The 5 Best Web Apps You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
Everyone's got some kind of cloud these days, whether it's Apple, Microsoft, Google or even Adobe. The tasks we normally do on our computer are slowly all moving to the browser, whether it's through Google Docs, Dropbox or Spotify (the way things are going, Chromebooks are starting to look like pretty good value!). While we all know about the big web apps, here are a few cool tools you may not know about!
Everyone's got some kind of cloud these days, whether it's Apple, Microsoft, Google or even Adobe. The tasks we normally do on our computer are all moving to the browser, whether it's through Google Docs, Dropbox or Spotify (the way things are going, Chromebooks are starting to look like pretty good value!). While we all know about the big web apps, here are a few cool tools you may not know about!
Ninite
Ninite makes setting up a new computer a breeze. Ninite is a web app that lets you pick all the applications you want to install onto your PC, and download and install them all at once. Not only does this save you visiting each website individually, it also alleviates the hassle of constantly clicking next. Ninite allows you to install most freely available software, ranging from Chrome to Dropbox to iTunes to Spotify to Adobe Reader.
OneTune
OneTune is a completely free alternative to music services such as Spotify and Rdio, powered by YouTube. OneTune's expansion music library is drawn from music that has been uploaded to YouTube that has been matched and organised using metadata from iTunes. While using YouTube's vast collection of videos means that OneTune can provide access to music not currently available on major streaming platforms, such as The Beatles, the quality of tracks can be inconsistent. Despite this, OneTune does a great job at organising YouTube's wealth of music into discographies and albums.
GoToMeeting Free
GoToMeeting Free is an ad hoc, web-based video-calling service. While services like Skype and Google Hangouts require users to either download an application or sign-in to a product, GoToMeeting creates a "room" on demand – all you need to do is email the other participants the link. While GoToMeeting is web-based, participants can still make use of features like screen sharing. Up to three participants can video chat at once using GoToMeeting's free service.
Prezi
Prezi is a web-based alternative to PowerPoint that saves your work to the cloud. Despite a lack of advertising in Australia, Prezi this week obtained its millionth user across Australian and New Zealand. Rather than providing a traditional slide based system as seen in PowerPoint, KeyNote and Google Slides, Prezi provides an open canvas navigated through pans and zooms. And since Prezi saves presentations in the cloud, you never have to worry about forgetting a USB again!
IFTTT
Strictly speaking, IFTTT (short for If This Then That) is more of a web service, rather than a web app, but it's pretty damn cool. If you consider the internet a sandwich, IFTTT is almost like the butter that lets one piece of bread talk to the other. …okay, that analogy really doesn't work, but for example, IFTTT can trigger whenever you are tagged in a photo in Facebook, and automatically upload that picture to your Dropbox. Or when you change your profile picture on Twitter, it will also change it to the same thing on Facebook.
While the number of websites supporting IFTTT is staggering, hardware such as Philip's Hue smartbulbs and Belkin's WeMO range are compatible with the service, making possibilities almost endless.
