ThinkRefresh

Recently I was interviewed by ScrnShots a new web application developed by Orange Peel Media in Vancouver using Rails. I have been using the application for almost a month now and I must say I love it, so I thought I'd give it a little review.

ScrnShots is an odd name for a "web 2.0" application, being that it actually describes exactly what it does, how refreshing! You can currently upload an unlimited amount of screenshots, however I believe their plan is to introduce a modest limit as the app becomes more popular, with an optional upgrade to a pro account.

I am lucky enough to be a beta tester for their ScrnShots Desktop application, which runs natively on my Mac (they are also working on a Windows version). It's lightweight, and just sits in your menu bar. I think we will start to see more desktop applications linked directly to web applications thanks to the RESTful API built-in to Rails, whether they are native applications, widgets, or built using AIR / Silverlight.

Being a web designer, it is important to stay on top of the current trends and see what everyone else is doing, so ScrnShots is a great way to find other's work. Many people also seem to be also sharing their previews of work for feedback, which is good fun to see. Personally I am a fan of their dark design, as it creates a greater focus on the screenshots themselves.

We've seen a lot of recent activity screens on various web applications like Basecamp and Lighthouse, but the one in ScrnShots (right) is something different. There are two tabs, one for "by you" and one for "on you" which separates your updates, so you can not only see what's happened on you're account, but also allows you to quickly revise recently added comments, favorites or contacts.

Like Twitter there is a widget available and users screenshots are available as a RSS feed, so for those of you who like to share you're media on your website, it is great. I think more developers should really be looking into this public availability of data, and if you don't have the resources to provide full APIs, just RSS will do.

Finally, you can grab my feeds at scrnshots.com/users/ryan, where I often upload sneak peaks of my work-in-progress applications. And you can signup for free.

Earlier today FiveRuns, the company behind the application profiler Manage, and possibly one of the most gorgeous websites ever released a new product named "TuneUp".

TuneUp is a plugin which adds a bar along the top of your layout which gives you access to the timings of the code behind each page. When you notice a page taking longer than expected to be generated you can post the report to the TuneUp website where people can comment on the patterns to suggest improvements.

I did come across quite an annoying problem that the CSS has been written in a way that means some attributes are overwritten by my own stylesheets, which causes rendering problems on the menu bar, however it is still in beta so these problems can be expected.

TuneUp is free, and according to FiveRuns will stay that way! You can register at tuneup.fiveruns.com.

Update: I have fixed the issue, the TuneUp JavaScript file added top:50px to anything absolutely positioned, even if it's not relative to the body, so I removed lines 15-21 from the tuneup.js file.

Update 2: FiveRuns have released the next version of TuneUp which should have solved these problems.