A Great Blog

TweetDeck - Manage Social Media Accounts in One Place

2010-02-07T12:09:00.001-05:00

TweetDeck lets you manage your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace accounts from one application. Some of you may already know about it but I just started using it for my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and am finding it very useful to manage them from one place.

The application works on any platform (Mac, Windows, Linux) and has a very clean and nice looking interface. You can change the colors of the entire app and set up columns to organize things. TweetDeck provides automatic backups for your account and will synch between multiple computers.

In addition, TweetDeck works with the most popular Twitter services like TweetPhoto, TwitPic, and YFrog for photos as well as bit.ly, is.gd, Tinyurl, and Twurl for url shortening. And as you might expect, there is an iPhone version as well.

TweetDeck has been developed using Adobe Air so it requires downloading and installing that first if you do not already have it. They make it automatic and a seamless part of the download/install though so no worries.

New Computer GUI Idea

2009-10-14T08:36:00.006-05:00

This is a very interesting idea for a multi-touch graphic user interface for a desktop computer. Neat stuff. I would love to be able to use a prototype for a while to see how it feels. Nice job 10/GUI!

Why Everyone Needs A Google Account

2008-11-12T09:39:00.004-05:00

I have been recommending Google accounts for my clients for about a year and a half now for a variety of reasons such as:

GMail - the best webmail service I have encountered
Google Talk - built right into GMail and compatible with most IM formats
Blogger - a comprehensive and easy to use system for weblogs
Google Docs - online word processing, spreadsheets and presentations that covers 80% or more of the functions found in software packages like MS Office.
Google Calendar - an excellent way of keeping a professional or personal schedule and sharing it with others

And there are many other satellite services that are part of the package as well. But now they have upped the ante with voice and video chat.

With Google voice and video chat, live face to face online communication is available to everyone. Start by chatting with someone through Google Talk and then "call" them to connect with voice and video. You can choose "pop-out" to open the chat/video in its own window and resize it. There is even a full-screen feature to get a lifelike feel to your "chatting".

I added this feature to my account here at North Street Productions and look forward to communicating with my clients face to face without having to spend the extra time and money driving.

I now am even more convinced that Google accounts are one of the most useful and beneficial services available to any business or organization.

Mind42 - Free Web Based Mind Mapping

2008-11-08T21:20:00.005-05:00

I have been putting together a plan for creating an online presence for one of my clients and came across Mind42. They provide a free, web based mind mapping application that is very easy to use and share with others. Mind mapping is a way to visually organize a plan or set of related ideas using "nodes" for each facet and linking them to a central idea or starting point. Check it out here.

Sprout Builder

2008-07-12T21:35:00.004-05:00

UPDATE: As of May 2010 SproutBuilder is a very expensive pay only service. I would no longer recommend it for anyone but an enterprise level business ($$$).

Sprout Builder is an extremely useful web service that allows you to create static and interactive widgets for your web page or weblog. You can use it for slideshows, videos, music players, display RSS feeds, calendars, charts, maps and more. And, you can let visitors embed your Sprout in there web page which becomes a great tool for promotion of products or services.

Link

MyFax.com

2008-03-17T13:03:00.000-05:00

This is a great web service that lets you fax documents right from their website. You get your own fax number and can receive faxes to that number in your email. You can also get copies of faxes you've sent along with confirmations in your email. This is a very handy and inexpensive service - especially if you don't have or want to get rid of your fax machine. We use it here at North Street Productions for all of our faxing now.

Document to .pdf Converter

2008-03-03T13:08:00.000-05:00

I came across this link a couple years ago when I was still using Windows machines. This is a free document to .pdf converter provided by Neevia. Very handy. Link

iPaper

2008-02-20T08:40:00.005-05:00

Scribd has a great new product called iPaper that let's you view/store/upload documents to the web. It is compatible with most common document formats like .pdf, .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .odt. You can display your documents on your website. This is a great new web-based application that can be a real asset to many businesses.

Idea Generator

2008-01-22T08:12:00.001-05:00

This is a neat creative tool developed by The Directors Bureau (I have no idea who this is - their site was not loading). It works a bit like a slot machine. Click the intertwined arrows and the three word dials spin and settle on a random set of words. If you like one or two of the words but not the other, click on the arrow above or below the unwanted word to get another one.

Try it out here.

Sketchcast

2008-01-16T10:43:00.003-05:00

Sketchcast is a new web service I came across the other day. You can record yourself drawing with or without voice-over and put it on your own "sketch channel" or post it on your site. Great for demonstrations, diagrams or just for fun.

It's Jerry Time

2007-06-10T13:16:00.001-05:00

I've gotten many a laugh from "It's Jerry Time" since a friend of mine first showed it to me. It's a very creative use of animating cut-out photos to show the bizarre experiences of Jerry, an average joe from Buffalo, NY. Start from the very first episode and watch them chronologically - that way you really see his persona build.

The presentation is dry but I get the feeling that most of the stuff actually happened to him. Apparently he writes the stories and takes photos while his brother animates the images and puts the whole thing together. It's worth checking out the "Scrapbook" page to get a bigger picture of Jerry and his influences.

"It's Jerry Time" is a great example of creative video story telling and has even been nominated for an Emmy. It's also the perfect kind of installment project for the web.

VW Hand Silhouette Commercial

2007-05-14T13:14:00.001-05:00

Amazing hand silhouette work makes this a pretty fascinating piece. Time and time again I'm blown away at how effective utter simplicity can be. The sell is pretty mediocre but the medium is impressive.

How Camera Lenses Are Made

2007-05-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting video about how camera lenses are made. It gives a real sense of just how amazing the cameras we buy are, and why they cost what they do.

"We Are The Web"

2007-04-05T13:12:00.001-05:00

This is the article that is quoted in "Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us" video last post. It appeared in Wired magazine in 2005 and thoroughly explores the web from its inception as one growing, learning machine as well as poses some very intriguing ideas about what it's likely to become.

The article obviously influenced the creation of "Web 2.0..." and gives you an idea of how the video was conceived.

This is a great read and is extremely pertinent on the most human level. I feel like I have gained some real insight into our changing times.

(P.S. The article is 5 pages but worth reading every bit. Print it to read later if it helps!)

"Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us."

2007-03-22T08:27:00.001-05:00

This is a very clever video produced by Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University that shows the power of the web from hypertexting to html to xml/Web 2.0 as well as what it all means to us.

The way in which the information is presented is the most unique thing about this video because the "narrator" communicates through typing within various web settings as well as using specific hypertext. This style of using the subject matter to present the subject itself is a very unique idea - one I have not seen before in multimedia.