Multi-touch Surface Device Demonstrations

Check out this wild new video from Popular Mechanics. Multi-touch is bringing us a step closer to organic computing :).

(Thanks Jonathan!)

Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.

It's fast, easy, and fun.

• One-click photo fixing or in-depth tweaking
• Crop, rotate, and resize in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Amazingly fast

• Works directly with many photo sharing sites
• No download required, nothing to install!
• Works on Mac, Windows, even Linux
• Free version, premium version (soon)

Well, I knew these types of apps would come to maturity one day. A fresh 2007 company, Picnik makes editing picture a... sack lunch with a friend.

If you do not have Photoshop, then I suggest you use Picasa to edit your pics. If for some reason you do not like Picasa or can not access it, use Picnik. It's just as capable as Picasa at editing photos, maybe even more so, and it runs right in your browser. The only pitfall is that you must wait for your photo to upload so you can edit it (it's pretty fast though).

At least you know, if you are at another computer and need to do a quick edit, picnik is here to help. Great little app.

AlterNet Web Design

I guess I haven't updated you on my business endeavors in a while.

Since I left my previous position as a web designer/master of a large health food store, I pursued a new web design venture with a good Christian friend I know through our church. He's a talented salesperson and I can make websites. It seemed like a good match.

Using open source CMS (Content Management System) technology to help design our system, we've created a website that almost anyone can run with no prior knowledge of web design or HTML. In fact, it's nearly as easy to put text in pictures in your site as it is to do so in a simple email.

We recently created our own site using our system and is now public!

www.AlterNetLand.com

If you like it, drop me a line and let me know!


I have some other businesses that are still in the brainstorming phase, but if they become solidified I will keep you posted!

Blog 2.0

It shouldn't take this long to make something look this simple.

Anyways, take a look at the new coat of paint and let me know what you think. I tried to follow some of the Web 2.0 "less is more" mantra along with bigger fonts. Hopefully, this is starting to look better. I will probably be tweaking it off an on while trying to avoid my usual, complicated, decorating habits :).

Here we go again!

Alright... my blog is going to look ugly for a little bit, but this in the beginning of a new template :).

Q&A: Making a Website for Free

Here's a question I was asked recently that you may find interesting:

"Do you know what's the best way to go if I want to set up my own website for free? I googled "free website" and pulled up a bunch of stuff that looked kind of tricky--like officelive.com that said it was free but when I looked deeper it said it would charge my credit card after awhile. I was wondering what you thought."

Of course, if you are willing to put up with the culture and ads, MySpace was made for this. But since I can't reccomend Myspace to anyone without feeling like I have to make a burnt offering to the Lord afterwards, I suggested a more creative approach... WARNING: This is not for the feint of heart (or those afraid of "words" like HTML):

Free hosting is hard to come by but there are some options out there for the creative.

I guess it really depends on what you need the site to do. If you were doing a basic info site with some downloadable files I would probably try a Wordpress/Google Group combination. Wordpress, while intended to be a blog is actually a highly evolved CMS (content management system) that can be used to make great websites.

The best part is, the site is controlled like a blog, so it is very easy to edit content.

The reason for the Google Group is that you can upload files to it and that link directly to those files on your site (this is transparent to users).

Another plus to using this set up is, no ads! It's completely ad free.

I would advise that you buy a domain name though unless you want mysite.wordpress.com to be your address. You can get one for $8 a year at godaddy.com. Using domain-forwarding through godaddy you can have your site appear to be hosted on your own domain. :)

http://wordpress.com
http://groups.google.com/
http://godaddy.com/

You're going to have to get your hands pretty dirty to get it done (what do you expect for free!), but it should be fun and completely convincing when you're done. WordPress is an awesome system. You'll need a good template that allows for multiple pages. Here's some good WordPress links:

http://themes.wordpress.net (if you don't like any of the defaults)
http://wp-plugins.net/
http://faq.wordpress.com/ - to answer your questions :)

If you need to host images for your template, try photobucket.com or flickr.com.


There's probably an easier way to do this if you want to put up with ads, but for the best end product, this is the route I would take!

Sorry if that seems like too much work to you! You could always fork out the dough if you don't like it though :)