Buy Local and Find the Best Deals in Your Area - Netted
Article • January 18, 2011

Buy Local and Find the Best Deals in Your Area

Shop location-based classifieds on Krrb
Garage sales can range anywhere from “OMG, gross” to “fetch my flatbed truck, Jeeves! I’ll take it all!” We’re not against trolling neighborhoods on foot for these deals, but we have to admit the Internet makes it much easier.

Become a local deal hunter with Krrb, a location-based social marketplace that allows you to find, sell, and swap interesting items, all in a simple photo-based interface.

We really like the unique approach to “reality” taken on the site. Krrb incentivizes using your real information through feedback, seller verification and listing requirements, cutting down on the “stranger in an alley” anxiety that sometimes comes with meeting people from the Internet.

You can see what your neighbors have put up for sale or trade by using the “radius slider” to tweak the size of your search area, depending on how ambitious you feel or how far your butler can carry a sofa on his back.

To add a measure of security you can communicate via the site and locations are listed as street corners (not exact addresses).

It also doesn’t hurt that Krrb is easy on the eyes. Especially compared to Craigslist’s “HTML For Dummies” design motif.



Article • June 2, 2010

Read Any Web Page with a Cleaner View

Readability is a tool that makes online reading easy, elegant and clutter-free

Reading online is both essential and incredibly frustrating, especially for long-form pieces. It’s all clutter, tiny print and widely variant font choices.

Thankfully, there’s an elegant new browser app called Readability that makes the undertaking much, much easier.

To get started you select your settings, choosing a style (we like the “novel” setting), a type size (“medium” is nice) and the width of your margins.  Then you drag the Readability badge into your toolbar.

When you come to an article that you want to make more “readable,” just click on the button to enable the tool.

Magically, the ads and associated clutter will disappear, leaving only text.  The look and feel is akin to a magazine page (albeit one that’s easy to read). The links are preserved (and, in most cases, so is the artwork), but all the other clutter is gone.

It’s kind of like the Large Print edition for online reading.  In other words, your eyes will thank you.



Article • June 1, 2010

Recycle the Items You No Longer Want and Swap For What You Need

One man's trash is another man's recycled treasure with Freecycle

Most of us have more stuff than we need. And given that it’s Spring, now is a good time to reduce the clutter. But trashing your junk means adding it to a landfill.

To clean out while doing good, try Freecycle, a grassroots non-profit “gifting movement” of people who give away (and claim) stuff you might normally toss in the trash. The hook: everything is free.

To use the service, you’ll need to sign up for an account with a Yahoo! ID (if you don’t have one, get one). Next you’ll look for a group near you by entering your locale in the search prompt. The network has nearly 8 million participants worldwide, which means finding a local group is easy.

If you have items you want to give away, simply post a listing (these are similar in style to Craiglist postings). Other Freecycle members will contact you via email to claim your stuff.

When you see items you might like to claim for yourself, the system works in reverse—you contact the poster and arrange to pick up your new item.

You know what they say–reduce, reuse, Freecycle.



Article • May 26, 2010

Knocked Out

Live Stream Videos In Real Time To Friends And Family

You’re at the sold out, one-night-only reunion show of your favorite band from college (yes, it’s Pavement). Your best friend has to work, but you’d like to share the experience.

Good thing you can now download Knocking Live Video, a free application that allows you to live-stream video to another phone using your cell phone’s camera.

Just download the application—it’s currently available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry—and sign up for a free account.

Then just open the app and begin sharing by sending a “knocking” request to any of your friends (they also have to be using the app).

Once another user has accepted your invitation, you’ll be able to share live video or pictures from your phone as you shoot it, giving your friends access to your memories as they’re being created.

The current version only allows for a video stream between two users, but there are plans for “Knockcast,” which will allow users to broadcast to multiple friends simultaneously.

Now you just have to find a key grip to hold your boom mike.