I spend a lot of time online. I think it’s somewhere around 16-18 hours a day, really. Because of this, I also spend a lot of time looking things up, from directions to music lyrics to how to fix a computer. Today, I thought I’d share some of my favorite resources. While this list certainly isn’t complete, I think it represents some of the most useful sites on the Internet when it comes to finding things online.
Information Google – As a developer, I’m constantly looking up functions, code examples, error messages, etc. and Google is the number one source for finding what I need quickly, be it code examples, recipes, what time it is in London, etc. Tips: Try the advanced search and then watch what it puts in the search box when you submit. You’ll learn a lot of useful tips to refine your searches. Also, note the links at the bottom of the advanced search. When looking for a song you heard but only know some words to, type in a lyric phrase (in quotes) that includes a unique word for more precise results.
Bing – I’m a fan of Google and Microsoft is the company everybody loves to hate, but MS seems to have come out of the gate with a pretty solid offering this time around. There’s things I’d change about it, but Bing is definitely worth a look. Tips: ToThePC.com has written 10 Bing Search tips & features for better searching.
Wolfram Alpha – WA was hyped for months because of it’s intelligent search features. Instead of a flexible, yet broad, search, they offer specific information presented in a report-like fashion. If you’re looking for a grouping of information about a person or company, this is a good place to start. It’s a bit like a mix of Google and Wikipedia Tips: Try searching for a gadget by name or just type in a mathematical equation. Try entering a few stock symbols and see the comparisons.
Yahoo Answers – Yahoo has lost a lot of ground in search, but they’ve come out on top when it comes to the answers game. Yahoo Answers is a great source for personalized answers when you can’t find what you need at the above sites. Ask a question and people answer and even help you choose the best answer. Great system. Tips: Be patient. You’ll need to wait for human interaction, unlike a Google search. See if your question already has an answer. Answer questions from others. It helps your karma and earns site points, too.
Music GEMM – Over the years, I’ve had a few drinks bought for me because I found some obscure album hiding away in a small shop in the Netherlands for a friend. Every time, it was a result of searching GEMM. If it’s rare and you need it badly, this is the place to look. Tips: If cost isn’t a factor but getting it now is, just search and buy, but you can also wait for another seller to have your item cheaper. Either way, be aware of seller feedback. I’ve never had a problem, but the feedback might be why.
CD Universe – CDU was the second site I ever found selling a wide variety of music online. Now offering movies and games, too, they are a great resource when you want the physical item and not just a digital download. Tips: Watch for weekly deals and releases. Also watch for pre-orders so you can be assured to get that newest album as soon as it drops.
Software Download.com – Usually, if I need commercial software, I run to Best Buy for it, but most times, I just need a video converter, chat program, or some other utility that can be found often for free or a low price at Download.com Tips: Filter by your operating system from the start to save time. Sort by user rating and if you have to have free only, filter by license before you download something just to find it’ll cost $100 after 10 days.
Images Google Image Search – I use Google to help me find images several times a week. It’s fast and (mostly) reliable for finding what I need. Tips: Use advanced searching like web search. Filter by size to find wallpapers or icons.
Flickr – Flickr is a great way to quickly find more photos from the concert you went to or even royalty free images for your blog posts. Just last week, I searched for “Woodstock 94″ and found lots of great photos that other people took. It was like I was there again. Tips: Search groups or images and use the sorting options. You can refine your search by showing images where your search words match the tags only.
Directions Google Maps – Always my favorite for any geographic search, Google Maps shows me as little or as much detail as I want. I can even use street view to see what a place looks like so I’ll recognize it when visiting for the first time. Tips: Zoom in to the area you want to find a business in and then search to see all results in just that area. As mentioned above, use street view to see what you’re friend’s house looks like before dropping by for the first time. Wander around in street view some time. There’s some interesting things to see.
BONUS: Products eBay – I was all set with my list of 10 sites, when I realize I couldn’t dare leave out my favorite product resource. eBay is my first stop when I want to find a product. Many times, I want something very specific and eBay seems to have the largest selection at varrying prices. If I’m looking to buy something, I can usually find it on eBay. Tips: If there’s a lot of an item but also a lot of buyers driving the price up, look for it outside of the expected category or look for a misspelling in the title. You can often find something with little to no bidding competition this way and get in cheap.
I’m sure some of you, at this point, are thinking “What about… ?” If you have a good site in mind that you think should have made this list, please add it in the comments and don’t be shy about including tips. What sites do you used to find things online?
I haven’t had to go shopping for an apartment since before the iPhone. I have a love/hate relationship with the task. I love to see a new place and imagine a new home and how I could dress it up, but I hate all the driving around and making notes about everything. That part feels like work. These days, however, the iPhone spoils us with all sorts of ways to make things like this easier. You know the saying: “There’s an app for that.”
The MyNewPlace app
When provided the opportunity to give a paid review of this application, I have to admit that I hesitated. I really thought it would be some mediocre app and, having not been apartment shopping for years, I was unaware of MyNewPlace.com, which is actually one of the biggest apartment search sites on the web with over six million listings. Before even deciding to review this app, I made sure to watch the video below, and that’s what convinced me to give it a shot. The video provides a quick walk through of all the features and how they work.
Of course, to provide a fair review, I needed to download the application myself and come up with an apartment shopping scenario. I decided to re-enact my apartment shopping task when I was moving Michelle out here to live with me. We needed a two bedroom place with some nice features, a decent pool, and close to my office and also to a freeway as she didn’t know where her next job would be. Armed with some base criteria and my new app, I set out for an adventure (on my couch, that is).
Searching
The first thing you’re asked for is a city and state or a zip code to search. Alternatively, you can use GPS for location-based searching, but I wanted to search across town today. I’m all about the fastest route and this was it. After typing in the zip code at my office, I had 76 results, but I have criteria, remember? So I tapped the “Filter” button and all sorts of filtering options showed up on a new screen. I wanted two bedrooms so I could have a home office. Air conditioning is a must-have, as is laundry and a pool, so I turned all those filters on. After applying filters, I got a new list back, narrowed down to 30 results, but I want it to be close to the freeway, so I tap the “Map” button and up pops a map with 30 little flags. Here, I was able to move up and down through the list with a couple arrow keys or directly tap a flag for base info. I could then further investigate a property by tapping it’s info box.
Property details Once a property has been selected, I want to see pricing details, photos, amenities, etc. I also want to know about deposits, pets, etc. The details area just says “Yes” for pets, which I have to assume means all pets are welcome. It also doesn’t show “Fitness Center” for one of the places I looked at like it does for other places, even though I know this complex has one. If that was a deal-breaker, I’d be avoiding a good complex for no reason. I’m unsure if that’s due to too many other amenities listed or the complex just didn’t include it when they submitted their data. From the details page, I can go to another map with just the one property listed, view photos, see a property description, see the unit options, call them, email them, email the information to a friend, save as a favorite, or enter notes and photos. The photo gallery is clean, offering a large view and five thumbnails along the bottom. I like that they accommodate more than five photos by just letting you flick the thumbnail list left or right for more. I think my property actually had twenty photos. You can also just ignore the thumbnails and flick right through the larger views. The property description page includes a thumbnail, name and address of the property, contact options, and a long blurb of text. In this case, the text included visible HTML that was neither parsed nor stripped, so that looked a little funny. The next option from the property’s profile page was “See Units” which just shows the available unit types and detail about each such as square footage, number of beds/baths, and monthly rent range. One of the little treats that brought it all home was the Notes & Photos area. Suppose I visited the property. I could note that it had a full (two-sink) counter in the bathroom and a large garden tub. Both are selling points for me but aren’t listed in the amenities. I could also take a few pictures during my walk through and they will be saved to this profile. As soon as I do either, it saves this property as a favorite. Of course, I can always get back to visited properties with the “Recents” and “Favorites” buttons on the starting screen.
My wish list
- Larger photos I can zoom in on.
- Floor plans.
- Some form of indicator on a button to let me know it is going to eject me from the app out to Google Maps or my email. (There should be a standard, actually, and all apps should follow it).
- More details in regards to amenities, etc.
Conclusion
For starters, you can hardly ever go wrong with free if an app is even a little useful, but how does it compare to the competition? To answer that question, I downloaded four more apartment search applications and put them through the same test scenario. Comparatively, the other applications I tried offered larger photos or more detail or in one case all sorts of things I didn’t care about, but none were as intuitive and functional. This app is very easy to use and for the most part, well thought out, but could use a couple extras like larger photos and more details.
If you are familiar with PicLens, then you’re probably familiar with CoolIris. If you’ve never heard of either one, you’re in for a real treat. When one of my employees showed me PicLens some time ago, it was one of the coolest improvements to my browsing experience that I’d see in a while. With the name change to CoolIris, comes more features, cool shopping search, and a much appreciated iPhone version.
Let’s drool over CoolIris for a minute
Before pagination (click for the next page of whatever) was invented, you’d have to sit there on your 2400 baud modem, waiting three hours for a page full of images to load up. Then, as faster modems were challenged by larger images, pagination was introduced, allowing us to load up ten or twenty images per page, but you couldn’t get a quick glimpse of everything anymore. Then came CoolIris (then PicLens).
If you have the plugin installed and the site you’re viewing supports the technology (most of the big ones do), you’ll see a new little watermark in the corner of each image you hold your mouse cursor over. Click that watermark to launch CoolIris and you get a full-screen image gallery like the one shown above. If you click anywhere and drag, you’ll be dragging the whole gallery to see more images.
Click on any image and you get a closer view like below, which you can double-click to view full screen:
Search, shop, and share easily One of the features I’ve always been fond of from day one is the search. As a web developer, I’m constantly looking for images for use or just for comparison. Traditionally, I would head to Google and search, but Google’s image search is very clumsy when it comes to getting at the actual image. With this, I just search, scroll, and double-click.
I don’t recall seeing shopping in the early versions. Frankly, I’m not sure how much I’ll really use it, but there are times when you want an item and the appearance is critical. Sometimes you know it’s a watch, but not the brand or model number and a gallery of men’s watches would be perfect for finding it. How about Laptops and accessories? I searched for “laptops” for my example below, and CoolIris dug through its shopping sources and handed me a ton of laptop and laptop-related images. If you mouse over any item in the search results, you get a peek at the price. If you choose a “Store” from the top left, you can then sort by price (high-to-low or low-to-high) or by whatever that other search option is. I’m stumped.
The latest version also provides a slick way to share images and other media with friends and colleagues. Create a CoolIris account (just so it has your name and email address) and log in when you start CoolIris. At any time while logged in, just click the little right-arrow-in-a-circle icon at the bottom and the sharing panel will appear. In that panel, you can type in the address you want to send to as well as a message. Below that is a space for you to drag images and videos. Drag them in and send. Mine showed up lightning fast.
Tips and shortcuts
- You can navigate the gallery and slideshow with your arrow keys
- Use the ENTER key to zoom in on an image
- Hit the space bar to start the slide show
- You can send multiple items at once. Just drag more items into the little sharing box.
- Just like your browser, CoolIris remembers where you were. Use the little left and right arrows at the top left to get back to previous searches.
Wish List
- The ability to ALT+TAB from CoolIris to another application and back. 90% of the time, I have to force FireFox to quit because it becomes unresponsive.
- I would love to search multiple sites at once. I know that can be tricky development, but I’d love it.
- You know everyone wants to save images directly from the CoolIris interface. My suggestion: Allow us to set up a default download directory and then add a watermark in the bottom right corner (maybe a little floppy disk icon?) that, when clicked, drops the full-size version of that image in my download folder.
Finally, CoolIris for my iPhone?
CoolIris finally came out with an iPhone application bearing their name and, well, coolness.
The basics work pretty much like it’s big brother. You can browse or search images, scroll with a thumb-flick, and email the ones you like to a friend or just visit the image’s page directly. The iPhone version has a few glaring empty spots where you might expect to search YouTube or shop like you can with its desktop counterpart, but it’s still the coolest way to find images on your iPhone. If you have any doubts, search for that perfect iPhone wallpaper with it.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=56d92b79-f3d5-4807-a212-8158da3da8dd)
