The iPhone changes your life. I just added Mobile News Network, a news aggregation Web application. It provides international, national, and local news. You can read more about it at the Associated Press website or @ www.iphone.com/webapps.
FixYa was founded by an entrepreneur who decided to take advantage of the fact that consumer products manufacturers are not providing adequate support through their web sites. Although these products become more and more technologically advanced, their manufacturers are not allocating the necessary resources that are required in order to provide good technical support. Like any other consumer out there, FixYa’s founder had a hard time finding relevant and updated support information for his printer or digital camera, and therefore decided to create this site.
The idea behind FixYa is to aggregate all support information that is scattered throughout the internet in a single user friendly location. In addition, FixYa is a huge knowledgebase that is constantly updated by a live community of users who share their experiences of technical problems and solutions. Through the site’s unique rating system, FixYa is allowing its users to find the best solution for every problem and even solve new problems. Over time, FixYa will offer the best solutions for the most common problems of each and every product that exist. The best thing about FixYa’s knowledgebase is that it’s based on real users’ experience rather than on projected FAQs by the manufacturer.
The Shifted Librarian blogged about PicLens, a cool photo application that turns your browser into a 3-D experience for viewing pictures. I played around with it for a while and can see students having a lot of fun! The free download is avaliable at http://www.piclens.com/site/ie/. It works with Google, Picasa, flickr, Yahoo!, Facebook, and more! 
I’ll be getting this for Nintendo DS on February 10th.
By Maureen Ryan
Tribune television critic
January 22, 2008
During the time that I should have been writing a review of “Growing Up Online” (9 p.m. Tuesday, WTTW-Ch. 11), a sobering “Frontline” documentary, I did what people with computers do — I perused e-mail, worked on my blog, read reader comments there and checked out other Web sites. So there’s one of “Growing Up Online’s” theories shot down already. This hourlong examination of the cyber-lives of teens seems to posit, at times, that people younger than 20 are the only people who devote perhaps too much energy to online pursuits and also “struggle with the ability to focus,” as one educator put it. I may be out of the demographic in question, but I can relate.
The documentary does stray a bit toward hysteria, especially in an interview with one New Jersey mother, who is filmed looking up articles about online safety — on her home computer. But for the most part, “Growing Up Online” skirts past hyperbole and thoughtfully examines the dangers that the online realm poses for young people, many of whom are coping with unstable self-esteem and a tendency to make rash decisions.
Online dangers, the documentary makes clear, usually don’t come from the sort of predators that “Dateline NBC” ritualistically trots before the cameras. The young people at Chatham High School in northern New Jersey, who are the main subjects of the documentary, just laugh when asked what they do about online come-ons from strangers. They block them and move on, they say.
Computers do facilitate the ease of cheating and ratchet up competitions for online “friends,” but the threat of online bullying is probably the biggest problem most kids face. The father of a boy who killed himself at 13 recalls that he had no idea his son was being harassed online and chatting with an acquaintance about sites that explain how to commit suicide.
For teenagers, shutting out parents and entering their own private world is a rite of passage. But sometimes, what parents don’t know can end up hurting their kids — then again, some parents don’t appear to care what their children do online.
A sweet-faced 16-year-old talks about how her in-person demeanor at school, where she’s a good student and an athlete, is fake. At night she goes online to anorexia sites and gets tips on how to get even thinner. Her parents, she says, “know nothing.”
Though it makes you want to throw your modem in the trash — or perhaps raise your children in a cave without WiFi — “Growing Up Online” isn’t a clumsy condemnation of all things online. Kids need to be taught proper online behavior, experts say, and their schoolrooms need to be updated with screens and interactivity so that they don’t get bored, according to Chatham’s teachers.
Retrieved from here
Instasaver allows one to build Animated Slideshow Screensavers rather quickly. You can upload pictures from your computer or get photos from Flickr. There are over 150 animation effects and fun transitions. I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with the program while avoiding school work.
Life just keeps getting easier. Check out this neat tool.
PDF Hammer is a website that allows you to edit your PDF files online for free. You don’t need to install any additional software, you can edit PDF documents right now inside your browser. Once you start, you will be able to upload one or more PDF files into your project, arrange the pages in any order you wish, and delete any pages you don’t want.
For example, you can create a PDF document that has the cover page of one PDF file, followed by all of the pages of another PDF file, and finally followed by the back-cover page of the first file.
Found via Hammering the holiday theme! « HeyJude
Howard Rhengold maintains a video blog. Check out his entry “A Slice of Life Online.”
Openculture complied a list of 10 ways to make your iPod a better learning gadget.
Put Wikipedia on Your Ipod: Encyclopodia is a free piece of software that brings Wikipedia to the iPod. Encyclopodia can be installed on iPod generations 1 through 4, as well as iPod Minis. Definitely worth a try.
2) Watch DVDs on Your iPod: This free, open source software works on MacOS X, Linux and Windows, and makes it simple to load and watch DVDs on your video iPod. Here are some helpful instructions to get you started.
3) Load YouTube Videos to Your iPod: ConvertTube allows you to take any YouTube video and convert it to a format that works on your iPod. It’s as simple as entering a url and clicking “convert and download.” If you want to give the software a test run, try converting these UC Berkeley courses that were recently launched on YouTube. Or these Nobel Prize speeches.
4) Make Other Video Formats iPod-Ready: Lifehacker recently mentioned three other pieces of software that will make a variety of other video formats iPod-ready. For Windows, see Videora; for Mac, see iSquint. Or more generally see Zamzar. In a nutshell, these items will turn a wide range of video formats into the one video format (MPEG-4) that your iPod likes.
5) Convert MP3 files into One Big iPod Audiobook File: Downloading free audiobooks can often require you to work with a series of separate mp3 files, which can make things rather cumbersome. This software does you a favor and mashes the files into one manageable file. And it has a feature that will let your Ipod remember where you stopped if you decide to take a break. (If this one appeals to you, be sure to see item # 10.)
6) Create eBooks for the iPod: This bit of software turns text files into ebooks that you can read on your iPod. After you load a text file, it will make the text readable through iPod Notes (which you can find under “Extra Setttings”). Then, voila, a portable text. Thanks to Pachecus.com for pointing this one out.
7) Record Web Audio and Move it To Your iPod: Designed for Macs, iRecordMusic enables you to easily record audio from web pages and Internet radio streams. So if you’re surfing the web and find a good piece of streamed audio, it lets you record it and then transfer the media to your iPod. The only downside is that the software isn’t free. It will run you $24.95, but it may well be worth it. You can download a trial version here.
Get a Civic Education on Your Ipod: This site allows you to download to your iPod ten important documents that any educated American should be familiar with. The texts include: The Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, Bill of Rights, Louisiana Purchase Treaty, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Civil Rights Act, and several others. (Note: You can also download here an iPod version of Merriam-Webster’s Pocket Dictionary for $9.95.)
9) Load Maps onto Your iPod: If you travel to New York City, Paris, Berlin or Moscow, how will you find your way to the museums? iSubwayMaps is the answer. It lets you download subway maps from 24 major cities across the globe. You’ll only need an iPod with photo capability and you’ll be good to go. (By the way, if you want to load Google Maps to your iPod, here is a tutorial that will explain how.)
10) Study Foreign Languages, Take University Courses, and Listen to AudioBooks on Your iPod - All for Free: Ok, so this is a cheap but worthwhile plug for some of our richest podcast collections. Our Foreign Language Podcast Collection lets your learn over 25 different foreign languages. Our AudioBook podcast collection will give you portable access to 100+ classic works of literature and nonfiction. And this university podcast collection provides access to over 85 courses recorded at leading American universities. Not bad, if I say so myself. For our complete podcast library, click here.
Know of more software or content that will supercharge your iPod? Feel free to list them in our comments. And if they’re good, we’ll happily add them to the list.
W00t!
Nintendo says a vast majority of Wii owners are still core gamers.
In addition to sharing demographic data, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime dismissed the idea that Wii owners are simply buying the machine for Wii Sports.
In a group conference call on Friday, the boss man said that Wii attach rates are actually higher than the PS2 attach rate for the same period, suggesting that a healthy number of games are being sold.
When asked if Nintendo was happy with the current quality of third-party games, Fils-Aime said, “Any system will have a range of quality.” He went on to say that developers are “working hard” to push the limits of Wii hardware.
On the subject of online functionality, Reggie dished both good and bad. “We do not anticipate making online playable VC games,” he said before speaking on the future possibility of voice communication for Wii.
“Our system has the capability for online voice chat, it’s just an issue of deciding on peripheral.”
Article retrieved via Pc World.
This is an interesting video found via boingboing that discusses the once open and peaceful Web.
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