With Slice Bookshelf, you can easily track the books you’re purchasing and reading, discover your friends’ recommendations, and swap books with others!

For those of you who are as hungry for new books as I am, Slice Bookshelf is a new social tool you should check out. This platform allows you to discover new reads and share your favorites with friends–and you can even swap books with other users to get great new books to read for free.

The makers of Slice Bookshelf call it a “social reading experience.” To sign up, simply log in with Facebook and Slice Bookshelf will automatically build your library from books you’ve liked. You can also import your lists directly from Goodreads. What sets Slice Bookshelf apart is that it’s less about curating your own history and more about discovering brand new books that fit your tastes. If you give Slice access to your email, it will automatically add all your book purchases, instead of you having to manually tell the platform what books you’ve recently purchased.

This feature is no surprise when you look at the parent company’s main shopping app, which has a similar feature. By using Slice, you can track your online purchases in one place instead of constantly digging through your email to look for shipping tracking numbers, receipts, and more. Slice Bookshelf is simply the book extension of this tool.

When you see a book that looks interesting on Slice Bookshelf, click the title to view more information about it, including a description and its rating on Google. You can also rate the book yourself, mark it as a book you want to read in the future, or add it to one of your bookshelves, and users have the ability to leave a review directly on Slice Bookshelf for their friends to read.

Another interesting feature of Slice Bookshelf is that if one of your friends owns the book, a button will show up on the book’s profile page that allows you to request to borrow it. If none of your friends own it, you can also click a button to purchase it on Amazon.

“A great book stays with us long after we turn the last page, and the experience is made even better by sharing with friends,” said Scott Brady, CEO and co-founder of Slice. “We built Bookshelf with social connections at the core, so recommendations come from the people you know and trust.”

To learn more about Slice Bookshelf, check out the their recent press release.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Click & Grow smart garden technology makes it easy to grow herbs and flowers indoors with very minimal effort on your part.

The idea of a “smart” garden is super attractive to me. I’ll be the first to admit that my thumb is closer to black than it is to green. Last year, in my attempts to grow some herbs for my kitchen, I killed mint. Yes, mint. For those of you out there who are not gardeners, mint is invasive, like a weed, and nearly impossible to kill. I found a way.

Yet, I do like fresh herbs and vegetables, so I’ve been looking for a solution to my natural plant-killing tendencies. A Click & Grow Smart Garden might be just what I need!

Click & Grow uses a specially engineered “growth medium” instead of normal potting soil. This nanotech material is engineered to give plant roots the access to the right amounts of nutrients, water, and oxygen. You just fill the reservoir with water and the garden will do the rest. The new Smart Herb Garden version, which was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter, also has a special LED growing light that looks natural and uses only six watts of energy, which means that your new garden only takes about $5 to run for an entire year. The older Click & Grow gardens, currently available on their website, use four AA batteries.

Click & Grow starter kits currently sell for $79 and you can choose from basil, chili pepper, cockscomb, or mini tomatoes. You can get refill cartridges for any of these plants, or for several other types of flowers or herbs. Refills cost $20 each. The new herb garden grows three plants at a time, and these smaller cartridges are projected to cost $5 to $15 each (under $10 on average).

A pretty cool feature beyond growing the plants is that you can activate your Click & Grow Smart Garden online to track your growth. They’ll send you tips on keeping your garden happy and add you to the map of gardeners around the world using Click & Grow.

This seems like a great solution for anyone lacking a patch of soil or outdoor space for potted plants, and as they point out on their Kickstarter page, Click & Grow is also perfect for people who travel or get too busy to worry about watering plants. It seems like it would be extremely hard to unintentionally kill your Click & Grow garden, even if you’re the worst gardener in the world.

I enjoy a challenge.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Skydog is a new router and mobile app allowing you to optimize Internet performance and monitor how your family is spending time online.

Want to take back control of your family’s Internet usage? Check out the successfully-funded Kickstarter project Skydog.

Skydog is a new router and moblie app from PowerCloud Systems that allows you to see who is using the Internet and how. By using the mobile app, you can set up an alerts system, which is perfect for parents who want to ensure that their kids aren’t spending too much time online. Skydog can also help you analyze Internet performance so you can better handle problems as they arise.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with Skydog:

• Set time limits for social media, gaming, and other activies
• Block content that is inappropriate for your kids
• Schedule time for educational Internet use and time for entertainment use
• Optimize performance for gaming
• View the sites your kids are visiting
• Receive alerts if someone new connects to your Internet

You can set up Skydog so it doesn’t just alert you, but it can also alert other members of your family as well. So, if your child hits his or her gaming limit, you can have Skydog send them a warning to stop playing on Facebook and start studying.

Because lots of kids, especially teens, now have their own smartphones and tablets, it’s nice to see exactly what sites they’re surfing when you might otherwise not even know they are connected to the Internet. Exactly what is your 15-year-old looking at from his iPhone at 2 AM?

I like the idea of Skydog from a security standpoint as well. Because you can see exactly who is connected to your Internet, it’s easy to see if there are any unauthorized users and give them the boot.

Also, I find it pretty great that you can optimize your Internet for the most important activities. I work from home and it can be frustrating if someone else is watching a movie on Netflix while I’m trying to upload something for work and I’m slowed down. With Skydog, I can schedule time when the Internet is optimized for me, so I can get work done faster even if others are also connected. The Skydog community is also a great place to ask questions if you’re a not familiar with optimizing your Internet.

Skydog was successfully funded in mid-May via Kickstarter and will be available later this year. Will you be looking into this option for your home?

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

The 3Doodler is the first 3D printing pen in the world, making 3D printing affordable from the comfort of your own home for the first time.

3D printing technology has possible applications in just about every industry, from fashion to healthcare to automotive. But what if you could, in an affordable way, print your 3D creations from the comfort of your own home, much like we can print text documents or images now?

The first step in making personal at-home 3D printing affordable for consumers is here: 3Doodler, a cool new 3D printing pen from WobbleWorks.

As opposed to other 3D printing machines that are currently available, like the $2,000-priced MakerBot Replicator, the 3Doodler will be available for just $75. You aren’t going to get the precise, complex results with this pen that you would with a high-priced printer or a service like Shapeways, but the 3Doodler is just downright cool. Check it out in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQWyhezIze4

The masterminds behind 3Doodler are Peter Dilworth and Max Bogue, who previously worked primarily on robotics projects, such as Butch the Dino. The project launched on Kickstarter with a goal of $30,000, which was reached quickly. The 3Doodler went on to raise over $2.4 million from over 26,000 backers, including 1053 who donated the minimum $1 amount just to be a part of the project, even though a pledge of $50 – $75 is required to receive a pen.

The 3Doodler uses 3mm ABS or PLA plastic as “ink” and although 1kg spools cost $30 to $55, a little plastic goes a long way with this pen. You can expect to get about 11 feet of doodling out of just 1 foot of plastic. You can also buy smaller $5.99 bags of plastic directly from the company, which is great if you want to try out lots of different colors. Right now, there’s only one pen tip available, but WobbleWorks plans to introduce more sizes in the future. Worried about wasting plastic while you get the hang of it? Don’t lose too much sleep over it; the pen has a slow speed for beginners and more complex doodles and any plastic is recyclable anywhere that takes number 7 plastic.

The possibilities with 3Doodler are limited only by your creativity. You can trace designs and pick them up right off the paper, create designs out of thin air, or even use the pen to fix broken plastic items, sort of like welding.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

The Barman is a new device for your home bar that makes pouring your favorite drinks, even complicated recipes, easy.

If you’re anything like me, you like hosting people at your house more than you like going out to the bar. The problem? Unless one of your guests is an experienced bartender the drinks are always either sub-par or require a lot of tedious measuring to make. Now, the Barman is available to help us homebodies pour the perfect drink every time. This project was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter and adds a little high-tech fun to any home bar!

Says the makers of this nifty device and companion mobile app,

“Everyone wants to be able to mix great drinks quickly, easily, and precisely the way they like it. Whipping out a large recipe book and measuring shots with jiggers is a pain. You have to look at the recipe, hold the jigger in one hand, the bottle in the other, trying not to over-pour, then look back at your recipe, and so on… It’s not an easy task.

The idea for the Barman came to me in 2007 while struggling to make the perfect Long Island Ice Tea for my wife. I thought, there has to be a better way to easily mix drinks accurately.”

To use the Barman, simply set your glass on the device, choose your favorite drink, select the size you’re making, and follow the pouring directions. As you pour, there’s a status bar that shows you how much you have left to go and the drink is lit up with a green light. The Barman will alert you when to stop pouring each component of your drink for the perfectly mixed cocktail by telling you to stop on the screen and by turning red. Like your drinks a bit stronger than normal? Want to customize your own mix? You can do that too, and program the Barman to remember your drink so you can make it again in the future!

When you make a new drink, you can also share it with your friends. So, if they also have the Barman app, they can download your recipe and make the drink at home too.

Another great feature of the Barman is that you can tell it what you have in the house and it will display a list of drinks you can make. If you don’t feel like running to the store for supplies, this is a great option.

Is the Barman a must-have device for your home? Maybe not, but it certainly is fun! And at the Kickstarter price point of just $49 (or $59 is you want four liquid pourers as well), you really can’t go wrong.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

StoryPress is a new mobile app that makes it easy to record, save, and share your life story via a recorded diary or prompted interviews.

When someone passes away, so much personal and family history is lost. StoryPress is a new app that hopes to combat this problem. By recording your story with this easy-to-use tool, you can capture that special spoken history for future generations.

You don’t have to be tech-savvy to use story app. The process is very simple – just download the app and start recording as prompted by the app itself. Because this tool is so easy to use, it is perfect for older members of your family who may not be comfortable with most recording options out there. When you’re done telling your story, it is automatically saved to the cloud, which can be shared with friends and family.

What I like most about StoryPress is that you don’t have to be worried about having nothing to say. You can record a personal diary if you’re feeling chatty, but if you tend to clam up when you hit the record button (like I do), you can instead go through one of the prompts. StoryPress will ask you questions, and you simply answer them. It’s an easier way to record memories than sitting down and being pressured to just start talking.

You can also create interviews of your own and have friends and family answer your questions. Because everything is stored in the cloud, you don’t have to be in the same room to work with your loved ones to record stories. Just create your interview questions and send them off to your interviewee of choice to be answered at their convenience. This would be a fantastic tool for creating a special gift for someone when celebrating a milestone achievement. For example, imagine asking family members to record memories of a child that is then given to that child when they graduate. Or image friends sharing memories of a couple that you compile to be a wedding gift. Get creative!

StoryPress also makes it easy to share your recordings. They can be private, for just your closest friends or family members, or you can broadcast them on Twitter and Facebook.

As the makers of this app say, “A voice, unlike anything else, has the power to bring a story to life.” Long after a loved one is gone, these recordings can help you feel like they are still alive. Someday, your great-great-great grandchildren could hear your voice talking about your life, even though you aren’t around anymore to tell stories in person. This app has the potential to be extremely powerful for your family, so check it out.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Give Your Calories is a new app from Action Against Hunger that allows you to “donate” your calories to help end world hunger.

“Clean your plate! There are kids starving in Africa!”

I had a teacher in elementary school who was fond of yelling that whenever we didn’t eat our vegetables during lunchtime, and it never made much sense to me. It wasn’t like she was going to wrap up my leftovers and ship them to malnourished children in third-world countries! But as I got older, I realized that what she really meant is that we should appreciate what we have.

Now, there’s an app for that. (Come on, are you really surprised?)

Give Your Calories is a new app that allows you to donate your calories to people who actually need them. The concept is simple: take a picture of your food, and the app uses image recognition and a barcode scanner to calculate the calories you’ll be consuming. Then, it converts those calories into a donation amount, which you can choose to give via PayPal to the charity Action Against Hunger. You can manually add any snack or meal you photograph that isn’t recognized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjIHG2VBJ5g

The app recommends a donation of $1 for snacks that contain fewer than 200 calories, $2 for snacks up to 300 calories, and $5 for snacks up to 400 calories. For every 100 calories you consume past 400, the app adds another dollar.

Action Against Hunger has an A grade from CharityWatch and has four stars from Charity Navigator. They have 4,600+ field staff workers in over 40 countries around the world. Your donations go toward programs to treat and prevent malnutrition, provide access to safe water, respond to emergencies, provide long-time solutions to farmers in struggling communities, and more.

Give Your Calories is also a way to open your eyes about the foods you eat. Often, we don’t realize how many calories we’re eating, So, if you’re struggling with a diet or trying to eat healthier foods, Give Your Calories is a great options. You might think twice about ordering dessert if you have to not only pay for it, but also donate money!

To date, nearly 200,000 calories have been “donated” world-wide. You can get Give Your Calories now for iPhone, and Action Against Hunger is working on an Android version as well.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

FixMeUp is a new dating/matchmaking application for Facebook that utilizes the connections and the relationships that you already have to help you make the new ones that you want.

By now, you or someone you know has tried an online dating service – and let’s all be honest, it’s a pretty strange scene. From being propositioned by strangers behind murky images to trying in vain to pull off a three-line text-message pick-up, the online dating market has been in chaos, with more disappointments and failures than successes. Many of these sites boil dating down to a virtual people auction that often leaves users feeling vulnerable, confused, and disconnected – and a little more lonely than when they started.

But now, there’s a new option: FixMeUp, a dating/matchmaking application for Facebook! Everyone loves to try to set their friends up, and who better to help you pick your next date than a mutual friend? FixMeUp utilizes the connections and the relationships that you already have to help you make the new ones that you want.

There’s been a lot of talk about the power of Facebook’s “Second Circle of Friends,” which has been used successfully by advertisers and other professional networks. FixMeUp proposes, “Why not use these circles for a truly worthwhile cause, like finding love?”

FixMeUp’s solution, just like in real life, is to get people together through matchmakers – and who better for this role than your friends who actually know you? Inside the application, the user is invited to choose if he or she wants to be a “Dater”, a “Cupid” (i.e. a matchmaker), or both.  From this moment on, the games begin. Through FixMeUp, the search for love online can be social and entertaining, while keeping the search honest and real so that you can find something real. A proposed match can come from either the Daters themselves or from the Cupids. If you want to be set up with someone, you just need a mutual friend, and, as you probably know from experience, this makes your chances of success much, much higher.

There is even a bit of an incentive system in place. The more people that you fix up as a Cupid, the better your reputation and you’ll gain recognition for being a great Cupid and a good friend.

As a Dater in FixMeUp you get the opportunity to get to know your friends’ friends by browsing through your “Second Circle of Friends” on Facebook. That way: (1) you already have a friend in common, (2) you can ask your friend to make the introduction and recommend you, and (3) you’re both vetted! No more spinning roulette with “sick-o’s”, “weird-o’s” or “lame-o’s” – unless, you know… you’re into that sort of thing (no judgements, just leave a comment below and I’ll friend you on Facebook )

There is a great video that explains the concept below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVVsb5-3IHc

And be sure to get the app via Facebook here: FixMeUp App - and fix up your next date today!

Andrew Garde Joia is a freelance writer, business consultant, and web design professional. Actively involved in the New York Startup Technology scene, he is a regular volunteer with Ultralight Startups NYC and is the Managing Director for Customer Relations at Bedphones – The Headphones Designed for Sleep. To find out more about Andrew, visit his About.Me.

If your goal is becoming a world-wide famous poet, perhaps you need to dream bigger. How about becoming a famous intergalactic poet instead?

NASA is currently seeking poetry to send to Mars as part of a campaign to raise awareness for their Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft launch, scheduled for November. Specifically, they’re looking for haiku submissions, and the three winners will be included on a DVD that is sent to the red planet. The names of everyone who submits an entry will also be included on the DVD.

The contest is open to anyone over the age of 18 who submits a haiku (in English). The deadline for entry is July 1, and after submissions are collected, the public will be invited to vote for their favorites.

You can submit your haiku here.

MAVEN’s primary role is to study Mars to learn more about how its climate evolved. As of now, scientists believe that Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere, given the features that resemble riverbeds seem to indicate that the planet was once warm enough to be home to flowing water. MAVEN will answer questions about loss of atmospheric gases over time.

The Going to Mars Campaign is coordinated by the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Once you submit your haiku, you have the option of printing a “certificate of appreciation” to commemorate your contribution to the project. MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky from the University of Colorado says he hopes this will help get the next generation excited about science.

You can read more about MAVEN and the Going to Mars Campaign on NASA’s website.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

Appy Couple is a wedding app that allows you to connect with your guests to invite them to events and easily distribute details about the big day.

Planning upcoming nuptials? Check out the Appy Couple wedding app. This is an all-in-one solution for sharing all of your wedding info with your guests. Instead of signing up for several services (I hate that, don’t you?), you can take care of everything with one single wedding app.

To get started, simply register for an account at appycouple.com and choose a design that fits your style. There’s a one-time fee of $28 to sign up, but this price gives you access to all of the designs available, allows you to add an unlimited number of guests, and more. Once the app launches premium accounts, you’ll also be upgraded automatically instead of having to pay a higher fee in the future.

So what can you do with Appy Couple?

When you sign up, you’ll first be prompted to create a wedding website and mobile site at the same time by uploading details about your story. How did you meet? When did you know it was love? What was the proposal like? Who’s in the bridal party? Add as many details as you want.

Next, you can upload all the information your guests need about your wedding day and other events, like the engagement party or rehearsal dinner. Give guests suggestions on where to stay, what to wear, and everything else they need to get involved. Once you invite guests via the app, they’ll see information for just the wedding day or for other events as well; you get to control each person’s access to details based on what they’re invited to attend.

Guests can also upload pictures of their own to help tell your story. You have ultimate say on what is shared publicly, but it’s a great way to add to your albums even if you and your husband (or wife)-to-be don’t take a lot of pictures. Guests can also interact with one another by starting conversations and adding comments. There are even mini games and virtual toast options. It’s like a mini social network just for your big day.

There are countless other features also available through Appy Couple.

• Allow your guests to digitally RSVP.
• Display your up-to-date gift registry.
• List meal options and dress code.
• Include directions to your venue.
• Poll your guests when you’re making a wedding decision.
• Help your guests find child care.
• Show the weather prediction for the big day.

Appy Couple works on just about any connected device out there. There are iOS and Android apps for download, and guests without smart phones and tablets can visit your website as well. Additionally, you have the option to connect with Twitter and Facebook for sharing news, and guests can get updates via email if they so choose.

You can also kick things up a notch and order print invitation that match your Appy Couple site, and on the day of your wedding, guests can continue uploading pictures and comments that you’ll be able to keep forever. It’s definitely an upgrade to putting disposable cameras on the tables (no one uses them anyway!), and it makes sharing all of the information for your wedding so much easier. The price tag on this wedding tool is definitely worth it, with all of the great features, and I’m looking forward to seeing what other features they plan to integrate with future premium accounts.

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Allison Boyer is the Online Education Coordinator for NMX University, where you can learn more about blogging, podcasting, web TV, and social business. She also runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.