A weather forecast website should be designed to make gloomy weather a bit palatable. The appropriately named Forecast.io ticks most of the boxes; including the one that says – elegance. Take the first look at its interface, and I am sure you will agree with me that good design matters. By the time we end this article, I hope you will agree that good design and easy-to-grasp weather data without dumbing it down, matters more.

If you do any form of writing on the web – as a developer, or as an author – it’s about time you became familiar with one of the more lightweight languages out there. Markdown is a simple markup language that’s easier than HTML. In fact, you can think of it as a big brother to plain text writing. Developers know all about it. It’s time, we simple writers became familiar with it.

Now, I presume it is easier to train yourself for a career in the movie arts. You could take the indie route and make documentaries for a start. The next Steven Spielberg is probably doing it right now. If you are as enthusiastic, what’s holding you back? You just have to tap into YouTube and join a digital filmmaking school for the price of a “free admission”.

If you are wondering what’s going viral across the U.S., YouTube has the answer fon its newly launched interactive trends map. The Trends Map tells you at a glance which YouTube videos are popular according to both shares and views, and includes a breakdown of popular YouTube videos by region and city. Or at least that’s the promise, as the map is currently only available for the U.S., but Google tells us to stay tuned for updates.

The RSS game is wide open. RSS aggregators are back in the feeding frenzy. But then, the tribe of feed readers was already there…we mostly had time for the king. Google Reader will be dead in a couple of months. Long live the King! Now, it’s time to look at the princelings. Reading the feeds we subscribe to is a pretty basic day-to-day activity, and you can bet there are enough Chrome extensions for that.

I am sure you know that creating rhyming poems – though high on the cheesy scale – has its uses. From birthday cards to classroom assignments, from Valentine endearments to Facebook status updates, rhyming words to make a poem is an “in-demand” art form. I reckon that if aspiring poets can have their poetry apps and poetry get-togethers on the web, we amateurs can do with a bit of rhyming help.

The mention of version control or revision control makes it seem like something for geeks. You will be surprised to know that version control systems have their place not only in academic writing but in anything that has to do with typing an alphabet on a document. As writers, we know the word draft. But draft is a mere rough sketch and it doesn’t actually take us back in time to the incremental changes we make.

Google added a small but potentially significant update to its Google+ Hangouts: a remote desktop feature. Similar to Skype’s desktop-sharing feature, Google+ remote desktop lets you remotely control and view another person’s computer while chatting away, assuming you get that person’s permission, of course.

A new Instagram update for Android and iOS brings a new feature that lets you people in your tag your Instagram photos. The new Photos of You Instagram feature allows only the photo taker to tag a photo, and not everyone the photo is shared with. You can tag not only your friends, but any Instagram account, social hangouts like coffee shops, or even a pet.

The face of search could change once again with Google’s new “app activities” in Google Search. From now on, any app or website that allows its users to use Google+ sign-in, would be able to showcase what’s popular with its users alongside its Google search results. Searching for Fandango, for example, will automatically show the top movies among Google users.

Fork the Cookbook is an unusual take on the idea of a cooking application. It is the Github for recipes with “version control”. With Fork the Cookbook, it is all about the evolution of food – how you can adapt, change, modify, or tweak every time to come up with interesting variations. It makes the cooking (and sharing) experience a bit easier.

Comedy Central and Twitter kicked off #ComedyFest, an experimental fest of high hilarity and general fun. Mel Brooks launched the live streaming event with a tweet yesterday, and will be among the 68 comedic stars participating in the event that will run simultaneously on Twitter, Vine, and Comedy Central’s own site till May 3rd. Q&A sessions, roasts, live-tweeting stand-up specials, and favorite funny films will fill up the 20 events.

Instant Previews was a search enhancement launched three years back that gave you a sneak peek into Google search results with tiny thumbnails. The visual page snapshot helped us to get a glimpse of what the page was about before we decided to click on the address and go to the page. Let’s deal with fact that Google Instant Preview has been dropped from Google’s scheme of things.

Sites like Twitter are not soft targets. Twitter has even implemented security protocols like DMARC for stronger phishing protection. But even as I write this, news has come in of a hijacked Associated Press Twitter account being used to broadcast false update of an attack on the White House. The Stock Market nosedived. Twitter will beef up its defenses. We, the users are part of those fortifications. Usually, we are its weakest link too.

If the heat gets too bothersome this summer, or if winter just refuses to leave, head indoors to relax with a laugh. YouTube Comedy Week is coming to a browser near you on May 19 and will last until May 25. The week long special event will see some of the biggest names in comedy showcasing their jokes and wisecracks in a never-ending stream of stand-up, sketches, and musical performances.