Showing category "Technology" (Show all posts)

The unusual experience of having a photo featured on Flickr Explore (29 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, June 29, 2015, In : Technology

So an odd thing happened yesterday. One of my index cards was featured in Flickr Explore, and it was a very interesting experience ...

I first realised something unusual was going on when I started getting phone notifications for 'likes' (favourites on Flickr) at a much faster rate than usual, and from people that I didn't know. There were just 3 or 4 to start with, and my first thought was perhaps I was getting spammed. I actually had a quick look at Explore on my phone, but couldn't see my p...
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ANZ 23 Mobile Things: Voice interaction and recording (18 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, In : Technology

This is a re-post of my original blog post "Thing 21: Voice interaction and recording" that I created for the ANZ 23 Mobile Things course last year.

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I think we can all agree that one of the great things about modern mobile devices is the variety of ways that we can interact with them. Unlike older phones and desktop computers, we are no longer restricted to a keyboard (or mouse) interface - we can ...
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ANZ 23 Mobile Things: File sharing – Dropbox (18 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 18, 2014, In : Technology

This is a re-post of my original blog post "Thing 19: File sharing - Dropbox" that I created for the ANZ 23 Mobile Things course last year.

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This week's thing is file sharing using mobile devices. The portability of mobile devices makes them an ideal tool for accessing and sharing files on the move. We will look at sharing / syncing files across multiple devices (eg. your smartphone, tablet and PC)...
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Becoming my own computer expert

Posted by Sally Cummings on Friday, February 21, 2014, In : Technology

I recently recovered from a computer meltdown. It started with one of those enigmatic error screens that could mean a hundred different things. After trying a few options, I conceded defeat and visited my local PC repair shop. I was convinced it was just a faulty connection somewhere, but the diagnosis came back: failed hard drive. Again.

Having already spent quite a bit of money to replace the hard drive and retrieve my data only a year before, this time I decided to fix it myself. And yes, I...
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WaterMyPhoto (14 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 13, 2012, In : Technology

I have lots of photography and video apps on my iPhone. Most of them are free, though I've paid for a few too. They let me edit or play with photos or videos in ways that previously could only be done on a desktop or laptop computer - and sometimes in new ways altogether! Some apps try to do everything (crop, contrast, filters, frames, etc.) and others just focus on doing one thing well (panoramas, colour splash, stop motion).

WaterMyPhoto is a neat little app that does one thing well. It cost...
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Blabberize (3 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, June 3, 2012, In : Technology

Last year my colleagues and I put together a fun library orientation program for students that involved treasure hunts, QR codes, animated videos and more. It was a great project to work on, and I've previously blogged about it HERE.

As part of the online version of the treasure hunt, we used video clips that I created with an online tool called Blabberize. They were silly, and they made students laugh - which was exactly the reaction we'd hoped for. They were also a hoot to play during the co...
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Wordle

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, October 5, 2011, In : Technology

I've been looking for a good excuse to use Wordle for ages, and I finally found one :)

This Wordle was created using the comments made by respondents in my recent survey about "Twitter for professional development and career progression". It will be part of my presentation to the ALIA Top End Symposium, 7-8 October 2011.

(click on the image to see a larger version)

Wordle generates "word clouds" (similar to tag clouds) that display the most commonly used words in the text that you provide. The ...
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Playing with Dumpr (16 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 16, 2011, In : Technology

I love discovering fun online tools, especially when they're free :)

Dumpr is a photo and image editing tool that I came across at the beginning of the year. It has some really nice effects available. A few of the effects that used to be free are now part of their paid "pro" package, but there are still enough free ones to make it worthwhile checking out.

I especially like the Amazing Circles effect. It doesn't work well with every image, you'll have to try a few to find out for yourself which ...
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#Octshowntell Week 4

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, November 7, 2010, In : Technology

Yes, yes, I know October is over now ;) I created each "digital story" for the #Octshowntell challenge during October, and posted links on Twitter. It's just taken me a bit longer to showcase them here on my blog ...

Anyway, I thought I'd try something different for the final week of #Octshowntell. I first came across DoInk a couple of years ago, and had been meaning to have a play with it ever since. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.

DoInk allows you to create your own animations - you...
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#Octshowntell Week 3

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, October 31, 2010, In : Technology

For the third week of #Octshowntell, I made a cartoon using Pixton.

I've been going through a rough patch lately, and this cartoon is my picture-tells-a-thousand-words way of showing the wonderful support that Tim has given me.

Pixton's embedding function isn't working for me, so unfortunately I can only attach a small version to this post. You can view the full-size cartoon HERE.

P.S. No, neither Tim or I are stick figures, but I couldn't figure out how to change body shapes in Pixton's free ve...
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#Octshowntell Week 2

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, October 26, 2010, In : Technology

My second attempt at digital storytelling for #Octshowntell was made using Storybird. Storybird is a website where you can use high quality (and gorgeous!) illustrations to create stories, and publish them in a visually appealing digital storybook format. I encourage you to give it a go, the site is a real pleasure to use.

I wrote a simple little story about a helpful librarian (in the guise of a green fairy) answering questions about finding books and information. The artwork is by the very t...
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#Octshowntell Week 1

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, October 18, 2010, In : Technology

First there was #blogeverydayofjune. Then there was #1pic1thoughtinAug. Now it's time for #Octshowntell :)

#Octshowntell is a challenge to explore a variety of digital storytelling tools - one each week in October - and share the results on Twitter, using the #Octshowntell hashtag. As well as being great fun, it's a terrific idea to get to know these tools, and to consider how they can be used in both personal and professional contexts.

My first effort was using Animoto, which creates beautiful...
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Tumbling - again (9 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 9, 2010, In : Technology

I've previously written a blog post about Tumblr, but I've decided to revisit it after posting a comment about it on moonflowerdragon's blog tonight.

I use Tumblr in addition to my more traditional blogging platform here. I use it differently - it's more for finding, recording and sharing sources of art/craft/visual inspiration that I find on the web.

Here's the link to my Tumblr - http://sallysetsforth.tumblr.com

It's very easy to use. There's a bookmarklet that makes it really simple to send ...

Advent Calendar - Day 1 (Twitter)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, December 1, 2009, In : Technology

I'm setting myself a challenge for December - an Advent calendar of blog entries! I'm going to write one blog post every day until Christmas. It may be a full blog entry, or just a short one with maybe a photo or a thought. But I'll post something here every day.

I got the idea from the title of a blog post by Dörte Böhner, who I follow on Twitter (@bibliothekarin). And since I first saw the link to that blog post on Twitter, I think Twitter would make a good subject for my first Advent post...
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Tumbling...

Posted by Sally Cummings on Saturday, November 21, 2009, In : Technology

If you've visited my site lately, you may have noticed a new entry on the left-hand menu. It's called "Tumblr" and it links to a web page with my latest ten Tumblr posts.

In case you haven't come across Tumblr before, it's a microblogging site, but it's quite different to that most well-known microblogging service, Twitter. With Tumblr, you can quickly and easily grab interesting things off the internet - web pages, photos, videos, quotes, blog posts, etc. - and display them on Tumblr with a c...
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Me and The Sims

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, June 1, 2009, In : Technology

Well, the computer is almost back to its old self. The programs are reinstalled, passwords and preferences have been entered, virus checks are in order.

There's only one thing missing.

The Sims is not installed yet. No, not the brand new Sims 3 that will be released here on Thursday. No, not its precursor Sims 2. I'm talking about The Sims, originally released in 2000. Old school.

It's a bit clunky and prone to crashing, but it's my fave computer game. I can play with the characters that I...

Working with the web...

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, In : Technology

Wow, this last few weeks has been a real learning curve!

I purchased my domain name, selected Yola as my website builder and host, put together a bit of content, and published my site!

Well, I thought it was going to be that easy. It turned out that my domain name purchase did not include domain management, and I couldn't direct my site to my domain (hello hidden costs!). Enter: ZoneEdit to the rescue!

Yola uses templates to make it really easy to start up a blog and website. But, of course, ...