Rev2.org

Every now and then, a new internet start-up comes along that fits snugly in a gap between two other types of website.  In this case, BlogZa appears to fit in between a regular blog and Twitter.  The former allows you to blog at length about all manner of different topics, whereas Twitter has a strict 140-character limit.

However, BlogZa limits you to a single sentence when you sign up for one of their blogs, so it may suit some people more than others.  It is very new at the moment and there is no indication of how many people may have signed up for the service.  The very simple home page has a short description of what the site is about, followed by a short registration form.  This requires you to fill in your name and choose a username and a password.  You also have to fill in your email address, but that is all the information you need to give.

BlogZa could well be good for individuals to use as a blogging platform.  Nevertheless, it is also very likely to be used by people who want to promote another site they may own.  There is no indication of whether links are allowed in the sentence, so it remains to be seen how the site develops as more and more people join it.  It may well appeal to those who like brevity in their blogs, so it is worth keeping up with for that reason alone

NOVA has created five applications for the iPad under the umbrella of 3D 4 Medical.  The apps are all medical/body/anatomy related and feature some awesome visualizations of the human body at work.  The apps are meant for students, medical professionals, and teachers, but anyone can use them and learn.

The first app is Brain Pro, which gives an in-depth knowledge of the brain, visually.  You can look at an image of a human brain and rotate, slice, peel away, and go transparent to view a map of the brain and which portions do what function.  It’s very cool.

Next is iMuscle, which is a workout aid with visual muscular graphics to show you what you’re working and what affect it has.  Students can see how the muscles interact and what each popular exercise routine is doing internally.  You can zoom in and out on specific muscle groups or individual muscles themselves.

Then comes Skeletal System Pro II, which lets you go Halloween and look at your skeletal system up close and personal like.  It’s a great anatomy course builder with a lot of 3D that lets you get into even the smallest of bones.  Watch how joints work, how bones interact, and even how teeth are held into the bones of the jaw.

To go beyond iMuscle, you can get into Muscle System Pro II, a more cutting-edge and anatomically-focused look at the muscular system.  This one lets you focus on specific muscles, remove layers so you can view muscles underneath others, and get detailed about how ligaments and tendons attach and affect movement.

Finally comes Heart Pro, an up close and personal look at the body’s most important muscle.  With this one, you can rotate, stop and start, slice through layers, and otherwise manipulate a heart to see how it operates at all levels.  A full body icon shows blood flow throughout the body and how changing pressure and other factors affects both the heart and circulatory system.

All of these apps are really cool and are available from NOVA and the iTunes Store.  Other apps in the series include looks at the Nervous, Cardiovascular, and Digestive systems.  Plus quizzes to test your knowledge.

We’ve all seen the courtroom dramas where the lawyer representing the side of good presents the critical evidence, out of the blue, and cinches the case for the client.  In those shows, convincing the jury always hinges on one crucial bit of evidence that is suddenly presented, at the very last moment, to swing the judgment.

In real life, of course, that rarely happens.  But trial attorneys do spend a lot of time setting up and presenting evidence to juries in order to convince them that their side of the story is correct.  This often takes hours of preparation – beyond just the finding of the evidence itself.

Well.. now there’s an app for that.

TrialPad is an iPad application that allows attorneys to present evidence of all kinds (video, audio, documentary, etc.) on one native app.  It can be sent through the court’s projector, televisions, etc. and without the need for a dedicated audio/visual tech that can be distracting for the jury.

In fact, in one trial, Attorney James Moncus, III won a $37 million case by using this app to present his evidence.  In that trial, Moncus had 911 phone recordings, receipts, documents from medical experts, video and more.  All of it was shown via this app and his iPad.

The app itself is relatively simple to use, though with anything this complex, there will be a learning curve.  It’s not steep, however.  Once you master the idea that you can be doing things on the screen that aren’t being shown on the monitors it’s attached to (such as bringing up the next doc and making highlights), setting up your evidence in sequence becomes easy.

It’s a very cool app with a very niche market of users who will no doubt find its price tag cheap compared to the time, money, and effort it can save.

Robbing the bank was the easy part.  The hard part?  The getaway.

Reckless Getaway is a really cool iPhone/iPad game that puts you in the driver’s seat of a getaway car.  The robbery is done, the money is in hand, but you still have to get away.

The game has a lot of variables going on and is a ton of fun.  You can drive various getaway vehicles including a muscle car, a big rig, and more.  The game has 16 tracks, all with traffic, police pursuit, wrecks, and general vehicular carnage.

Speed through the streets, up alleyways, and smash through roadblocks as you make your escape.  Things unlock as you go, so complete a level and unlock more goodies to keep playing.

Playing on the iPhone is fun with a lot of use of the in-built gyro and vibration.  On the iPad it’s even better with the bigger screen and better graphics.  Sound is optional and controls are very easy.

Reckless Getaway has won several awards, including being named to the Quality Index’s Top 10 Games list and being the July game of the month in the Appstore Arcade.

It’s made by Polarbit AB and just had a new update August 30.  It’s rated for ages 9+ because of cartoon violence (vehicles smashing).

It can be a challenge to promote a brand new business, particularly online.  But now there is a new website which aims to make it that little bit easier to do so.

The website is called Plug Start Ups and it allows people to promote their latest businesses – typically websites.  The plug is given for free and you can list your website on a page of its own.  You can provide a summary of the service being offered, as well as commenting on the idea behind it.  There are several other sections that should be filled in as well, although some people elected to leave them blank.

Obviously it gives you a link back to your home page, but since this is a chance to promote your new start up it is disappointing to see that a lot of people have elected to get the link up as quickly as possible.  This has left lots of information out, which is probably why lots of people have given a negative vote to various websites.

This could be a good tool to use online, though it may too soon get bogged down with substandard submissions and spam.  It is too early to tell at present.  But if people take the time to fill out all the sections on Plug Start Ups when they submit their business, it could bring some rewards.  It remains to be seen how successful the site will be as a whole.

When you sign up to use Google+ – which lots of us have already done – you will get a unique URL for your profile.  However the URL is far from being attractive since it consists of a series of boring numbers.  There is no way to identify who the profile might belong to if all you have is the standard URL that Google+ provides you with.

However you can change all that if you go to a site called MyPlus.name.  The website has been created to enable you to change the URL and you can change it to whatever works for you.

This is good news for anyone using Google+ to make business connections.  Instead of having a series of numbers after the plus.google.com address, you can have your name instead.  Or you could choose the name of your business if you wish – it is entirely up to you.

This will undoubtedly help people who want their profiles to be more recognisable in terms of the URL.  It will also help people when it comes to ranking their profiles in the search engines, since recognisable words will always be far better than numbers.

MyPlus.name is a simple site and an effective one as well.  At the bottom it says that it is not owned by Google, but it then adds the word ‘yet’.  One wonders if Google will change that soon.