The interface is slick and very easy to use. Choosing cities is accomplished by checking boxes on a pop-up; Select All and Restore defaults are provided options but they could really benefit from a Deselect All choice here as well.

Search is straight-forward. Choose a CraigsList category and/or use keywords, just as you’d do on CraigsList. One of the things I really like about the search is that it displays a list of the cities you’re searching – very handy, that, if you’re searching multiple cities. Each search result is appended with the city it’s located in, another handy feature.

It’s Craig’s Little Buddy’s handling of images, or rather their lack of handling, that keeps this from being a truly killer app. It would be nice if they’d include the ability to search only ads with images. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard for them to integrate as Craig’s List already provides this functionality. Also, there are very few preview pictures, and what preview pics there are seem to be for dealer ads. I do like how they’ve handled the display of the preview pics, however – integrated right into the search result. Another nice feature to have would be to display the full-size image on rollover, much like the Firefox extension CraigsList Image Previewer. (In CLB’s defense, it is most likely CraigsList’s stingy nature that have prevented them from displaying preview photos.)

For the moment, I’ll stick with my combination of CraigsList and the FF CraigsList Image Previewer extension, however, if I was just using CraigsList, I’d switch over to this option in a heartbeat. If they’re ever able to more fully integrate images into the search results, this will be a hard site to beat.

SparkPeople was founded by Chris “Sparky” Downie, one of the architects of Up4Sale.com, and Ebay’s first acquisition right before it went public. Presumably this left Chris pretty comfortable financially, and he was able to start development of SparkPeople.com, his long-time passion, when he left Ebay three years later.

SparkPeople boasts a clean, if somewhat dated, design and an intuitive interface, but the sheer amount of information may overwhelm some people. Even though SP advocates taking your time and getting to know the site, it took me over a month to work up the desire to wade through all the information.

A wizard makes the initial set up quite easy, and once your current weight, target weight, fitness level, and nutritional preferences are entered, a meal plan and nutrition and fitness targets are generated. (A note on the nutritional preferences: While I found the options to be quite flexible, i.e. vegetarian, low-cholesterol, etc., I was disappointed that low-sugar/diabetic choice wasn’t offered.)

SparkPeople is so feature-and-content rich that it would be impossible to accurately review it in anything less than a volume the size of War and Peace, so this examination will focus on just the highlights.

Nutrition
In addition to a comprehensive food database that contains over 10,000 entries, including fast-food and name brands, SP includes a food journal to track your daily food intake. From this input, SP will calculate your total calories, fat, carbohydrates, and any other nutrient you’d like to track. If you’re not near a computer at mealtime (who is?) and you own a camera phone (who doesn’t?), you can email a photo of your meal to your account so you can enter an accurate accounting later. Both the food journal and meal planner are flexible and allow you to add your own foods and meals. In addition, a bank of healthy recipes is included and can be added individually to your meal plan.

Motivation & Goal Setting
Goal setting and staying motivated are an integral component to the SparkPeople concept. As mentioned in a SparkPeople article, most diets just tell you what to eat and don’t even address the #1 roadblock to weight loss – lack of motivation. SparkPeople.com counters this obstacle by teaching users to start small and develop effective diet strategies. A thriving user community provides support and encouragement along the way.

The points system provides additional motivation, and of course, the comprehensive progress reports offer great feedback.

Exercise
SparkPeople boasts an impressive library of fitness articles. In addition, there are illustrations and videos that demonstrate the proper technique. Exercises are categorized as beginner or advanced and require little, if any, equipment. (Medicine balls, Swiss balls, and a towel are the three props utilized.) Exercises can be tracked in the fitness log, and like the food log, users can use the prepackaged exercises, or add their own. Reports can be generated from the log results.

Community
This is where SparkPeople really excels. Personalized pages, a la MySpace, allow users to chronicle their weight loss, post photos, and blog. Lively message boards provide a positive place for users to offer encouragement and tips to each other, while the journal feature sets aside some virtual quiet time for reflection. There’s also a Diet Buddy forum where users can partner with another user with similar goals.

Tracking/Reporting
Track nutrition, fitness, and weight goals using SparkPeople’s extensive collection of printable reports, including weight, measurements, water intake, exercise frequency, and goal setting.

All in all, this is by far the most useful fitness site on the web. If you’re looking to lose weight, you can’t go wrong here.

Note: If you do decide to join, consider listing me as your referrer. Even though there’s no reward as such, I really am coveting that next level’s icon (think of it as profile bling) and SparkPeople awards 10 points for each member referred. While you’re at it, add me (daniesq) as a friend. No points are offered for adding friends, I believe, but I’d welcome your company!

PlayBabble comes in two versions; free and Pro. Pro users, of course, get more features, such as a stats panel (to view your ranking in the community), an online profile, a personal icon, and a graphic of your country’s flag.

Like all good online games, a chatterbox is available so you can “talk” in real time to other players. However, if you’re antisocial, you’ll be fine with the free account. (I use the free account. I don’t want people chattering at me while I’m wracking my brain for a word that starts with C-O-M-F and uses either an “e” or an “s” for the next letter.)

There are a lot of small features, too, that make the game more interesting, such as a points per word feature and a look up the definition icon next to each word you enter. (Although I would presume that you knew what the word meant if you entered it.)

Note: For other games like this one, visit http://www.allwords.com/Word_Games.php.

In addition to the requisite task list features (priority,due date, notes and comment), tasks can be grouped, assigned, and even hidden until a specific date. Moreover, Hiveminder supports dependencies, a feature that should make this app a real standout, especially with all the other task features. Another standout feature is the ability to tag tasks, and to search for tasks using a tag cloud. If you’re working collaboratively, there’s also a history view to track the changes to each task.

Entering tasks is easy and can be accomplished several ways. My favorite is the “brain dump”, a huge text field that allows you to enter multiple tasks to the to-do list as you think of them. Details can be added later, if you wish. Tasks can be entered individually, of course, and even by email. (Hiveminder assigns a random email, however, paid accounts will be able choose the email address they want. ) You can be reminded of your task as often as you want using email, iCal updates, ATOM feeds and plain text or HTML files.

Another neat feature is the task review. Basically, it cycles through your entire list of tasks and requires you to assign an action to it (hide for a month, done, assign it to someone else, comment on it, or do it today) before it will move on to the next one. This essentially forces you to deal with your list, a sort-of “Getting Things Done” methodology.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another entry into the online task management space, Bounty paper towels own Honey-Do list. While not as feature laden as Hiveminder, it is cute and accomplishes basic to-do list functionality with style. A simple form allows you to add tasks, priorities, a small note, your signature, and a choice of four backgrounds. The list can then be emailed or printed out for your honey. (Thanks to Emma Sometimes for the heads-up.)

• Koolanoo.com – A social networking site “For the Jewish people, By the Jewish people.”
• HoverSpot – HoverSpot hopes to differentiate themselves by rewarding users for contet. Uploading photos, filling out your profile, commenting, and blogging will earn you points, which in turn will become entries into contests and sweepstakes. Currently the giveaway is limited to a Nano every other month.
• Tired & Tested – A sports-focused social networking site, Tired & Tested bills itself as “MySpace with shorts on.” Those crazy Brits.

Other new social sites abound, including:

• Yardbarker - Digg meets Sports Illustrated meets MySpace. Sports fans submit their favorite sports stories, and other users rank them a la Digg. My husband thinks this is neato-cool, and I suspect my teenage son will as well.
• Hotspottin.com – Tell the world about your favorite hotspots.

In addition, the Australian site Faces.com relaunched this week, and according to the article by Mashable, they’ve gone all out with the features.

I still haven’t met a recipe site that I’m in love with yet, so if Frankenstein’s Lab could give the MySpace business a rest and get busy on cooking sites, I’d really appreciate it. (Oh, and don’t forget to make it sync with my Pocket PC.)

aNobii isn’t all brains and no beauty, though. The site has a beautiful, clean interface that’s obviously well-thought out and designed with the end user in mind. LibraryThing’s design tends to be on the clunky side, and while not counterintuitive, it’s not going to win any awards for usability.

Both sites offer blog widgets, rating systems, and tagging, and a host of social features, such as saving other readers as favorites. aNobii adds a nice touch, though, with the ability to designate the status of a book ( currently reading, not started, finished, unfinished) – a feature that is sorely needed at LibraryThing. In addition, aNobii lets users specify if a book is available for sale or swap. Finally, aNobii offers a wish list feature that lets users browsing the bookshelves keep track of future reads.

LibraryThing offers a mobile edition (very handy, that, when standing in a book store wondering if you have that book already) and an export feature that aNobii doesn’t seem to have. LibraryThing also has the advantage of time, having far more users – and shelved books – than aNobii. (LibraryThing just hit 5 million books on their “shelves”; in comparison, aNobii only has 8460 as of this writing.This is significant because the social aspects of both sites rely on matching readers with like tastes and books in common.)

Even without the mobile app and the export feature, aNobii still gives LibraryThing some stiff competition, and they seem to be pretty evenly matched. It will be interesting to see how this plot develops.

Technorati Tags: books, library, LibraryThing, aNobii, Amazon, social networking

There’s not a beta tag in sight, but it’s hard for me to believe that the developers intend for this to be live yet. For one, the signup didn’t work in either Firefox or IE last week when I initially tried to join. This week the signup works, but your password has to exactly 8 characters long. (The help text says at least 8 characters. I finally figured it out by playing with it.) When I finally got my first look at the actual application, I was dismayed to see that the developers don’t offer any way for parents to enter their own chores, although they do offer about 30 canned chores. For me, this was a deal killer. After all the hype of the beautifully designed interface, and the very compelling copy, I was practically salivating at the thought of getting my hands on this. (Track chores and allowances online! Printable chore calendar! Optional prepaid teen card!)

I did manage to get both my children entered without any trouble, but not being able to enter our own family chores essentially rendered the application useless for me. For example, in our house we have a veritable herd of dogs. Although “walk the dog” is on the list, it would be helpful if I could designate which of the four dogs needs walking. Other chores associated with the dogs are feed the dog(s), clean out the water bowl, fill the water bowl, play ball with puppies, change bedding in kennel, wash the dog(s) – well, you see where I’m going with this, right?

It sounds as if PayJr has some big plans for the site, and if the early functionality is anything to judge by, I do think this will be a very useful site for parents. Until then, we’ll stick to the pen-and-paper method.

Technorati Tags: PayJr, chore, chore list, allowance

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Bad manners seems to be making a comeback on the ‘net. Consider this screen capture from Skinnyr, a site that lets you “track your weight with a graph thingy!” You’d think that with such limited functionality, they’d be a little nicer to their users. I might add that part of the signup process is giving them your weight and height. If you’re any kind of overweight, seeing your disproportional weight and height reflected back at you from your screen is disheartening enough without being insulted by the site you wanted to join to help you in your weight loss efforts.

In other news, there’s a new crop of MySpace competitors/clones that have been launched since my last post on said sites. One of the new clones that I’m really liking the idea of is BakeSpace.com. It’s a MySpace for cooks. How cool is that? It’s a pretty site (they get points for that from me) and there are some neat features like being able to forward recipes, but filling out your profile will take about the same amount of time that writing the sequel to War and Peace would. Pack a lunch. In addition, they’re hampered by a small user base – and as a result – a very limited recipe offering. If they can increase membership, I think this has the potential to be a great site. Still, they have their work cut out for them with “competitors” such as AllRecipes.com and Meals.com.

Technorati Tags: MySpace, BakeSpace, cooking, manners, etiquette, recipes

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The good news is that the major kinks have been worked out and now it’s just design tweaking. This means that I’ll be done soon and I’ll be able to get back to surfing the net with impunity. I’ve been relying on my rss reader (Flock, natch) to keep me current with new sites, so that’s where you’re getting your news tonight.

It’s been a slow news day for web apps, but just in time for back-to-school, there’s a new site called Easy School Search. This could actually be pretty handy, especially if one is new in town. It allows users to locate schools in an area, or by zip code. Search results include all public and private secondary schools in the area; adding pre-schools to the results would make this a very valuable app. Basic information is provided about each institution, and in my case, a link to the Texas Commissioner of Education and State Board of Education was provided. A link to the district and/or school site would be a great addition.

(Today’s photo is of the Houston Uptown area, and is sposored by the letter “B”.)

Tags: Easy School Search

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Today got off to a good start. By 7:30 it was very hot and very humid here in beautiful Houston. The heat is bad, but I think the humidity just might kill me. Walking outside is like trying to to breathe through a wet washcloth. It is said that the only reason we keep track of the humidity here in Houston is so that we don’t drown. I believe it. Still, it was beautiful, even if it was so oppressingly hot and overbearingly humid that I could only enjoy it from my window.

Luckily, I have the Internet. TechCrunch introduced me to the totally fabulous Sugar Network this morning, a collection of sites that dish up some of the best gossip, style, advice, and socializing . It’s like attending a tea party with the very hippest and wittiest women around. The interface is clean and simple, and the design is simply confectionary.

I’ve already copied a fantastic recipe for lettuce chicken wraps (no carbs) from the Dear Sugar (advice) site – and even their ads are great. Thanks to their superlative taste in advertisers, I’ve discovered the most fabulous stationery site ever! (Now I just need to find a full-time job so that I can afford it. ) I’m excited about that recipe – it looks yummy, and since I haven’t had time today to visit any recipe sites – or even drink water – in preparation for my dieting, it was well-timed. It could well be that I’ll be living off lettuce chicken wraps for the next week. That’s okay, though – I’ll be starving in style!

Tags: Sugar Network, gossip, style, advice, social network, women

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