The Modern Materialist : web app

Through the Eyes of Kanye

Steph Auteri — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:02:00 GMT

Love the sunglasses popularized by Kanye West SO MUCH that you wish you could see everything through those shuttered shades?

Get your Kanye Vision bookmarklet right here!

[Via Gawker]

Quick Tip of the Day: Follow the Map to (Used) Treasure

Steph Auteri — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:35:00 GMT

Lord knows that most of us can't afford to live the way we used to, shopping the boutiques and luxury goods shops.

Which is why I'd like to point you toward some real treasure, often affordable only with the 50-cent coin buried above.

[Yard Sale Treasure Map]

Using Yard Sale Treasure Map, you can easily find yard sales in your immediate vicinity. Then, add and remove stops on the map and print out directions for the route of your choosing!

There's no shame in secondhand stuff. Who knows what treasures you'll find...

Quick Tip of the Day: Getting Together With Your Busy Friends

Steph Auteri — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Just the other month, me and my friends from college put together a spreadsheet in Google Docs in order to figure out which weekend everyone would be available to get together.

We have yet to find a weekend where all of us are free.

In much the same vein, there is now a web app for this sort of thing, because apparently we're all too damn busy:

Which Date Works allows you to create an invitation for an event, with a range of possible dates. Recipients then pick the date that works best for them, using a green check for yes, a red cross for no, or a question mark for maybe.

Much like our makeshift spreadsheet above.

If only we had jumped on that idea first...

[Via lifehacker]

Quick Tip of the Day: Tweet Off at Work

Steph Auteri — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:36:00 GMT

Reading the Modern Materialist at work is like a gateway drug to other things...like checking your Facebook page, playing Minesweeper, and tweeting at work.

I'm not good at subtlety (my boss used to catch me with the Spider Solitaire all the time), but if you'd like to go all stealth:

[Spreadtweet]

Now you can read the Modern Materialist through the site and the Twitter feed. Spreadtweet makes your Twitter feed look just like an Excel spreadsheet. Sneaky sneaky.

Related: Tool for the Cubicle Refugee

Break Your Internet Addiction

Diana Vilibert — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:51:00 GMT

Need help taming your internet addiction? Ironically, there's a web app that can help:

Freedom is an application that disables networking on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time, freeing you from the distractions of the internet--andFreedom enforces freedom; a reboot is the only circumvention of the Freedom time limit you specify.

Go ahead. We'll be here when you get back.

PSA: Modern Materialist Gets All Trendy and Joins Twitter

Steph Auteri — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:59:00 GMT

I know that this is so one year ago, but the Materialistas have joined Twitter.

Of course, the rest of us were already there: I'm tweeting here. Alex is right here. Diana is over there. Here's Shaun. And here is Laureen.

But @modmaterialist will highlight the best of MM, refer you to what we've been reading lately, spotlight new designs, and provide you with the most intimate details of our coffee and bacon habits.

Come on over and give us a follow!

Let It All Out (Post-Mortem)

Steph Auteri — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:20:00 GMT

Once I'm dead, there are a few messages I'd like to send from the beyond:

letters to my loved ones, apologizing for what a pain in the ass I've been
letters to those who tortured me in high school, expressing the full extent of my displeasure with them
a letter to that one employer who fired me, describing how successful I became after I left his company
letters canceling my multitude of magazine subscriptions

Enter Deathswitch:

The site creators insist that it's intended as a means to send important passwords to your successors and whatnot, but I believe it has oh so much more potential.

Deathswitch prompts you for your password at regular intervals. If you do not answer a password after a set period of time, the system prompts you several more times before assuming you've bit the big one. Your pre-written messages are then sent out to everyone previously specified by you.

[Via lifehacker]

Quick Tip of the Day: Remove Online Clutter

Shaun Seneviratne — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:03:00 GMT

Got a website you love but can't deal with the ads and other content? Sometimes you just want to read an article with out all that clutter on the page. Is that too much to ask?

With Readability, you can turn that page into this:

This amazing web application takes two seconds to set up. When ever you want to declutter a page just click the "Readability" button in your bookmarks and it removes anything unrelated to the main text (ads, links, etc.). Now you can read whether Christopher Walken is really on Twitter, free of distractions.

Check out the video:

Readability : An Arc90 Lab Experiment from Arc90 on Vimeo.

I must say, I find the ad banner at the top of our homepage very informative and entertaining and would not recommend using this application on our website.

[Readability]

[Via Unclutterer]

Related: The Internet is Corny

Quick Tip of the Day: An Apartment You Can Afford

Steph Auteri — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:19:00 GMT

Apartment-searching is a bitch. Almost as much as a bitch as condo-searching and house-searching.But nobody cares about those of us looking to buy.

Make your apartment search easier with MyApartmentMap:

On the site, you can enter the zip code of your choosing and view the average rental price in that neighborhood, in addition to the units actual available at the time of your search.

Pretty damn cool.

Why oh why did we ever buy?

[via lifehacker]

Pick Me Up

Steph Auteri — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:01:00 GMT

I'd like to think I'm pickup line-immune, but who am I kidding? I appreciate a little flattery and signs of creativity as much as the next girl.

Fortunately for you, the Pick Up Lines Generator takes care of the creativity for you.

Some of those most popular lines on the site:

[Via Cool Material]

Nice and Anonymous

Steph Auteri — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:02:00 GMT

This is how I feel when you park crooked, leave your stuff in the laundry machine for hours, cut me off on the highway, use your cell phone on the bus, stomp around when I'm trying to sleep, stink up the building with your cigarette smoke, make me miss my deadline, interrupt me, leave your food wrappers lying around, grope me without permission...

However, I am too much of a wuss to tell you this to your face.

With NiceCritic, I can send you anonymous e-mails, letting you know exactly how I feel. Do you get the hint now?

Quick Tip of the Day: Study Your Sex Life

Steph Auteri — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:31:00 GMT

[Photo via]

Worried that you're having a leetle too much sex lately? Too little? Don't fool yourself. You are a (man)whore/frigid wet blanket. If you demand proof, you have only to start rtacking things over at Bedpost:

As you can see, you simply log in every time you have sex, fill in some info fields on duration, sex partner, etc., and then view you're rolling Calendar of Sexy Time.

Wait a second. Aside from misplaced pride...why are we doing this again?

[Via Jezebel]

Quick Tip of the Day: Don't Let $ Burn a Hole in Your Pocket

Steph Auteri — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:34:00 GMT

We've told you before what you could do if you had money to burn. Now there's another option, with even more possibilities for blowing your dough:

Depending upon how much money you have to burn, Burning a Hole allows you to search for random products by price or product category.

Or you can just donate your money to a totally worthy cause.

Quick Tip of the Day: Computer Nags You About Your Computer Use

Steph Auteri — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:32:00 GMT

What I'm Doing When I Should Be Working:

catching up on e-mail
scanning through my Google Reader
updating Twitter
futzing around on Pandora

My computer does not approve.

KeepMeOut allows you to enter the sites you waste the most time at, and then nags you went you visit it too many times within a short span of time.

[Via lifehacker]

Related: She'll Nag Your Weight Off

The Internet is Corny

Shaun Seneviratne — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:48:00 GMT

Take a website from this:

to this:

Instantly make any website corny with Cornify (even if something isn't actually corny *cough*Rapid Cities*cough*).

This website lets you put code on your own website/myspace/tumblr/whatever to cornify it OR you can drag a link to your bookmark bar and cornify any website you go to.

Users have been raving about Cornify:

"This new web 2.0 app is going to single-handedly pull us out of the recession."
"The internet is done, we can all go home and congratulate ourselves on a job well done."

Ladies and gents, I think we just found the answer for world peace.

Thanks to Nazzle for the tip!

[Cornify]

[Via dlisted]

Quick Tip of the Day: Check Things Off Your To-Do List

Steph Auteri — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:26:00 GMT

Because it's too damn hard to write things down on paper, Adam Pash, over at lifehacker, created Printable Checklist.

How is it any different from my beloved Ta-da Lists?

The format is clean and spare, allowing you to then print out your list and — despite your unwillingness to write actual words — still have the satisfaction of checking off items on paper.

Do with this information what you will.

[Via lifehacker]

Quick Tip of the Day: Sit or Squat

Steph Auteri — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:43:00 GMT

This is disgusting, but — whilist driving through Brooklyn, a spectacularly rich dinner behind me — my stomach tightened and twisted and I knew that, if I didn't find a public restroom, STAT, all of my organs would end up coming out of my throat from the pressure of clenching my ass. I distractedly drove toward Manhattan, my face pale and sweating, when I miraculously came upon a gas station Dunkin Donuts. With no other options in sight, I pulled into the lot with a screech.

Long story short (too late?), I popped a button on my pants, there was no toilet paper in the rest room, and I was left wishing that I had never eaten that oh-my-god-so-effing-delicious lobster, when what I was used to living off of was Rice Krispies and ramen noodles.

Really, though. Things wouldn't have been so bad if there had been a more upscale public restroom option.

SitOrSquat allows you to search for public restrooms on a Google-like map.

Unfortunately, as the site's directory of restroom is populated by users, some neighborhoods are still incredibly sparse. The only restroom in the vicinity of my Dunkin Donuts incident? A and J Auto Service.

[via lifehacker]

Related: When You Can't Hold It Anymore

Quick (Holiday) Tip of the Day: Simplifying Secret Santa

Steph Auteri — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:25:00 GMT

It's that time of year again when Santa rappels down your rooftop and swings in through your window, leaving you socks and Lindt truffles.

It's also the time for office-wide Secret Santas, which are a little less magical. (I'm still plagued by nightmares of my first and last Secret Santa experience: I received cheap-looking lingerie, which I was then photographed with while also double-fisting; my boss did not appreciate the tasteful collection of teas I had gifted to her.)

If you're in charge of organizing this year's Secret Santa (though I suggest cancelling it), there's a web app to make things easier:

After you register for the site, Elfster prompts you to plug in your Secret Santa information: sign-up deadline, spending limit, exchange date, etc., after which you invite people to participate via e-mail. Once everyone has RSVPd, you go in and click "draw names," at which point participants will be e-mailed with the name of the person they're shopping for.

The site has adorable touches, like the ability to click whether you've been naughty or nice, and a page to set up your own wish list (though that certainly does ruin the element of surprise).

I have to admit to being wholeheartedly charmed by this site, and it almost makes me want to do a Secret Santa myself. (Almost!)

Do with this information what you will.

[Via Popgadget]

Quick Tip of the Day: Be the First One at Every Sale

Steph Auteri — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:35:00 GMT

Now that I'm a recluse and all, I prefer to do all my shopping online, whichis why the bulk of my holiday shopping was done two weeks ago (Black Friday my ass).

Now, I like sales as much as the next person, but there was no way in hell I was going to wake up at 4 in the morning to wrestle a winter cap out of the hands of some crazed mother in the madhouse that is Kohl's.

So how do I ensure I'm saving, without risking life and limb?

This new site, ZingSale, notifies you whenan item you've had your eye on goes on sale. Seriously? What can be easier than that?

[Via lifehacker]

Baby Name Generator

Diana Vilibert — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:32:00 GMT

I love this web app--What a Lovely Name helps you generate a baby (or pet!) name based on disposition, background, or celebrity baby names (probably a bad idea). They seem to be a little short on names--they only had two Russian girl names, Yelena and Natasha--but I love the concept.

[What A Lovely Name]

Quick Tip of the Day: Blow Your Dough

Steph Auteri — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:32:00 GMT

Got money to burn? (Really? Where'd you get it?? Can I have some?)

Sometimes, the satisfaction you get from shopping comes from the very act of spending. In which case, it doesn't matter what you blow your money on. It only matters that you can.

To take the guesswork out of mindless spending...

...Blow My Dough will show you something (not) worth spending your money on!

Like....these, um...cigars. (wtf!?)

Quick Tip of the Day: Don't Waste Gas Getting Gas Cheaper

Steph Auteri — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:25:00 GMT

In our frenzy of rising and lowering and rising gas prices, some of us have been driving around in a tizzy, tryng to find cheaper gas. The problem? We're wasting gas. Is it worth it? Are we breaking even? Should we pay for the damn gas at the first damn overpriced gas statio we come to?

Enter...GasEdge man!

Over at GasEdge, you can find out if the trip is worth it for the cheaper gas, by plugging in gas prices at two different gas stations, how far away each gas station is, and your gas tank capacity.

Which I suppose is nifty if you actually have all of that information before you start driving around aimlessly.

Related: War and Peace

Quick Tip of the Day: Beat This Price

Steph Auteri — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:31:00 GMT

Are you a bargain shopper? Who can afford not to be these days? After the jump, get the best deal on any darn thing you want:

Over at Beat My Price, you input the item you want, the url you found it at, and the price it's being offered for. Then you click the taunting "Beat that!" button and see what happens.

I tested it out on these slippers, except I input the product page at Think Geek, who is charging $15 more than Urban Outfitters once did

I don't know why in heck Urban Outfitters stopped selling them (they had the best price ever), but Beat My Price was still able to find the slippers for almost $10 less. They also listed all of its other online locations, and attendant prices.

I know that Nextag has been doing this forever, but the comparison shopping over at Beat My Price seems more targeted, and the aesthetics of the page easier on the eye.

Go ahead. Beat your price.

Quick Tip of the Day: Save Your Finances and Your Figure

Steph Auteri — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:40:00 GMT

The usual resolutions? Get rich and lose weight.

The solution?

Over at 5K5K, you are empowered to both run in a 5Krace and pay off $5,000 of debt, either individually or as part of a team. Hurrah for being held accountable!

[Via lifehacker]

Exacerbate Your Shopping Habit

Steph Auteri — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:06:00 GMT

I have a shopping problem. Aside from a-line skirts, tank tops, and newsboy caps, my greatest weakness lies at the bookstore. Unfortunately, I have now found an awesome resource that supplies me with book (and movie, and music) suggestions based upon my favorite titles. And, contrary to the questionable usefulness of the suggestions on other websites, these actually seem quite spot on.

After plugging in my number one guilty pleasure book — Stephen King's It — over at tastekid, I got back the usual list of similar Stephen King books, but also some new titles I had never seen before, in addition to some that I had already read, and loved (House of Leaves!).

I will now spend hours on here building up a massive shopping list of books, DVDs, and CDs. And stick them onto my Amazon Wish List.

[tastekid]

[Via lifehacker]

Mood Music

Steph Auteri — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:03:00 GMT

I've gotten to that point (again) where I'm sorta sick of everything in my iTunes library. Usually , when this happens, I turn to Pandora, which is great at giving my exactly what I want. Still, it hardly ever shows me anything new.

Consequently, I thought the timing fortuitous when I caught Book of Joe's post on youlicense and, more specifically, their page that allow you to search for new music based upon the weather.

It's still unclear how certain songs are matched up to certain seasons and weather conditions but, after a bit more digging, I also found this page, which actually allows you to search for music based on mood.

Moods are limited (I could find nothing for despondent and unmotivated), but a click on "hypnotic" brought me to a playlist I found oddly perfect for staring at my computer screen and blogging my day away.

Guess Where That Accent Is From

Diana Vilibert — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:34:00 GMT

If you're one of those people who's convinced you can place any accent, put those skills to the test with the Can You Guess Where My Accent Is From? web game. You'll watch videos of several people reciting two lines of poetry, and then you can test your knowledge by placing the country where that person is from. I may or may not have squealed with excitement when I recognized the accent from Lithuania, where I was born.

[Can You Guess Where My Accent Is From?]

She'll Nag Your Weight Off

Steph Auteri — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:31:00 GMT

My least favorite thing about Weight Watchers was always the weigh-in at the beginning, during which I imagined the trim older woman behind the counter was quietly judging me. God forbid I went up a half pound and I had to scramble for an excuse.

The Japanese have no found a way for dieters to self-inflict such persecution 24/7.

The "women" pictured above are the virtual "wives" available for the choosing on Metaboinfo. After deciding upon whether you'd like to be nagged by the aid, businesswoman, nurse, or salon worker, your virtual nudge will then e-mail you daily with messages that vary depending upon how well (or awful) you're doing within the parameters of the weight loss plan you've set up for yourself.

Horrifying.

[Via Gizmodo]

The Polaroid is Back!

Diana Vilibert — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:28:00 GMT

The Polaroid is back, and Ron Jeremy has nothing to do with it. That picture of me and ol' Ron was taken on a digital camera--so how did it end up on a Polaroid? With the PolaDroid!

PolaDroid lets you drag and drop digital photos into the application, and spits out a "Polaroid-like" picture.

[Poladroid]

Quick Tip of the Day: Spend Your Money Wisely

Steph Auteri — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:27:00 GMT

All the financial advice guides tell you to keep a spending diary, so as to have a visual record of your spending habits that you can later analyze and improve upon.

If I had done this the first time I racked up massive credit card debt — back in college — I might have learned my lesson. I mean, my money was going to blown-glass balls, fine wood jewelry boxes, and kaleidoscopes from the handmade crafts store I was working at, in addition to ironic T-shirts from Urban Outfitters and Allston Beat, and hippie-dippie tops from Arden B. Talk about frivolity.

For those of you impatient with the archaic practice of writing things down, there's Tweet what you $pend.

With this program, Twitter users can track expenses via their cell phone, and eventually download the information as a spreadsheet to be imported into another personal finance application. Nifty!

[via lifehacker]