Picks — GigaOM

Picks

The iPad Works, Thanks to These Apps

If you happened to venture over to our sister site TheAppleBlog recently, you might have seen my list of iPad applications that changed my mind about the future of the device. Well, I’ve also had a similar epiphany about using the iPad as a mobile workstation. Read More »

The Early Edition: Early Bird Gets the Worm?

The iPad just recently launched internationally, which means I only got my hands on one last Friday. As you can probably imagine, I’ve already basically doubled the cost of the device in app purchases, but I’ve already noticed a surprising dearth of quality RSS reader applications. Read More »

 
 

Patapage: A Social HUD for Your Website

Some of the more interactive elements of web design can be quite tricky to set up. Patapage is a new service that takes the sting out of adding interactive web elements to your site, and it can also upgrade your existing web design seamlessly. Read More »

Office 2010: Productivity, Productivity, Productivity

If Steve Ballmer had been presenting Office 2010 today, he might have riffed on his old “developers, developers, developers” line with a quip about “productivity, productivity, productivity.” That’s the focus of the new version of Microsoft’s flagship suite of office tools, now available to business customers. Read More »

Pink is one of those series that, frankly, I should have reviewed a long time ago. The adventure/drama focuses on Natalie Cross (Natalie Raitano), who kills people for a living — and is very good at it. But Natalie is haunted by her … Read More »

UPDATED: So we were on the front page of YouTube on Saturday! That was pretty fun, though a bit surprising to the ten web series creators we featured, whose inboxes that morning were quickly flooded with subscription notifications and comments. But what does being featured … Read More »

New Postbox Release Includes More Mac Goodness

A few months ago, I looked at email client Postbox. I found it an interesting enough app then, but a new release for the Mac brings even more feature additions. If you passed on Postbox earlier, now’s the time to give it a second look. Read More »

The Quest for the Perfect Flash Drive

In techno-tourism terms, I’m fairly well-traveled. Mostly because I’ve visited the mecca of gadgetry, Japan, but I’ve also stopped at quite a few other places as well. During those travels, I’m on the look out for one thing in particular: Flash drives. Read More »

Facebook recently opened up its API to allow third-party developers more access to core features, which gives them a chance to rework the web app and deliver something a little easier on the eyes and potentially less frustrating. That’s exactly what Microsoft’s done with its new … Read More »

6 Killer Extensions for Google Chrome

On the heels of delivery of Mac and Linux beta versions of the open-source Chrome browser, Google is out with its Chrome Extensions Gallery. Here are six of them that can help you get much more out of Chrome. Read More »

Wordnik: A Better Dictionary Web App

Words occupy so much of my waking life that dictionaries are also devotional texts for me. As I become less dependent on traditional books and print media and more involved with web tech and digital publication, my desire to find a truly great dictionary web app … Read More »

Capture Ideas On the Go: Idea Organizer for the iPhone

There’s one thing I can count on having on me at all times, and that’s my iPhone. It stands to reason, then, that in a pinch, my Apple wonder device is what I turn to in order to keep track of stray ideas and thoughts … Read More »

More Must Reads

I’ve long been looking for a Windows-based Twitter client that can delight me as much as its native Mac counterparts. Too many clients for Windows depend on Adobe AIR, something which isn’t an ideal arrangement, in my opinion. TweetDeck and Seesmic are both powerful … Read More »

I used to use Google Alerts all the time to keep me apprised of what was going on in the world of Apple tech, for another gig I have writing online. It was a great solution, but eventually, Twitter’s real-time information flow became much more useful … Read More »

Video ad network ScanScout today said it had (finally) closed its Series B round by bringing in funding from Singapore-based EDB Investments. We’d previously written about the round in March, when the company had raised $5.1 million of a planned $8.1 million … Read More »

Sure, you’re up on Android smartphones and perhaps other Linux-based phone platforms, but the freewheeling world of open source includes many hugely useful telephony applications and platforms that are more unusual. There are useful offerings for businesses and consumers, and you can download and … Read More »

This is a tip for anyone who wants to get any web working done while you’re traveling and/or in transit for any reason. If you’re going to be in areas of questionable network access, you’d better have the ability to get work done offline at your … Read More »

When will YouTube be profitable? “In the not-too-distant future,” said Google CFO Patrick Pichette on today’s quarterly earnings call, same as he said last quarter. He did offer a “sound bite” to appease investors and industry watchers: “We’re monetizing more than a billion video views … Read More »

Have you ever wanted to do more than just send someone a web page, or post a link on Twitter? If I could, I would present every link I ever wanted to share in person, so I could explain to the person I was sharing with … Read More »

I was lucky enough to get my grubby mitts on a Wacom Bamboo Touch tablet recently, one of the newly-released models from the popular input device maker that supports multitouch finger input. It’s the basic model that only supports touch, which is ideal for … Read More »

Filemaker’s Bento software for the Mac is meant to be a database management program for users who aren’t much interested in keeping databases. At least, as someone who shudders at the very term, that’s how I see it. The program receives its third major … Read More »

As I noted over at TheAppleBlog, Google has turned on push for Gmail on the iPhone. That means that your incoming messages will be pushed from the Google servers to your phone, instead of your phone having to call in periodically to check … Read More »

Web forms can be complicated or they can be easy. For a while now, FormSpring has been in the business of making it easier for those of us who might not have a programming background or the patience to take on the daunting task … Read More »

You’d be more than forgiven for thinking there must be something better out there than either Microsoft’s Outlook or than Apple’s Mail.app for desktop email management. You’d be right, too, especially if you’re looking for something that plays nicely with most major webmail service providers. I’m … Read More »

I’m not biased towards Toronto, despite calling it home, but it seems like a lot of good web things are brewing in this city. There’s FreshBooks, one of the leading online invoicing services for freelancers and businesses, and now there’s Sprouter, a … Read More »

I like my orange juice freshly squeezed, but there are some good things that come from Concentrate. From the new app, that is, not the distilled juice essence. Concentrate is a new program that seems perfectly designed for aspiring singletaskers. It aims … Read More »

Warner Home Video has decided to join Team Universal and 20th Century Fox in the fracas over cheap movie rentals via Redbox. Video Business reports that the studio will sell DVDs directly to kiosk companies like Redbox starting in October, but only after 28 … Read More »

Making the jump from longtime corporate employee to self-employed or freelance web worker carries a lot of challenges. One of those is finding the right tools for the job, since in a corporate environment, standard equipment and software deployment is most often determined for you. Being … Read More »

When you run a news site and you get your hands on a video that you know is going to be huge — potentially-breaking-your-site huge — what do you do? In two recent cases, companies turned to new video platform providers that promised they could handle … Read More »

Many times, we want to find ways to give back, be more socially responsible, or make our lives more about service, but running a business can make it seem impossible to find the time to do anything other than the task immediately in front of us. How … Read More »

EQAL, aka the online studio created by the lonelygirl15 guys (but now focusing on derivative rather than original content), today announced a new hosted social platform. The product, called Umbrella, is aimed at other web series creators as well as celebrities and web … Read More »

uShow today launched a site that brings together discussions about video from around the web. I’m not entirely convinced that the year-old startup has found a way to make itself essential, but it’s come up with some pretty neat tricks to help make video conversation … Read More »

In an effort to make TheAppleBlog even better, we want to hear from you! Take our super-quick survey and be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate from Amazon.com. // // Read More »

When Google recently announced its Google Wave initiative, there were a lot of posts going around the web characterizing it as earth-changing news, although some questioned the effort. Wave combines email, instant messaging, wiki features and more, conjuring up images of a next-generation communications tool. … Read More »

Email is a great tool for office communication, but is it really the best way to keep track of discussions? There are other choices, like communicating via IM or using wikis. Yet another option is ShareFlow, a new app from Zenbe, the people behind … Read More »

Maintaining and promoting your various online personas can be a challenge. As Charles wrote recently, there are a variety of options for managing many online identities, and yesterday one of them, GizaPage, which Read More »

It’s the weekend, people, so prime your downloading finger and get ready to make good use of it as I guide you through the latest picks from the App Store. Thanks to the release of OS 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS, there’s been a constant stream of … Read More »

I’m in the middle of moving to new computers. Two of them. The laptop is easy. The desktop, well, that’s a story for another post. New and faster computers with a fresh install can compel a person to look up applications, plugins and other tools to … Read More »

For many freelancers and other web workers, referrals are a vital part of business. And sending referrals can be just as important as receiving them. When we can’t take on every aspect of a project ourselves, it’s good business to be able to direct clients … Read More »

Mozilla Labs today released a preview version of the next major version of its Ubiquity extension for Firefox: Ubiquity 0.5, downloadable here. I’ve been steadily using the beta releases of it, and Mozilla has ambitious plans to make Ubiquity a standard part of … Read More »

Sometimes doing things via web apps is great. Everything is in one place: your browser. Even so, sometimes having everything in one place isn’t ideal. A browser crash could kill all of your work, not just one component, and it can be harder to keep your … Read More »

Distributed creative teams face the unique challenge of having to collaborate on a product without being able to quickly and easily access files and works in progress via an on-site file server or intranet system. Emailing files to one another can get messy very quickly, and … Read More »

I still take it as a personal affront that Mac users have had to wait so long for a usable build of Google Chrome. Since I haven’t done any Windows-related work in a good while now, running Chrome was really my only reason for using any … Read More »

Generally speaking, when I’m sharing recently discovered web tools, I try to organize them along a common theme, or a goal that they can be used to achieve. This time around, I just wanted to share three somewhat unusual, but genuinely useful, web tools with you. … Read More »

Before I get into my review of Feng Office, yet another app that aims to provide one-stop shopping for calendar, email, task and contact management, I want to take a moment to address cost issues. Feng Office, like a lot of apps I’ve come … Read More »

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