Pixlr – Eat this Photoshop Express…
Dont get me wrong, Photoshop Express is pretty cool….but, its just not photoshop. Without layers and selection tools it is simply a neat way to mess around with photos. Pixlr, however, goes that one step further and provides layers and most of the tools your used to in photoshop in a neat and uncluttered layout via its website. It is flash based and so its performance will vary from machine to machine but so far for me it has not been anything other than blazingly fast. I think it even beats installed photoshop cs3 on many occasions! The good thing about Photoshop Express, however, is that you can store your images on the Adobe servers (currently up to 2gb) which is pretty natty. For me, I would rather use Pixlr and a memory stick any day!
This Application was suggested to me by my mate Dan, so thanks matey! (If you have any suggestions please do not hesitate to contact me so you can share them with the world!)
tiltshiftmaker.com – Create tiltshift images on the fly…
I have posted links to tutorials in the past on how to achieve the tilt shift lens effect on images, making your photos look like snaps of model villages. Well forget that as tiltshiftmaker.com does it for you.
You just upload your image and use the simple controls to make your own. Very easy. Very effective.
P.s. There is also an iPhone application that you can use which is pretty cool. You can get that here.
YourFont – Make your own handwriting into a font (free this time)
A few posts back I talked about fontifier, which in itself is very good. Thanks to the wonderful Doreen, it turns out there is a very similar service that is free! yes free!…
As with fontifier you print and fill in the template send it back and shablaaaaam…..your writing in font form….
Exquisite freebie!
VenueM – Convert your site with RSS into an iPhone Site…
Venue M Have unceremoniously decided to terminate everybodies account with very short notice and citing that they are “concentrating on native apps”….Poor form VenueM, POOR FORM!
I was looking for a way to optimise bigmacblog for iPhone and Android users, hopefully to make it load quicker and give a generally better viewing expeirence.
I think I found a way.
VenueM is a free web service where you enter your RSS feed address, fill in a few fields etc and Schblamo! An instant iPhone styled website……most excellent!
Fontifier – Create your own font from your handwriting
Have you ever wanted to use your own handwriting when creating a document or producing some graphics work?
Fontifier does this for you and for a very reasonable $9 per font created!
The process is simple, you download a template, write in each characters equivalent, scan it, and email back to fontifier which will produce the font as a Truetype font usable with Mac and Windows operating system….
EDITOR UPDATE: THIS TIP HAS BEEN SURPASSED BY YOURFONT – CHECKOUT NEWER BLOG ARTICLE ON YOURFONT FOR A FREE FONT CREATION SERVICE….
Wufoo – Create Glorious Forms for your site…
Wufoo is stunning.
It allows you to design and deploy detailed forms that can be used to gather inforamtion, as a contact me page, for research, maintaining a mailing list and much much more.
What is extra spiffy about wufoo is that it will generate reports on your responses for you that you can also export as excel etc. Also it will host and generate the code for you to link to or even embed the form on a website made with iWeb via HTML Snippets, as well as myspace etc.
On top of that there is a theme designer which means your forms can look great and appear branded (by uploading your own logo or image)
A free account will give you up to three forms and up to 100 responses with premium accounts starting at a very reasonable low sum….Most people, however, shall probably never need more than the free service (unless its for business etc).
I use this one alot……enjoy!
Blurb Books – Publisher Quality Printed Books – Budget Prices!…
Blurb books is a great online service for making photo and text or simply text books that are incredibly good quality and incredibly cheap, with a page count up to 400 pages! Impressively it comes with its own software which is, admittedly, a trifle slow at times but I will forgive it for being new!
You can even allow friends and family to order them from the website or even sell for profit through the websites marketplace!
I have ordered my first one and cant wait to see how it turns out.
Extra Word Services for Mac….Tools for writers
Have you ever needed to re-order sentences in Word or Pages alphabetically or numerically? Ever typed a whole paragraph without realising you had caps lock on and want to change it all back to lowercase? Well its not possible to do either of these and many other wordy things without Devon Technologies wonderful WordService plugin (completely free).
Once installed it adds many new services into the Mac’s global Services menu (that oft forgotten and lonely place on many a mac!).
Find out whats hot and whats not! – trendwatching.com
Trendwatching.com is a great company dedicated to predicting what we all will be craving in the year ahead. They produce an email newsletter for free which can be invaluable for your research for clients etc.
Well worth subscribing to.
QR-Code Generator…
This website is brilliant for generating QR-Codes, the next generation barcode. They can be used to convey short bursts of info, contact details, websites, allsorts!
Try putting one on your business card or website!
Mobile Phones (inc the iPhone) can read and translate them into data!
Enjoy!
