Cool Text

Today we are exploring animated text options. I created a little banner for my blog, but I can't fit it in because it's invalid. I can fit it into my blog post, which I will do directly under this.

I also found a nice font that I like, called "He is dead, Jim". I laughed for a while when I saw it, because I would have expected a Star Trek font to have a more serious name, rather than an in-series joke.

I added it to a logo. It is actually a normal font that you can download.

-You can find these options here.-

Drawing Tools

Last class period we were instructed to explore a list of drawing tools on the main CE blog. Our assignment is to explain three drawing websites.

First, I would like to showcase Slimber. Slimber is a more professional drawing tool, which attracts many amazing artists. One of the best parts about Slimber is its unique video playback. If you click on the play button, it will revert to a white screen and show you a sped-up playback of the drawing being created, so you can study techniques. I did not create anything there, but I would highly recommend visiting it.

My second website showcase is another handy website called Pencil Madness. Pencil Madness allows to to create a drawing in a special screen with rather interesting pencil types. When you have completed your drawing, you can upload it to the online gallery for everybody to see. There is currently a contest running on Pencil Madness called "Doodle 4 Google", but I do not know the fine details. I did not draw anything using this either, at least nothing I bothered saving. I'm not very artistic.

My last website showcase is my personal favorite, and it is called Flame Painter. Flame Painter gives you an empty black screen, with a strange-looking mess of white for the cursor. Clicking on the background will paint with fire, which does not disappear. There are four option bars, as well as a color selector. Tip: If you drag all of the option bars to 100% and click and hold on the screen, the end product will look something like a galaxy or a distant star. I do have pictures of this website saved, and I actually have three I would like to share.

A nebula.

A bright, distant star.

A supercluster of either stars or galaxies.

If you can't tell, I really like space and space-oriented things.

Blog Views

We have been asked today to review and write about our blog views. I have three methods of discovery, if you have not yet noticed - Flag Counter, FeedJit, and Blogger. I will review each of these in order.

Flag Counter is an application that I believe reviewed earlier which collects information on how many visitors have seen your website/blog, and what country (Not address, nor city. Don't worry. You can even try it out for yourself.) they came from, essentially "collecting" their flags and storing them on a chart or map. I've included screenshots from Flag Counter with this post.

The counter widget on my blog, as of 10:02.

The advanced settings.

FeedJit is another widget applied to my blog which keeps track of the 10 most recent visitors to my blog. It tells me how long ago they visited, and their city and state/country. There are advanced options that show what website they came from, where they went, and keeps a full log of visitors. I have included screenshots from FeedJit with this post.

The FeedJit widget on my blog, as of 10:07.

The advanced options, listed as "Real-Time View".

Blogger has its own viewer counter as well, which I set to ignore my own account. It shows me when people visited, where they left to find my blog, my total page views, and such. If I click on the "more" link, it will take me to a page that lists my most popular posts. I have included screenshots of this function in my post.

The main page of stats.

The second page, under "more".

Thanks for sticking with this post, even with the constant screenshot reminder that I had in each section. I do understand that you can see the pictures, but sometimes they are not within the view limit of the monitor and cannot be seen.

PollEverywhere

PollEverywhere is a free online tool that allows one to, as expected, create a public poll. Users that wish to vote in these polls must have a phone with texting capability. You will be prompted to send a text message to a certain address with a certain code, and sometimes an accompanying message. An account is not needed, but is recommended, as it is free and allows you to organize your polls. You can find my first poll here.

The PollEverywhere banner. Click on the picture to go there.

Google Voice

We recently were introduced to a new tool - Google Voice. Google Voice allows you to connect all of your phones through one group, meaning all of your phones will ring if a call is received. This can be handy if you're away, but somebody does not know and calls your home or work phone. You can easily pick up from Manhattan, the Bahamas, Gallifrey or wherever you happen to be. Assuming there is phone service on Gallifrey. When you create your Google Voice account, it will ask you if you would like to create a free phone number, to which you should agree. It will ask you to input a city or ZIP code, and will find available numbers in your area. When you have set up your number, simply send an activation code to any and every phone that you wish to be contacted, and voila! All you need to do is give people the Google number in place of your phone number, and you're ready to go. You can also make calls from Google Voice, and receive calls through the website. You do have to pay for long-distance calls, but it costs a matter of pennies, so the Bahamas should only cost, maybe, half an American dollar, and Gallifrey about 300 American dollars (If you don't know, Gallifrey is a fictional planet from the British cult television show Doctor Who. It spoils the joke, but some of you would probably assume that it's just Google's prices if I didn't explain it). I'd call that a good deal!

The sidebar for Google Voice. I excluded my Google number for obvious reasons.

-Click here to visit Google Voice-

Avatars

Our teacher had us visit a few avatar creation-based websites, and we were instructed to post a few pictures of avatars we created.

Google Hangouts screenshot, edited in Be Funky

Mitchell the Gir-fen-octo-li-at-horse. Created on "Build Your Wild Self"

Live long and prosper! Made in the South Park Studio.

Created with Zui.

Google Hangouts

A handy fourth Google application (Certainly not the last) would be Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts is a free video chatting program with a few extra features, such as screen sharing and special effects that others can see and/or hear. It is comparable to other programs of the nature, although limited to 9 people in a call. This application can be quite useful for businesses, schools, or even personal matters. You can join a meeting from home on sick days, talk with other teachers or help students with work, or call family members who are not nearby, respectively. You may have to download a mic or camera package, but it is perfectly safe. (We tried it out on our school computers. Besides, it's Google. The only viruses you'll find there are websites other people have links to.)

Homepage. Click on the picture to go there.

Google Products Review

I have chosen three Google products to review in this post; Google Drive, Google Bookmarks, and Google Earth.

     I will begin my review with Google Drive. Google Drive is a free, online web storage facility. The space is limited, but not all objects need to stay in the drive (Meaning you can take them out if you don't need to keep them in there). The user can upload files from his or her computer for storage, backing up files and hard drives, or transfer of files between computers, as well as creating documents specifically in Drive. A few examples of documents that can be created include simple documents, slideshow presentations, spreadsheets, and art drawings. Any files created or saved as Google files can be shared with anybody else via the "Share" button, which will give you a link to give out, or let you choose specific people. This will give them permission to view, comment on, or edit your file. I find Google Drive helpful for the purpose of transferring files, usually Minecraft mods. I mention mods because they are usually large, and it does take time for Drive to upload files. I am not just throwing in Minecraft without a reason. I highly recommend usage of this particular feature for businesses and such, because it allows for multiple people to work together on one document.

-Click here to go to Google Drive-

     Next, I will review the Google Bookmarks feature. Google Bookmarks is, as it sounds, an online bookmark-storage feature. You can use it to bookmark websites rather than cluttering your bookmarks bar on your browser, which can now be saved for more important things. There is also a special, downloadable feature that will add a plus to your dashboard at the top. Clicking this plus will create a new bookmark. I can compare this website to Symbaloo, except all of your bookmarks are private on Google Bookmarks. I recommend this to anybody who is tired of clutter.

-Click here to go to Google Bookmarks-

    Finally, I will review the Google Earth feature. This is my personal favorite, as it provides you with a complete satellite view of Earth, Moon, Mars, and the Sky. At one point you could view Saturn, but I have not used it recently enough to know if that is still true or not. Google Earth also has a street view option, as well as time and date controls, leading back to, and my memory may not be correct, about the 1960s. Google Earth has a search bar which allows you to quickly find whatever you need, as well as a special feature called "3D Buildings", which is turned off by default. When you activate 3D Buildings, select important buildings and some major cities will have their buildings raised up, or in 3-Dimmensional form. I would recommend this to everybody. It is fun, and has many useful applications.

-Click here to download Google Earth-

That is all I have in store for this blog post. I hope you enjoy these features I have put under the spotlight. I will talk to you later, in my next blog post.

My Presentation

Today we have been instructed to mess around with the Google Presentations application, and I am posting the link on my blog. It can be found here.