New Media Picks Of The Week: Sharewood Picnic 6

Here it is, another full basket of great tasty tools, online services and resources that I have been testing and experimenting with during the past week.

I invite you to enjoy, try-out, test and report your own impressions, while suggesting yourself other rare gems to cook for the next one.

Photo credit: Pete Shelley

To navigate and make sense of the ocean information coming at us, to communicate ever more (cost-)effectively while understanding new media differences and unique peculiar traits, here is some good stuff to relax with under the sun:

1. Digital image to Polaroids Converter


2. On-demand PDF Printing Service


3. A Search Engine for Delicious


4. Skype Recording for PCs


5. ...and Macs


6. Free Online Storage of music, photo and media files


7. Online Collaborative Document Review Service


8. Grassroots Bookmarks Manager for the News


9. Online Music Jamming at-a-distance


10. Best Search Engines Head-to-Head


11. Computer Graphics Animation Tool for Everyone

Enjoy!

1. Polaroid-o-nizer
   
   Polaroid-o-nizer is a nifty free online service that allows you to refer any image already uploaded to the web and to specify a text phrase to be displayed below it, just like on a real Polaroid print. The service does the rest automatically providing you with a ready-made Polaroid version of any image on the web.
   http://polaroidonizer.5gigs.com/
   





2. PrintFu
   
   PrintFu is a super easy to use system that will take your large (more than 25 page) PDF files, print them double sided, bind them using a comb binder (or 3 hole drill if the document contains more than 700 pages). Based in the US, the service ships then the printout the same day. PrintFu prints only in black and white and does not allow to order more than seven copies per order. PrintFu has also quite possibly the coolest reseller solution EVER. By simply putting "pppemail=[your email]" at the end of any URL that points to
   PrintFu, you will get 1 dollar for each completed order. PrintFu also has a very robust partnering system that allows a partner to completely reskin PrintFu to match their current online brand. For more information on the partner solution please email brandon.corbin @ gmail.com.
   http://yummy.printfu.org/





3. Delicious Director
   
   del.icio.us direc.tor is a prototype for an alternative web-based rich UI for del.icio.us. It leverages the XML and XSL services of modern browsers to deliver a responsive interface for managing user accounts with a large number of records. These the main features are:
   • In-browser handling of del.icio.us bookmarks
   
   
   • Find-as-you-type searching of all your bookmarks, with basic search operators
   
   
   • Sort by description, tags, or timestamp
   
   
   • Ad-hoc tag browser
   
   It only works on Firefox and Internet Explorer. Safari won't work because it doesn't support XSLT via Javascript.

   The major hurdle is not doing the initial retrieval of tags, but finding tags that have more than one other tag in common, i.e. "Show me all the tags that appear with the tag 'blog' and 'photo'."
   http://johnvey.com/features/deliciousdirector/?q=web
   





4. HotRecorder
   
   HotRecorder™ is a new Windows software that allows users to record and add sound effects to voice communications held over Skype, AIM, Net2Phone, Yahoo! Messenger and FireFly. The free version which is ad supported does a good job indeed of recording audio conversations over Skype without requiring the user to put with any special hardware setup. On the other hand the free version saves only in a proprietary format which is unsuitable for republishing on the Internet. For now, HotRecorder works only on Windows XP (win2000 version coming soon). A paid version ($ 14.95) does away with very distracting ads and throws in Ogg Vorbis and .WAV output.
   http://www.hotrecorder.com/





5. Nicecast
   
   If you are on a Mac you can record Skype audio conversations (or for that matter conversations using most any other VoIP technology) by using Nicecast. Nicecast is a great tool for broadcasting and creating digital recordings for radio programs or podcasts. Here are full instructions for how to make Nicecast work with Skype.
   http://www.rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/





6. Rapidshare
   
   RapidShare is a very large file host offering over 25 terabytes of hard-drive capacity. RapidShare provides free web-hosting for any type of files without even requiring a sign-up. Just select a file and upload it. RapidShare offers unlimited upload (max. 50 MB per file) and completely unlimited download capacity (no bandwidth usage limits!).
   http://www.rapidshare.de/
   





7. QuickTopic Document Review
   
   You've authored a document and you'd like your peers to review it. Quick Doc Review gives you an instant private space for gathering comments on any HTML document (Microsoft Word documents too). Your group can comment on each paragraph, directly within the document, and you can also display, sort, and print the comments separately. Comments are all in one central place. This is true collaboration, much better than mailing documents around and having people make comments in isolation. And it's private, but still easy to access.
   You can start your document review in about one minute. It's even easier for your readers -- they don't have to register or sign in.
   Example of document in review. The basic review service is free, while a Pro version which adds password protection and full customization costs $79/year.
   http://www.quicktopic.com/docreview
   





8. Digg
   
   Digg is another collaborative social bookmarks manager giving editorial control back to the community. With digg, users submit links for review. But rather than allowing an editor to decide which links go on the homepage, the users do. It's a delicious approach to the news.

   (1) The user submits a story to the "hardware" category. (2) The story is then filed into the "digg" area of hardware. (3) Users on the site see the story, and several of them click "digg this story" - giving the article +15 diggs. (4) Due to its popularity, digg removes the story from the digg area, and promotes it to the home and category pages.

   Once a user is logged in, digg bookmarks each story for which you have clicked 'digg this story'. Users and friends can then browse your profile (digg.com/users/username), to see what you've been digging throughout the day. RSS feeds are available on almost all pages and user profiles throughout the site. More than del.icio.us, digg offers the ability to re-blog each and every item, to add comments to news stories, and to search throughout the digg archives.
   http://digg.com/
   





9. Ninjam
   
   NINJAM or Novel Interval-based Network Jamming Architecture for Music[ians] is a new software being developed to allow people to make real music together via the Internet. Every participant can hear every other participant. Each user can also tweak their personal mix to his liking. NINJAM uses compressed audio which allows it to work with any instrument or combination of instruments. You can sing, play a real piano, play a real saxophone, play a real guitar with whatever effects and guitar amplifier you want, anything. If your computer can record it, then you can jam with it (as opposed to MIDI-only systems that automatically preclude any kind of natural audio collaboration1). Since the inherent latency of the Internet prevents true realtime synchronization of the jam2, and playing with latency is weird (and often uncomfortable), NINJAM provides a solution by making latency (and the weirdness) much longer.

   Latency in Ninjam is measured in measures, and that's what makes it interesting. The Ninjam client records and streams synchronized intervals of music between participants. Just as the interval finishes recording, it begins playing on everyone else's client. So when you play through an interval, you're playing along with the previous interval of everybody else, and they're playing along with your previous interval. If this sounds pretty bizarre, it sort of is, until you get used to it, then it becomes pretty natural. Although it has many flexible and powerful features, NINJAM is designed with an emphasis on musical experimentation, rather than production.
   Soon to be available for PCs, Macs and Linux boxes.

   http://ninjam.com/index.php
   





10. Google vs. Yahoo!
    
    As Google and Yahoo! continue their volley of product offerings, I thought it would be useful to compare the interface design solutions each company employed to solve similar user needs. In other words: how does Yahoo's version of a product (Maps, Local Search, Image Search, etc.) compare to Google's? Though some product offerings are virtually indistinguishable (Web Search, Image Search), others differ significantly (Groups, Product Search).

    At a high level, Yahoo! has better integrated business goals with their product designs. For example, their comparison shopping site features multiple entry points that better match consumer shopping behaviors (browse by brand, browse by category, featured products, etc.) than Froogle's single search box. Yahoo! also has more robust answers to vertical information finding (Travel, Finance, Movies, etc.) than Google's Web Search features. That doesn't negate the value of Google's simple solutions to these tasks. It's just that a simple solution sometimes requires something in addition to (or other than) a search box.
    http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?189
    





11. Blender
    
    Blender is an open-source cross-platform computer graphics animation powerhouse that works on Windows, Linux, Irix, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. Not intended for the non-technical user, this is a powerful application that opens the doors to professional full 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, and rendering without the multi-thousand dollar price-tag typical of other software products in this sector.
    Some examples of images created with Blender.
    http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html