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November 17, 2008
Cool Toys Conversations, October 2008
There were some tech issues last month (mostly with what turned out to be a firewall block between me and Delicious), so I ended up trying something a little different. Instead of presenting live from the web, I used screenshots I'd captured of things that caught my attention during the month. This had the effect of really slowing me down for making the blogpost. Trying to pull out the URLs and names of all the tools, find them again, get them listed ... well, let's just say it took a lot more time than I usually spend on this. The most time consuming part was plugging the pictures into slides, fitting, positioning, arranging, and all that.
Eventually I found a way to do this that worked pretty well, and I might try it again. There is a tool I found, called InsertPictures for the Macintosh that allows me to take a folder of screenshots and it will dump them all into a Powerpoint presentation, in order, resized to fit the screen. Wow. I had spent about 3 weeks working on this in my spare time, and had gotten through about a fifth of the screenshots used in the session. This plugged them all in within 23 seconds. Seconds!!! As in a fraction of a minute. I am still in awe.
So, here are the slides showing a few of the things that caught my attention in October, and the links are below. Enjoy! I promise the November CTC blogpost will go up faster.
Meetings, Scheduling & Events: Scheduling Tools
* Scheduly: http://www.scheduly.com/
Listio: http://www.listio.com/web20/app/Shiftboard/
NOTE: Listio and MakeUseOf are two of my favorite places to discover new tools. This is an example screen showing how looking at one tool can lead you to more like it.
Caloosh: http://beta.caloosh.com/
GatherGrid: http://GatherGrid.com/
Jiffle: http://www.jifflenow.com/
Presdo: http://www.presdo.com/
Schedule Once: http://www.scheduleonce.com/
SMEScheduler: http://www.thesmespace.com/SMEScheduler/ NOTE: Features and integration: polls, schedule - iphone, twitter, outlook, ical, gcal, gmaps, google gadget.
TimeBridge: http://www.timebridge.com/home.php
TimeToMeet: http://www.timetomeet.info/
Tungle: http://www.tungle.com/Home/ NOTE: Selective calendar sharing, for scheduling students or clients.
When Is Good: http://whenisgood.net/
When2Meet: http://www.when2meet.com/
When Should We: http://whenshouldwe.com/
Meetings, Scheduling & Events: Long Distance, International & Global Tools
EasyTZ: Easy Timezone: http://www.easytz.com/
MeetingPuzzle: http://www.meetingpuzzle.com/home.html NOTE: Multilingual. Also facilitates group management
World Time Engine: http://worldtimeengine.com/
Meetings, Scheduling & Events: Managing Groups, Group Spaces & Events
Book Meeting Room: http://www.bookmeetingroom.com/
ShiftBoard: http://www.shiftboard.com/ NOTE: Excellent for managing teams of volunteers
MyCommittee: http://mycommittee.com/
PurpleTrail: http://purpletrail.com/
SetDot: http://www.setdot.com/
Social Networking
TabUp: http://www.tabup.com/">http://www.tabup.com/ NOTE: Organize, share, collaborate with people
Academia.edu
Tee Bee Dee: http://www.tbd.com/
Personal Tools
GasBuddy.com
GasBuddy.Com > Detroit: http://www.detroitgasprices.com/index.aspx?&area=Ann%20Arbor
GasPenny.com
SitOrSquat: http://www.sitorsquat.com/sitorsquat/home# NOTE: Ever been out with a small child and needed to find a restroom, fast?
Sleeptracker: http://sleeptracker.com/
Nearest Post Office Lookup: http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/NearPostOffice.asp
QuickReminders.com
Tip of my Tongue: http://chir.ag/phernalia/tip-of-my-tongue/
WizHelp: http://www.wizhelp.com/en/home NOTE: Trying to help someone with a computer problem who is on the phone? Take over their computer (with permission), and show them how to do it.
Media & Multimedia
JingProject: http://www.jingproject.com/
ScreenToaster: http://www.screentoaster.com/
XtraNormal: http://www.xtranormal.com/
Visual & Image Tools & Search
FaceSaerch: http://www.facesaerch.com/
DualPage: http://www.dualpage.com.br/
Visual Complexity: Obesity System Influence Diagram: http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=622
Obesity System Influence Diagram: http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html
CompFight: http://www.compfight.com NOTE: Flickr creative commons search, with other special search features and visual browsing.
Deferential Geometry: Elementary Partical Explorer: http://deferentialgeometry.org/epe/ NOTE: From Garrett Lisi, particle physicist and author of “An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything”
MirrorEffect.net
PhotoFunia.com
TinEye: http://tineye.com/ NOTE: Search images like the one you have, including parodies and snippets and edited images.
Pixolu: http://www.pixolu.de/NOTE: Semantic image search
Specialized Search Tools
TasteKid: http://www.tastekid.com/
FanSnap: http://www.fansnap.com/
FastEagle.com
GameCurry: http://www.gamecurry.com/gamecurry
Kedrix.com
Notice the tabbed results from different sources - very fast searching also
Soovle.com NOTE: As you type, it gives suggestions of related terms from a variety of sources - what are the top “hits” in different search engines.
Quarkbase.com
Web Tools
AppLoop: http://apploop.com/
SitePal: http://www.sitepal.com/
Trends, Projects, News
YouTube: India: Indian Institute of Technology/Science: National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning: http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd
YouTube: Project Report: http://www.youtube.com/projectreport
OpenLife: http://www.openlifegrid.com/
ReadTheSpirit: Our Values: http://www.readthespirit.com/ourvalues/introducing-dr-wayne-bake.html
Better Health Care Together: Remote Monitoring Technologies Could Shave Health Care Costs by $197 Billion - Broadband-based Applications Can Improve Care for Chronic Disease: http://betterhealthcaretogether.org/news?&ctid=3&cid=11598&cgid=1
Al Qaida-like Mobile Discussions and Potential Creative Uses (Twittering Terrorists): http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/mobile.pdf
The End
This presentation was created using PowerPoint 2004 on a MacBook with the InsertPicture Add-In from Jim Gordon: http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/PowerPoint/ppt2004.htm
Posted by pfa at November 17, 2008 03:00 PM