Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Mashable comes up with a list of seven tools for editing images online.

1. A.viary Phoenix
2. FlauntR.com
3. FotoFlexer.com
4. Lunapic.com
5. Phixr.com
6. Picnik.com
7. Splashup.com

For all of you Mac aficionados out there, here’s a phenomenal list of the top 100 Mac applications.

via Social Media

Facebook Applications such as Likeness, iLike, Scrabulous, and LOLCats have been all the rage since Facebook opened its developer platform in May of this year. Facebook Apps have accounted for a 37% increase in activity among Facebook members between May and August.

This growth spurt did not go unnoticed amongst other major social sites such as MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn and Meebo who have recently announced that they would open their own developer platforms.

Meanwhile Google hasn’t missed a beat, planning their own OpenSocial initiative which will enable the creation of a common set of APIs which can be used to build third-party applications for use across multiple social networks. Using the OpenSocial platform, developers can create one application which is compatible with any social network which has joined the initiative. What makes this even bigger news is the list of heavyweights who are already allying themselves with the coalition. According to an early press release report from TechCrunch, social networks who are joining OpenSocial include: MySpace, Bebo, Six Apart, LinkedIn, Ning, Orkut, Salesforce, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, among others.

Here is a screenshot of the Flixster application on the Ning Ask a Ninja social network:

Click for full image.

Other coverage of this story:

New York Times: Google and Friends to Gang Up on Facebook
TechCrunch: Checkmate? MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)
TechCrunch: Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday
Marc Andreessen (Ning founder): Open Social: screencast and screenshots

Have an upcoming speaking engagement? Want to make that PowerPoint presentation a bit more interesting? Check out some of these ideas to liven up your presentations.

	1. Learn from the Popular See what works by watching some of the all-time most popular presentations on Slideshare.net. Pick up pointers for improving your presentations by viewing Meet Henry, Death by PowerPoint, and Shift Happens. Also, I picked up many great presentation tips while watching a couple stellar presentations by Kathryn Greenhill and Judy O’Connell.
	2. Get Expert Advice The Presentation Zen blog and the related website are chock full of presentation advice, guidelines, and examples for creating professional PowerPoint presentations. Other sources of advice include presentation tips articles by experts such as: Guy Kawasaki, How to Get a Standing Ovation, Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users, Better Beginnings: how to start a presentation, book, article…, and Common Craft’s 10 Lessons from My Speaking Coach
	3. Add Charts Bestselling author and marketing guru, Seth Godin provides professional tips and advice about creating effective charts in his blog post How to make a PowerPoint chart.
	4. Use Images Image Generators Add a bit of imagery to PowerPoint slides with image generators such as the Txt2Pic website which lets you easily create custom images with your own text and font specifications. Choose from chalkboard signs, post-it notes, theater marquees, Etch-A-Sketch toys, fortune cookies and more. Just enter your text into one of the hundreds of tools on this website.
	The Custom Sign Generator offers users the choice to create custom Monopoly cards, arcade games, For Dummies book covers, and more.
	Create custom comic strip images with stills from Shrek, Harry Potter, The Simpsons, and many others with The Comic Strip Generator which offers over 1,500 comics to choose from.
	Find out about new image generators as they are announced on the Generator Blog.
	Professional Images Add some flavor to your presentation by inserting a relevant comic, illustration, or photo. The folks over at Blaugh.com have made their tech-oriented comics available for use by the public, even issuing an API! Check out this list for places to find free stock photos, and also make use of the Creative Commons license search available on Flickr to find images which are available for reuse.
	Image Caption Tools Prepare your photos with speech captions, thought bubbles, text, or objects before adding them to your slides with tools such as Graphita which also allows doodling on images. There are many tools available which will let you add speech bubbles to photos such as Bubbleshare and Bubblr.

Senior Research Specialist Mary Madden at the Pew Internet & American Life Project has posted her presentation given at the recent Northeast Kansas Library System which talks about teen technology users and libraries.

The presentation is packed with informative and sometimes surprising statistics about new media usage, behavior, and expectations of teens.

Teens, Libraries and Web 2.0:Snapshots from a new media landscape.

Hey everyone!  I am very excited to be continuing this innovative blog on Library 2.0.  I have some pretty big shoes to fill as Judy really did a bang-up job.  I hope that all of you will hang out as I hope to bring you the latest and greatest in both Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 news, research, and opinion here at iLibrarian.  I hope you’ll all join in the conversation with comments, and please feel free to contact me with suggestions, news items, or just to say hello.

Change is afoot at iLibrarian…….with a new blogger coming on the scene soon to share news and resources on Library 2.0 and the information revolution.

Ellyssa Kroski is a Reference Librarian for Columbia University as well as an independent Information Consultant. Elyssa brings a comprehensive range of knowledge and skills to iLibrarian, and she is know globally for her valuable and information-rich blog InfoTangle.

Be sure to follow Ellyssa’s thoughts right here at iLibrarian ….. and spread the word! I know I will, and look forward to the extra ideas to help my blogging at HeyJude.

By the way, big smiles to all the readers who helped to get iLibrarian underway.

Web 2.0 is on everyone’s lips. It isn’t really necessary anymore to explain it, there are a lot of more or less compact definitions.

This development redefines the position of libraries in the information society. Libraries are no longer just mediators of information literacy but also of media literacy. As a result they have to deal with technical innovations and their influences on the daily librarian affairs and they have to rise to the new challenges.

This is just why Infobib team used the World Book and Copyright Day as an opportunity to start an experiment - LibWorld.

The idea was to call bloggers from all over the world to give a review about the biblioblogosphere in their country and to post these guest articles in regular intervals at Infobib.

Libworld is a series of postings in which guest authors introduce the library and library related blogs of their particular country. It started on the World Book and Copyright Day on 23rd of April, 2007.

If you don’t see your home country in the list why not consider writing an article about your country’s biblioblogosphere.

Are you looking for top tips on how to keep your identity safe from prying eyes, or how to keep out unwanted visitors? Do you want to know more about file-sharing programs?

File Sharing programs are not illegal in themselves. They do have valid uses, such as facilitating unsigned bands to distribute their music free of charge to the public for the purpose of gaining exposure. Many organizations also use them to exchange documents or data.

You guessed it…..there’s more to this than meets the [librarian’s] eye!

Read Tips on how not to get busted when file-sharing to know how ‘others’ stay “safe” when downloading or sharing favorite files online.

The Electonic Frontier Foundation(EFF) has posted a list of additional tips to help avoid getting busted for illegal file-sharing!

Library 2.0, or L2, has been the big buzzword among tech-savvy researchers and librarians for the past year now. But despite this, it seems that few can actually define it. Library Journal has an excellent article from Sept 1, 2006, which stops short of concisely defining Library 2.0, but does say, “The heart of Library 2.0 is user-centered change.” Below are some other links that I’ve found worth reading:

• Library 2.0 in the Real World from ALA TechSource - January 30, 2006
• Library 2.0 Reading List on Squidoo
• Library 2.0: An Academic’s Perspective