Techerator

So you’ve got a sweet idea for a web application—great, let’s get to work! You’ll need a basic GUI, some sort of user registration, a templating system, logic processing, error handlers, form verification, AJAX processing, and… woah, this is adding up in a hurry. At what point do you get to start making the app itself? What you need is a framework that will accelerate your app developmen...

Picasa is a free application from Google that lets you easily edit and manage your entire photo collection.  Picasa offers many useful features like geotagging, web albums, and powerful-yet-simple photo editing (I love the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button). One problem with large photo collections is that it can become extremely difficult to find pictures of specific people.  If I wa...

Procrastinating at work.  We’ve all done it at some point during the five day work week.  Whether it be surfing the blogs, catching up on favorite shows, or playing the unprecedented amount of free online games out there, we have all found different ways to break from the insanity called the eight hour workday. Subsequently, it is a known fact that when we do take a break from worki...

Anyone who owns an Android phone already knows that Google’s operating system provides a tremendous amount of freedom right out of the box. If you want to take full advantage of your device, though, your best option is to root it.  (“Rooting” is the process of unlocking root permissions on your phone, like jailbreaking an iPhone or using the sudo command in Linux.) Rooting your ...

The popular note taking software Evernote has announced a new feature called The Evernote Trunk. The Evernote Trunk is a collection of Evernote integrated applications that make use of the Evernote Developer API.  The Evernote Trunk makes these 3rd party applications easily available to you in the Evernote interface on your desktop, web, and soon the iPad. To get started using The Evernote Trunk,...

The Android Marketplace may be getting a little bit more crowded soon.  This week, Google Labs revealed to the world App Inventor, a creative programming tool that allows just about anyone to figure out how to design and create Android applications… and there was much rejoicing. Thanks to the open architecture of the Android OS, App Inventor allows for tweaking of everything and any...

I’ve been using Netflix Instant Watch as a replacement for cable TV for the last two years, and I haven’t looked back since making the switch.  Instant Watch has been a great way to get movies and TV shows quickly, and with the rapid expansion of available content and compatible devices, it’s prime time to be a Netflix subscriber. One big downside to Netflix is that they aren...

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time looking at a computer’s LCD screen, especially after the sun has gone down.  Now this is great because we’re all doing important things like watching YouTube videos and blogging, but there’s a downside: it’s turning you into an insomniac. That’s right, an insomniac, a person with a persistent inability to fall asleep...

Let’s face it, the Locale app for Android was awesome.  Being a product of MIT graduates, Locale is a simple and easy way to manage your Android phone’s settings through profiles triggered via either a GPS location or a specific time frame.  And let me tell you, it was slick. When I was close to my apartment, my ringtone would change from a polite jingle to “Don’t Fear the Reaper” ...

As I rapidly learned in my fraternity days, you can never be too careful with your unattended computer.  All it takes is for you to leave your door unlocked, forget to log out of a public computer, or leave your laptop somewhere, and a stranger can have complete access to your entire Facebook account. Even though these security breaches are usually minor and only result in you having a wildly ina...