Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers gathers 9 Sources for Historical Images, Documents, Videos, and Audio. These all look great, but in particular these two stand out as most interesting:

“FedFlix, hosted by the Internet Archive, is a collection of nearly 2000 films produced by the US government during the 20th Century. The topics of these films range from presidential speeches to agricultural practices to public health and safety.”

and

“The David Rumsey Map Collection is a collection of more than 20,000 historical maps documenting places throughout the world. The maps can be searched by area, by time period, or by cartographer.”

Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing app for the iPhone and now iPad has spread like wildfire with over 7 million users sharing 150 million photos. This immensely addictive little app enables users to snap photos with their devices, add fun and transformative filters, and then share them on social networks such as Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter. Its burgeoning popularity has brought with it a slew of third-party apps to enhance your Instagram experience. Here are 16 of the best:

Instagallery

Cost: 1.99
Browse Instagram pics in a gallery on your iPhone or iPad with this handy app. “Like” photos or view the ones you’ve liked. Create and view slideshows that can be set to auto-repeat on iPads.

Instaprint

Cost: $5000+ (includes rental of boxes, iPhones, iPads, laptop, photo hosting, & Instaprint crew to work the event)
Rent Instaprint boxes for your next special event which will print out Polaroid-like photos taken with Instagram. This new service strives to be the modern-day photo booth.

Postagram & Instapost

Cost: $Free
Send actual print postcards with personalized notes made from your Instagram photos with these apps. With Postagram, recipients can pop out the photo from the postcard to keep. Postcards are $.99 to send.

Artflakes

Cost: $20.86 for 10 stickers
Make 4″x4″ stickers of your Instagram photos. Stickers are fully removable.

Instabam

Cost: $Free
This handy application displays Instagram pics taken near your location. When used from your phone, it will auto-detect your location.

Prinstagr.am

Cost: $25 per poster
Turn your Instagram photos into a high-quality 20″ x 40″ poster. The poster can fit anywhere between 50-400 photos.

Instakitty

Cost: $Free
View a stream of feline-only Instagram pics on this popular website.

The folks at Technically Digital have put together a mega-list of 50 Online Tools to Convert Documents and Media Files. This useful list is divided into the following categories:

• Audio/Video Converters
• Document Converters
• Image Converters
• Multi-Purpose Converters

via Linda Lindsay

The folks at Blue Blots have put together a great list of 20 Online Tools To Help You Create Slideshow Presentations. These are all useful tools to add special effects, backgrounds, and music to your photos and organize them into online slideshows. I can see many of these coming in handy for creating entertaining presentations.

Twitter has launched a new photo-sharing service which allows users to upload photos and share them in their tweets. They’ve been rolling out the service this summer and I’ve just been offered the feature which works very well. For more information check out Twitter’s Help pages on image uploading.

Debbie Hemley at the Social Media Examiner offers 26 Tips for Using Images to Engage Fans and Followers. This helpful post provides tools, tips and strategies that can be used to enhance the visual representation of your library or business. If you’re wondering how to better leverage your digital images within your website, social media profiles, or mobile apps, you won’t want to miss this article.

Cindy King at the Social Media Examiner comes up with a list of 19 Ways to Use Images to Enhance Your Blog. These great suggestions are organized into “Design Essentials”, “Your Primary Call to Action”, and “Key Information” categories. Here are the first 10 on the list:

• #1: Branding
• #2: Easy Reading
• #3: Social Media Profiles
• #4: Free Incentives
• #5: Books
• #6: Key Presentations
• #7: Products
• #8: Blog Author Photos
• #9: QR Codes
• #10: Navigation for Internal Links

Lisa Hoover at OStatic recommends 5 Open Source Apps to Edit and Organize Your Photos. If you’re looking for a free image editor, you’ll want to check out this excellent post.

The folks at Educause have put together a new “7 Things” guide, this time describing 7 Things You Should Know About Online Media Editing,. As usual, the quick reference resource answers the following questions:

1. What is it?
2. How does it work?
3. Who’s doing it?
4. Why is it significant?
5. What are the downsides?
6. Where is it going?
7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?

If you’re using Twitter, you know it isn’t exactly intuitive as to how to post multimedia items. Aliza Sherman at GigaOm suggests 15 Easy-to-Use Apps for Adding Multimedia to Twitter. Divided into sections by format, this quick article provides very useful links to services for adding images, audio and video.

Rebecca Fitzgerald, Acquisitions Librarian/Office Manager at the Scheele Memorial Library Concordia College, New York, guest-posts at Tame The Web with her article Using Netflix at an Academic Library. This excellent post discusses the success of using a Netflix subscription in a college library with a limited media budget.

“The streaming movies have been a great success; instead of students waiting for the one DVD on reserve, they can go to the computer or into the library’s film viewing room, where we have a Roku player set up, and watch the movies on our flat screen TV. The amount we save just having the instant play is significant; it’s almost like having multiple copies of the movie on reserve.”

Have you thought about posting spoken word tweets? Amy-Mae Elliott at Mashable gathers a list of five services which will enable you to Send an Audio Tweet. All of the applications listed are free of charge, don’t require a phone, and are easy to use.

Veezzle is a new search engine which finds free stock photos by crawling dozens of websites. If you’re looking for high-quality images, but don’t want to pay for them, check out this new search tool.

I was interviewed live last night by Maurice Coleman for the T is for Training show – the library training podcast!

Sam Dean at OStatic reviews 9 Free, Open Source Tools for Video and Media Playback and Encoding. Each application on the list has a screenshot and a brief summary of its best features.