PowToon: Superpowered Presentations!

They always say show don't tell, so I made a quick video using this week's website, PowToon. This is another website like Prezi or Slideshare that helps you make awesome presentations =D

I forgot to mention in the video that I made this totally free, and it let me share it to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ straight from their website.
P.S. The second thing you see should actually read, "Cuz they're awesome!!" not "Cuz their awesome!"

YPULSE: Youth and Millennial Marketing

Originally posted on Special Project Library Action Team's blog, but I figured I'd share my thoughts here as well =D

I’m all about stealing other people’s great ideas (which is why Creative Commons is such a great idea for me hehe). Now my boss (the awesome Karen Yother) likes to refer to it as “not reinventing the wheel,” and others comment, “that everyone remixes used ideas.” Either way, this week’s post is thanks to (the also awesome) Nick Grove, who mentioned YPULSE to me at our last quarterly SPLAT meeting.

YPULSE offers a wide range of resources aimed at understanding the trends and attitudes of tweens, teens, and young adults. Through a Youth Advisory Board, an online research panel, and a mobile social Q&A network, YPULSE offers content, data, and insight on the next generation of consumers. Now this kind of market research doesn’t come cheap, which is why the silver and gold subscriptions will cost you a pretty penny per month. But, they also have a bronze subscription (which only costs you an email subscription) that gets you a couple of features worth mentioning.

One such feature is the Daily Email Newsletter, that sums up the latest youth marketing news. The YPULSE infographics, articles, and detailed data are kept hidden for silver and gold members. But, there are many articles that reference third party sources you can check out at your convenience, and a small synopsis of each of the YPULSE features are still included to give you an idea. The Email Update also shows the results of a daily poll featuring questions on social media, music, and movies, and you can even ask one question of your own per month.

Now I’ve only been getting the YPULSE newsletter for a couple weeks now, but there have already been a few tidbits I’ve found interesting. Did you know that Sup is a new app wanting to duke it out with Snapchat, Push for Pizza is an app that will order you a pizza with one push on your screen, and that a writer for Vulture thinks Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles takes itself too seriously? Obviously these things aren’t library breaking revelations. But offering events and services for this age group is integral to continued library success and if someone is offering some free tidbits, my question is where do I sign up (and if you have any ideas worth stealing, which I know you do, feel free to send them my way!).

Flipster: When You Need a Free Magazine

I recently joined the modern era by getting myself a smart phone. *Gasp* "Nick, don't you know that those have been a necessity for, like, several years now?" Very true, and now that I have one, I'm never going back to a "dumb" phone hehe. I bring this up because there were a whole bunch of pre-loaded apps that came on my device, and I'm nervous to try many of them because I figure they are just previews of services that will very quickly want my credit card information.

Its a bummer, because some of them might actually offer some free content, but I don't want to risk it. But, I have some good news for those of you who are like me. The Community Library Network has just subscribed to an e-magazine service that comes at absolutely no cost to you now, or later. 

The service is called Flipster, and I just put the latest issue of Consumer Report onto our office's iPad with very little effort, and at no cost. "Now, Nick, didn't the library have a subscription to a service called Zinio that did the exact same thing? In fact, didn't you do a blog post about it?" Very true again. Our network has replaced our Zinio subscription with Flipster. But, many of the same titles are available on the Flipster platform, and the ease of use on Flipster is fantastic from what I've seen. 

Flipster lets you view current and past issues of magazines on your internet-connected computer or mobile device. Its as easy as having your library card and going to CommunityLibrary.Net/eStuff. If you have an iOS device (Android as well at the end of the summer), you can download the free app and download full magazines onto the app for offline viewing. 

So if those pre-loaded apps are looking a little spooky, but you'd still like some free content, try out your library's free e-magazine service and let me know what you think. 

3D Printing in the Cloud

                      
That kinda sorta sounds like an oxymoron. Isn't 3D Printing about manufacturing things one layer at a time? Isn't it about bringing your ideas into the real world? How can you do that in the cloud?

Well, you're right. You can't do that in the cloud. You are still going to need a 3D Printer sitting somewhere in your vicinity. But the whole design-a-model, get-your-design-to-the-printer, fiddle-with-your-settings, and control-your-printer part can be done through the cloud thanks to a fancy little device called Skyforge.

Skyforge is a combination of hardware and software that connects your 3D Printer to the cloud. Instead of using a USB connection to lash your computer to your printer, you can just pull a design from the cloud. Instead of having to go through multiple programs to get something print-ready, you can just use Skyforge's interface. Instead of needing to email a client about how much it will cost, you can just send them to Skyforge who will let them know itself.

Now, Skyforge isn't free. In fact, there are some young entrepreneurs that are asking for your support on their Kickstarter page. But, if you are an organization who wants to make their 3D Printer more user friendly, or an individual who does a lot of 3D Printing, Skyforge might be just what you were hoping would materialize.

5 Random Apps to Try

So I know I've mentioned Netted by the Webbys before, but they continue to do a fantastic job locating interesting things to try around the internet. Here are five apps/sites they mentioned recently that you might enjoy:

Quotery 
Discover famous quotes and start your own personalized collection.

Glide
Send and receive video messages instantly; watch whenever.

Coffitivity 
See if the sounds of your favorite coffee shop increase your creativity. 

Jauntful
Create sharable, printable guides to the cities you love.

Notegraphy
Craft your writing, style it through the app, share it with the world.

Cover: Context Sensitive Lock Screen

Typically speaking, I like to test drive a website or app before I write about it. But this one is super cool, and I have it on pretty good authority (TechCrunch, The Verge, engadget, and my buddy who has really enjoyed using it) that its worth checking out.

Cover uses context (like location, time of day, and what apps you use certain times) to tailor your lock screen with useful apps. The main idea is that it places different apps on your lock screen depending on when and where you are, and also learns what apps you use most frequently so they are easily accessible.

The other key element is speed and convenience. You can peek at an app by pulling it halfway across the screen, or open it all together by pulling all the way across the screen. Cover also makes it easier to switch between apps. If you hold down the upper right of the screen when an app is open, it gives you suggestions on apps typically switch to while having that app open.

P.S. This is one of those apps that is just for one platform, but instead of only being available for iOS, this is only available for Android. If that makes you happy, let me know. If that makes you sad, please take your complaints to Apple ;) jk, but please do let me know what you think!

P.S.S This app is still in Beta, but its fully functional at this point. 

Clipping Magic: 86 that Background!!

So we have a whole bunch of technology bringing you this Techno Tuesday today.

First, I heard about the website that I'm reviewing through Tekzilla. Tekzilla is a video podcast my Dad has recently gotten into. It features reviews on the newest gadgets and techy stuff.

Clipping Magic is the actual website I'm chatting about today. Clipping Magic is for those annoying pictures that have obnoxious backgrounds that just shouldn't be there. It would also work famously for doing green screen stuff. You basically put green marks on the elements you want to keep in the picture, red marks on the stuff you don't want, and the algorithm takes care of the fine print.

Lastly, Jing is a free screen capture software, and I used it to make the video I made to show off Clipping Magic. Check it out!!

P.S. As I mentioned in the video, if the foreground and background are similar colors, or there are complicated lines like human hair, Clipping Magic might have some difficulty. But, if its a simple foreground, background situation, Clipping Magic is quick and easy (and even if it is complicated, the algorithm takes a guess at what you're trying to cut out, and lends a kind helping hand).
 

3D Printing: Guess What We Just Got!?!?

At the beginning of last year, I put up a post about 3D Printing. Now, I'm so excited to say that the Community Library Network actually has a 3D Printer!!

As I mentioned in our Cardboard Robots post, the Community Library Network has been a part of a Makerspace pilot project with the Idaho Commission for Libraries. The final piece of this pilot was each library (or network) taking home a 3D Printer to call their own.

Now, there are a lot of different 3D Printer models, and there are also a ton of 3D Printer vendors. For our printers, the Commission decided to contract with an open-source building community called RepRap, and more specifically a Boise shop called the Reuseum.

RepRap is based on the idea of self-replicating manufacturing machines. So, each of our printers was hand-made, and many of the elements were actually printed on another 3D printer. Pretty cool, right?

Obviously there are multiple ways of manufacturing things using 3D Printers, and some of the industrial grade operate slightly different than ours. But, ours basically melts a plastic filament and then uses a nozzle to lay it back down layer after layer until a physical object is created.

Feel free to check out the video, or join us for our 3D Printer Demos we'll be doing to start off the new year =D

OneTimeBox: Share Files with No Account

Sometimes I think that I am a terrible Web 2.0 user. In a feigned attempt to protect my privacy, I don't let my browsers remember my passwords, and I don't have a dedicated device to call my own. For those reasons, if I want to send something on Dropbox, I have to remember my login. Now, that really isn't that big of a deal. But it is that one step that makes me wonder, could I just email this instead?

Now, Dropbox is legit, amazing, and works really, really well. But, sometimes you'd rather not sign-in, sign-up, or sync to get your file where you want it. Say hello to OneTimeBox. It's the concept of Dropbox or any other cloud storage sharing application, minus the login and account.

Go onto OneTimeBox, put up to 1GB of information into the box, and a link is created that you can share with anyone. Anyone you send it to also has the option to put more stuff into the box (which doesn't change the link), and the box will stay active for 1 week. Now, should you use this to backup your photo collection? Probably not. But, if you want to share something in a hurry, with no worry, this might be the answer.

Another cool thing about OneTimeBox is that it is open source, and operating under the MIT license. Just in case the concept of dropping your files into a random box scared you =D

Scratch: Build your Own Game, Story, or Animation

Similarly to last week's post, I got this idea from that Makerspace project I've been doing with the Idaho Commission for Libraries. One of my fellow Makerspace buddies mentioned a website called Scratch, and I had to check it out.

Basically, its another opportunity to teach kids to code in a sneaky way. Scratch is an online platform that allows kids, teens, and adults to create their own games, stories, or animations. Rather than using an HTML text editor, Scratch uses a visual system to let people code. Think of it like puzzle pieces that you add and attach together to make characters and backgrounds move and interact.

I made two projects a little while ago. Dance Party has some characters that move around, and When a Bird Flies lets you fly a bird toward a destination. Now, these seem super simple, but I don't have very much coding experience, so getting an avatar to do anything was an accomplishment for me lol. But, the cool thing is that Scratch can be used for the super simple, or the ridiculously complex. I even found a 2D version of Minecraft on Scratch!!

Another cool aspect of Scratch is that it lets you view how other people made their projects work, and then start to remix them. So not only does Scratch give you first-hand experience dealing with critical thinking and problem solving, it also lets you learn from what others have done. Scratch won't teach you C+ or anything, but its a simple, fun way to get some coding experience or to make your own game.
 

Zinio: Best Magazines, Digital Format

Typically speaking, I don't read a ton of magazines. Typically speaking again, the times that I do are when I'm waiting for an appointment to start, or when I have some time to kill at the library and my book is at home or something.

But, if those magazines that I browse through at the dentist's randomly showed up in my email's inbox, I might start to read them a little more lol. Basically, that is what Zinio has been doing for about 10 years apparently, and now the Community Library Network has got a subscription to their library service.

If you bounce over to our network's Zinio browsing page, you can see all the magazines that are free through our library's subscription. If you don't see one you're after, just let us know and we'll see if adding it might be an option.

When you find one you'd like, you can register with Zinio (with an email address, username, and password), and they'll notify you by email when a new issue comes out. Like the cool service that it is, your issues don't expire, and you can view them as often as you like. Another nice piece of this service is that you can either read it online or offline on your computer, iDevice, or Android. That means you can read it whenever you want to, wherever you want to, on whatever you want to.

So the next time you need Car and Driver, Billboard, or US Weekly, sign up with Zinio and get it for free!

SleepCycle and Sleep as Android: Bio-Alarm Clocks on your Device

So does anyone else out there not have enough time to sleep? Well, that probably isn't the right question. Does anyone else out there not allow themselves enough time to sleep?

How much sleep you decide to deprive yourself of is your prerogative, but there are two apps that seem like they might help people like you and me. SleepCycle is the version for iPhone, and Sleep as Android is the one for the Android. Basically, these apps use your devices' accelerometer to track and measure your sleep cycles.

Not a big deal, right? Except that it knows when you are in your lightest sleep phase, and slowly wakes you up with soothing sounds or tunes during that time so it is easier to wake up. You might ask, "If it is going off of sleep cycles, won't it wake me up too late?" Not so much. You tell the app the absolute latest that you can get up, and it will wake you in your lightest phase as close to that time as possible.

Now, I haven't tried this app myself (as I only have a dumb phone and a Walkman), but I mentioned it to a friend who said it totally worked (and who really enjoys the wake-up sounds). I figure that I'll give it a go once I have a smart device because I wouldn't mind softly drifting into the land of the living instead of being forcefully extracted from my beauty sleep.

Honest Trailers: (Not) The Only Website Keeping Movies Honest

So you know those blog posts about HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) and The Editing Room?? Those sites that makes fun of movies in such a way that we admit that our favorite movies have problems but we still don't get mad at the people making fun of them?? Well, I have another one for you:

Its called Honest Trailers, its put together by a YouTube team called Screen Junkies and its tagline is "Watch as your favorite horrible movies get reviewed, spoofed, and made fun of right before your very eyes."

The two that I watched were Star Trek and Independence Day (and now The Amazing Spider-Man as witnessed by my including it above), and all three were pretty hilarious. Now, we all know whats wrong with our favorite movies (which is why all three spoof sites have the same movies on them) but its still funny to admit it as you watch these trailers =D

Check em out!!

P.S. The only reason I chose Star Trek, Independence Day, and The Amazing Spider-Man to include in this post is because I really, really enjoy the movies, not because I actually dislike them. Just so we're clear.  

Freegal: Free, Legal Music from Your Library

Have you ever tried to find "free" music online? Typically, you have to sign up for something you don't want, pirate the music from somebody, or get a bunch of free viruses instead of free music. But, I have a solution for you, as long as you have a library card =D

The solution is called Freegal, and its short for free, legal music, and that is exactly what it is.

First of all, Freegal, gives you access to the music of over 10,000 labels, most prominently Sony Music. Now, that doesn't mean it will have every song you could possibly want, but it does have a lot of them. In fact, I'm typically impressed with the amount of songs they actually do have.

Second of all, the music is completely free of cost (unless you are the library entity paying for the service which we already have) and DRM (digital rights management or that annoying thing that won't let you put YOUR music on multiple computers). Each song comes in MP3 format, and is super easy to download.

The only catch included is that each library card only gets 3 downloads a week. But, 3 free songs a week with no DRM, no cost, and no worry about spam or viruses?? Sign me up!! And actually that is the other nice thing. The only login is your library card number, and nothing else. So if you don't have a library card, get one, and if you do have one, start getting your free music.

P.S. Freegal will only work for those patrons that have a CIN (Cooperative Information Network) card, which pretty much covers the majority of Northern Idaho. There are a lot of other library systems that have Freegal, so if you aren't in North Idaho, check out your library and see if they offer the service as well.

Fotor: Awesome Full-Feature Photo Editing for Free

As I might have mentioned before, Netted by the Webbys is pretty cool. I get a daily email from them with cool websites and things to try. Sometimes the stuff doesn't apply to me, and sometimes you can only get the cool stuff on devices I don't have. But sometimes, they mention something that I really want to try, and Fotor is one of them =D

As the name might imply, this is another photo editing system. But, the cool thing is that it is available for Windows, Windows 8, Mac, Android, iPhone, and is also absolutely free. Typically the free systems want you to sign up for an account, but I just loaded it for Windows and it didn't require any login. You can share your creations via social media, but Fotor says that it doesn't store your account information.

The other part that was cool about it is the comprehensive nature of the program. Some freebies want you to purchase the upgrade to get all the features, but Fotor seems to have everything you need absolutely free. I've just played with one photo (original on the left, Fotor version on the top), but I was impressed with the amount of things you could do.

In addition to the normal stuff like filters, frames, crop, straighten, and tilt, you can also do photo cards and collages. One other cool thing is the HDR (High Dynamic Range) feature. Basically, you take photos at different exposures and Fotor combines them into a photo that has the perfect exposure for those nasty shadows or over-exposed areas.

But don't take my word for it. Try it yourself...for free!!

National Poetry Month Website Fun!!

In addition to poetry games and activities, there are plenty of poetry things to do online as well. Two of them already have a blog post of their own (Wordle and Tagxedo), so I'm going to focus on two other sites that I found. 

Online Magnetic Poetry

Have you ever tried magnetic poetry? You have a bunch of words on tiny magnets and you string them together to make an artistic masterpiece? Well, this website lets you try that same concept without having to buy anything (except they mention a physical poetry could be yours if the price is right). You have the option of dragging countless words onto a digital magnet board and then emailing the creation to yourself or friends. Its cool!!

Poetry Mad Libs

Ever tried Mad Libs before? You have a story that is mostly written, just devoid of a few words. All you have to do is plug in some random words and read the story. The only catch is that you haven't read the story before you plug in the words, so it makes for some fantastically hilarious sentences. This website has a poetry mad lib section, along with some popular songs that can be sssooo funny!

Code.org: Why Don't We Learn To Code?

Code.org is an initiative to get more people aware of the importance of computer programming. The basic idea is that the ability to make a computer do what you want it to do, instead of just using what other people have got it to do, is very powerful.

In fact, there are more computer science jobs than there are students training for them. Because of that, computer science is a huge opportunity for our future. But, there aren't that many students, teachers, or schools that are aware of that fact. So, throw the creators of Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Dropbox, Valve, Zappos, and a couple celebrities in front of a camera, and you have the makings of a cool video and a cool initiative.

In addition to stats about computer jobs and the lack of people heading toward them, Code.org links to other sites that will start to teach you how to code. These links include Scratch, Codeacademy, Khan Academy, and CodeHS. Code.org also assembles some teacher resources for us.

If you'd like a better idea of what it is all about, you can check out the video =D

Infographics: Make Your Own!

Has anybody noticed that Infographics are everywhere? Now don't get me wrong. I love infographics. In fact, I have a Pinterest board full of them. But have you ever wondered what it would take to make one of those? Luckily easel.ly and infogr.am make it remarkably simple and free (if you set up an online account at no charge) =D

Easel.ly

From what I've seen, this program does a really nice job making visually and aethetically pleasing infographics. You can change the size and shape of the font, the graphics, and the clip art. While there are plenty of templates to choose from, you can also start from scratch.

Infogr.am

Instead of focusing on the visual side of an infographic, this site focuses on the data side. You can either enter data onto the website which will change the graphs and visuals it makes for you, or you can upload data from a document that will change the graphs as well. Pretty cool, no?

Now, I haven't had the time to make an infographic using these sites, but this video does a nice job of explaining and showing these services step-by-step. Thank you Kathy Ishazuka from TheDigitalShift for making it. Enjoy!

Booklamp: Like Pandora for Your Books

Anybody familiar with the Music Genome Project? How about Pandora? Basically, the Music Genome Project is the science that makes Pandora work. Experts take a look at over 450 different musical characteristics for each song that is in the MGP database, and this data is used by Pandora to find music that is right up your musical alley.

Well, what if I told you that the same kind of thing exists for books? Pretty cool, no? Booklamp is the front end of the Book Genome Project, just like Pandora is the front end for the Music Genome Project. The Book Genome Project takes a look at the language, story, and characters in a book, and turns them into information that can be used to find similar books to what you are already reading.

The Book Genome Project uses computer intelligence to come up with data points on a scene by scene basis. BGP calls this collection of data the BookDNA, and the BGP gives you book suggestions that are similar to the BookDNA of the book you are interested in, or let's you find books that are similar to a specific piece of the book you like.

For example, The Maze Runner by James Dashner has a huge chunk of Tunnels/Combined Spaces/Underground Environments in its StoryDNA, and Pacing is one of the higher points in the LanguageDNA. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has Partying/Deviance as one of its top points in StoryDNA, and Pacing is also one of the highest points in its LanguageDNA.

The Book Genome Project is adding new titles constantly, so see if your favorite books are on it and see if it works for you to find your next favorite book =D

Dafont/FontStruct: Find (or Make) the Perfect Font

So you're working on that flyer for your next event, and the fonts on your computer are lame, and
WordArt just won't do it this time. Well I've got some suggestions for your perusal.

Dafont

This site is an archive of freely downloadable fonts. You can search by alphabetical listing, style, author, popularity, or by what's new.  The only downside that I can find is the superfluous nature of the ads on the site.

If you are feeling inspired or are just awesome at font creation, you can submit your font for consideration, and they might add yours to the ones available.

FontStruct

So if the huge number of fonts on Dafont don't fit your fancy, you could use FontStruct to make your own font instead. FontStruct has an online builder that will then let you share and download your original font.

The basic concept of the builder is geometric shapes put into a grid pattern, which allows you a lot of freedom and creativity.

The beautiful thing about both of these sites is that they are free, and any of the fonts can be used on Windows or Mac.

So don't settle for the same lame font. Find or create a new one!