Dork Adore » Life Dorkage

Groupon for hippies: Alternative group buying sites

Emma Cossey — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:30:40 +0000

You can’t budge on the web these days for adverts promoting Groupon, Living Social, Keynoir or Wowcher discount deal on spas, restaurants, 4×4 drives and even holidays.

Everyone and your gran has either been tempted by, or purchased one of these deals.

In fact, we know quite a few people suffering from compulsive Groupon disease that sees them buying vouchers for things they’ll never actually do and don’t really want.

But what if you’re an eco-worrier filled with middle class guilt? You’re in luck!

There are a few group-buying sites popping up that take a new spin on the popular business model.

Eco-friendly group-purchasing sites

Zipongo

Zipongo is a Bay Water, USA-based site that promotes deals for healthy foods (rather than the glut of cupcake offers a certain group-buying site prefers). It’s all about natural foods, like cereals and coconut water.

It’s not entirely a surprise to see a scheme like this succeed in San Francisco – a place known for its healthy habits –but it would be great to see it branch out. Whether Londoners feel the urge to bulk purchase quinoa, millet and bulger is moot, however.

Blissmo

Blissmo offers discounts on organic and eco-friendly products, ranging from independent jewellery designs to toxin-free nail products. Recent deals include plant-based iPhone cases, organic homemade dog treats (I wonder how that one did) and a water-powered alarm clock.

Currently only serving the US and Canada.

EthicalDeal

EthicalDeal helps you discover green things to do in your area. Deals include organic hair cuts, eco-friendly spa stays, discounted yoga clothing and tickets to Make It! Vancouver.

It’s currently only running offers for the US and Canada, but hopefully bleeding heart liberals all over the world will soon be able to acquire raw, vegan and sugar-free confectionary.

[Image: Ethical Deal]

Do you know of any alternative group-buying sites? Let us know in the comments!

A version of this article originally appeared on Jorg & Olif

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Organisation Dorkage: Getting stuff done with WunderKit & WorkFlowy

Amanda Foley — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:00:54 +0000

Feeling a little scatterbrained lately, my friends? Well, never fear, fellow disorganised dorks, because I’m here to help you achieve a little “To-Do” list zen with some nifty tools for getting stuff done. Read on!

WunderKit

Chances are you’ve heard of the incredibly popular task manager, Wunderlist. It’s a simple but effective personal task manager, which makes syncing your “To-Do” list across various devices a seamless experience, with desktop apps for Mac & Windows, and mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Well, as awesome as Wunderlist is, the folks over at Berlin-based startup 6WunderKinder have decided to bring even more awesomeness to our lives in the form of Wunderkit.

Wunderkit incorporates the ideas of Wunderlist and brings them into a much more interactive and collaborative workspace. Wunderkit is a social platform, a team task manager and a personal organiser, all in one.

The site has a beautiful, easy-to-use interface which is based around creating various “workspaces”. Within each workspace, you can create tasks, track team progress on projects, post status updates, collaborate on notes, and add more people to your workspace using Twitter and Facebook integration.

Wunderkit is currently in private beta, but sign-up on the website or ask a friend for an invite, and you should have access in no time!

If you want to know more about WunderKit, take a look at the beta walk through video below.

WorkFlowy

WorkFlowy (tagline: “Organise your brain”)is another fantastic way to organise your everyday life. One might say it’s a lot simpler than Wunderkit, but it’s no less powerful.

WorkFlowy is a list-maker. It’s also a wonderful planning tool, helping you to create detail-oriented notes, brainstorm ideas and manage your tasks.

Currently, it’s an in-browser tool only, with no desktop or mobile apps launched (though if you’re on a Mac, you can use Fluid apps to create one for you).

It is available on mobile browsers though, which makes it easy to access your WorkFlowy task list on-the-go.

There is a collaborative element to Workflowy as well, allowing you let others view or edit any WorkFlowy task with a unique URL for every task.

Check out WorkFlowy’s blog to see a bunch of cool tips, tricks and features about how to use WorkFlowy.

What are your favourite tools for task management and productivity lately? Anything we should know about?

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Three alternative ways to do your shopping in 2012

Emma Cossey — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:00:32 +0000

Supermarkets are soulless places, aren’t they? All those busy aisles of grumpy shoppers who wield their trolley/pram/wheelchairs like a lethal weapon, diving for the last cut-priced cuts of meat and avoiding the zombie-like members of staff.

This is exactly why they stick the wine aisle at the end of the shop, so you’re driven to bulk buying booze just to recover from the experience.

Oh, and food shopping online isn’t much better. Nothing quite like ordering a food shop only for it all to arrive with a use by date for the next day.

Thankfully, supermarkets are no longer our only option. Obviously, there are your friendly local shops that you should definitely support. But there are a few more shopping options you might like to check out too..

The People’s Supermarket
This actually started out as a TV series a year or two ago, but I’ve noticed various versions of the concept springing up all over the place.

These supermarkets are run by communities with members each working a day or two a month. They’re designed to connect urban areas with local farmers. Members of the community decide what stock they want, which the supermarket then orders from local suppliers.

Membership costs vary. The official People’s Supermarket charges £25 a year (which gets you a 10% discount in store). Near me, in Reading, there’s a not-for-profit called True Food Co-Op which does pretty much the same thing and doesn’t charge for membership.

City Farms and Community Gardens

In response to the huge demand for allotments, dwindling garden spaces and an appreciation of the Slow Food way of life, City Farms and Community Gardens are popping up all over the place.

They offer communities the chance to get away from the city and grow some fresh, organic fruit and veg. And they also help empower communities and connect those who may otherwise feel detached. Plus they make the limited green spaces in the cities look beautiful.

Head to Farm Garden to find out where your local city farm or community garden is.

CarrotMob

CarrotMob is a concept that approaches businesses and encourages them to commit to a more eco-friendly way of working. If a business agrees, they have to submit a deal. The agreement might be something along the lines of “If 500 members of CarrotMob turn up and buy something, we’ll commit to spending 50% of the revenue on more eco-friendly machinery”

How Organized Consumer Purchasing Can Change Business from carrotmob on Vimeo.

I love this concept. Boycotting has a negative feel to it, but buycotting? This feels like a positive move where both parties stand to gain.

What alternative ways do you do your food shopping?

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What the Dorks want for Christmas 2011

Emma Cossey — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:00:28 +0000

Want to know what the Dorks want for Christmas this year?

Katie Lee: Dork Editor

Please may I have a Kobo and an E-One laser hair removal gadget? I had both of them in for review this year and they’re the things that have left the biggest hole since they went back. Also, I bought my friend the whole of The Guild to watch and I haven’t actually seen it myself. So I’d like someone to get me that, please.

Emma Cossey: Web dork

I’ve just bought a house, so all I seem to buy at the moment is dull house things. Therefore, I’d love some vouchers to splurge on clothes, Abel & Cole, Amazon and Boots. My other, more extravagant, want is an Apple Macbook Air , because my Dell is destined for that great laptop space in the sky.

Tamsin Worrad: Science dork

I would like:

Babyliss Big Hair style – I’m assured this will end my bad hair days forever. (Emma agrees, amazing hair styler)

Series 3 & 4 of The Big Bang Theory because I am way behind

‘How to live safely in a science fictional universe‘. I feel this could contain important advice

Star Trek Mr Potato Heads: they’re adorable!

Zachary Quinto. I KEEP asking and yet nobody is doing anything about it?

Imogen Hitchcock: Lifestyle Dork

2012 is going to be the year in which I find my inner domestic goddess and I start to do ‘stuff’ around the house. Therefore, dear Santa, I’d like the following in my stocking (please note, industrial size stocking may be required):

A Kitchen Aid mixer in blue willow: it’s so damn pretty!

A sewing machine and a stack load of books on how to use it. I used to do sewing at school but for the life of me, can’t remember where to start. However, I’d rather like to while away the winter months making clothes (or, probably in my case, making hideous monstrosities that I’ll be inordinately proud of)

Some Le Creuset. I’m sure it makes my cooking taste so much better.

I don’t ask for much, do I?

Nick Bryan: Film & TV dork

My big gadget purchase this year was the Kindle, I’d quite like some new books for it, but Santa (yes, alright, my mother) tells me that I am contractually obligated to get something to go under the tree. Still, I’ll finally be reading the Game of Thrones book in some form.

I’ve been meaning to catch up on the Powers graphic novel series by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming now they’ve made a TV pilot, there’s a non-Kindle book for the tree.

I might also get the first two series of Misfits on DVD because I miss Nathan. Yes, I’m a sap.

Now it’s your turn! What’s on your Christmas list?

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Three new social networks to watch

Emma Cossey — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:12:43 +0000

As the resident social media geek at Dork Adore, I tend to sign up for new social start ups faster than you can say ‘bandwagon’. This month, we’ve seen the launch of three more social networks that are set to take sharing to another level.

Have you tried them yet?

WIWT

WIWT (What I Wore Today) is the brainchild of UK-based web celeb PoppyD. It’s a similar service to US site, My Style Diary (now owned by Style Hive), creating a space where you can upload your daily outfit.

Simple, but very seductive to the Facebook Fashion generation.

The network has evolved from Poppy’s hugely popular site, where she challenged herself to upload her outfit every day for a year. Last week she launched the website as a social network, along with an iPhone app so people can snap and upload on the go.

So how does it make money? Well, aside from the ads on the site, the service also makes money from affiliate revenue. When people upload their outfits, they also add a link to the shop they bought it from. If someone clicks through to buy an outfit WIWT earns a commission.

If you’re on there, feel free to give me a follow. I’m the one that’s yet to get the ‘relaxed and cool’ pose right.

Forkly

So, you’ve uploaded a photo of your outfit before you go on a hot date, what now? If you’re eating out, you can take a snap of your dinner, upload it to Forkly, and tell everyone what you think.

This is another social network that’s evolved from the blogging community. Just as WIWT has been a huge success thanks to fashion bloggers, Forkly is rising up the iTunes charts thanks to food bloggers.

As well as reviewing the food you’re eating, you can also use it to help you find what to eat next. If you can’t choose what to order, just look up what people have recommended before.

Handy if you fancy trying something new.

You’ll need to sign in with your Twitter account, but it means you’ll be able to see what your twitter friends have eaten for dinner. The Daily Mail will have a field day.

Shareagift

Shareagift.com is a social shopping site for buying stuff for your friends. You create a gift page, invite your friends and they can then contribute their share. Shareagift does all the work for you from then on.

I could probably have done with this six months ago when I started organising a hen night, as chasing a group of people for money is a teeny little bit soul-destroying. Thankfully one of the functions of the service is to send automatic reminders.

The service covers all shops, so you can buy anything from an iPad to a honeymoon.

What social networks have you joined recently?

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Streetbank: The online community for meeting your real community

Emma Cossey — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:02:46 +0000

Ever had that situation where you’ve run out of sugar/eggs/rum/light bulbs and the local shops are closed

The next best thing is to pop round to your friendly neighbour and ask if you can borrow some of theirs, right?

The thing is, the good old days when everyone knew everyone and we all spent our days chatting to our neighbours over the garden fence have long gone (in fact, we think those days might be a myth).

Unless you’re very lucky, very gregarious, or very nosey, you’re unlikely to be bosom buddies with your neighbours. My mum may still know Maureen from four doors up is, as well as the names of all her grandchildren, but I couldn’t even tell you if my next door neighbour has grandchildren.

But, as with so many modern social ills, the internet wants to provide a solution…

Streetbank is the brain child of three guys, Ryan, Nick and Sam, who decided to expand on the idea of borrowing and lending from your neighbours.

Co-founder, Sam, discovered that asking to borrow things from the people in his community meant he got to know them better. And the better he got to know them, the more he started to like them.

After much discussion, the boys decided to utilise the internet to create an easy way for people to share things, skills and services in their community. Like a mutual Freecycle. They pooled their resources together, and Streetbank was born. Essentially, it’s an online community to help you to get to know your real life community.

Share, lend, give and teach

Does your neighbour share your TV taste?

I’ve been a member of Streetbank for a while now, and I’ve seen it grow from just one person in my community (erm, me) to 10 or 11. I can borrow everything from a pick axe to a box set of Six Feet Under (Not from the same person though. That would be creepy.) I could also pick up two armchairs, and learn how to tap dance — all for free.

The site really comes into its own in big cities like London though, where a bigger selection of people sign up so the products and services on often are more varied.

It’s really simple to sign-up , and there’s no requirement to offer anything big — a ladder or a DVD will do.

If you’re a new start up trying out a free service, there’s a potential here to build up a good name in the community. You don’t have to give it away for free either.

The concept is sustainable, fun and interesting — which makes Streetbank a pretty good online community.

Will you be lending your Buffy boxset to your local community?

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Five of the best magazine and book apps for the iPad

Emma Cossey — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:02:54 +0000

Love a read but don’t love lugging books and magazines around with you? Here are five of our favourite ways to catch up on your favourite book, magazine or website.

Kindle for iPad

I briefly considered getting a Kindle before I got my iPad, so the Kindle app (free) is the perfect compromise. You can download, buy and read books at the touch of a button, and it has a bunch of other features like bookmarking and search functions. The productive side of me likes to see the percentage of book read increase at the bottom of the page too.

The only thing I wish it included (that the Kindle itself does) is a text-to-speech function, so I can plug it in and listen to books in the car/bath.

iBooks

The iBooks app (free) is Apple’s native ebook reader. I tend to use iBooks to read PDFs easily and ebooks I’ve downloaded on my laptop, although it’s quite easy to download books from the iBook store too. So it’s great if you’re not already an Amazon customer.

I like the layout of the store, which mimics a bookshelf, and the ebooks themselves are designed to look like books too. Great for those of us who miss reading actual books.

It also comes with a bookmarking facility, and you can vary the brightness and text size.

Zinio

Thanks to Zinio (free), I’ve switched most of my magazine subscriptions from paper to digital. Zinio has a huge range of magazines you can download, either by issue or by subscribing.

If you choose the latter option, it’ll automatically download your latest issue when it’s out. It’s also got a great Explore section, where you can preview sections of new and old issues.

Oh, and if you miss your favourite magazine because you were on holiday, or didn’t get down to the newsagents fast enough, you can download a back issue through the app.

The only downside is you don’t get magazine freebies.

Zite

Zite (free) creates a magazine out of content it thinks you’ll like, and it gets more accurate the longer you use it. Add your Twitter and Google Reader account and it gets even smarter with the content it shows you.

I like the fact I can save content to my Read It Later account from within the app, give posts a thumbs up or down to show whether I want to see more of the same, and share content by email, Facebook and Twitter. You can also choose to filter your content by category, like Fashion or Food & Cooking.

Flipboard

Last, but by no means least, is Flipboard (free). It’s another personalised magazine app that is put together using your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Reader and Flickr. You can also save content to Read It Later and Instapaper.

This app is my absolute favourite for keeping up with my Google Reader, and it’s great for catching up on Instagram and my social feeds too. It’s also utterly beautiful to read. The content flips over like pages, and you can share, comment and read more from within the app. A must have for any iPad users.

Let us know what you’re using and we’ll take a look in our next round up.

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Create an infographic! Everyone’s doing it!

Katie — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:26:00 +0000

We’re not entirely sure when it happened, but it seems like the whole internet is busy creating infographics — those image-heavy stats ensembles that bring together all kinds of facts (or possibly “facts”) and place them into more attractive surroundings.

Emma wrote this handy guide to creating your own infographics, which we’ve reproduced here for your viewing pleasure.

Sadly, she didn’t do it as an infographic — she went Old Skool and “wrote” it.

I love a good infographic. It’s such an easy way to view a whole lot of information in one glance. And if you have the skills and knowledge to create your own infographic, it can be a wonderful way to get lots of traffic and awareness of your brand out there (especially if you get featured on sites like Mashable or Social Media Today).

Resources for creating your own infographic:

http://visual.ly/

Visual.ly is a brand new service that lets you create infographics without the need for extensive design knowledge. At the moment you can create a Twitter infographic of your activities, and a full service should be available soon.

http://creately.com/

Creately is a tool for creating simple diagrams and graphs as a base to your infographic. Additionally, it’s collaborative so you can create an infographic as a team effort.

http://www.wordle.net/

I love Wordle or using words to create a beautiful visual. Enter your chosen words and it’ll create a wordy visual. Even better, you can enter your blog url or Delicious username to create an infographic of your chosen content or tags.

Variations of this article originally appeared on It’s Open and EmmaCossey.com

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Dork Review: Morf, the domestic goddess of apps

Emma Cossey — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:10:21 +0000

This week, I’ve been testing out an iPhone app to help me with the cleaning. Stick with me here people, it’s not quite as dull as it sounds.

Morf is an app that helps you clean your Stuff using everyday household items.

Morf tells you how to:

Remove a broken lightbulb….with a potato
Get rid of rust….with an onion
Remove splinters…with Sellotape
Deter deer from your house…with a white sheet (always useful.)

Essentially it’s an app full of unusual ways to get things done, using stuff that’s already sitting in your cupboards. This means you use fewer chemical products, making it wonderfully eco-friendly. Plus, you get to involve potatoes in your life in a more enriched and meaningful way.

You can scroll through the wheel of products to see what can be done about an issue, use the search section, add your own Morf to the database or share a top tip on Twitter or Facebook.

It’s like a mobile version of How Clean Is Your House. Without the annoying Kim and Aggy aspect.

The Morf app is £1.79 to download, and works on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad.

Have you ever deterred deer from your house? Share your tips!

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Five things we love this week

Emma Cossey — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:37:20 +0000

This week, we’ve been bowled over by an adorable iPad app, geeked out on Google+, protected our gadgets with some quirky cases, got excited about a certain magical film and created our own infographics.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore

This is possibly the loveliest app I’ve ever downloaded on my iPad. It’s an interactive ebook based on an award-winning short film, and follows Mr Morris Lessmore as he falls into a world of flying books. If you’re a fan of Pixar shorts, you’ll adore this. Download it now and you’ll have one more thing to distract the kids with when the summer holidays kick in.

Here’s a little peek at what it has to offer:

Google+
Half of team Dork are now on Google+, after Rebecca and Wez’s excellent post about it last weekend. I’m particularly excited about the option to share content within certain circles, even if it does leave me the paranoia that I’m going to either a) post all my personal information to the wrong people or b) turn schizophrenic.

Case Mate
Case Mate sent me some great cases this week for my iPhone and iPad, including this Monsta Case (£12.99, Amazon) for my iPhone. They also sent me a lightweight cover for my iPad (£37.99, Amazon), which doubles up as a stand for watching video/lazy surfing.

Harry Potter

Obviously. The world and their mum are off to see the final Harry Potter movie this weekend. I’m hugely excited about seeing it after reading Anna’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – Dork Review. This has also led to us testing out the Kymera Magic Wand, which we’ll be reviewing for the blog next week.

Making our own Infographics

This week, we’ve wasted a fair amount of time making our own infographics. Visual.ly has the tools to help you make your own infographic based on your Twitter usage, and pit it against another user if you wish. In the future, you should be able to make your own infographics quite easily using the system too.

Here’s the Dork Adore infographic:

What things have you loved this week?

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Dork Adore » Life Dorkage

Groupon for hippies: Alternative group buying sites

Eco-friendly group-purchasing sites

More stories like this

Organisation Dorkage: Getting stuff done with WunderKit & WorkFlowy

WunderKit

WorkFlowy

More stories like this

Three alternative ways to do your shopping in 2012

More stories like this

What the Dorks want for Christmas 2011

More stories like this

Three new social networks to watch

More stories like this

Streetbank: The online community for meeting your real community

Share, lend, give and teach

More stories like this

Five of the best magazine and book apps for the iPad

More stories like this

Create an infographic! Everyone’s doing it!

Resources for creating your own infographic:

More stories like this

Dork Review: Morf, the domestic goddess of apps

More stories like this

Five things we love this week

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