On A Short Hiatus - See You Next Year
As most of you have probably noticed, I haven’t updated this blog in a few weeks now. I’ve had a lot of personal issues come up - which included my laptop crashing on me & then having to rent a temporary replacement. I still have no idea just how long it will take to get fixed.
Also, as of December 24th I will be on a glorious 4-week vacation, which I am really looking forward to. For 2 weeks I will be spending time with my family & best of all, the other 2 weeks I will be spending time with my husband who gets to come home for 2 weeks. As some of you know, I really haven’t been the same since he left for Iraq.
So, sadly I will not be around for a month & I’ve decided to take a short hiatus from blogging & the Internet. A good friend of mine suggested that I schedule a few posts for when I’m gone but, to be honest, I don’t even have the time or energy to do that right now - especially since I’m leaving in 4 days.
I am hoping that this well-deserved break will be just what I need to get back on track when I return. I will definitely have a huge boost of motivation & lots to catch up on. I do have a lot of great plans for 2009 & I’m hoping you will all stick around to see them! I really appreciate all of you who have been so supportive & dedicated to this blog. I also want to especially thank those who have cared enough to check up on me from time to time on a personal level.
So, I’ll see you all next year in February, which just so happens to be my birthday month! 
Have a wonderful, safe Christmas & joyous New Year.
If any of you have made any New Years resolutions, feel free to share!
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Original post by ChaCha Fance
Stay Up To Date On Your Favorite Topics With Smashing Feeds [Review]
Do you sometimes just want to get a glimpse of what’s going on in the topics that matter to you such as Web 2.0, Web Design or Health? Well, Smashing Feeds might be just what you’re looking for.
“This site is all about displaying feeds of your interest from various news/blog sources. This site uses Google AJAX feed API for feed creation and management.”
Smashing Feeds is great because: there is no log in required; each blog source has been hand selected, eliminating junk; feeds are displayed quickly; by default only a headline & a few sentences are displayed to save you time; you can hide & show certain feeds with just a click; and you can arrange the feeds however you like.
Here’s the one column view (feed content has been hidden):
Here’s the two column view (feed content has been hidden):
Here’s the three column view (feed content has been hidden):
There is also an option to display headlines only instead of the default headline & 1-2 sentences.
I think Smashing Feeds can really come in handy for anyone wanting a quick overview of what’s going on without having to clog up their RSS readers with hundreds of posts a day. You can just click on the things you’re interested in & keep it moving. Plus it’s extremely easy to use as well as easy on the eyes with a simple design.
So what do you think of Smashing Feeds? Is it something that you would use. Are you already using it? Please share.
Technorati Tags: smashing feeds, news, news feeds, rss, rss feeds, feed reader, feed manager
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Original post by ChaCha Fance
Fast Forward [Firefox Addon]
Adds a fast forward button to the top of your browser. When clicked you are directed to a similar page visited by other users. You always get something interesting based on the web page you are viewing. So if you are watching a YouTube video there is a high chance you’ll be taken to another video. If you on a sports site, you will most probably get more sports. Just press the Fast Forward button on any web page and we will take you to the top page people went next.
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Original post by ChaCha Fance
Move Over TweetDeck, PeopleBrowsr Is Here [Review]
A lot of Twitter users are falling more in love with TweetDeck each day but, did you know there’s now something that’s even better? PeopleBrowsr is the latest Twitter (plus other social sites) application to hit the scene. Though PeopleBrowsr is only in the Alpha stage, it still has loads of features that beat the above mentioned TweetDeck. PeopleBrowsr does everything that I wished TweetDeck did & more.
PeopleBrowsr via kwout
“PeopleBrowsr is a simple visual dashboard that adds more power to Twitter, your other online identities and those of your friends.”
PeopleBrowsr boasts to add more power to Twitter, and it does, but it also supports many other social media sites as well which includes: Digg, Flickr, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Photobucket, Twitter, YouTube, Identi.ca, Seesmic, Upcoming & Webpage. So, as you can see, PeopleBrowsr is definitely the ultimate social media dashboard & a must for social media addicts.
PeopleBrowsr does not require you to download anything, it all stays right in your browser window - hence the name “PeopleBrowsr” (people in your browser). It’s also very easy to sign up & sign in since you simply use your Twitter credentials to do both.
Once you add all your IDs for the sites that you want to follow, it’s up to you where to go from there. PeopleBrowsr can display many different widgets for each site that you want to follow & it differs for each site. So below, you can see some of the widget options I can see for my Twitter account. I usually just have a widget for my friends tweets & a widget for my replies in Twitter but, the decision is all yours.
PeopleBrowsr via kwout
You can move your widgets around & remove them with a click of a button. You can even do a search in each widget & view people in each widget by a certain location. Each widget shows 20 posts but you can easily show more. The widgets are all on auto refresh by default but you can change the time interval at which they refresh, pause a certain widget or turn it off completely. Lastly, there are currently 4 ways that you can sort the people each widget: in A-Z order, by most recently updated, by those only containing links or by the number of followers they have.
You can also re-size each widget so that you can see more in your window at a time. Below I have them as narrow as they go. As you can see, it’s harder to read - you have to scroll horizontally so, it’s probably not the best idea.
PeopleBrowsr via kwout
My favorite feature so far on PeopleBrowsr though is the ability to create groups. You have the ability to add public or private tags to whichever users you want, in the different social sites that you’re following. If you tag all your close friends with a “friend” tag, you can then view everyone in that group in a widget of its own. This comes in handy for following certain people more closely. If your tags are public, others using PeopleBrowsr will see that tag on that person as well - so be aware of that.
PeopleBrowsr via kwout
So as you can see, PeopleBrowsr really has a lot to offer & it’s definitely worth trying out. Since I’ve been using it, I definitely have been able to be more active in certain sites where I really was not so active. With an Alpha like this, I can’t wait to see what it’s like in the Beta stage. I also want to give a special thanks to SheenOnline for introducing me to PeopleBrowsr. It was his daily shouts (or should I say rants) on Rejaw that got me curious about PeopleBrowsr & led me to try it out for myself.
Have you tried out PeopleBrowsr or currently using it? How do you like it so far? Has it harmed or helped you? Please share.
Technorati Tags: tweetdeck, peoplebrowsr, twitter, dashboard, social media, digg, flickr, friendfeed, linkedIn, photobucket, twitter, youtube, identi.ca, seesmic, upcoming, webpage
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Original post by ChaCha Fance
Splitweet [Twitter Tool]
A free multi-account manager for Twitter & “brand” monitor. Splitweet allows you to compose a list of accounts & distribute their tweets, choosing their release in one or more of their accounts. You can also follow your contacts tweets from all of your managed accounts in Splitweet. Although Splitweet is designed for anyone who has more than one account in Twitter, those with only one account can benefit from it as well.
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Original post by ChaCha Fance
Big Tweet [Bookmarklet] [Twitter Tool]
Allows you to post to Twitter from anywhere on the Web with just the click of a bookmarklet. BigTweet allows you to post up to 280 characters, shorten URLs & include special unicode characters from whatever web page you are on. There are options that allow you to automatically insert the current page title and short URL if desired for quick posting. If you believe that 140 characters should be the limit, BigTweet has a mode control to switch between 140 & 280 characters.
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