Sssimpli

Not long ago, I was watching Hulu when an intriguing ad came...

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:31:43 -0400

Not long ago, I was watching Hulu when an intriguing ad came across the screen. In it, a child was using an Amazon Kindle Fire, and the announcer explained a key feature of the device: parental controls. They allowed parents to block access to certain content, set time limits, and more.

Surely such a thing exists for vanilla Android, I thought.

Indeed it does, in the form of KIDO’Z. I’ve used KIDO’Z in the past, as a browser on the kids’ computers. Fast forward to today, and KIDO’Z has evolved into a full-fledged child-friendly environment for many platforms.

As far as the Android version, it was almost precisely what I was looking for. Once launched, it takes over the entire tablet experience.

Setup is pretty easy: choose a password, add an account for each of your kids, and choose which apps you want them to have access to by checking apps on or off from a simple list. Apps that you check will show up on the KIDO’Z homescreen; those you haven’t, won’t. These app lists are child-specific, too, which is very handy if you have kids who are a few years apart in age.

In addition to the apps you select, your kids will also have access to KIDOZ’s bundled apps: a web browser, ‘KIDO’Z TV,’ and ‘KIDO’Z Games.’ Each app’s content can be restricted as you see fit; by default, KIDO’Z provides a good selection of child-friendly channels, websites, and games for the TV, browser, and games apps, respectively.

If your child tries to exit the KIDO’Z environment by clicking the ‘X’ at the top of the screen, a password will be required to go to the tablet’s homescreen. You can also set up a password to switch between accounts. Without the password, it’s impossible for kids to leave the KIDOZ environment (trust me, my kids have tried).

You can also set up a time limit for, say, an hour a day between the hours of 8am and 7pm. If you have multiple accounts, time limits can differ for each child.

KIDO’Z is, somewhat unbelievably, free to download and use. I’ve only reviewed the Android apps here, but apps are also available for Windows, Mac, and Chrome.

Head on over to the homepage to try it out.

KIDOZ | @kidoz

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with the button below and spread the love, and don’t forget to subscribe for more Sssimpli goodness. Need more to read? Check out Sssimpli Links, a handpicked digest of the week’s best tech-related writing from around the web, delivered (almost) every Friday.

Flickr was once the app for photos, then Yahoo! came along and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:46:49 -0400

Flickr was once the app for photos, then Yahoo! came along and lost the internet. This week, Yahoo! brought Flickr back from the dead, among other things.

The result of the Flickr team’s efforts is striking. Gone are the thumbnails and generous white space. Like many redesigns of late, Flickr now puts your content front and center, presenting images with as little chrome as possible. The Android app, too, is now a pretty stunning example of content-driven design.

I’m not profiling the web or Android app today, however. I’ll let you judge them for yourself. The real Flickr news came not in the form of a redesign, but in terms of storage capacity. In case you hadn’t heard, Flickr now offers an unprecedented 1 terabyte of storage, free to all users.

That fact alone makes Flickr the app to beat (once again) in the photo game.

No doubt you’ll want to take advantage of all that storage (which equals well over 500,000 photos of 6 megabytes apiece). Here’s how to automatically add every photo you take on your phone to Flickr.

First, make sure you have Dropbox installed on your phone (here are the iOS and the Android apps). Now, make sure you have instant upload enabled. If you’re not familiar with how instant upload works, it’s simple: once set up, every photo you take will now upload to a folder (/Camera Uploads) in your Dropbox folder automatically.

So how do you get those photos to Flickr? For this, we’ll use the Swiss Army knife of the internet, IFTTT. Head over and use this recipe. The recipe is only triggered when a photo is added to the subfolder “Camera Uploads” in your public folder, so you’ll need to head to the desktop version of Dropbox and drag the Camera Uploads folder into your public folder. If the folder isn’t there, the recipe won’t work.

Once you’ve set up the recipe, moved the folder, and set up instant upload on your phone, you’re good to go. Every photo you take with your phone will be posted to your photostream. You may want to take the additional step of making your photostream private so that you can choose what to share proactively. To do that, just go to Flickr’s settings page, click on the privacy tab, and scroll down to “Defaults for New Uploads.” Click “edit,” and under “Who can see your photostream?”, choose “only you.” Now no photos will be visible to the public unless you specifically share them. (Alternatively, if you’re already logged in, just click here).

With 1TB of storage and a beautiful design, Flickr is the dominant photo app once more. With automatic backup for all your pictures, this recipe takes it a step further.

When I first sat down at my computer this morning, I, as many...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:31:56 -0400

When I first sat down at my computer this morning, I, as many do, opened my email.

For many, the act of opening their email in the morning brings with it apprehension. For me, it’s a pleasure. That’s largely due to the many mechanisms I’ve implemented over the years to tame the email beast. I use a lot of filters, and OtherInbox and Unroll.me help ensure that only the messages I want to see get maximum visibility, while the rest, the extraneous, fade into the background until I go looking for them.

I reserve my attention (as far as my inbox goes) for things that provide exceptional value: the New York Times newsletter catches me up with the day’s news, and Caesura Letters gives my brain a swift kick in the arse.

I subscribe to very, very few newsletters- or, rather, I subscribe to a lot, and quickly unsubscribe from most. Some weather the storm, though, and hold my attention.

One such newsletter is WithLinks, a simple newsletter from With Associates, a digital consultancy based in London.

The newsletter is a simple collection of links: five, to be exact. Some are design-related, some are simply internet-related, but each one has handcrafted feel. They even throw in a jam of the week at the top of the newsletter, ranging from podcast snippets to Geto Boys songs.

Somehow, this simple email conveys the fact that the people behind it love the web.

It’s a small, hidden gem in a usually hasty, noisy web.

Head over to the With Associates page to sign up.

A Note...

wonderisms — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:13:43 -0400

Awhile back, Tumblr stopped offering the ability to import RSS feeds to a Tumblr account, so Sssimpli started using a third-party developer’s tool which replaced that functionality. It’s proven to be extremely buggy, however, often posting multiple entries of the same post, so we stopped using it. A proper solution has not yet been found, but tomorrow we will begin testing a workaround using ifttt and Gmail. Hopefully all goes well, but in the meantime, you can still follow Sssimpli via Twitter, Google+, RSS, or email. Simply visit our homepage.

Turn @Pinboard into your Personal Web Gem Archive

wonderisms — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 01:58:14 -0500

In the first twenty-five posts here on Sssimpli, I’ve focused mainly on web apps that, by performing one function very well, or combining features normally reserved for numerous apps into one service, simplify your daily web routine in some way. These can be very useful tools, but the problem facing most is facing the never-ending labyrinth of sites that is the web. The secret of those who make the most of the web is making the web come to you, not having to actively seek out each piece of content that you may find interesting. It is in that spirit that I’d like to introduce a new weekly series on Sssimpli: Automating Your Web. Eventually, we may get into some more advanced tips and tricks. For now, though, we’ll start with the basics. First up: using Pinboard.in as a bucket for all the interesting things you find on the web. Let’s get started.

Now, that’s a brief explanation of what Pinboard does. I should also mention that it’s ad-free, insanely fast, simple, and has a fantastic support staff (especially considering the entire site is run by one guy). Moving on, here is how to turn it into your personal internet archive:

Pinboard is a social bookmarking site for introverts- but what exactly does that mean? Social bookmarking services, by and large, do two things: they allow you to save links to web pages on their servers, so you can access them from anywhere, provided you have internet access. Delicous, Diigo, and the like all provide this service, and they also allow you to follow other users whose saved links you may find interesting- hence the “social” in “social bookmarking.” Pinboard focuses on curating your data/ links into a sort of personal web archive, with less adherence to the social aspect. In doing so, Pinboard can pay more attention to features that make organizing your data simple, such as searching your links. It costs a bit to sign up ($9.69 at the time of this article), and it’s well worth the ten bucks. There’s also an option to archive all your links, meaning Pinboard will copy the entire web page of every link into its servers, so if a site no longer exists, you can still access it via your Pinboard page.

Now, that’s a brief explanation of what Pinboard does. I should also mention that it’s ad-free, insanely fast, simple, and has a fantastic support staff (especially considering the entire site is run by one guy). Moving on, here is how to turn it into your personal internet archive:

First, you’ll want to add your Twitter account from the >settings>twitter menu. Once you do, any tweet you favorite will be added to your Pinboard with the label twitter_favs.

Next, we need to sign up for a service called ifttt (if this then that). For now, think of ifttt as duct tape for the internet. It’s arguably the most useful service on the web for our purposes, so we’ll be coming back to ifttt somewhat regularly. Once you sign up, we need to connect three services: Tumblr, Google Reader, and Pinboard. If you’re not familiar with these services, Lifehack has a nice intro to Google Reader, and Infinite42 lays down the basics of Tumblr. Both are quite critical to making the web work for you.

Next, we need to create two tasks: to do this, just click >create a task>this>Google Reader>New Starred Item>Complete Trigger. For the result, click >that. Then, choose how you’d like to save your items: either as a public or private bookmark, or an item to “read later.” When you’re finished, create another identical task, replacing Google Reader starred items with Tumblr “likes.” Of course, you’re not limited to dumping just these services into your Pinboard- you can connect a multitude of other accounts, too, but I find that limiting yourself to the accounts I’ve laid out keeps your Pinboard slim and manageable.

And that’s it. From now on, most every item of interest you mark as interesting will be deposited into your Pinboard account, creating a virtual smorgasbord of web gems, ready and waiting whenever you’re in the mood for some web magic. Of course, you may also want to add Pinboard’s bookmarklet to save any other interesting items you come across.

As always, if you’ve any related tips to share, please do so in the comments. Happy browsing!

Pinboard | @pinboard

Turn @Pinboard into your Personal Web Gem Archive

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:57:01 -0500

Pinboard | @pinboard

Turn @Pinboard into your Personal Web Gem Archive

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:56:23 -0500

Pinboard | @pinboard

Turn @Pinboard into your Personal Web Gem Archive

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:56:43 -0500

Pinboard | @pinboard

Turn @Pinboard into your Personal Web Gem Archive

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:58:35 -0500

Pinboard | @pinboard

Apologies

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:53:02 -0500

Hi, all. I’d like to extend my apologies to those who have been following Sssimpli via our Tumblr page. I’ve been using RSS Importr to send entries to Tumblr, but it seems that the app has been posting a massive amount of duplicates. I’m afraid you may have to suffer through this until I find another solution. There are other options available, such as ifttt, dlvr.it, etc, but they only permit posting to a main Tumblr account (and Sssimpli is not my main account). If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line. Until then, I’ll keep an eye out for a solution.

@AlbumReminder is the Simplest Way to Keep up with Your Music

wonderisms — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:57:46 -0500

The web applications most synonymous with the Simple Web are those that do one thing very well. Album Reminder is a prime example of such an app. It does exactly what it says on the tin, reminding you when you when your favorite artists release a new album. The reminders come via email, so if you use Gmail, it’s easy to create a custom filter to create a customized list of your artists’ newest albums.

Using the service is dead simple. Head over to Album Reminder, create an account, and you’re presented with a few options to get started. First, you’ll want to let Album Reminder know what artists you’re interested in following. You can import your iTunes or MediaMonkey collection, pull your last.fm top artists, or import via a simple text list, up to 5000 artists. Once you’re finished, Album Reminder will send you a notification email every time one of your favorites releases a new album. There’s also an option to grab an RSS feed, which you can use in lieu of email.

On the homepage, you can view a grid of popular artists, which can be narrowed down by week or year, or you can go directly to your artists to see their latest offerings. A “Recommendations” section will present you with a list of artists you may be interested in if your list is rather empty, or you can simply browse all album releases.