(Credit:
CBS Interactive)
I've been on the phone with several iPhone application developers this week and the common thread has been that all are excited about the success of the iPhone App Store. But one of the developers wanted to point out that one of his applications that's been around since the beginning, but hadn't seen much exposure yet. After checking it out, I decided to include it in this weeks post.
This week's applications include a free photo-driven social-networking application and a game that plays like a classic stand-up arcade game from the past.
Check out the recent photos to see how members use Photoshare to document their lives.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)PhotoShare (free) from Big Canvas is a photo-sharing application (shocking, I know) that makes it easy to show off your iPhone photos with a small but active community. This app has been out since July of last year, but hasn't seen as much traffic as it certainly deserves. To get started, simply create a username and password, snap a photo with your iPhone, give it a title, and post it on the network. From there you can comment on other peoples work, browse popular photos, recent additions, user collections, and much more. What makes the application particularly interesting is that it acts like a photo version of Twitter. You can follow specific users, add favorites, and post photos from your daily life complete with comments. I have a feeling this application could take off if more people got involved. Let me know what you think.
Keep your eye on the fuel gauge as you maneuver to save each scientist.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)Retro - Cave Flyer LITE is the free version of Retro - Cave Flyer (99 cents--you can upgrade from within the lite version), a Lunar Lander style game. The object is to save stranded scientists from the rugged terrain of a planet by carefully maneuvering your ship to the landing pads. Tilt your iPhone left or right to turn your ship and press anywhere on the touch screen to apply thrust. The first three levels are fairly easy (the third is pretty challenging), but the real challenge of the game is conserving fuel and your ship's shields as you battle gravity and rocky cave-like passageways to get to the scientists. The full game comes with 23 levels, and I can tell you from experience, the later levels are very challenging.
What's your favorite new app for iPhone? Do you think a Twitter-like photo-sharing app is something you would use? What's the highest level of Retro you've completed without pulling your hair out? Let me know in the comments!
Tuesday morning software company Memeo launched a new product called Share. Aimed at people who don't use photo- or video-sharing sites, Share lets you take what you've captured on your digital camera and beam it to friends and family members without clogging up their e-mail in-boxes with full-resolution shots.
The product is not aimed at the Flickr crowd, but instead at people who want to create small circles of people to share their shots with. That's not to say there's not a social element, since it can be configured to automatically upload your shots to Facebook. It can also slurp up your existing contacts from Web mail providers, like what you'd get using Plaxo.
The company is offering free licenses of the software to the first 1,000 people who sign up to use it. After that it will get capped off at 10,000 sign-ups.
With 2008 under way, Power Downloader knew it was time to get back to work. His first order of business would be to sift through e-mails that had piled up over the holidays. After scanning through the messages from various contacts around the world, Power came upon an e-mail from Francois Foto, one of Power's most trusted contacts from France.
After wishing Power Downloader a happy new year, Francois Foto mentioned that one of his new year's resolutions was to use his vast photo library in a some sort of project. One idea he thought of was to study the work of other photographers to see what sort of methods they used for framing shots and how they presented their work to get started. The only problem was Francois wanted a way to look through several photos quickly, while not limiting the content to a single subject. He explained his previous efforts searching photo-sharing Web sites took a long time to find images that caught his eye. With nowhere else to turn, Foto wondered whether Power had any ideas which might help him scan through online photos.
Mousing over an image as it floats by gives you more info.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Thinking quickly, Power Downloader did his own search at Download.com. He quickly found a unique program called Roxio MediaTicker. This RSS media reader would make it possible for Francois to browse through photos as they slowly streamed across his desktop. By entering RSS URLs from photo sharing sites into the program, Francois could quickly browse hundreds of images without the slow process of using a Web browser. He could also use the scroll wheel on his mouse for faster scanning. When he saw a picture he liked, Francois could bring it up in a window for closer inspection and even rotate, save, or send photos quickly in an e-mail. The free Roxio MediaTicker also had options for scanning his own photo library, changing the size of the photo stream, and controlling where he wanted the photo stream on his desktop.
After sending a link to Roxio MediaTicker in an e-mail to Francois, Power Downloader decided he'd like to experiment with his own photos. Using images he had collected from around the world, Power created his own photo media ticker to remind him of all the great places he had explored on his adventures. Power could see how this program might be useful to just about anyone who liked browsing through images.
Foldr Monitr interface
(Credit: RebelEOS.com)Photo sharing sites like Flickr, Webshots (a CNET affiliate), Zoomr, SmugMug, and others provide a cheap (usually free) and easy way for users to share their digital pics with friends, family, or the site communities at large. There's always a slight delay, however, between downloading pictures from your camera or cell phone and actually getting them published to those sites. If you're a Flickr user, you can eliminate that delay completely with Foldr Monitr, a free utility that automatically uploads images from specified folders on your hard drive to your Flickr account.
Foldr Monitr works nearly as simply and effectively as its description promises. After installing and running the app, you'll need to "authenticate" Foldr Monitr with your Flickr account. Clicking the "Authenticate" button in the Foldr Monitr interface will load the Flickr authorization page, launching your default Web browser if it's not already running. After authenticating Foldr Monitr on the Flickr Web site, you're not finished. Click the "Finish Authentication" button in the Foldr Monitr interface to complete your login. ... Read more
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