tweet the track you’re listening to! Now that’s socially rewarding.
Socialeyes – This unique free social tool is essentially “a social video service that allows you to call your friends and meet new people.” Socialeyes is similar to the Video Chat Rounds Facebook app which we reviewed a couple of months ago, only that Socialeyes is a bit more flexible in terms of features. One obvious difference is that Socialeyes allows for multiple video messaging rather than limiting you to one-on-one conversations.
Another cool thing about Socialeyes is that firends using this service can send video messages to each other when not connected in real-time. It’s the answering machine of the digital age, packed with a whole series of social perks – all for free! Need I say more? Connect with Facebook and invite all your friends to join.
EcoSquid – If you have an old gadget no longer in use, you already know that throwing it to the garbage is not an option. So, what are some of the options out there? Selling and recycling, mainly. If you are looking for either or both, EcoSquid is your solution.
Claiming to be an impartial source of information, EcoSquid shows you which places would give you the highest value, and which have the highest service rating in case you’re looking to sell. In case your old gadget is beyond recovery, EcoSquid will direct you to reliable donation/recycling entities for you to consider. Either way, EcoSquid’s mission is to help you “prolong the life of your electronics or responsibly dispose of them.” Here’s why you should use EcoSquid:
Great job, EcoSquid team! We like!
mySpoonful – Playing on the small dose metaphore, mySpoonful introduces small music bites -one independent artist at a time, three times a week- to “busy people.” Each post includes a photo and a bio paragraph about the artist, along with a free mp3 track for users to listen to and download if they wish.
mySpoonful reminds me of another website, One Track Mind, also offering a bite-sized dose of independent music discovery experience. mySpoonful’s content is outstanding, and it’s nice to read meaningful and inspiring paragraphs by professionals who really understand the music industry. This is a must stop if you ask me. Here’s my top pick on mySpoonful, Pepper Rabbit, a band from Silverlake, Los Angeles with their beautiful track Older Brother, which I already downloaded of course!
GroupMe – This service is essentially a group chat room that’s been modified to text messaging mode. It works with every cell phone that supports texting, so you don’t need a fancy iPhone or any other smart phone to use GroupMe (although iPhone and Android users have the GroupMe app available). You can create multiple groups while each network receives a designated number you will use for texting its members (sending and receiving). Some classic group categories I can think of are friends, colleagues, family, carpool group, etc.The possibilities are endless.
For quick GroupMe actions (i.e. key shortcuts), read this help section. Although there’s no limit to the number of groups you can create and be part of, GroupMe recommends keeping an ideal number of 4-10 members in each group. Apparently a higher number leads to clutter and noise, which makes sense. So what other functions are available on GroupMe? Aside from sending text, you can share photos with your group and make conference calls. Oh, and using GroupMe is free by the way. The only downside to this service is that it’s available only in the US for now. The GroupMe team says it’s working on making it available in other countries as well. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.
ShopWell – ShopWell “is a free food information site that scores products on how well they meet your unique needs.” Get a personalized list of food product recommendation, based on your health state (lactose intolerance, athletic training, osteoporosis, high cholesterol and many others) while fully understanding food products’ nutritional info. Once you’ve signed up you can set your personal parameters (including age, weight , sex and age and the health state driving your nutrition, stated above).
Next, you can check ingredients you wish to include in your diet such as folic acid, saturated fat, whole grain, and ingredients you don’t want (such as corn syrup, added sugar, preservatives, etc.), and even state any allergies you may have so ShopWell will know what to avoid. See the image below.
The end result of ShopWell is a customized list of recommended products, each with a nutritional value score from 0-100, based on its suitability to your set of parameters. Getting your profile ready for smarter shopping in the supermarket is easy; ShopWell’s interface is appealing and user-friendly, and it’s free! (a free iPhone app is available). Why not make use of this healthy tool?
card karma – I ditched the idea of sending e-cards online a while ago, mostly due to poor quality and originality of the free cards offered by major e-card providers. But here we have card karma, an exceptional website that offers e-card customization for free with beautiful images (including your own photos), videos and visuals that will persuade the most stubborn e-card haters to reconsider.
Create your e-card by picking an occasion, an image or browse the popular categories. You can edit the text of course, change colors, add images, videos, and decide if you wish to keep your e-card private or public. Here’s the Thank You e-card I created for a very special person in my life.
Image by babasteve on flickr
OhLife – This site has such a unique concept I was anxious to try it out. The basic idea of OhLife is to keep a daily diary -totally private of course- that shows you how you’ve changed through time, and what events and feelings affected you the most. And all this happens using a tool you use on a daily basis anyway – your email.
Once you’ve signed up OhLife sends this question to your email: “How did your day go?” Simply answer it and hit Reply. Over the course of the following days this will go on and over time you will see the changes you went through in terms of events, relationships and feelings – essentially life in a nut shell, only it’s the most interesting one since it’s yours! Set up the time you wish OhLife to send you the question email, even add pics. It’s the ideal modern-day diary for the busy urbanists.
Todo.ly – Sounds like a task manager, doesn’t it? Well, you got it. Todo.ly is a free projects, tasks and other to do’s organization tool that endeavors to facilitate and manage your busy life. According to the website, Todo.ly is “a super easy Task Management tool. Allows you to quickly create tasks, and organize them into projects. Set Due Date, and Priority for the different tasks to focus on what you really need to do.”
Although the free service Todo.ly offers is, in terms of life practicality and simplification, a great one, I can’t really see myself abandoning my Google account wonders -including Gmail, calendar, docs, tasks and reminders- and using Todo.ly exclusively. Then again, I realize not everyone is so heavily dependent on Google’s tools for the day-to-day projects and routine as I am. These very same users will undoubtedly appreciate and enjoy Todo.ly’s excellent service. Here’s my Todo.ly frontpage after I had listed my weekly projects.
NabeWise – Thinking of moving into a new neighborhood? If you’re already familiar with the new location in terms of what the local community is like then you’re all set. But what happens if you want or need to relocate to a different state? How would you go about searching for the right neighborhood for you, especially if you don’t know anyone in the area? NabeWise was conceived precisely for this purpose, and it offers an innovative neighborhood ranking and research tool for the clueless ‘relocators’.
Whether you are a single woman moving from Chicago to New York City, or a married + children family relocating from San Francisco to Seattle, NabeWise is your best buddy for identifying the most suitable neighborhood for you. Based on their user community feedback, NabeWise offers bona fide information on local neighborhoods in major US cities (currently covering NYC, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and Chicago, with more locations coming soon). Explore neighborhoods’ ranking (in terms of quality of life, character, people, and things to do), average rental costs, school statistics, local reviews and more.
NabeWise’s excellent use of visual content helps you taste better the currently distant neighborhood you are considering moving into. I don’t think there’s anything quite like it on the Web, and I am still a bit bewildered by the fact that NabeWise is a 100% free service! To see an example, see what searching for a Seattle neighborhood is like on NabeWise. The screen shot below is a glimpse of the NabeFinder, a dynamic neighborhood search map showing results according to set parameters (over 30 attributes to choose from).
Baby Name Wizard – When a new baby is on the way, naming him or her can be a daunting task; you want the name to have a deeper meaning, to make an impression, to reflect a noticeable quality or family tradition. If you are seeking for a little bit of creativity and inspiration than merely relying on the names of deceased relatives, Baby Name Wizard is here.
The Baby Name Wizard offers a comprehensive source for everything related to baby naming. You can simply search for names alphabetically, but I suggest digging deeper into the site; explore the NameVoyager, a colossal graphed database of the history and popularity of thousands of names (see screen shot below); check out the Namipedia, a name encyclopedia, and my favorite; the NameMapper, showing names’ popularity by state and year. Look at the lower screen shot for an example, using my favorite name for girls, Mia.
The Baby Name Wizard truly is a great resource to consult if you’re expecting a child. It sure makes things much easier and gives you one less thing to stress about.