Friday, July 31, 2009

Flat World Knowledge - free, online textbooks

About Flat World Knowledge : We preserve the best of the old - books by leading experts, rigorously reviewed and developed to the highest standards. Then we flip it all on its head. Our books are free online. We offer convenient, low-cost choices for students – softcovers for under $30, audio books and chapters, self-print options, and more. Our books are open for instructors to modify and make their own (for their own course - not for anybody else's). Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other. ...It’s this easy: search our catalog, request a print review copy or review our book online, complete an online adoption form, give a URL to your students, and download our supplements. Done. It really is that easy."

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Spinscape - mind mapping, information visualization

About Spinscape: "With a FREE Spinscape account, you can create interactive maps that allow you to organize the huge volumes of information and data you’re faced with daily. Upgrade to Premium and you can allow others to brainstorm with you, edit the map and even chat as you're creating it! It’s a completely new way of discovering, managing and sharing information by enabling people to collaborate over the web in real time."

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Constitutional Rights Foundation - a deeper understanding of citizenship

About the Constitutional Rights Foundation: "Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) seeks to instill in our nation's youth a deeper understanding of citizenship through values expressed in our Constitution and its Bill of Rights and to educate young people to become active and responsible participants in our society. CRF is dedicated to assuring our country's future by investing in our youth today. CRF is a non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization dedicated to educating America's young people about the importance of civic participation in a democratic society. Under the guidance of a Board of Directors chosen from the worlds of law, business, government, education, the media, and the community, CRF develops, produces, and distributes programs and materials to teachers, students, and public-minded citizens all across the nation.

CRF staff includes teachers and educators, lawyers, community organizers and fundraisers, designers, writers, and editors. They provide technical assistance and training to teachers, coordinate civic participation projects in schools and communities, organize student conferences and competitions, and develop publications in the following areas:

* Law and Government programs and materials focus on how groups and individuals interact with the issues, institutions, people and processes that shape our laws and government.

* Civic Participation programs and materials bring to life the rights and responsibilities of active citizenship by challenging young people to explore their community and plan and implement projects that address community needs."

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Bookmaplet - a bookmarklet for mapping street addresses

About Bookmaplet: "Click and drag the 'Map that address' bookmarklet to your toolbar. "Now you can highlight a street address on a webpage, click the bookmaplet, and its location will be shown on a map. When highlighting a street address, make sure you only highlight the address, and don't include a company name, a shop name or something similar."

It works very nicely, however, there's the matter of the Google Ad blocking a good portion of the map. Bookmaplet team, please make the Google Ads smaller? Here's how it looks (click the image for a larger version):

Monday, July 27, 2009

BrainMaps.org - interactive brain atlas

About BrainMaps: "BrainMaps.org is an interactive multiresolution next-generation brain atlas that is based on over 20 million megapixels of sub-micron resolution, annotated, scanned images of serial sections of both primate and non-primate brains and that is integrated with a high-speed database for querying and retrieving data about brain structure and function over the internet. Currently featured are complete brain atlas datasets for various species, including Macaca mulatta, Chlorocebus aethiops, Felis catus, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, and Tyto alba."

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Paper Printout - printable signs, graph paper, and more

About Paper Printout: "All your paper needs can now be taken care of from your home computer and printer. No more going to the store to buy a 10 pack of signs when all you need is one! Maybe right now would be the ideal time for a single piece of graph paper, so print one out! Remember when you bought a thousand sheets of blank paper? Why can't they also be a sign, recipe card, shopping lists or even used to direct traffic to your next garage sale? Turn the paper you already have, that you already bought, and make it want you want, when you want it. Never make multiple trips to the office supply store again. You have the paper now get your sign at paperprintout.com."

Keep your photos from appearing in Facebook ads


Facebook has agreed to let a 3rd party advertisers use your posted photos. To protect your privacy, perform the following steps:

Click on Settings (located on the top of the page in the blue menu bar next to 'Logout') and select Privacy Settings:


 Click on the News Feed and Wall link:



Click the Facebook Ads tab:



In the Appearance in Facebook Ads drop-down box, select No one, then click the Save Changes button:


Owl Read - like Google Reader for Twitter

About Owl Read: "Owl Read is a new modern online client for Twitter. It has all features I wish to find in other clients, but couldn't. It can group your friends for comfort reading, full threads view, make you timeline readed partially (by groups or friends), support several accounts if you have and so on. It looks and works simillar to Google Reader. Though, it can be named Google Reader for Twitter, but with more social features."

Saturday, July 25, 2009

edocr - document sharing

About edocr: "Whether you are a multinational or a freelancer, edocr can help you unleash the power of your documents. At edocr, you can turn the most basic document to a marketing gem and generate sales leads or simply spread your knowledge and influence. Conversely, you will be able to find documents of your suppliers and make intelligent purchasing decisions."

Here's an embedded edocr example:

Friday, July 24, 2009

eChirpy - miniblogging "when 140 isn't enough"

About eChirpy: "To get started with eChirpy just create an account on e-chirpy. You'll will get a welcome e-mail with the additional registration steps. You simply click to finish your registration and edit your account to add your Twitter account for full distribution of your miniBlogs. eChirpy lets you to create 500 character miniBlogs using your personal email, show only your most recent 5 miniBlogs, and automatically tweet it out to your followers."

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Bookgoo - upload, annotate, collaborate

About Bookgoo: "Bookgoo allows you to upload, annotate, and collaborate with your offline documents in an online way. Putting your documents on our website is only part of the story. We allow your documents to be highlighted and annotated in the same way you would mark up a piece of paper with a highlighter and pen. Moreover, we allow you to then share your annotated documents with friends, colleagues, professors – really, anyone! In turn, the people you share your documents with can highlight and annotate your document as well and provide comments on your annotations. Bookgoo facilitates the conversation on the document."

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

ScreenToaster - free online screencasting

About ScreenToaster: "Register & use it anywhere anytime: Make screencasts / tutorials / demos / high-scores show-offs. Record your screen in one click: No download. Compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. Share videos on the Internet in Flash: Embed them on blogs/webpages or send them by email."

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

MediaCoder - free audio file converter

About MediaCoder: "MediaCoder Audio Edition is an audio transcoding tool based on MediaCoder. It nicely integrates many audio codecs and tools into an all-in-one software. It decodes almost all popular formats of audio files as well as audio stream in video files and encodes them with all its supported (and even some not claimed supported) audio encoders. All the codecs are included in the standalone software. With CUE Sheet and DVD/VCD/CD support and many additional features, audio enthusiasts can convert all their favorite music freely to any format on-the-fly and in batch."

Very nice, and light. I used it this afternoon to convert files from .flac (free lossless audio codec) to .mp3. It works beautifully, and it's free!

Monday, July 20, 2009

HazelMail - Let Hazel send your postcard

About HazelMail: "HazelMail allows anyone anywhere to easily create and mail real postcards online using their own photos in minutes. With just a click of the button, Hazel prints and mails your custom postcards for you! Linked to a global network of printers, HazelMail saves you time and money by printing and mailing your postcard close to its destination. Using Hazelmail is also Earth-friendly. Hazelmail reduces stress on the planet and decreases the carbon footprint by sending cards locally. Best of all, anyone anywhere can receive your card."

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Google Docs for Feeds - turn a Google doc into an RSS reader

Saturday, July 18, 2009

TEDTalks Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

Friday, July 17, 2009

Historical Thinking Matters - primary sources, critical thinking, U.S. History

About Historical Thinking Matters: "Historical Thinking Matters, a website focused on key topics in U.S. history, that is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives. Historical Thinking Matters provides high school students with a framework that teaches them to read documents like historians. Using these 'habits of mind,' they will be able to interrogate historical sources and use them to form reasoned conclusions about the past. Equally important, they will become critical users of the vast historical archives on the web. Historical Thinking Matters equips students to navigate the uncharted waters of the World Wide Web. The site is the winner of the American Historical Association's 2008 James Harvey Robinson Prize for an Outstanding Teaching Aid."

Thursday, July 16, 2009

OpenStreetMap - free editable map of the world

About OpenStreetMap: "OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you. OpenStreetMap allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth. OpenStreetMap's hosting is kindly supported by the UCL VR Centre and bytemark."

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Western Soundscape Archive - audio recordings, Western U.S.

About the Western Soundscape Arcive: "The Western Soundscape Archive (WSA) recognizes the vital connection between places and their soundscapes and features audio recordings of animals and environments throughout the western United States. Begun in November of 2007, the archive is housed at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library and features recordings contributed by volunteers, state and federal agencies, and conservation groups. The website continues to grow and currently includes representative sounds of approximately 80% of the West's bird species, 90% of the region’s frog and toad species, and numerous mammals and reptiles. In September of 2007, the archive was the recipient of a three-year National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)."

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Bloglines - web-based news feed reader and more

About Bloglines: "Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install -- simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device. ...Bloglines is a window to a whole new world of dynamic content that is being created and distributed over the new 'live' web. You can make your own personalized news page tailored to your unique interests from our index of tens of millions of live internet content feeds, including articles, blogs, images and audio. ...Bloglines shields you from the confusion of news feed standards -- RSS, Atom, and others. Bloglines allows you to search for, read and share any updates from your favorite news feed or blog regardless of its authoring technology. ...Last, but not least, Bloglines provides you with the tools you need to begin creating your own clip blogs and blogrolls. Become a publisher, share your thoughts and opinions! And it's FREE!"

Monday, July 13, 2009

Instapaper - read it later

About Instapaper: "Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don’t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them."


* iPhone and iPod Touch app available!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

ICSI Netalyzer - an online 'net connection analyzer

About the ICSI Netalyzer: "The Netalyzr analyzes various properties of your Internet connection that you should care about — including blocking of important services, HTTP caching behavior and proxy correctness, your DNS server's resilience to abuse, NAT detection, as well as latency & bandwidth measurements — and reports its findings in a detailed report. You can check out an example report from a real network to get a better idea of our tests.

To perform these tests, the Netalyzr runs a Java applet on your computer. You may be asked to confirm network-related activities that your system's applet security policy or firewall considers sensitive. We hope that you will permit any such activity, as it will ensure more comprehensive test results."

Most everything on my system checked out "OK," but this is a puzzling report:

Saturday, July 11, 2009

D*I*Y Planner - "the best thing in printing since Gutenberg"

About D*I*Y Planner: "We are a community of people who see the value of paper as a medium for planning, productivity, creative expression, and exploring ideas. We encourage visitors to share advice and inspiration, and we love to see submissions for templates, kit images and story articles. We are also the official home of the free D*I*Y Planner kits. Please enjoy your stay, and make yourself at home!"

Friday, July 10, 2009

Box.net Widgets

Calendars that Work - calendar downloads in doc format

About Calendars that Work: "Each calendar is a Microsoft® Word document. Customize it with your own pictures, add your own text and formatting. Bend it to what you need. Additionally, every calendar can be resized to exactly what you'd like, from letter-sized to A4 to a three-inch square. And, as a further example, you can shrink your favorite calendar to fit four-to-a-page, start the week on Monday, and get the next year's worth in one go, all with a few extra clicks."

Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Wayback Machine - the archived web

About The Wayback Machine: "Browse through over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible. Keyword searching is not currently supported."

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Living Internet - free Internet reference

About Living Internet: "This site is a free information reference about the Internet, written from 1996 through 1999, posted on the Web on January 7, 2000, and last updated May 1, 2009. It includes more than 700 pages, receives about 100K visitors a month, and has benefited from the input of many of the people that helped build the Internet."

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

TwitPic - share photos on Twitter

About TwitPic: "TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter. You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, our API, or through the site itself. There are also popular twitter clients that have built-in support for TwitPic. If you have a Twitter account then you already have a Twitpic account, just login to Twitpic with your Twitter username and password and you are all set."

Monday, July 6, 2009

Sporacle - quizzes, entertainment, memory diversion

About Sporacle: "Originally begun as a sports pick'em site, Sporcle changed directions with the response to the first quiz, U.S. Presidents. As avid crossword, Jeopardy! and trivia fans, we created that original quiz not only to test knowledge, but also as a way to learn a piece of information that seemed to come up again and again. Since then, Sporcle has continued to create quizzes for entertainment, memory and diversion (don't worry, we won't tell your boss). Sporcle is still evolving and has lots more to come."

Sunday, July 5, 2009

twt.fm - share music on Twitter

About twt.fm: twt.fm lets you share music on Twitter. Login via twitter, type the name of an artist and track, then click the preview button. "twt.fm will then generate a track page for you using your twitter page design and you'll be able to tweet it to your followers. ...If we can't find a stream, you may also provide an mp3, youtube, or imeem link to your audio."

Sooo ... I did a search for "Monteverdi" and "Beatus vir." Here's what popped up on my Twitter page:



Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy Birthday USA! - multimedia for the occasion

And it's MY birthday, too!!


Animated flag images from 3DFlags.com.

 
  
Animated fireworks images from Bestgraph.

    Friday, July 3, 2009

    ChoralWiki - wiki of the Choral Public Domain Library

    About ChoralWiki: "Begun in December 1998, CPDL is one of the world's largest free sheet music sites. You can use CPDL to find scores, texts, translations, and information about composers."

    Sooo ... I searched for "monteverdi beatus vir." For a sample of ChoralWiki treasures, here's one of the pages returned:



    Thursday, July 2, 2009

    SoundCloud - music sharing

    About SoundCloud: "SoundCloud lets you move music fast & easy. The platform takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending & distributing music for artists, record labels & other music professionals."

    Whoa ... is this legal?

    Wednesday, July 1, 2009

    TEDtalk: Sir Ken Robinson on creativity