Stuff for Starving Students

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!

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.

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!

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.

Like we stated many many months ago when Stuff for Starving Students was first kicking off, we are huge fans of Firefox. One of the best features of Firefox is that ability to use add-ons to extend the functionality of your browser. We have discussed a couple of add-ons in the past, like Zotero, Delicious and Aviary. Today we present another add-on to decorate your browser – Video DownloadHelper.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by umwdtlt

Video DownloadHelper is capable of searching a site you are on for videos and allows you to download the video off the site so that you can repurpose them in ways you need. Nothing illegal going on here (unless you choose to use the content you download illegally of course) it just gives you easier access to content that your browser is downloading anyway. Wondering how you might use this neat add-on? New Media Specialist Andy Rush has a post on embedding YouTube videos in PowerPoint presentations offline using the DownloadHelper add-on.

After enabling the add-on in Firefox whenever you see the DownloadHelper icon (it looks like a molecule) light up and rotate you will know that there are videos on that site available to download. YouTube is just one of the many sites that this add-on supports. So if you find that perfect video for your next project you no longer need to worry about the internet working in your classroom that day if you have already downloaded it.

There are many more possibilities with this add-on and we are curious to know how you use it in your travels, so leave a comment!

Now Jing might sound like the name of a  Chinese dynasty but, it is actually a free piece of software that allows you to do screen captures, create screencasts, and share it all easily. So lets break Jing down.

As a screen capturing software it is great. As some of you Windows users probably have experienced, taking screenshots is a pain in the behind. Jing allows you to capture a window, pane, or region so you get just what you need. Jing also has a simple markup feature so you can add a text box, arrow, rectangle, or highlight what you want. After you have your screenshot you have several options for sharing it. Either creating a link, sending it to Flickr, or just saving it to your desktop. One of Jing’s aims is to make sharing of your stuff as easy & quick as possible and they do this well.

Jing also can let you record up to 5 minutes of video of the window or region of your choice. Creating a quick and cheap screencast is simple with the features that let you narrate on the fly and allow you to upload your product as soon as you finish recording. Along the same lines as screen captures Jing makes it easy to share your screencasts with the world. So before you know it you will be screencasting like Andy Rush!

Now I’ve been speaking strictly about the free version of Jing but, if you find the service useful you may consider upgrading to the pro account for $14.95 a year. With that you have more uploading and encoding options for your screencasts, lose the logo on videos and add webcam footage into your screencasts. If that is not for you Jing still has the basic account for free (and we like free).

Like we always say here at Stuff for Starving Students, try it and see what you think. And if you’ve done something really cool with any “stuff” we have talked about (or haven’t!) let us know and we will feature you.

Ok, pay no attention to the cheesy and poorly written joke in the title of this post. This ‘Stuff’ post features one of my favorite open source software, Audacity, a free audio editor and recorder. Audacity has many features including recording, import & export capabilities, editing and effects. For a free piece of software Audacity has a lot of power.

I have used Audacity to record lectures during classes (very helpful if you learn best through auditory input), to create a quick recording of my friend’s jamming to a song on their guitars and to poorly mashup songs to create a whole new song. From basic recordings to advanced editing Audacity can handle it all. Even if you don’t need a piece of software like this all the time (I certainly don’t) it is a good program to have in your repoitore. Maybe you’ll even find reasons to use it more often once you start playing around with it.

I will mention that in order to export from Audacity and encode your stuff you will need to download something extra but, Audacity will point you to where you need to go. So if you plan on exporting an mp3 from Audacity you’ll need to have the extra file.

So there you have it, Audacity, a handy piece of free audio editing software. Just to reassure you that this piece of software is used by the best, take a look at UMW’s New Media Center and you will discover that this software is endorsed by our New Media Specialist Andy Rush. If you don’t trust his opinion on this new media stuff I don’t know who you can trust

Here on Stuff for Starving Students we have talked about cool stuff for starving artists before. There is yet another tool that I have played with for some time now (back when it was still in private beta) and while I don’t have ton of use for it as a boring old history major this has to be one of the most powerful online creation tools out there.

Addiction by mpeutz on Aviary.

The above image was created on Aviary a web based tool that is an image editor, image markup, effects editor, swatch editor, and vector editor. Each of these tools has their own clever bird inspired name, e.g. Peacock, Phoenix, Toucan and a few others. What you create in one can easily be brought into another editor, making the process of creating a visually amazing image simple. There are many great tutorials and documentation available for those of you who don’t know where to begin or need a little help getting some stuff done. I wish I could talk more extensively about the image editor, Peacock, but not often needing such a powerful editor I have not used it. I’m willing to bet that many of the tools on Aviary would impress those artists who understand color swatches, vectors, and other artsy terms. As I mentioned before though I am a boring history major, so why am I bringing up Aviary anyway?

Recently Aviary released a new editor called Falcon that works alongside a Firefox extension called Talon. As a long time PC user (no comments about that please) I have never really impressed by Windows screen capture options or MS paint. In fact I don’t think MS paint has changed as long as I can remember that application, that is besides the point though. This simple add-on that so innocently sits right next to the Delicious add-on (you did install it like we told you to right?) has already made my life so much easier. With Talon you can easily capture just a portion of the screen, the visible portion of the page, or the page in its entirety. After you have taken the screen shot you have several options. You could save it to your desktop and call it a day. Or if you are feeling more adventurous open it up in Falcon which is similar to MS Paint but doesn’t look so ugly and also gives you the option to go to a more advanced editor which totally kicks MS Paint butt. Even more than that you could open the image in the other editors we mentioned earlier in this post and do more fancy stuff!

And would you believe all this editing stuff is free? So instead of shelling out big money to use Photoshop, and lets face it you won’t even use half the features in Photoshop if you are anything like me, get a FREE account at Aviary. Even if you want to upgrade to a premium account the cost won’t make you cry yourself to sleep at night and eat ramen noodles for the rest of the semester. For the awesome screen capturing goodness alone this is worth it but, as long as you are going to sign up for account might as well play around, right?

Keep on doodling you starving students!

Now that school is out for most of college students the malaise of summer has begun to set in. I’m sure you are doing many productive things on Facebook and YouTube but, if you can spare a moment for a distraction I am sure you will be glad you did.

One look at Facebook and you can find many groups dedicated to love of all things 90s, including cartoons. If you spent much of the 90s like I did in front of TV and had the luxury of cable you probably spent hours watching Nickelodeon. How many obscenely long conversations have you had with friends about the merit of 90s Nicktoons versus the “garbage” they put on the air now? Do you wish you had the foresight to have taped your favorite episodes on VHS?

Then The Orange Splat is just the website you have been dreaming about for years (well maybe that is just me). The site is by no means extensive in its breadth of coverage but, it provides access to episodes that otherwise could not be found without extensively searching the intarwebs. The site is easy enough to navigate (even though it is not necessarily aesthetically pleasing) and has hours of childhood memories waiting to relived. Best of all it is free to watch all of the episodes and that my friends is a beautiful thing.

So this stuff post may not help you out in school but, go ahead and enjoy the summer (or take a break during summer classes) and indulge your inner 90s child. Sing your favorite The Beets song, (Killer Tofu?). Go around telling people “How dare you!” ala the large woman in Rocko’s Modern Life. Or ponder the great mystery of why Helga incessantly says Arnold’s name in the opening credits and even stranger why Arnold never responds.

Keep on veggin’ you starving students.

Even though it is summer time, we have not forgot about the starving students taking those summer classes. So in celebration of summer time and summer food we bring to you some digital media recipes.

Over at digitalmediacookbook.com you’ll find all sorts of helpful “recipes” to indulge in and perhaps you’ll even hold on to a couple of those recipes for future use. Every recipe comes with a video demo (screencast), ingredients, and directions. The creator of the cookbook, UMW’s New Media Specialist Andy Rush, has made it very easy to follow the recipes, even you digital media novices out there have nothing to fear.

Andy Rush is always working hard to find and create new recipes for this cookbook. So if you like what he has to offer make sure you send some comment or link love to let him know you want more recipes. Just as any good chef likes to recieve compliments, our new media specialist needs some lovin’ too.