Tech Tuesday :: Instagram For Android

[trip style = any]

—————————————————– New here or faithful TS reader? Get daily trip style tips delivered right to your inbox or RSS reader, AND interact with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! ——————————————————

This is kind of a big deal. In 2011 we declared our love for Instagram, a photo editing and sharing tool with a massive early adopter buy-in {read: one million-plus downloads in three months}. Last week the online photo 'club' got a whole lot BIGGER. Previously only available for iPhones, the app just opened its membership to Android users too, AND as of yesterday afternoon, it was purchased by Facebook for $1-billion USD.

Think of Instagram like an all-photo Facebook, sans melodramatic status updates. Just pics that can be enhanced with 12 vintage-to-saturated filters and shared with your friends on Instagram, then pushed to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social sites.

How It Works After downloading the app, take a picture, apply a filter and share it with friends, fam and/or the world. At its core, the photo filters offered in the app are a lot like camera bag‘s {featured May 4th, 2010}, but Instagram takes it a step further and integrates heavy sharing capabilities like finding and following friends who are using the app {similar to fb & twitter}, sharing photos on major social networking sites and commenting on others’ photos. The app is as much about snapping photos near and far, as it is about sharing.

PS - Find Trip Styler {@tripstyler} on Instagram.

More Tech Tuesday A Nanny In The Clouds How To Make Animated Travel Photos Phoneography Google Traveler Tricks Book A Hotel Online With Expert Recommendations STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix

[photos via @tripstyler's instagram]

Tech Tuesday :: Informed Hotel Booking

[trip style = any]

————————————————– New here or faithful TS reader? Get daily trip style tips delivered right to your inbox or RSS reader, AND interact with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! —————————————————

One of the biggest travel time wasters is fretting over what hotel to book, getting stuck in research mode comparing features, price, location, etc.

Have you been there? I have, and it results in hotel decision paralysis. The worst case scenario---like shopping at the dual-winged multi-floor Macy's NYC---is you get overwhelmed by the options and give up.

Over the past year, Kayak's been working on a series of solutions for "hotel research purgatory", with the latest of three launching last Thursday. Now, when you research a hotel on Kayak, there are three hotel recommendation check boxes in the left column for filtering results by Trip Advisor reviews, Frommer's or Budget Travel picks. Check one box, or all three for super filtered results. {Trip Styler Tip :: As of Friday, March 9th, Kayak added Jetsetter and Travel+Leisure recommendations to above list as well.}

It's like having a friend or hotel expert from Frommer's or Budget Travel help you decide which hotel is the right fit for your trip style = ........

How It Works

1. Go to kayak.com and enter a destination and date range.
2. Once the results appear, click one of the hotel recommendation filters on the left column.
3. Search results are then filtered based on recommendations from your selection{s}---Frommer's, Budget Travel or 60,000 million+ Trip Advisor ratings---rendering a massive list of possible results, manageable AND informed.
4. Further constrain results by filtering price, stars, location and hotel brands.

Hotel research crisis averted.

More Tech Tuesday STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix Dashboard To Wall Hotel Tonight

[img via kayak]

Tech Tuesday :: Promo Codes

[trip style = any]

Notice how any time you check out online---be it for a flight, hotel stay or jacket purchase---there's a promo code input box?

It's a love/hate thing. I love these little blank boxes when I have a discount code to insert, and hate them when I'm checking out sans 10%, 20% or 30% discount. Urg, savings of what could have been.

The Solution Google to the rescue. For example, if you're about to click "buy" on an Air Canada flight to London and you see an empty promo code box; stop! Open a new window and Google "Air Canada promo codes." When I do this type of search , 60% of the time I score relevant promo codes through sites like RetailMeNot. The worst case scenario is the code you find and insert doesn't work. A for effort and only one minute of your day is lost!

Why Using promotional channels like website landing pages, email, Twitter and Facebook, airlines and hotels are always publishing semi-secret discount codes. Take 10 seconds to Google "<insert airline or hotel name here> promo code"  and you could save yourself a good chunk of change, especially if you're about to buy an international flight or multi-night hotel stay.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

—————————————————– New here or faithful TS reader? Get daily trip style tips delivered right to your inbox or RSS reader, and find and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! ——————————————————

More Tech Tuesday Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule {When to buy airline tix} Liftopia Dashboard To Wall Hotel Tonight

[img by @tripstyler]

Tech Tuesday :: Dashboard to Wall

[trip style = any]

{Editor’s Note: Have you entered to win a $200 credit to zozi, an online hub for local experiences in 63 cities in Canada and the US? Perfect as a Christmas gift for the person who has everything. Contest Ends Thursday!}

Today's tech tuesday is a double-whammy; a) a pretty cool December gift-giving idea, and b) an excellent way to convert travel memories into art.

The Prelude Earlier this year we wrote about Instagram, a iPhone photo editing and sharing tool that had one million downloads in three months {back in February} and has continued to explode in the ranks of Twitter and Facebook.

Yes, it's great to have thousands upon thousands of photos digitally, but in the words of Olivia Newton John and Pat Benatar "let's get physical" and "hit {the wall} with your best shot".

The Real Deal Now you can convert all your Instagram photos {or other digi shots} to wall art by going to canvaspop {a Canadian company!} and selecting the print from instagram link. In a few weeks, a personalized canvas in a 12" x 12" or 20" x 20" size featuring your stylized and insta-filtered photo{s} arrives at your doorstep {$30 - $60}.

If Instagram'ing isn't your thing, but capturing memories on canvas is, upload everything from digi cam pics to Facebook shots to canvaspop for small-to-big and single-to-triptyc photo artwork.

More Tech Tuesday Travelzoo App Fotopedia Hipmunk Gets Organized Urban Dig City Guide Travelstormer {Group Travel Planning} Virtual Shopping Get A Callback Google Flight Search Hotel Tonight Getting There Direct

[images via canvaspop]

Tech Tuesday :: Fotopedia

[trip style = any]

An image tells a thousand words, no? Preview the world from multiple angles.

Question What happens when you add a passionate traveler with the former Apple Apps CTO and a budding photographer?

Answer Fotopedia. The first collaborative, web-based, photographic encyclopedia---an upside down Wikipedia with more photos than words---compiled with user-generated photos sourced via seven different apps. Browse 27 shots of Machu Picchu's peaks and terraced land like you're there or 30,000 photos of UNESCO world heritage sites. Take a rare glimpse into North Korea via 117 blow-your- socks-off photography or gaze at 14 sequined and spicy costumes of Rio's Carnaval {just don't look at photo 7, it's a little too saucy}.

{Trip Styler Tip :: Foto fanatics, check out the site's daily magazine to browse sets like The City Of Angels, Venice Of The North or The Birthplace Of Jimi Hendrix.}

More Tech Tuesday Hipmunk Gets Organized Urban Dig City Guide Travelstormer {Group Travel Planning} Virtual Shopping Get A Callback Google Flight Search Hotel Tonight Getting There Direct

[image via Fotopedia website]