Appatic

Thirteen23 is a Startup focused on UI-UX geared .NET App development (most of the time) that works in WPF and Silverlight. I find their Apps to be quite interesting so i am reviewing my favorites. So don’t get surprised if you see some of its apps reviewed and quick viewed here.

The Webby Awards is a ceremony that honors the excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet (That is how the put it). Every year they give the awards and as they give one based on a jurors vote, they also usually give a award based on the people choice. This gives the ceremony the needed balance it needs so everyone is so-so happy with whatever gets awarded. This seems to work and the results is the highlighting of a bunch of individuals and these individuals content that other way a lot of people would miss and that happens to represent some of the good of what  happened in the web.

The Webby Awards Player is Silverlight 3 based app that counts with OOB (out of browser) mode enabled allowing you to install it to a desktop no matter if you are in Windows or Mac OS X. This player app carries all the awarded content from The Webby Awards 13 series or what it was considered some of the most relevant for 2008.

If you find that proposition interesting enough, then you only need to go to the Player App Page and you will instantly see a rectangle sized SL3 element loading up. 

Once it loads up it will show a little button/badge asking you to “run” the app. You only need to click it or right-click it in order to initialize it.

After you do that, it will give you an installation dialog like this one:

You can choose to only send it to your Start Menu app lists or to add a Desktop Icon. If you add the desktop icon, it will appear instantly once you install just by clicking OK:

As you click OK, the app will also launch instantly. And that is it, you have installed it and your are running it. it is a 10-15 seconds install and launch process.

As the app jumps at you, it will instantly load up in the Videos Section of the App. The entries are divided by award and by who choose the entry. Meaning either the webby jurors or the people as voted in the website of the webby awards. You will note that you only have a dial in a horizontal old TV/Radio tuner way.  At first it will load up by itself, but you can just grab it and browse as you like. You hold it with your cursor and let go for it to start playing.

The other section are the photos from the event in the red carpet, during the show and after party. Now the navigations is a simple photo thumbnail horizontal line with the same dial and you just pass them around at your pace.

I found the app very well put together, the only things lacking were that it didn’t had any kind of integrated controls for volume or play/stop and that it lacked Full Screen support. Unlike the TED Talks Player App.

That last part seems to have been intentional as the player can only size up and size down in a very small range. So i guess the idea was for it to be an embedded player first, widget-app second.

Why would you want this?

It is actually good content and it is already collected up in an easy and quick way to view. Consider it a packaged content channel. And since it is Silverlight 3 based. It uninstalls even faster than the time it took to install. To uninstall just right-click on it while its running and select “remove this application”. If you decide to leave it around, it will also be able to notify you or fully auto update depending if Thirteen23 decides to fully update it or just pass and deactivate it once the awards for 2009 have gone through. It is a good, simple and attractive player app for when you want to check out some good content from 2008 in case you have missed it or want to relive some of it.

The app can be used in Windows  (XP and newer) and in the Mac (Tiger and newer).

Linkage

The Webby Awards Player

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Is the name of one of my other blogs. A old running one where i have wrote 500 posts but that only 350+ got published and that it is about all things Blogger.com, Blogger and for Bloggers. However i also review services and apps there when they are of the interest of Bloggers.

And that is it in general. For that reason it is going to be crossing over in link over here and Appatic is going to crossover in links over there.

Content will be different in each site. So i am not talking about cross-pollination of posts.

http://Bloggeratto.blogspot.com

This post is severely outdated.

Bloggeratto is no longer active. Has not being active for 3 years and I am not going to continue it.

I was originally going to name this blog Addendix. But it read more as a note directory and it didn’t connected with what the blog was going to be about. This blog is about Software. App has become the default word for a program, service, widget and whatnot. Independently if it is in a Browser, Desktop, Mobile, TV or Game Console.

So after looking i was left wandering looking for something to register around the word App, and someone in Wikipedia and in Reddit confused the word Apathetic with Appatic when referring to a historical middle age figure. Then there was a comment that said something along the lines:

“That means he had a compulsion for apps? or that is not interesting in anything but apps?”

(The comment then followed on mocking the other user further. so no need to add that here)

I found that sarcastic remark perfectly defining that word that previously didn’t meant anything. Not the first time that happens in The Internet as that is precisely how languages get “tweaked” and new words get born now. The latest example being Pseudo New Media sputter a new word when referring to an addiction for apps as “Apping” because it went along good with the latest craze of “Sexting”. Which don´t really connects well to the intended meaning.

So i find that clever comment from a Redditor more on the mark, even if in an involuntary way. Than what someone in a newsroom thought as a clever way to associate something to an already sensationalistic  news story.

So Appatic it is. The fact on being it compulsory about apps or being someone not interested in nothing but apps should be left to further discussion.

(Not really)