Category Archives: Web

TeenTechie

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You may have read my post asking for technology passionate teens (thanks all of you teens who emailed me!). And we have finally mostly completed project teengather.

  1. It is now named TeenTechie!
  2. It is all about teen opinion of technology news
  3. You can find it at teentechie.net
  4. We have 6 authors, all younger than 17! (not for long… :P)
  5. It also has a podcast!
  6. Beware, the site is still under construction! Don’t email me your complaints JUST yet…
  7. Our writers haven’t been very writiculous… (COUGH COUGH)
  8. You can find the site at teentechie.net

There you go, a numbered outline about TeenTechie. Enjoy!

picplz

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We all have twitter accounts.

What is twitter for? It’s for sharing what you are doing right then in less than 140 characters.

picplz is similar, but it uses pictures with tags and captions instead of just text.

Sorry guys, but the app is only available on android. 🙁

So here’s how it works:

Open up the app and you are instantly greeted with the view of your phone’s camera. Tap the camera button to take a picture. If you have foursquare configured, tap the venue that you are at. You can then tap someone/something to tag them in the photo. Then you can click edit details and enter a caption and decide which services you want to post it to (twitter and foursquare). Then click post and your picture will be posted! This is great because you can see which pictures you’ve taken at different foursquare venues. Your profile will be located at picplz.com/user/username. Check mine out here!

Droid Incredible: First impressions

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You may have read the post about me getting a new phone. Well I got it, and after about a day of use I’ve gathered some opinions. First of all, the thing is high off of a 1 ghz snapdragon processor. Even with widgets and widgets running, the thing is still extremely snappy. Another great thing is HTC sense, which allows a cool interface with some added features. HTC also packed in their own keyboard instead of the defaultandroid keyboard and it allows easier typing. Only thing I don’t like is the haptic for the keyboard because if you type really fast you have a buzzer in your hands. Another thing I love is the notification system. It makes a sound and buzzed but unlike the iPhone the notifications are at the top if the screen and you can continue doing what you are doing. Another big plus is the built in gps with turn by turn navigation. Sweet! And that adds geotagging to the 8 megapixel camera with dual led flash. It is now officially my only camera. You can also broadcast live to ustream with it.

Although there us so much good, there is one big bad. Although it’s the Droid incredible, the battery life is not so incredible. I want to get an extended battery but $80? I don’t think so. I’ve never made it a full day even with it off for most of it. The battery life is indeed a failure.

Good phone, camera, gps, and more, but not so good battery life.

Expect more in depth reviews is everything mentioned above!

P.S. I wrote this using the incredible. Sorry for typos!

Calling all tech teens!

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Are you a teen?

Are you (almost) obsessed with technology?

Then I’d like you to be in a project I’m doing.

Teens are kind of the future. When you’re not around, the teens will be: and they will probably be one of the most successful generations ever. They are also one of the smartest when it comes to technology because they’re minds are fresh and have never listened to a landline or used dial-up before (well it depends, but you get the point).

I’vew been looking around the interwebz for a technology blog only by teens. I’m currently unsuccessful, so I decided I would just start my own.

If you are interested, please email me at max@maxswisher.com. No, you don’t have to pay anything, but just some time to write blog posts every once and a while about technology (you decide the rest!).

Currently, I don’t have a name for the site until I find a good domain (I have a list, I might do a poll to see what you guys think), but I have codenamed the project teengather.

If you know any teens that are technologically skilled (more than the ability to go on facebook for 14 hours straight), please tell them about teengather.

Thanks!

Max Swisher

How did Google get their Street View Images?

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Many of us use Google Maps. If you don’t have a GPS, it is usually the #1 site you will go to to get directions. It is mostly accurate, clean free, and of course, by Google.

But one thing that many people find useful is Street view. Before they go, they can see whta their destination should look like so you arent frantically searching for house numbers when you supposedly arrived.

If you have played with Street View before, you may have found that you can drag 360º PLUS go up and down. How were these images captured?

And just in case you havent played with Street View before, click here to go to google maps and click the little golden dude over the vertical zoom bar on the left of the map to get a street view of times square, NY. Click and drag the image to pan this 360º panoramic snapshot. The truth will be revealed now…

It’s a normal monday. La la, coming home from school, lots of traffic WHOW WHAT IS THAT!!

It took me a few seconds to realize t but it was the same kind of rig that google used to get their Street View shots. Here’s the pic I took with my phone:

Wow...

As you can tell, it is this sphere mounted on top of a car. the sphere has numerous cameras in little holes that all take pictures at once. Then, someone puts them all together. So if you see this UMO (Unidentified Mobile Object) around your town, start jumping around in hope that your streets may soon have street view in Google Maps.

Have you found something cool just like this, but have nowhere to post it? Don’t want to start your own blog because you might not actually have THAT MANY thoughts to post? Post it to the community for free at http://community.goodmorninggeek.com!

New GMG Sites!!

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Now before reading this post, remember: This is the main site you want to follow!!

We have launched the following new sites:

Good Morning Geek Forum

Get all of your tech questions answered here. Also, please answer other people’s questions, as If there is no one answering and only asking then that wouldn’t be too helpful, would it? So the more people you can get answering questions on these forums the better, for you, me, and anybody else who might want to join. Did I mention that anybody can join, and there are absolutely no ads? Now remember: I have complete control over al user accounts and posts, and I will be moderating. If there is a spamming account, gone it shall be! Now to get to the forum is a little tricky: http://forum.goodmorninggeek.com will take you to a launch page, but to get to the forums etc. you need to go to http://forum.goodmorninggeek.com/forum . Trickey, right? I am still looking for a solution to this, but soon I might just have a big black button that says “PROCEED TO FORUM”. We’ll see. Currently, I have forums for the following topics: iPod touch & iPhone, iPod, Mac, and windows. Windows has Vista, 7, and XP under it. To create an account on the forums just go to http://forum.goodmorninggeek.com and on the left click Create new account. Then, put in your desired username and email address and a password will be sent to you. to login, go to http://forum.goodmoringgeek.com/forum and put your USERNAME (NOT EMAIL) in the username box and in the Password box enter the password that was in your email (you can copy and paste the password as well). To create a new forum topic login and in the left sidebar click Create Content. Then click Forum Topic. enter the name for the thread and select the forum it needs to go under. Type in some additional information for the questions and click post. Yr post will show up in the right sidebar under what’s new so other people can see it. To reply to thread, you will need to comment on it (sorry, it was the best I could do, but it works). Have fun on the Good Morning Geek Forum!

Good Morning Geek Community

Do you want to share your thoughts with the world, but don’t want to start a website or blog? Maybe you have started a website or blog, but you don’t get that many views? Well, Good Morning geek Community is your place to post your tch thoughts and have them read by the world. Remember, the views are powered by you, so spread the word of community.goodmorninggeek.com so everybody gets more readers! As I mentioned up there, http://community.goodmorninggeek.com is the URL. To post something to GMGC, you need to sign up (which is free!) by doing the following: On the main page click Create New account on the right sidebar. Enter your information and an email should arrive with your login info. Enter the information in the right sidebar and click login. To create a new post to GMGC, login and in the left sidebar click create content. Then, click create new post. Write that post and click save, and it will appear on the homepage. Have fun!

How-to: Create huge posters and cool entryways

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You like that picture on your computer. but you want to put it on your wall. Wait. You want it to COVER the wall. But, it’s too expansive to print on big paper at kinkos, etc., etc. So what do you do? You use an online tool called the rasterbator.This great tool will simply take your image and make the pixels big dots. The size of the dot will depend on brightness of the poto and how big you want it to be.

To use to this online tool, just click HERE, upload your image, crop if desired, size to the number of pages you want it to be, SELECT MULTI-COLOR ON THE NEXT PAGE, and download and print the PDF. Well, then of course there’s cutting it and putting it together, etc.

So originally I had a big picture of the aple logo that was screddd and hanging from my door, shown below.

Old Entry...

But I was getting very bored of it.

So I had just made my new logo, and I decided that I should create an entry thing with my logo. I was having some problems with the software I had previously used, so I used the rasterbator this time. Below is the image I uploaded to the rasterbator.

Original Image

As you can see, it’s simply two of my logos on top of each other.

So after downloading the PDF I printed it out (turned out to be about 30 pages) and put it together… with nothing but scissors and Scotch tape. This is quite the challenge as with a normal printer there will be a border, which you have to find a way to fold over.

After piecing it I did what needed to be done: I cut the whole thing in to strips EXCEPT FOR THE TOP. Then, I simply hung it above my door and this is what I got.

New Entry

As you can tell, this one hangs much mower than the old entry, and in a cose-up, you an see how this tool really fit it to this big of a size.

Pixels to dots

The rasterbator did just what I said it would do – pixels to dots. The brightr, the smaller the dot (as more white will appear). And of course, the bigger you want the picture, the bigger the dot.

But some people go REALLY far with this thing.

Whow...

Pandora

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L9ef4cMitA&hl=en&fs=1&]
This is probably one of the most well known web applications in the existence of existing. Pandora[.com] is a free (with a few ads) internet radio that quote “Plays only music you like”. First, put in your favorite song/artist (no registration required, but registration keeps track of all your stations for use on other devices). It will then find tracks like the artist or song you put in, and will make a “station”out of it called “[Artist/song here]”. Then, it will play a track with very close qualities to the artist/song you put in. You can them select thumbs down or thumbs up to modify the station. It will play constantly for about an hour and then say “Are you still listening?”. To avoid this, just click something over there. It only does that when it thinks you aren’t there and the app stays motionless for 1 hour. You can have LOTS of stations, I don’t know the maximum (if there is one). And with Fluid (clickable) you can turn it into a desktop application. What else could you ask for? No ads! To do this, you need to subscribe to pandora ($$). Ever hear music playing through my live feed? A lot of the time it’s pandora. Also, you can even create stations based on genre.

Links:

My Oats

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otzvfjT59Os&hl=en&fs=1]
Not what you think. This Web Service Is for creating your own wallpaper images.

This pretty much takes your mouse patterns which you draw and puts them into a cool symmetrical pattern. Many modes, many things you can do with it. You can select specific colors for the design as well as the background of it. And even, you can put it into photoshop and stick I don’t know, a logo into it (click for Good Morning Geek My Oats wallpaper!)? This is fun, and easy to do even with your eyes closed!
A cool thing about this is that it can link to a couple of other things.
1. It uses colors. and if you want to know what your color is, try out colourism.com! Simple. Put in your name and date and birth and it will tell you your color and complimentary color. That’s how I made that GMGMOWP (Good Morning Geek My Oats WallPaper) I mentioned above.
2. It doesn’t need to be a web app. What about Fluid (clickable)? It will become your own desktop application. I did try it using a web archive file and downloading doesn’t work. What’s the purpose of making a wallpaper if you can’t use it?
My Oats requires Adobe Flash player.
Free, online, no registration required!

Double Twammy!

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Yes, double whammy, but of twitter. twammy. Twitter is definitely one of the best services I have ever used. Of course it is free, and it is web-based. it is very simple: a free micro-blogging service. If you aren’t using it, then you are definitely missing out on a lot. On twitter’s homepage, this is how it describes twitter:

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
well if you are just to lazy to try and watch the video, I’ll explain:
Many people love to communicate with friends and family. But what are they doing? what are you doing? is one of the first questions asked by friends, family, and people you enjoy communicating with. Many times you can see what they are doing by blog posts, emails, and phone. But what about the things that people do and you never know about? you wouldn’t send, I’m mowing the lawn, and it is very tall, to someone in an email. they don’t really need to know that. But what about the people that are interested in you and do want to know that? this is where twitter comes in. You post what you are doing, and people that are “following” you see your update on their twitter homepage. You can post anything there though: just made a new blog post? post it on twitter so your followers know about it and go and visit. About to install hackintosh on your PC, and you are doing a live feed of it on ustream? post a tinyurl of the stream in a tweet to get some more viewers. Mowing the lawn? post it on twitter for your followers to know. You can follow other people you are interested in too. In fact, many celebrities have twitter such as Obama, Britanney Spears, and many others. Their “tweets” will show up on your homepage as well. Another sweet feature is replies. to reply to a tweet, just put @theirtwitterusername and it will show up as a reply. Another cool feature is that large companies setup what I like to call TweetBots because they look at every tweet looking for a keyord, usually their company name. Once when in Hawaii I tweeted, going out to dinner in lahaina somewhere, and don’t exactly know where, and guess what happened. I got a reply from Lahaina.com that said @maxswisher next time you need lahaina dinner suggestions, just come to Lahaina.com, and it appeared for me because it had the @maxswisher (my username) in front of it. All in your internet browser. But for you people that don’t like web-based much, there is something for you…
TWEETDECK!!!!
TweetDeck is by far the best twitter client for Macs and PC’s ever. On top of just tweeting, it now does many other cool things after an update: Now you can also post your facebook status! That part of it is a little bit on the buggy side given it is a brand new feature, but nonetheless it is AMAZING. You have a view in different columns, and each one can have something different. You can have one for replies to you in one, updates of your friend’s in another, and even make groups of different users for another. TweetDeck also has things like TweetShrink, which searches the words in an entered tweet and shortens them, like it will replace for with 4, etc.
It also has a URL shortener in it, so you can shorten URLs using bit.ly or tinyurl.com right in the client! You can also use TwitPic right there, and let me tell you: Wanting to find tweets with a specific word in them? easy! just click on the little magnifying glass on the top right, type in your term, and Voila! another column opens with all of the tweets for your search term. You can even have a column for Facebook friends’ status updates. Isn’t this thing amazing? Get it people!
TweetDeck Homepage*
Twitter Homepage

*Requires Adobe Air Application installer and Adobe Flash Player for download

Fluid

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Hey, mac users. Remember what happens when you put a web location on your desktop or in the dock? You see a spring with an @ at the top, right? well, no more of that! With fluid, the website is actually an application, and you can select your own icon and name. But the interesting part is, that it is actually an application. It doesn’t open in safari, it opens in an app that is what you named it in Fluid. Below is a screenshot of the inputs. For this example I am using youtube with a custom downloaded icon, and I am saving to s specific folder I selected. The icon will work in every format (at least that is available of of google images) and every size, and Fluid will resize them for you.

All I have to do now is click create and it will create a .app file in the folder you selected (the default is applications). The app will look like the image below. Notice the name of the app is the name I specified in fluid (YouTube).
As you can see in the Get Info panel, it is a .app file.
Now, open the app.
WOW.
Take note of :
1. The icon
2. the menu bar’s app name
3. the lack of a url bar or back/forward buttons
4. the title bar of the window
If your icon is a png and has transparency, there won’t be a white background like in the above screenshot. That’s because my icon image was a jpg. But I can easily add transparency with Photoshop. If you have many sites that you visit frequently but you don’t want to use too much dock space, I would recommend stacks. Just drag the folder into the right side of the dock, like the below image.

No more mirrors!

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This post is outdated and false. For the newer alternative then Jing, look here

What?? I finally bought captivate? no…..
But I did get Jing! Jing is a free, simple, screen capture software. Unfortunately, the saved output file is a really disgusting kind of swf file. What I mean by disgusting is that it really doesn’t work with many kinds of swf to _____ kind of converters. The only way to view it is through safari(/Probably any other browser with flash installed), and since I don’t have a server for myself set up yet (I have a domain and a server, waiting to be setup!!!), I can’t put that there for you to view through the web. I would really like to have the video right below here. That is possible, but I would have to pay $15 a year for it. I know, not allot, but to me all free things are good. But to get it below, I would get the pro version of Jing, which I can upload it to youtube, and in youtube there is an embed feature that I could just put right below or in the code of this post. But luckily, TechSmith (the creators of Jing) have registered www.screencast.com, where you can upload your jing video. Which is how I am showing you the video I made here: http://screencast.com/t/MrUZCeFWon

You need to zoom WAY out to see my whole screen!