Cowboom – Deal grabbers, this one’s for you. Cowboom (a Best Buy brand) offers deals on brand-name new, pre-owned and refurbished consumer electronics and more. You can find anything here from Apple notebooks and home theater systems to cameras and portable music players, all part of a huge variety of brands, and all offered at great discounts.
Each product category on Cowboom offers lots of tempting deals via both regular and auction purchases. To stay on top of all the great deals available on Cowboom, it would be worth while subscribing to the site via email (homepage, form on the right hand side).
Here’s an image from the camera section on Cowboom for you to explore. Enjoy!
The following is a guest post I wrote on behalf of All My Faves for Synapses, an insightful blog by the lovely Dan Fonseca.
In recent years, as the World Wide Web became mankind’s main communication channel, there has been an interesting shift in the predominance of textual content. More specifically, textual content in mainstream media has been increasingly gravitating towards a more visualized direction. This is not to say textual content or words are a dying breed. Rather, the visual evolution of content -in the form of animated videos, interactive maps and infographics- is emerging primarily in circumstances where complicated knowledge or data need to be understood in a fast and clear manner.
Below I will present several examples of recent visual content forms on the Web, showing how graphic based information achieves immediate understanding and internalization of ideas and processes. These exclude common practical iconizations used for daily routine efficiencies (signs, conventional maps, etc).
1. Visualizing Bloodtests
This example is a knock-out in terms of both aesthetics and functionality. Created by the talented team over at Information is Beautiful, Visualizing Bloodtests is the ultimate data-into-info example, and there’s no wonder why this visualization scored the 1st place in Wired Mag’s re-envisioning medical data design competition.
The original piece of content is a standard bloodtest data document. Doctors can make out what it means, but what about the patient whose blood was tested? It’s virtually impossible to comprehend what’s going on there, and this concerns someones’ life!
Now see the magic of infographics (thanks to Information is Beautiful), turning the incomprehensible document above into an easy to digest content:
2. GapMinder World’s Health & Wealth of Nations Interactive Graph
This interactive graph was created by GapMinder so as to “unveil the beauty of statistical time series by converting boring numbers into enjoyable, animated and interactive graphics.” The Health & Wealth of Nations shows the changes in humanity’s lifespan and lifetime earnings over time, starting in 1800. It’s an amazing visualization that takes dry numbers of data and turns them into an engaging presentation that laypersons like you and me can understand easily. By the way, GapMinder’s software Trendalyzer is so amazing that Google acquired it in 2007.
Click the screen shot below to go to the interactive graph’s page and hit Play.
3. Web Search – AllMyFaves.com
What does the phrase ‘Web search’ make you think of? Probably Google, right? There’s no doubt the search giant is excellent at what it does, and its efficient search algorithms had enabled the company to enter an already inundated Web search market back in 2000 and take it by storm. However, at the end of the day Google’s search service, however sophisticated it may be, is based on word indexes. You must type in key words to find what you are looking for, and then you must read each result entry to identify its relevancy to your search. The byproduct of this process is what has come to be known as “search fatigue.” Another byproduct is spam and malware hot spots, disguised as credible search results.
AllMyFaves.com has identified the shortcomings of standard Web search and offers an innovative alternative: icon-based gateway to Web navigation and site discovery. The AllMyFaves.com homepage lists all the most popular and practical categories relevant to most users, and each category displays the top 10 websites of that field in the form of the site or company’s logo. Based on the same premise of the infogrpahic, allmyfaves.com delivers quick access to information and services provided by familiar sources and brands, immediately recognizable by their logos.
In addition to the homepage you will also find AllMyFaves’ designated pages for Blogs, Business, Education, Entertainment, Games, Kids, Shopping and Travel. AllMyFaves’ recent tool, the Mini Faves, is a personalization tool inviting users to create their very own visual homepage that includes all of their bookmarks and favorites. Here’s my personal Mini Faves page as an example.
If you would like to create your own Mini Faves page and have all your bookmarks and favorites in one easy page, join AllMyFaves now.
To wrap things up, I think you will agree; visual information is taking a strong hold over the Web and for a good reason. In an era when information flows to and fro at incredible speed, we are bombarded with RSS feeds, news articles, emails and many other content forms on a daily basis. Thanks to visual aids such as infographics, interactive graphs and many other forms of content with a visual approach, making sense of the world just got a whole lot easier.
*Recommended links and sources: Cool Infographics, AllMyFaves.com, Infographics Mini page,
“Conventional Data is Boring. Make Way for the Infographic,” AllMyFaves Blog. Jan 20, 2011.
Yumm! – This site offers a most productive tool for cooks all over. Instead of subscribing to various food blogs and sites on the Web, Yumm! invites you to have all of your favorite recipes in one place, and also gives you the option of sharing these with friends!
I gave Yumm! a try and loved it. It certainly makes online recipe management a breeze. In addition, you can browse Yumm!’s recipe collection and find your next perfect dish right here. I explored the site’s most active section, which is where I found the mouth-watering Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes. Click the image to go to the recipe.
RunKeeper – Since the iPhone and Android came out, workouts have never been so easy to track, measure and plan ahead. Although RunKeeper is not the first fitness app to facilitate fitness activities and reaching workout goals, this software is an amazing tool all runners and gym fans will surely appreciate, particularly since RunKeeper’s mobile app is free.
You can upload past workouts and provide all the relevant details from memory or, from your Polar device (duration, calories, distance, heart rate and more), or track your activities in real-time using your mobile device (app features GPS tracking, audio interval cues, iPod integration, social network sharing). Click the image below to get to the mobile app download page – it’s free! In addition to the mobile app, make use of RunKeeper’s Fitness Classes, which will put you on your path to several running goals (5K, 10K runs, half a marathon, a whole marathon, or a weight-loss track).
Sensr – Public webcams broadcasting what goes on in different locations around the world could hardly be considered a new technological development. Another familiar use of webcams is for monitoring what goes on at home while we’re away. Relying on the same basic surveillance concept, Sensr.net offers a different implementation of the webcam that is both exciting and practical. Sensr.net invites you to pick a webcam, whether yours or one of those placed in public locations worldwide (with free access), so you could aim it at something and whenever there’s movement action, Sensr alerts you immediately.
Using basic motion detection, Sensr.net is able to identify the action you can’t see for yourself while at work or anywhere else. This is also a great service to track meaningful moments worldwide. By the way, for additional and creative uses of your computer webcam, see our previous post on the subject, Top 15 Websites that Kick Webcam Butt.
As any tech savvy woman knows, you just gotta have the best to be the best! And that’s what I’ve selected in this fabulous list: 12 of my absolute fave gadgets and tech items for us girls. I hope you enjoy them. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Continue Reading →
From Your Desks – Another Weekly Blog winner, From Your Desks is an inspiring website with a unique concept: “A working collaborative on the canvas of the desk. Both creative + everyday. Plus old work spaces, products and design ideas. Looking at the way we work.”
Every day a new post presents the desk/office environment of working professionals, some of whom you will know, others you will learn about for the first time. By examining the work space of each of these professionals, we get a glimpse of the intricate life of creative people; how they work, what inspires them, even what they enjoy the most in their desk’s surroundings.
Here are a couple of desk entries I found at From Your Desks. Click them to read the full post.
Knock Knock – Stationary is usually rather straightforward and expectable. But here we have Knock Knock, an online store offering super stylish and witty stationary items for the home and office. There are hundreds of cute and funny products on KnockKnock, all beautifully designed and with a humorous added value you won’t find at OfficeDepot.
I recommend starting out with browsing KnockKnock’s Top Selling Stuff. See some of these here below.
Gogobot – The best trip tips I get when I travel come not necessarily from travel guides like TripAdvisor and the like, but from friends who had already been to my desired destination. Gogobot is built upon the same concept, offering a network of friends who share the best travel tips with the rest of the community, based upon ‘actually been there’ experiences. These tips are then combined with photos and maps to build the ultimate travel guide for you, according on your preferences.
To see the wonders of Gogobot, log in with your facebook account and explore Destinations, or type in any other location and hit Plan a Trip. You can either seek advice or share yours with the community. To see an example, check out this travel profile for San Diego. To learn more on Gogobot, watch the video below.
Simplenote – This handy tool by Simplenote is a great (and free!) organizational service you will appreciate. Aside from the obvious note keeping, you can share notes and lists with friends and family, and access all of these on multiple devices -including PC, Mac and most smartphones- that are automatically updated with any changes you or others make to these notes.
Managing your notes and lists is super easy and fun. I gave it a try on my iPhone, and here are the Simplenote perks I loved: you can see each entry’s word and character count, which is useful if you wish to share it via web or phone, you can pin specific items to the top if priorities sudden change, and you can view each list/note in full screen mode. Simplenote is super versatile in terms of operating devices and publishing options. If you’re not a big mobile device fan, it’s good to know you can always use their Web app.
