Stuff for Starving Students

Maybe you are still thinking about the awesome winter break you had and my suggestion to create collages wasn’t enough for you. Perhaps you are feeling creative and want to spiff up some of you favorite photos. Why not try some fun photo filters? Before you complain about not having Photoshop or even the knowledge on how to create cool filters, why don’t you take a look at Rollip?

Rollip is a professional online photo effects site with 40 photo filters. Say you have a picture of NYC and you want to get artsy with your photo you can go easily go from this:

to this:

Now you look like a professional photographer that knows how to change saturation and hue (insert other photography words) to create a new image, with a new feel. Rollip has an easy to use interface, it is all done online so you don’t have to worry about downloading any software to use and of course best of all it is free.

So, grab some favorite photos, try out some filters and tell your friends you worked for hours to get the right white balance…or something. Happy filtering!

Tags: images, online tool, photo filter, photos, rollip, stuff

It is a new year and school is starting back up for starving students everywhere.

I’m sure during your winter break you took plenty of pictures of family, friends and perhaps some tropical locales you were lucky enough to visit. Now that you have all these lovely pictures I bet you are thinking about all the cool ways you can display them, right? You could spend your time printing pictures out and arranging them in a neat collage like you did back in middle school or you could head over to Photovisi and make a collage there.

Photovisi gives you lots of great template options to choose from and you can crop images inside the site too.  Best of all you don’t even have to sign-up to use their very easy to use  free tool. When you are done it creates an image perfectly sized for wallpaper on your desktop background. In a few minutes I made this:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by umwdtlt

Ok, so maybe I am not the most creative person in the world (yes that is a pizza box as the background) but, I am sure someone like you could make a collage much better than mine in no time at all. So go ahead and make that collage of you and your friends making fools of yourselves or maybe a secret collage of your celebrity crush. Also, if you happen to make a collage worth putting on everyday items you have the option personalize various products with your collage. Didn’t you always want a mug with your mug on it?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by umwdtlt

So try it out and let us know how it goes. If anything, the best part about online collages is not having to worry about getting glue all over the place or maybe that is just a personal issue…anyway happy collaging!

Tags: collage, images, online tool, photovisi, stuff

Since it has been awhile since we pointed out the handy work of new media specialist Andy Rush, I figured it was time again to give him props.

While it seems like a deceptively simple question, “How do you resize an image?” if you stop and think about it for a moment you will realize this is no easy matter. Sure you could bust out your MS paint and and do terrible things that new human being should ever do with it or you can take a look at a great resource list Andy blogged about.

So now that you have some tips from the new media pro himself go out and properly resize that blurry image you have on that social networking tool you use, we are tired of staring at pixelation.

Tags: andy rush, images, resize, resource, stuff

The last time we discussed aviary, SfSS told you all about Aviary (http://aviary.com/home) and its ability to be your photo editor, for free.  Well, while Aviary is still all about that, it has some new functions that you should know about.  Let me introduce you to Myna, Aviary’s new free audio editor.  Have you ever had a dream about being that awesome DJ, spinning incredible tracks with laser lights going off all around you?  This could very well be your first step to realizing your ambitions, you go getter, you!

To start off with let’s talk about the layout:

It looks straightforward and comes with the same basic options that you would find on the older program Fruitloops, for those who have been in to making your own tracks for a while now.  Although the snap shot only shows a few of the tracks it carries ten tracks that you can test.  My favorite thing about this stuff is how absolutely painless it is for me to use.  Everything can be simply snapped to the grid and edited within there.  You have a whole host of options, creating fading in and out transitions, changing the gain, editing the clips, and more.  The best way to get yourself acquainted to this fun tool is to just start playing with it, although there is a helpful quick screencast to get you started.

Clips for this program come from three possible sources.  The library within Myna, which comes with a user’s agreement, boasts a wide range of clips from different cds, all of a techno genre or another.  Next, your own media library can be used as a resource for clips.  However, if you have say a part of a song that would fit so nicely into your mix, unless you have a clip prepared, it will generally pull the whole song, major buzz kill.  Oh and that third source of clips?  Well that is you, of course.  You can record directly into Myna, instruments, your voice, a baby crying, whatever.

Aviary as a whole is really awesome, especially with its support.  I had some funky saving issues when I created my first song, but I dropped aviary a line, got a response in no time flat and straightened the issue out.  So give it a whirl already!

Tags: Audio, Aviary, editing, new media, stuff

Last week theYeahNo added a post to sfss about the amazing Ubuntu.  I thought I’d let you all know that if you don’t want to take the time to download Ubuntu on your computer, say you want to take this baby for a test drive, you can come down to the third floor of Dupont and pick yourself up a copy.  If you like it, keep it on your machine, but if not, that’s okay too!  So I have lots of copies, check it out.

Tags: free, Open Source, stuff

What do you have on your computer? Check it out, we’ll wait.

…

If our stats are correct, odds are good that it’s Windows. Maybe Windows XP, but probably Windows Vista. Maybe you’re getting ready to upgrade to this “Windows 7″ that Microsoft is hyping recently. Want to save your money? Get Ubuntu instead.

Whoa. Whoa. Wait.

WTF is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is a distribution (basically a version) of an operating system called Linux (sometimes GNU/Linux). Ubuntu is built completely open source by people who love what they do and distributed absolutely free (free as in beer and free as in speech ).

You don’t need to be a geek to use Linux. Ubuntu is easy to install, and just about everything you need is a few clicks away. It comes with Firefox and a complete office suite and everything else you need to get up and running right away. It’s not a virus-magnet like Windows (remember how you had to install antivirus software to get onto the network?) because it is stable, reliable and secure. The support community is huge because it’s open source, and the people who know it really know it. Ubuntu and most (if not all) of the software bundled with it is released under the GNU General Public License.

Check out Ubuntu here. Talk to someone about it. Above all, be free.

-A

Tags: free, linux, Open Source, operating systems, stuff

Have you ever tried setting up a meeting with a lot of people via e-mail? If you have you probably know the confusion that can occur as people reply, reply-all, change their minds and never respond. Or maybe you already have a day picked out but your group can’t decide where to eat or what movie to see. Is there a web 2.0 solution for your problem? Why yes, yes there is.

Let me introduce you to a lovely site called Doodle.

So how does Doodle work? Let me quote directly from the site
1) Create a poll
2) Forward the link to the poll to the participants.
3) Follow online what the participants vote for.

I used Doodle to help set up a meeting for those students interested in writing for this site (and if you are let me know!) and with a few clicks I was able to give them many time and day options. A nice feature of Doodle is that it will show you how many votes there are for each day/time combo. It may seem simple but this can give you a visual view of what day/time may be better and if you have more than one option for your get together. Another idea is creating a list of things you need people to bring to a party and have people sign up for what you need.

Give it a try and you will find that is much easier than the back and forth of e-mails and allows for many more nuances than simple e-mailing can’t get at. So throw a party, have doodle help you set it all up and don’t forget to invite your favorite starving students.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Joe Shlabotnik

Tags: Doodle, meeting, poll, stuff, voting

I’m one of those people who looks online continuously for computer programs that will help my computer become more lean.  Be it defragging, antispyware, firewall, or antivirus software, I’m always looking for the greener pasture, and although this robs me of work time every now and then, it does mean my computer doesn’t have any viruses.  When I think of computer programs that have improved my productivity, I sometimes actually think of an entire company–IOBit.

IOBit has three major products:  Advanced SystemCare, Smart Defrag, and Security 360, which just left beta testing recently.  These three programs will clean your registry, delete spyware, optimize settings, defrag, and protect your system from threats that one can easily pick up while downloading the latest Jessica Biel screensavers.  While there are paid versions offered, the free versions work pretty much the same except with a few gimped settings, including their periodic scans being locked.

As said earlier, Security 360 is the latest addition to their arsenal and acts much like other anti-malware products do (except better).  Being as the main selling point of these programs is how easy they are to use (and they really are), it only takes one click to scan your system for spyware, and another to protect your computer from malware actively, much like Spybot Search and Destroy uses the its “immunize” function.  It also includes a scan for security holes and a privacy sweeper.

There really isn’t anything like trying these programs out for yourself though, and if it makes you feel any better, they are clean and easy to uninstall, too.

Tags: advanced system care, computer maintenance, iobit, security 360, Smart Defrag, stuff

Converter Magic!

Have you ever had a song that you can’t find on itunes and you really want to get it? I have, and this is the way I figured out how to do it for free! A friend of mine introduced me to this website and I think that it is really cool. so the website itself is http://www.mediaconverter.org and this is how I have been using it. First of all this website as far as I can tell is open to anyone and you don’t even have to sign up or give any information. The purpose of this website, or what I have been using it for is to rip the audio track off a video (I use Youtube) and then be able to transfer it to your ipod or musical device. So, this is how you do it (keep in mind there might be easier ways to do this but this is what has worked for me)  When you go to the website on the home page there is a box in the middle of the page that’s called the conversion wizard. Click the “enter a link button” and then copy and paste a link from a video of which you want the song and then hit “ok”  Now the screen should look a lot like it did when you started but now on the far right there is a green arrow that says “go to the next step” click on it. Now it’s going to ask you what output file type you would like select mp3 there are a lot of options here and you could probably play around with it and get it to do something else if you wanted to but I haven’t gone as far to do that yet. So, hit ok and now it should say that there is one file in the queue, hit “start” now there should be a loading bar on the lower half of the page telling you how far along it is. Once that is finished loading then a link should appear that says download, click on that. A screen should pop up asking you what program you want to open it with, this works with itunes however it does have a few quirks. The song title will be whatever the title of the video was and you can’t change it. Also, I have found that once you exit Media Converter that the song becomes unplayable. My suggestion is to put it on your ipod while you still have the site open. This may seem like a hassle but it does work and if you really want a song it is free! One more thing, you might notice that at the top of the box on the home screen it tells you that you have a certain number of conversions left I have been using this for a while and I have never run out**. I also tend to only download one song at a time so maybe if you download say five songs in a short span of time it will make you wait a while before you can download any more. I hope this is helpful to people and if you have any questions I will try and answer them. Thanks!

**The counter lets you know how many conversions you can do in a day.  If you’ve got a free account, which is what we are all about, then you get five conversions per day.  But!  Don’t let that fool you, you can get five conversions a day, which should work just fine.  If dealing with that restriction isn’t for you, check out the cash-money version.  The “pro” isn’t too expensive, but I like it free.

Tags: converter, media, stuff

Hi all,

I am a new author and just recently set up my blog, I am looking forward to learning more about this website and how to use it! I am going to try and post a link to a website that I like to use to download music. I will probably post more about it on my blog if you are interested, I am not sure of its whole potential yet.  http://www.mediaconverter.org

-Anna