Pick of the week: Tildee

Tildee is a brilliant concept! Make it easy for people to create tutorials they can share online; in essence, make it easier to teach the things you know to others and make it even easier to learn the things others know! With a simple and elegant interface, Tildee allows anyone to easily create tutorial and other step by step documentation; interestingly, you don't even need to be registered to use the tool! Every tutorial created generates a short and unique URL that is easy to share.

If Instructables is a little too much for you, check out Tildee and start showing what you know today!

Pick of the week: Moki.tv

This week's Pick of the week is an entertainment selection, which I don't do very often. But I was quite impressed by Moki.tv. In essence, Moki.tv is an aggregator of various free and paid entertainment providers, such as Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and more and allows you to track what's available on all of these sources from a single location.

Add to this a great, intelligent recommendation system that starts to provide choices with as little as 10 user provided ratings, and you have a great entertainment solution for today!

Pick of the week: Instapaper

This week's Pick of the week is a bit of a cheat, as it is a website, but an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch as well and these two work hand in hand to help you get more stuff read. I'm talking about Instapaper and if you haven't heard about it, head over right now and take a look.

It's a simple tool really; create your Instapaper account, put a bookmark in your browser and when you find a page that you would like to read, but find too yourself short on time, just select that bookmark and the page is automatically parsed, stripped of extra elements, formatted and saved to your Instapaper account, instantly available to read from the website or on your device.

I don't mind adding that the reading experience of this app is probably one of the best out there and several more "commercial" offerings might learn a thing or two here. Some of the features provided truly demonstrates the creator's interest in reading. From a tilt-scrolling mode (brilliant!) to a great night reading mode (a simple but elegant contrast reversal mode), this app is reader's delight!

Head over to Instapaper right now and read more today!

Pick of the week: Khan Academy

As I was attempting to decide on the Pick of the week for this week, I realised that I had not mentioned one of the great education sites ever: the Khan Academy.

The site was created in 2006 by MIT graduate Salman Khan and now hosts more than 2400 video tutorials on subjects such as math, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, finance, economics and computer science. The videos are promoted as "micro-lectures" and are truly fantastic!

If you're having some difficulties helping your kids with their homework, or simply need a refresher on solving quadratic equations, the Khan Academy is for you!

Pick of the week: Bagcheck

One of the websites that has really caught my attention in the last couple weeks is Bagcheck. A truly fantastic site, with a great premise, which is the creation of bags, which are then shared amongst the Bagcheck community, in a dynamic exploration system. A quick and effective search engine allows a user to place pretty much anything they can think of in a bag!

Head on over and take a look! Take a second to join or use your Facebook account to log in. It's that easy and well worth visiting!

Pick of the week: 5factsabout.me

In a world of social networking sites like Facebook, the word "friend" has become a little diluted, for lack of a better word. I've seen people with 500-600 "friends" on Facebook, but no one person that they feel they can confide in. What about those 500-600 people? Are none of them actual friends? You know, those people that actually care about you?

Here comes 5factsabout.me to the rescue! 5factsabout.me allows you to create 5 true or false facts about yourself. Afterwards, you can quiz your friends on these questions by directing them to your profile! See how well they really know you. The results can also be shared on Facebook or Twitter, for those so inclined.

Head on over and take a look, I'm sure you'll find it fun and enlightening!

Pick of the week: Bitterbuzz

Are you feeling a little bitter about something or other? Is life making you miserable? Is your boss getting on your case regularly? Well, here comes Bitterbuzz to the rescue. Log in and vent away or take some time to read through other peoples' raves and rants about whatever it is that is driving them over the edge. To be perfectly blunt, I don't normally suscribe to this type of online "whinning" but some of the writing was absolutely hilarious and as such, I recommend the site as a way to release pressure by laughter!

Head on over and take a look, you'll get a good laugh I'm sure!

Pick of the week: Memeoirs.com

I'm not sure about you, but I suspect that I've written what amounts to several tens of thousands of emails in my life. That's a pretty remarkable amount, all things considered, and I imagine that set end to end, all of these messages would be several hundred pages of text. And there are times when I think that in the future, we will all be remembering that quaint technology called "email" and laugh. I say remembering because for all intents and purposes, all that text resides on someone else's computers and hard drives and no actual archive of this information exists. Until now, that is. Welcome to Memeoirs.

Memeoirs offers a very original service: they will compile all of your email into a book format. Yes, a real, paper-based book, that you can read at will, as often as you like. Now, before you laugh this idea off as being a little silly, let me ask you what you believe is the lifespan of digital data? Do you think that in a hundred years, that digital data will still be around. For all the advantages of the digital information format, with its ease of copying and other features, it still remains fairly fragile. That data is dependant on some mechanism to be interpreted. Paper does not.

The pricing model is based on the total number of pages requested as well as the option of printing a soft versus hard cover book. The process is fairly simple: pick an email address, pick a date and time period, and Memeoirs does the rest. The archiving process is quick, private and effective; Memeoirs strives to make sure that the printed content contains only emails of value. Account activation emails and spam are automatically filtered out and only your actual communications remain.

A fantastic idea in the digital age; old school archiving! Head on over and take a look! You might find a great gift idea in the making!

Pick of the week: Listgorilla.com

Are you a list addict? If so, then Listgorilla is for you! Currently in beta, Listgorilla is a fantastic site, with a great looking interface, that lets you view, create and modify lists created by you and other users. Personally, I think the best feature of the lists created on this site is the good/bad flags listed next to each item in a list, allowing users to "vote" for the placement of specific items in a list. Don't think that Spider Man is the greatest comic book hero? Vote that choice down from first place in the list.

It is possible to log in to Listgorilla using your Google account, your Facebook account and even your Twitter account, but that's only required to create lists or to flag items as good or bad. Browsing the lists is open to everyone.

Head on over to Listgorilla and take a look at the lists they've put up! While you are there, why not create your own or have your say about someone else's list? Enjoy!

Pick of the week: Goodsie.com

Of all the questions that I regularly receive concerning using the Internet for business, the most common one by far is: how do I set up an online store? Of course, this is not necessarily the simplest of questions to answer. Until now, that is, thanks to our pick of the week, Goodsie.com. Currently in Beta testing, Goodsie is a web-based, online store builder. Now, before you decide to turn your nose up, serious web designers, head over and take a good look. In my opinion, Goodsie has better features and functionality in their Beta state than many competitors who have been around for years.

A beautiful interface, enough options to create the custom online store of your dreams and a truly functional output, one would be hard pressed to find a better tool to help you build a great commerce site. Of course, there are other factors involved in the creation of an online business, but this is a great start! Head over to Goodsie.com right now and sign up. Well worth seeing and I think you'll agree.

Pick of the week: Unicat

I've always enjoyed travel and outdoor adventures, but with a young family, it's a little more complicated. I had always envisioned being able to travel in comfort and security, but without being tied down to North America's road system. Then I discovered Unicat and some of the wonderful expedition worthy machines they custom build and I found my dream:

This model, the EX70 on a 6x6 MAN chassis is not the only model made by any means. If you can dream it up, the people at Unicat can build it for you! Head on over to their site and take a look at some of the fantastic vehicles they have built to date!

Pick of the week: DIY Audio Projects

High fidelity, audiophile quality equipment has always been very expensive and out of reach for the average person. But this has not stopped many from building some of the highest quality audio equipment in the world and sharing the research and results.

DIY Audio Projects is a gold mine of plans, pictures, information, research and more on the construction of almost every type of audio component you can imagine, from high-end turntables to class A mono tube amplifiers and more, the site is a dream come true for electronic enthusiasts and musical fanatics on a budget.

Worth taking a look if only to remind ourselves that every item, no matter how well made, is made by someone. The lesson is that anything can be made!

Pick of the week: PostSecret

This week's Pick of the week is a fantastic site called PostSecret. PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail (yes, real mail!) in their secrets anonymously on one side of a post card. There have been some very moving cards sent in and most are worthy to read. On an interesting side note, the people who manage PostSecret have developed a great relationship with the woman who delivers their mail, who herself has been quoted as being a fan of the project and site.

Worth taking a look and who knows, maybe participating in this great idea.

Pick of the week: Global Action Atlas

If you watch the news, even irregularly, I am fairly certain that at times, you have been confronted with issues that made you want to do something, to help. Well, the people at Global Action Atlas think the same way and they've built a great site that can help you find and "support efforts across the globe to reduce human suffering, protect natural landscapes, and more".

Don't wait until someone asks for help; be proactive and find out how you can help.

Pick of the week: Bookshelf Porn

If you like books, chances are you'll absolutely love this week's Pick of the week: Bookshelf Porn. An archive of bookshelf photos that will completely astound you. But reader beware, for book lovers only! There's not much more to say about it!

You've been warned!

Pick of the week: Ref Desk

This week's Pick of the Week is certainly not going to win any prizes for its fancy design and aesthetics, but it is truly functional and when you need information fast, Ref Desk is the place to go. I can't do justice to the sheer number of reference sites linked in some way to this site; go take a look for yourself and put this on your browser's link bar. You'll be glad you did when you get that call from your friend on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!

Pick of the week: Geek Dad

This week's selection for Pick of the Week is a little obvious, as it follows the review for the book that I received on Father's Day, Geek Dad. The book is based on the very popular blog on Wired.com called Geek Dad. Ever since my late teens, I've known that I was a geek; nothing wrong with that and if we take a moment to think about it, this generation is really the Geek Generation. I mean, the majority of the world's richest and most successful people are geeks!!!

But geeky or not, the blog is fantastic and absolutely packed with great articles that any geeky father will love. og take a look for yourself.

Pick of the week: Carbonmade

Following the advice of a friend and professional acquaintance, I visited Carbonmade, specialists in hosting portfolios and galleries, and I created a quick gallery. I found the site and the interface so enjoyable, that I used up all of the free options and am now seriously considering upgrading to the paid version, which increases the capacities by more than a factor of ten.

Feel free to come take a look at http://thevoicedesigns.carbonmade.com and create your own portfolio today at Carbonmade.

Pick of the week: Sketch-A-Day

Following last week's post on Industrial Design and sketching, here is another worthy site, and coincidence of coincidences, it is also by the same young designer, Spencer Nugent. The site, http://www.sketch-a-day.com/, is essentially a gallery of the designer's daily sketches and ideas and is a veritable visual treasure trove of sketching ideas and topics.

Take a few minutes to view some of the very talented work on display.

Pick of the week: ID Sketching

I've always loved to draw and sketch and the Internet is a fantastic resource for any artist. In my regular browsing, I came upon http://www.idsketching.com/ and I have been hooked since. Built and maintained by a talented young industrial designer called Spencer Nugent, the site offers several excellent articles and numerous videos, as well as an interesting forum section.

The site is well worth a visit.