Usabilla Micro usability tests

Usabilla offers a fast and simple way to collect feedback in any stage of the design process.
Ask your users simple questions to collect valuable feedback and discover usability issues. Use our One-Click-Tasks to measure task performance. Users simply share their feedback by clicking anywhere on your website, mockup, sketch, or image. Measure time, collect points, and get valuable feedback with notes.

Usabilla – Hassle free usability testing from Paul Veugen on Vimeo.

Your local phone number in NYC, London, and 100 other destinations, forwarded to your Skype, wherever in the world you are, for FREE

Skype has had for a while the SkypeIn service where for $18 for 3 months you can have a DID or a fix phone number forwarded to your skype account. This can be very handy if you have a small business and you want to provide a local number for support, or if you live abroad and want your friends/family to dial a local number to reach you via skype.

Well there is a free alternative to SkypeIn, that in fact has more destinations than skype itself: ring2skype

How is that it is free? Well you don’t actually get a number for yourself. You get a unique extension on a number, so people will call to a local number, and they will be asked for your extension, which will forward your call to your skype. Probably Asterisk…

Give it a try. Now I have a local Spanish number. I don’t know if you can get more than one though.

Viber for iPhone: Call anyone, anywhere for free

Viber is an iPhone application (Android and Blackberry versions coming soon!) that lets you make free phone calls to other iPhone users that have Viber installed.

When you use Viber, your phone calls to any other Viber user are free, and the sound quality is much better than a regular call. You can call any Viber user, anywhere in the world, for free. All Viber features are 100% FREE and do not require any additional “in application” purchase.

How does it work and why is better than skype (in the case that you are doing iPhone to iPhone calls)?

You don’t need to have a login name. Just your telephone numbers. It scans your address book and find those with viber installed, then you can call them free, well, using part of your data.

Works via wifi or 3g or even gprs. Give it a try!

10 Essential Websites for iPhone Photographers

iPhone photography is a growing medium, akin to Lomography in its cult status and the way it champions light-hearted, lo-fi, everyday shooting and off-beat effects.

Like any good burgeoning artistic movement there are already a bunch of brilliant online resources aimed at iPhone photographers offering great galleries, talent showcases, app reviews, exhibition news and more.

Read on for 10 great sites from around the web that we�ve bookmarked for iPhone Photographers and photo-lovers alike. Your favorite not on this list? Please share any other great iPhotography sites you like in the comments below.

1. Pixels at an Exhibition

This site describes itself as a �gallery of the most beautiful and ground-breaking iPhone art on the web and home to an ever-increasing number of visionary pioneers in the exploration and development of this nascent and vibrant new medium.� With a daily pic to inspire you, easy browsing by category or a tag word cloud, featured artists and exhibition news, iPhotographers will find lots to like on this site.

2. iPhoneogenic

Run by Edgar Cuevas, an iPhotographer in his own right, iPhoneogenic is a lovely site to visit. Described as �a place for highlighting the iPhoneographer,� it offers enlightening interviews with iPhotographers from all over the world that sometimes include interesting how-tos on certain techniques. It�s always a fascinating read.

3. EYE�EM

EYE�EM is about more than just iPhotography � it�s a hub dedicated to mobile photography as a whole, where �creative minds from all over the world unite to share their images and create a unique stream of mutual inspiration and creative expression.� You can browse through pics, follow photographers you like, search by location and tag words, comment on photos, and share images. You can also jump into the fray by creating your own stream.

4. iPhoneography

Glyn Evans� great iPhoneography blog covers iPhone photography and videography with app news and reviews (including great info on app updates), photographer showcases, news from the iPhotography community around the world and more. There�s also a user forum for discussions on the topic where you can post questions and help others with answers.

5. The Best Camera

Chase �the-best-camera-is-the-one-that�s-with-you� Jarvis� worldwide hub for mobile photography is the sister site to the app of the same name, with photos from iPhotographers globally uploaded via the app. Viewing a real-time stream of these images is great fun but you�ll get the most out of this site if you post your own content thanks to the great management and sharing options that are available.

6. Life in LoFi

Life in Lo-Fi is the iPhoneography blog of Marty Yawnick, a freelance graphic designer and iPhotographer. Yawnick offers his readers app news and reviews, links to relevant articles of interest he spots around the web, curated Flickr showcases, some of his personal photography and regular promo code giveaways.

7. iPhoneArt

A relative newcomer, iPhoneArt�s aim is �to build a grassroots mobile art community where professionals, beginners, and developers alike can share and discuss all forms of mobile art.� Despite being in its early days, user-generated content has helped create a huge gallery of more than 6,000 photos. The site includes a �Studio Talk� forum, a robust app review section and the option to sign up to create you own online gallery with a unique username-based URL.

8. The Big Hipstamatic Show

Fans of the titular app should definitely look up its sister-site: The Big Hipstamatic Show. The guys behind Hipstamatic run regular contests for best photos under certain titles. The current contest, for example, is �Fields.� You can view the leaderboard to see the hot contenders or view past entries for a wonderful showcase of iPhotography.

9. iPhone Photo

�Gently� curated by Caleb Kimbrough, iPhone Photo is a very simple site offering an online showcase of what Caleb considers �the best user submitted iPhone photography.� Dating back to July 2009, it�s an eclectic collection with some strong photography.

10. Flickr

No, we haven�t gone mad. We know everyone (and their dog) is well aware of the world�s largest photography site, but besides being a place to upload your own pics, it�s a really good resource for iPhotography inspiration, artist discovery and app research.

Many iPhotographers will name the apps they�ve used for specific photos, giving you an idea of what the different photographic options can produce. Did you know there are more than 30 million iPhone photographs on Flickr? You can browse pics by camera model or head for one of the iPhoto groups � there are tons of them and some amazing photography to enjoy.

(from mashable)

Evernote alternatives: Yojimbo, Together and Springpad

Those who follow me know that I am a fan of Evernote. I use it for capturing stuff I see with my iPhone camera, bookmarks, reference, all my incoming mail (it becomes searchable), my wines, books, notes… everything. Take a look at my blog entries on evernote.

Well, before you go for an Organizing tool such as evernote, you should take a look at the alternative products. This are the more notable I found. I stay with evernote though, as I can use it in the web, on my mac, on my iPhone and on the PCs. It has the best tagging out there and the fact that everything is indexed and searchable (even hand-written photographed notes) makes it the winner.

The best way is to see their videos showing up their products:

Yojimbo

Yojimbo is simple and very nice. Now it has an iPad app and is great for taking stuff to read later, bookmars and puting your pdf’s together.

Here you have an introductory video.

Together

Together also lets you keep everything in one place. Text, documents, images, movies, sounds, web pages and bookmarks can all be dragged to Together for safe keeping, tagged, previewed, collected together in different ways and found again instantly.

Springpad

Springpad is the closest to Evernote.

Evernote

Sure, how to forget evernote…

Here their intro video.

Magic Pen: records what you write and what you say

Livescribe Echo Smartpen is what I wish I had during my student times…

I have not played with it but I watch some of the videos they have on their website and looks amazing.

Basically it comes with a special paper notbook, where you write with this special pen. You can draw, write… everything is memorized. Then you have also a play, stop, pause at the bottom of the page to record the sound, so if the algebra teacher is doing something damn complicated and you are coping, it when you click in the physical netbook, you can listen what he said at that particular moment.

This is magic…

Also you connect it to a computer and you have all your notes… wow…

Hands free assistant

I was checking apps that integrate with Evernote when I found dial2do.
It allows you call a number and create reminders, send texts, listen to and send email, and access your favorite 3rd party services – all while keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.

It is thought for being productive while driving.

Dial2Do Voice2Note is a special service for Evernote users that converts all of your voice/audio notes to searchable, taggable text.

Take a look at the video, looks pretty impressive:

The license place could be key in social media

Bump.com allows users to connect online and offline via unique identifiers, including license plates, mobile phones and online profiles.

Ever wanted to tell the driver in front of you that their lights are off? Or maybe you’ve wanted to be the good Samaritan and warn someone that his meter has expired. Perhaps you just find the driver in the adjacent vehicle visually stimulating and are hoping they think the same about you.

These street scenarios face us drivers on a daily basis, but there’s never been an easy or safe way to message another driver or car owner. Enter Bump, a recently launched, private-beta startup (we’ve got invites) that has created a way to message other drivers by using the one unique identifier all drivers have in common: our license plates.
Bump users can message other drivers through voice-automated commands, photo snapshots of license plates and SMS. Bump also includes e-mail support, which you can use by directing your message to State.Plate@bump.com, where state is the two-digit state name abbreviation and plate is the individual’s license plate number.

Bump stores all messages sent to a particular license plate in the system until the plate in question is claimed by the plate owner. If you claim your plate, you can then start to receive messages as voice messages, e-mails or text messages. Of course, this also means that those messages you attempt to send to the hottie in the Audi TT won’t get delivered unless he or she has also claimed their plate on Bump — a clear limitation of the service at launch.

Bump members can also connect their Twitter, Facebook, and eventually Match.com profiles, e-mail accounts and cell phone numbers with their license plate to further complete the loop between the physical world and the digital world.
Eventually Bump will enter AAA’s realm and offer premium services to drives through a member program. Upgrades will include discount offers, special privileges and roadside assistance. The company is also working with rental car companies, sports leagues and fast-food outlets on marketing initiatives to target special offers to members on the road by tapping into existing video cameras. In this capacity, Bump aims to bring Groupon-like discounts to the real world through license plates, which may be a bit too ambitious for privacy-conscious drivers.

The service’s immediate and long-term success will rely on drivers claiming their plates. The challenge, however, is that even without offers directed at individual license plates, Bump’s technology will likely be a bit too intrusive for those who would prefer not to incorporate their license plate as part of their virtual and physical identities.

The license plate may seem like an obvious public identifier, but to those with higher profiles, their license plate number is not exactly information they want to be part of the public domain. For others, their license plate will be a welcome natural identifier to help bridge the gap between their online persona and offline life.

Right now Bump is available as a website and mobile web app, but the company has plans to release an app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry in the near future. Bump is still in private beta, but 250 Mashable readers can start using the service today. Simply enter the invite code “mashable” during the registration process.

Bump has raised $1 million in Series A funding and recently appeared at DEMO in Silicon Valley. The startup is in the process of raising a Series B round that will likely reach $8 million. The startup also recently acquired Platester, a license plate messaging platform, for an undisclosed sum.

(via mashable)

International Taxi Fare Calculator

Do you travel often? I do, and I always wonder how much is going to cost me the taxi from the airport to the hotel, always afraid if I would have the right amount or if the taxi is going to try to charge more.

Well take a look at world taxi meter website. It is not for everywhere but might be of help:

Build Project Management Gantt charts with Gantto

Anybody who’s ever managed a project, whether online or off, knows how invaluable a Gantt chart can be.

For project managers looking for a Web-based alternative to the industry standard Microsoft Project for creating Gantt charts, one option might be Gantto, a Y Combinator-funded startup that recently went into private beta.

Gantto offers an intuitive UI for building out and editing Gantt charts, from the most basic to the rather complex. To make things easy for those who have historically used Microsoft Project, Gantto allows you to import project files in XML format.

For those who aren’t familiar with them, Gannt charts are bar-based charts that break down a project’s timeline. They’ve been around for about a century, but it was only with the invention of the personal computer that it became easy to rapidly produce complex Gantt charts. Today, they’re an indispensable part of any project.

Project managers looking to take Gantto for a spin can sign up here.

What the f**k is…

Looking for social media strategies in twitter I bumped into a couple of funny sites that I would like to share with you:

WHAT THE FUCK IS MY SOCIAL MEDIA “STRATEGY”?

It is like the bullshitr generator that I have mentioned earlier but with “social media” terms.

It is inspired on:

WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD I MAKE FOR DINNER?

Crowdmap

Crowdmap is designed and built by the people behind Ushahidi, a platform that was originally built to crowdsource crisis information. As the platform has evolved, so have its uses. Crowdmap allows you to set up your own deployment of Ushahidi without having to install it on your own web server, and it is free.

With Crowdmap you can collect information from cell phones, news and the web, aggregate that information into a single platform and visualize it on a map and timeline.

Nothing to Install

Your site is hosted on our servers, so you have no installation to worry about. Instead, just choose a name and start customizing your site.

Interactive Map

One of the most powerful ways to visualize information is via a map. Choose a location and start plotting reports, information and other data right away.

Dynamic Timeline

Track your reports on the map and over time. You can filter your data by time and then see when things happened and where, as it’s also tied to the map.

“Real Time” Data Tracking

The admin area of Crowdmap has analytical tools for you to make sense of your incoming data in real-time.

On demand car service via iPhone

There is nice service in the US with cars and an iPhone app.

Their goal is that you’ll use UberCab when you need a car service.

If you want to use it yo can use your iPhone app or SMS to request a black car limo service within a matter of minutes, for about 1.5x the cost of a taxi, with one click iPhone requests, with location based dispatch, with on demand limo service and in app billing – no cash needed.
Take a look at the video. It is quite an idea.

Online free converter for video, audio, images and documents

If you’re looking for a one-stop web-based tool for converting media from one format to another Online-Convert supports dozens of conversions including obscure formats often overlooked by other web-based converters.

Give it a try, it is free.

Using Google mail (apps or Gmail)? Try Rapportive to see you contacts activity in the net instead of ads

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.

You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do. You can establish rapport by mentioning shared interests. You can grow your network by connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more. And you can record thoughts for later by leaving notes.

Imagine relationship management built into your email. For free.

I installed the plugin in Safari, Chrome and it works fine. The problem for me is that most of my contacts don’t have a social life… so the right column is empty, which is still better than to have it with ads.

I used it with google apps.

Give it a try, it is a good idea.