BookYap: Book Recomendations

I am about to start using a new web application called BookYap. Put simply, BookYap is an application that recommends books based on criteria you enter. There are over 650 000 books in its database, so chances are it will find a book for you.

You can search for a book by using keywords or the filters it has available (based on personality types). By becoming a registered user, the application learns more and more about you and your reading habits, improving the recommendations it makes for you.

Books appear with thumbnails of their covers and book ratings. A brief description appears by hovering over the thumbnail. You are able to interact with the application and associated community by sharing books you have read and your reviews of them. There is connectivity with both Facebook and Twitter also.

You are also able to add books to a reading wishlist if you like. Books can be purchased from Amazon when you choose a book to read.

Visit BookYap at:
http://bookyap.com/

 

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StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a social network for web surfing and sharing webpages and sites that you particularly like and find useful. You can easily surf the web by ‘stumbling’ along – that is, by clicking the stumble button on the toolbar that you can install, allowing you to visit random sites in the categories you choose to explore. As you visit sites, you can like/dislike them, allowing StumbleUpon to learn your likes and dislikes as you surf the web via StumbleUpon.

Being a social network, StumbleUpon allows you to share the sites you visit with friends and others within the StumbleUpon community. Of course, StumbleUpon can be used as a bookmarking type of site, by adding the sites you like to StumbleUpon in a similar way to that of adding favorites/bookmarks to Delicious or your browsers favorites/bookmarks. It’s up to you.

I tend to use StumbleUpon as a surfing tool and haven’t really added a lot to my favorites (I generally forget to do that). For this purpose I have adjusted the settings within StumbleUpon to reflect the topics I like to explore while surfing the web. So it isn’t such a sharing tool for me, as a recommendation tool for the various categories I have checked.

See more at:
http://www.stumbleupon.com

Blogging Platforms

Today’s link is to a Blog post on Blogging platforms. This list of Blogging platforms is well over 100 in length. Some perhaps are not what one would consider when looking for a Blogging platform on which to establish a Blog – such as Facebook, Bebo and even Twitter. But the best choices are there including WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous. Have a look and choose well.

http://tentblogger.com/the-ultimate-list-of-blogging-platforms-blog-software-100/

Blogging with Tumblr

It’s no secret that I use wordpress.com a lot for Blogging. I have close to 10 Blogs/sites hosted at wordpress.com. These days there are a large number of Blogging platforms to choose from – many of which provide a very easy and simple user experience. My platform of choice remains wordpress.com, though coming in at a very close second is tumblr. I do have a tumblr Blog which is called ‘Daily Dribble,’ which is a Blog that captures posts that I don’t post elsewhere. I love to Blog and often find myself thinking that I’d like to post that website/article/thing somewhere, but it doesn’t quite fit into what I’m doing on any particular Blog that I have set up – this is where my tumblr Blog fits. It captures this overflow if you like.

There are many things to like about tumblr, apart from the fact that is very simple to use. You don’t need to be a HTML expert to use it, though you can use HTML for your posts should you choose to do so. Since I like a certain formatting appearance I choose HTML mode for my posts and it really is quite simple to do (if you know a little HTML of course). If you don’t know HTML tumblr remains very easy to use and is one of the very simple Blogging platforms out there for people just getting started in Blogging or for those with more experience.

I also use the Chrome browser from Google and the little Chrome Extension I have for posting URLs straight into tumblr (with the post) is a fantastic way to add content to my Blog. You can also set up your tumblr Blog to post straight  to your Twitter account or to Facebook, which is all very convenient.

There is so much more to having a tumblr account – all worth checking out at:

http://www.tumblr.com/

My tumblr Blog is at:

http://particularkev.tumblr.com/

Penzu: Create a Private or Public Diary

Some people like to have a diary in which they pen their private thoughts – just for themselves. Penzu is the online equivalent of that idea. It will also allow you to share your diary or journal should you to choose to do so. However, one the best things about Penzu is that it is unlikely to be found by nosey people looking about your house – even your partner or other family members.

http://penzu.com/

Adobe Buzzword

The era of installed software appears to be coming to an end, with online or web based applications becoming more the norm these days. I will find it hard to go past Microsoft Word and Office, however, online office-like applications are getting better and better.

Adobe Buzzword is an online word processor that is free to use. Not only can the application be used by an individual, but documents can also be accessed and worked on by others you choose to share it with as well. You can also access your document on any Internet connected computer.

For more on Adobe Buzzword visit:

http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/

While on the Adobe website, check out the other web applications available, including Presentations and Tables.