Basically it goes like this:  You go to wordle.net you copy some text from any where, paste it in wordle and voila… a big ole word cloud.  Print it if you like.  Hang it on your wall, your friends walls, make a Christmas card out of it, put the all over you refridgerator (to compete with your children’s art)… so many options.

Basically have fun!

Here’s a couple of mine.

NPLB wordle

So the question is, “Do you really need one?” Valid question.  Thanks for asking.  We’ll get right to it and give you the Pros, Cons, executive summary, and of course some quick links to help you make up your mind if you don’t believe us.  Let’s go!

Executive summary

The Kindle is an electronic reader device for e-books that uses a reflective e-paper type technology that basically makes the screen look and act like paper.  Let’s be honest.  Who really likes to read from a computer screen?  I sure don’t and I have one of the nicest brightest screens around (LED backlit) but it still doesn’t compare to the kindle for readability or for power consumption.  Yep, the Kindles battery can last for days!  It can do this because the Kindle only uses power to put the words on the screen and then it turns off the power leaving your words statically in place.  Turn the page, power flashes on, puts the new page up and shuts back off.

So, “great” you say but why buy it?  Especially at just ofver $350.  Thank you.  Another great questions.  Read the “Pros” below and maybe you can answer it for yourself.

Pros:

• Can surf the web from the Kindle for free… Anywhere (that’s right, download Kindles light browser and surf the web from the Kindle!) The internal Antenna connects to a cell network WITHOUT a monthly fee!  3G network!  Free! Very nice.
• Readability!  The screen technology is even better in bright light, just like paper.  So, read away.
• Amazing battery life. Will let you read any of the 90,000+ books available for almost 7 days without recharging.

Cons:

• A bit ugly and only black and white.  The electronic ink technology hasn’t gotten color down, maybe in a few years.
• The price.  $359.00 currently but you do get free access to 3G wireless networks in the USA.  Definitely a perk.
• Can’t flip a page.  It still doesn’t replace a book for sure. Can’t flip ahead to see how many pages till the end of the chapter.

Overall it still doesn’t replace a book but for avid readers and commuters you can’t beat it especially since you can surf the web, check email and read your books all on one device without a monthly fee… I guess you just pay for it up front.

Last Links:

• Amazon’s official page with specs and a video http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00154JDAI/ref=pe_36320_11963560_pe_t3
• A well written review on Squido0 for the Kindle 2  http://www.squidoo.com/AmazonKindleReview
• How the Kindle 2 works. Hey you better be able to tell people how it works when they see you reading this cool device.

Below is a guide to my favorite free software as well as recommendations for the best mic for your given purpose.  Feel free to comment and ask a question if your specific question is not made clear.

Top free podcasting software:

• WavePad Sound Editor (free version) or Pro — for basic recording, cleaning up audio, and cutting.
• Audacity– This open source music program has lots of great features and plenty of tutorials on YouTube to get you going but is a bit harder to use than wavepad.  I find it overkill for most of my appilcations.
• Reaper — A basic mixing program for multiple tracks.  Take your recorded wavepad files and insert them into here to mix multiple tracks or sound.  Great for creating audio dramas or for looping electronic tracks.  Reaper is a free full version but nags you to buy it.
• Sony Acid XPress — free version of Sony Acid (another track mixing software) only  allows you to mix 10 tracks.
• Celtix–  Celtix is a script specific word processer.  It basically helps you format a audio drama easily and quickly (free)

Mics

• I find the Blue SnowBall mics to be the best for the price.  They have various models ranging in price from under $50 (snowflake) to over $300.  The basic white snowball is just under $100.  The $20 popfilter is especially helpful if you tend to pop the mic a lot.
• The Samsung GM1U G-Track mic comes out on the top from my research and music pals but I haven’t specifically tried it.
• If you want clearer vocals and you’re not content with the performance of your mic you might just need to get a decent preamp.  They can cost more than good microphone so you may want to see if you can buy it from a local dealer that has a good return policy if you don’t like it.

Last links

Additional resources in .pdf

• Podcasting resource guide
• Podcasting extra resources

If you have any questions or find a great preamp or mic for a good price please add a comment and let us all know how you like them.

http://bomomo.com/

So you have a snowy day or an unproductive Friday?  Well go be creative with this little interface.  The dots swirl around and follow your mouse to create an intriguing piece of art.

http://www.movie-map.com/

Map your movie likes based on a favorite.  Type in the movie you like and it will show you the title of movies that others like similar to yours.  Very fun and useful.

http://www.earthalbum.com/

Fun site that links Flickr images to maps of the world.  Fun way to see some of the best pictures in a geo-tagged fashion.

So you may be new to Facebook.  You may have just gotten used to the nice clean interface… now you’re in for a change.  Yes, change can be hard.  Sorry.

We just finished up a full length tutorial on the old interface… I guess we won’t be posting that one huh?! Well, it looks like we are both in need of some help.  So lets explore this new interface together.  Here we go.

Basically you have 3 important things that come up now:

1. Your “stream” of status updates of your freinds and groups that you’ve joined. (think real-time update).
2. Your “highlight” off to the right (these show a slower style picture of what is going on with your friends).
3. Your filters for filtering your stream by groups of people.

They also changed the status wording to “what’s on your mind?” limit of 160 characters.

Everything else is close to the same.  You have a nice inbox for direct messages (email style), your little list of applications, your photo albums, profile pictures, etc.

We’ll try to get a new tutorial out to help you out soon!  Until then, if you’d like you can always sign the facebook petition to bring the old interface back.  (how’s that for grassroots huh?)

Last links:

Facebook’s official “tour” page.  Short and sweet guide to the new interface: http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/homepage_tour.php

Good overview of the new features, with screenshots can be found here. http://smt-info.com/facebook-has-new-look.html

In-depth article about why Facebook changed it’s look, a comparison to Twitter too: http://www.uwire.com/Article.aspx?id=3874404

Good little video tutorial of the new facebook interface. http://www.butterscotch.com/video-tutorials.html?s=breakingnews&e=13

The “bring back the old interface” petition” http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56090098182&ref=nf

Picasa 3 for mac is now in Beta testing (think pre-release).  It is a great download for mac users. It integrates into iPhoto and you can still upload to your iPhoto albums and share them online.  You can also order prints, label all of your pictures, as well as make collages, backup your pictures to CD or DVD, and so much more.

I know you love iPhoto… but give a Google a chance, you won’t be sorry.

Oh and did I tell you?  It’s Free!

Pros:

• Picasa 3 for Mac integrates well with iPhoto
• It makes uploading pictures to other photo vendors quicker and easier than with iPhoto
• Its free

Cons:

• It is still in Beta testing so it may have a few bugs but I wouldn’t sweat it.
• You have to download the program plus a plug-in to get the most out Picasa’s features.
• Nothing else I can think of, just a solid program

System Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.4.9+
• Intel CPU
• 256MB RAM
• 100MB available hard disk space

Picasa 3 web uploader for Mac— Requires Mac OS 10.4+
Supports iPhoto 4,5,6 and iPhoto ‘08 (version 7)

Last Links:

Picasa 3 for Mac official download http://picasa.google.com/mac/

The above link is to the google labs page for download.  Go try it out and let us know what you think.

Picasa iPhoto Plug-in http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html

Direct link to the plugin which will give you the ability to upload photo albums to various online photo providers such as walmart, snapfish, kodak and more.  Good video there too.

The free Picasa 3 Tutorial (Click the “videos” tab)

I’ve been working on the Picasa 3 video tutorial for a while now and it’s almost done check the video tab for updates!

So, Pandora Radio is a great little online radio program that is different from all the other radio programs in that it “gets to know you”… kind of creepy huh? Not really. You see you make a new playlist based on say a band that you like. I picked the Cranberry’s since it’s Thanksgiving and all… seemed fitting and Pandora takes it from there. Ussually it will play a track from the artist you picked first and then start to expand from there to similar music. If it plays a song that you really like you can give it a “thumbs up”, if you don’t like a song that it played (like the one that is playing right now from Coldplay) then you can give it a thumbs down. When you give it a thumbs down, Pandora doesn’t play it anymore. The more “thumbs ups/downs” that you enter the better it gets at telling your musical preferences. Pandora uses the global Pandora community to help you, and you help others, to hear music that you like but may never have heard of before.

Pandora started as part of the Music Genome Project that used a lot of complex computer stuff to sort out music into different styles and such. Check it out on wikipedia if you want some more info, see the last links section.

This summer, July 2008, Pandora launched a version of thier service for the IPhone. If you have an IPhone (I take back that comment about you being behind the times) you can find the Pandora Radio app on the ITunes apps store.

Not much else to tell you here. Just go to Pandora, sign up, and start to listen! Oh… Quick caveat, if you are listening over a dial-up connection forget it. Also is you are at work, it may slow down the network since is takes a lot of bits, bytes, and such to run this program across the Internet. Your work may have it blocked.

Other than that, have a great day and enjoy listening… wait! Is that Jewl playing on my Cranberry’s list?! I thought she was on some country version of American Idol now? Sorry, got to go… I need to go give Jewl a “thumbs down”.

Ahh… finally a program that can find all the ga-zillions of digital image/video files on my computer and organize them faster than you can say, “Oh Jeeves…”. If you haven’t used it give it a try! Version 3 came out recently and it has more bells and whistles than a Chinese Olympic Opening Ceremony.

It is soooooo easy to use I wonder if I should even write any more. Maybe I’ll just show you the basics… (check out our step-by-step tutorials here or navigate to them via the “video” tab above.)

Here’s the steps to Image Organizational Victory:

1. Download the program (CLICK HERE) or type this in your browser address bar http://picasa.google.com/
2. Install it (click the little set up icon when the download is down).
3. Open it up!
4. Now the fun begins.
5. There are so many great tutorials on how to use this program but I decided to just give you the basics. Check out a ton of good video tutorials (not mine) YouTube. My favorite is directly from Google. It has a ton of great overviews like this one. (direct link to YouTube video).

There are so many great new features too! It even has a back up tool for you to back them up to DVD or CDROM. Just go to Tools->Backup Pictures. A couple boxes will pop up and ask you for the backup title (called the backup “set”). Give it a name or use the default. In the second box it will show you the pictures that you have not previously backed up. I clicked “select all”. Up on the top of the box it will tell you how many CDs or DVDs you will need to back up all your pictures. I needed 5 DVDs to get all my pictures. Now all you have to do is click “burn” and Volia! Pictures are back up to disk!

Another great tool is the collage feature. Simply select the the pictures that you want to make into a collage and Picasa does the rest! Up on the “settings” tab you can select what type of collage you’d like. I chose the mosaic but I like the picture pile too, very fun.

I could go on all day but the last new feature that I love is the “make movie” feature. This is perfect as a basic movie maker and lets you use an audio track, cool transitions, and lots of options for captions/titles. Go to Create->Movie and start adding the photos you want to your movie. Caption them before or during the process and you’ll be one step ahead.

Basically the program is really intuitive. It searches your computer and organizes it for you! So, start it up and start to play with it. If you have specific question drop me a comment on this post or email questions@nplb.net and I’ll be happy to answer them. I’ll also be posting a free tutorial soon so come on back and check it out.

Until then… have fun Picasa-ing!

Last Links:

• · Good picture tutorial on how to make a collage in Picasa 3
• · Picture Tutorial on how to Backup your pictures
• · Google’s tutorial site for 2.7 (hopefully updated soon to 3.x)
• · Anything that you ever wanted to know about Picasa (2.x not 3.x yet) can be found at Learning Electric, very nice site.