Computer and Web Articles

Not a Photoshop expert? No problem. You can still have a tremendous amount of fun with your digital photos, thanks to a seemingly limitless number of simple online photo manipulation tools. Here are just a few.

• Locate a photo of yourself (or better yet, a photo of a family member or friend) looking straight at the camera and head over to www.YearbookYourself.com. Choose to turn your photo into a 50s yearbook portrait, or perhaps a 70s student life shot, or maybe an 80s “Voted Most Likely To” photo.
• Like the idea of putting your face (or someone else’s) in a funny spot, but not excited about the yearbook concept? Try www.FaceInHole.com and choose from tons of photos with places to put your face. Put your face in the place of a model’s, a pirate’s, or Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus painting. You can even drop your face in place of a girl getting kissed on the cheek by Justin Bieber. I just made your day with the Bieber option, didn’t I?
• Create professional quality photo slideshows at www.PhotoSnack.com. Choose from pre-designed templates, upload as many photos as you want, add music (if you’d like), and easily share your slideshows with others. Free and Premium versions available.
• For some retro computer fun, visit www.Photo2Text.com and turn your images into ASCII text art. (I actually found a faded, real-life ASCII text artwork piece in my closet the other day of my dad and I when I was a baby; the text in the top left corner read “Computer Art”. I wonder how much it cost to have art like that made back in the day…)

ATTENTION ALL COFFEE JUNKIES: Coffee Joulies are almost here.

Fascinating little stainless steel stones that have the power to make you very happy campers, Coffee Joulies are each roughly the size of half a chicken egg and work magic by keeping your coffee at exactly the right temperature for hours.

Joulies absorb energy from your coffee when it’s too hot, then release the heat back into your coffee to keep it at just the right temperature.  Their thin hollow shells are filled with a proprietary substance called “Phase Change Material” (PCM) that is absolutely safe and allows the Joulies to sink to the bottom of your mug to stay out of your way.

To learn more about these silverly little gems, have a look at their easy to review, informative website (including the video on their homepage). The site is www.Joulies.com.

Though Joulies will last forever once you have them in hand, you can’t order them quite yet.  Instead, enter your email address on the Coffee Joulie site’s homepage to receive an email when they’re ready to order.

1. http://vimeo.com/19374769 - A two and a half minute video showing a fellow using a simple machine to make rainbow vandalism. A duality of property destruction and smile creation.
2. http://tinyurl.com/4k7ygjp - This isn’t your standard alarm clock app. The Sleep on It iPhone app was designed to help you wake up on time feeling your best. Iin addition to waking you in the morning, Sleep on It tracks how long you sleep as well as your sleep quality. It keeps track of your moods, meds, and sleep cycles so that you can ultimately locate patterns that affect your sleep and learn how much sleep you need to feel energized. Developed by MedHelp (a large online health community) in partnership with GE Healthymagination, the Sleep on It iPhone app is completely free.
3. http://tinyurl.com/5uqttf - One hundred and one computer magazine ads from the past. A fascinating, and oftentimes quite funny, visual trip down one of technology’s memory lanes.
4. http://SproutSocial.com - Does your business actively use social media? Do you find yourself wishing it was easier to manage and track your efforts? SproutSocial can help. SproutSocial allows you to find new customers, generate simple reports and analytics, monitor your brand, organize your contacts, and maintain a clear understanding of your engagements’ and efforts’ results. An easy to understand Social Media Dashboard and comprehensive (yet not overwhelming) tools can streamline and simplify your social media management. Sound enticing? Give their free thirty day trial a shot.
5. http://tinyurl.com/4v6hqgw - Eleven beautifully designed charts that shed light on a not-so-pleasant topic: the substantial imbalance of wealth in the U.S. The graphics take large numbers that are often challenging to appreciate on their own and transform them into clear visual representations of the state of our nation’s current wealth distribution.

1. http://tinyurl.com/3o4p4bq - Limited space for your laptop’s workstation? Take a look at these tiny/minimal laptop desks meant for the smallest of spaces.
2. http://tinyurl.com/3r7zgdd - The IntelliVocab app for iPhones improves your vocabulary and auto-adapts to your progress. Very nice!
3. http://strollometer.com – “Presenting the world’s first computer/speedometer designed to fit on any baby stroller.” For time-challenged mothers looking to get back into shape after having a baby, Strollometer suggests doing more of what you’re already doing: strolling (while using their tool, of course).
4. http://tinyurl.com/3cej6gb - In today’s News You Didn’t Want to Hear: research is showing that mobile use before bedtime wrecks your sleep.
5. http://tinyurl.com/3tlc9rc - The best free clock screensavers you’ve (probably) never seen. Definitely some cool ones here.

In the past we’ve discussed the importance of cleaning our keyboards. (Refresher: they become appallingly unsanitary and bacteria-infested become over time.)

Last week I chanced upon a brilliant DIY article that offered a great keyboard-cleaning alternative to the effective but time consuming, labor intensive methods we’ve (ahem—that includes you, right?) employed in the past. And this keyboard-cleaning alternative lets our dishwashers do the work for us.

Yep, that’s right: the article walks you through the comparatively quick process of safely using your dishwasher to sanitize your keyboard.

Though I’d have liked to have tested the process before sharing the article with you, I purchased a brand new keyboard less than two weeks ago and it’s still quite spotless. As keyboards don’t stay clean very long though, I’m looking forward to using this technique in the near future.

And to answer your question: It’s true, I purchased a new keyboard because I ever so gracefully spilled my drink across my old one.

Here’s the link to the step-by-step article. Happy dishwashing:
http://tinyurl.com/3db6eek

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