Community College Librarian » Cool Tools http://notmarian.org Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:51:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 iPhone App Overload? Never! http://notmarian.org/2009/06/iphone-app-overload-never/ http://notmarian.org/2009/06/iphone-app-overload-never/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:42:07 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=275 I love my beautiful iPhone and the ten million apps and games I have on it. Well, there’s about 10 apps and the rest are games. Buckingham Palace Mysteries, Bookworm, Yard Sale, bloons, Myst (which I still hate after these many years of trying to complete that incomprehensible *%#&)….love the games. And I love the grocery list called Shopping with its tidy database. And the Yelp app which gives me real-people reviews of all the businesses near where ever I happen to be, the Mint app tells me how much money I have to spend at those businesses. I can check and respond to emails. Google maps helps me not get too very lost. And I can look up movie times. And I can pay the bills I forgot to pay when I suddenly remember them in the movie theater during the endless previews. I am completely besotted with my phone. I’ve dropped it to the ground twice and it still works, which means it loves me too. And I (knock on wood) haven’t suffered more than 5 call losses since I got it over a year ago. Not to mention it keeps my crucial-to-my-sanity audiobook collection right there in my purse when I’m driving. I’ve uninstalled a lot of apps too though, like the one for Twitter (made the decision that my not liking to Twitter isn’t criminal), the Whole Foods recipe thing (sucked), the Kraft Foods cooking vidtut app (boxed mac & cheese casserole ten ways anyone?) and the Amazon mobile app because I just didn’t like it. If only there was an app for chronic insomnia, I would so totally buy it for .99.

]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/06/iphone-app-overload-never/feed/ 0 Scribd–what it is and why I don’t care about it right now http://notmarian.org/2009/04/scribd-what-it-is-and-why-i-dont-care-about-it-right-now/ http://notmarian.org/2009/04/scribd-what-it-is-and-why-i-dont-care-about-it-right-now/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:31:35 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=192 Ok, its a self-publishing archive. I get it. They call it “democratized publishing.” I get that. Even our President has a Scribd page with 100 friends. We can use it to embed documents into websites. Like that. Check!

Please do not say that this is the future of the book or I will totally lose it. Archive, fine, but some writing shouldn’t be “published.” Some of it sucks, ok? Most of it needs editing, alright? This is why we have blogs! And this isn’t really publishing, is it? This is a repository of stuff. Some of it is good and some of it…well, I’m no critic.

]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/04/scribd-what-it-is-and-why-i-dont-care-about-it-right-now/feed/ 0 Vanishing Point http://notmarian.org/2009/04/vanishing-point/ http://notmarian.org/2009/04/vanishing-point/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:59:26 +0000 Pip http://notmarian.org/?p=180 I completed the next lesson in PS CS4 Classroom in a Book. Correcting and Enhancing Digital Photographs. This one was pretty easy because I skipped most of the camera raw stuff. My camera doesn’t put out this format so I’ll come back to it later. I learned a pretty cool tool called Vanishing Point to define planes in the images and make edits according to that perspective. So, the scale stays intact. Can’t use this with vectors though. I made a copy of a window and added it to the picture and covered up a wreath that was oddly in the middle of the building. I also learned the noise, distort and red eye tools.

Next up: Typographic Design!

vanishingpoint

]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/04/vanishing-point/feed/ 0 Masks and Layers, I own you. http://notmarian.org/2009/04/masks-and-layers-i-own-you/ http://notmarian.org/2009/04/masks-and-layers-i-own-you/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:04:09 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=162 In this installment of I’m Learning Photoshop, I took on the Working with Masks and Layers chapter from PS CS4 Classroom in a Book. Ok, masks are not easy. This lesson took me two hours. Masks are like taping off things you want to retain like taping off the trim when you paint a room. There’s lots of different ways to mask, most of them nerve-wracking. The quick mask is easiest but it doesn’t stay once you deselect it. I did really like the clipping mask. You can put a texture layer over some text or a layer with a selection in it then apply a clipping mask to make the text or selection fill with the texture. And if you really care, masks are stored in channels with the rest of our saved selection information because they are just color information as opposed to being an image/object. These channels do not show in our images unless we show them purposely. Masks in channels are edited by painting in black to add to it, white to reveal what is beneath and shades of gray to partially reveal. There. I just answered all the review questions in one paragraph.
Here’s the results of my lesson:
masklayer

]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/04/masks-and-layers-i-own-you/feed/ 0 I’m learning Photoshop once and for all http://notmarian.org/2009/04/im-learning-photoshop-once-and-for-all/ http://notmarian.org/2009/04/im-learning-photoshop-once-and-for-all/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:46:13 +0000 Pip http://notmarian.org/?p=136 I have PS CS4 Extended. I thought I could learn it on my own. Ha! Then came the endless stream of books that I either bought or brought home from work that I just knew would tell me everything if I stuck them on a shelf near the computer. I did make efforts to learn from the For Dummies book, the Visual QuickStart Guide and the 100 Essential How-to’s. These weren’t clicking for me–though I know plenty of people who swear by all of these series. Then I tried the Classroom in a Book, which I just LOVE. This book just tells you exactly what you need to know (what to click and when to click it and what should happen) and the authors make no attempts at being humorous. There’s an overview at the beginning of a lesson and a little quiz at the end. The best part is that the lessons take about an hour. I will bring that 100 Essentials back home when I know more, though. And I want to look at the Missing Manual too. There was some cool advanced tips in there.
The amount of publishing about Adobe products just kills me. Amazon says there’s lots more where all of these books came from: http://tinyurl.com/cdln6m There’s some great online tutorials out there too.  I’ve looked at lots and will make a list someday.  For now, though, the You Suck at Photoshop videos are fun and the content is good but I’m really serious about starting from the beginning of this software. I’m completely dying for somebody to give me money so I can subscribe to http://www.lynda.com/ They do a right fine tutorial. Hands down the best I’ve seen. Actually the price for the subscription isn’t that bad. One less pair of shoes for a year’s worth of learning.  Well!  So you can be impressed by my basic layers and layer effects prowess, here’s the postcard I made tonight.  Masks and Channels are next! Woooo!

postcard

]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/04/im-learning-photoshop-once-and-for-all/feed/ 0 Twitter… http://notmarian.org/2009/03/twitter/ http://notmarian.org/2009/03/twitter/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:55:58 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=99 Ok, I’m not completely getting it. It is great to twitter and read other people’s tweets at conferences but as Jenny Levine and others point out, these little batches of information about a specific event or topic are ephemeral. Well, I guess you could save these “threads” if you start using an entirely different tool to capture the tweetdata. I’m not sure how much that matters in the grand scheme of Twitterdom but if I understand the use of this tool at conferences and other meetings correctly, you can read the tweets about events that you are not able to attend. Well, that’s the only use of it that I can glean. That and getting other people’s impressions of the same event, meeting, session, presentation, etc. I tried Twittering a conference I attended but since I’m not so great at texting on my phone, I missed a lot of what the presenter said because my focus was elsewhere. I would not go as far as John Stewart has in this skit below. And I am going to give Twitter one more try at a conference I’m attending this weekend. I’m also speaking on a panel discussion on Saturday at 12:00 SLT. The hash mark for the conference is: #VWBPE

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c
Twitter Frenzy
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor
]]> http://notmarian.org/2009/03/twitter/feed/ 0 I heart voki.com http://notmarian.org/2008/08/i-heart-vokicom/ http://notmarian.org/2008/08/i-heart-vokicom/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:16:31 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=69
Get a Voki now!

]]> http://notmarian.org/2008/08/i-heart-vokicom/feed/ 0 Widgets http://notmarian.org/2008/08/widgets/ http://notmarian.org/2008/08/widgets/#comments Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:04:26 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=66 So, there are widgets and there are Widgets. http://www.widgetbox.com

]]> http://notmarian.org/2008/08/widgets/feed/ 0 You Suck at Photoshop http://notmarian.org/2008/08/you-suck-at-photoshop/ http://notmarian.org/2008/08/you-suck-at-photoshop/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:50:31 +0000 Denise http://notmarian.org/?p=63 This is my new favorite series! It is so great to laugh hysterically while learning new stuff. I do suck at photoshop but I’m really trying to get some skill on. http://www.mydamnchannel.com/

]]> http://notmarian.org/2008/08/you-suck-at-photoshop/feed/ 0 Like gold to airy thinness beat… http://notmarian.org/2008/07/like-gold-to-airy-thinness-beat/ http://notmarian.org/2008/07/like-gold-to-airy-thinness-beat/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:02:03 +0000 Pip http://notmarian.org/?p=57 .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

wordle, originally uploaded by notmarian.

This is one of my most beloved poems in cloud form.  Can you guess what it is?

Wordle is my new favorite toy and has my seal of “cool tool” approval! http://wordle.net/

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