Have you ever scribbled a note to yourself on a convenient piece of paper, and then lost it? Or maybe you’ve taken a picture of something you wanted to remember with your cell phone, but it got accidentally deleted? Well, Evernote is a free application that can help you keep notes and ideas easily accessible and organized on your phone, computer and/or web:
As we all know, it’s important to avoid infringing on copyrighted material. So, how can you find excellent quality images to use in presentations or on blogs without having to pay expensive royalty fees to use licensed material? The simple answer is to use the Creative Commons on Flickr. There are literally millions of excellent photos that have various types of creative common licenses that allow you to use them without having to spend money or sacrifice quality!!
How does creative commons work on flickr?
There are several different types of licenses to choose from, you should search for a photo with the license that best fits how you will be using it. Here is a brief description of the different types:
Attribution: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works based upon it but only if credit is given. Noncommercial: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works but for noncommercial purposes only
No Derivative Works: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it. Share alike: Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the work.
If you have not signed up for an account, and plan on using Flickr images in the future, it might be worth it for you to take a minute or two to create a free yahoo account (Flickr’s parent company). One of the many reasons why you would want to have your own Flickr account is because you can conveniently keep track of images that you would like to use. When I am searching for images on Flickr I quite often find other photos that I would like to bookmark for later– since I have an account I can do this quite easily by marking it as a “favorite”. Take a look at the Newbie’s Guide to Flickr for the basics of uploading photos on Flickr or view a presentation that includes a step by step guide to signing up for a free account.
We live in a world where time is precious and the amount of new information that appears every day on any given topic can be overpowering. RSS feeds and RSS reader applications can be very powerful tools for students and professionals who want to tame “information overload” while keeping up with the latest information in their areas of Interest and expertise.
What is RSS and why is it useful?
RSS, short for “Really Simple Syndication”, is a way for Web sites to publish content so that users of RSS reader applications, or “rss aggregators” can easily view links to the site’s latest content. Web sites with RSS-enabled content make their latest pages available to users of RSS reader applications by using links to RSS documents (also referred to as “feeds”, “web feeds”, or “channels”).
Links to RSS “feeds” on RSS-enabled Web sites are typically represented by images labeled as “RSS” or “XML” (short for “eXtensible Markup Language”, the type of code that makes up RSS documents).
In fact, you’ve probably seen them on just about every website you visit, but didn’t know what it was or what it was for!! For some slides on how to recognize feeds and find them on websites, view the short presentation on Slideshare by Kristen.
How can I use a Feed Aggregator to follow RSS feeds?
When RSS feed links are copied into an RSS reader such as Google Reader(web based), Feeddemon (for MS Windows), or NetNewsWire (Mac OSX), the user has “subscribed” to the feed and will be able to viewsummaries of the latest content from the subscribed Web site from within the RSS reader. By subscribing to multiple feeds in an area of interest, or “aggregating” feeds, users can user their RSS reader applications to browse, search, and sort content from many Web sites without having to visit them individually.
This capability can save a great deal of time and allow users to use information from the Web much more productively.
For this week’s screencast, I’ve created a brief demonstration of how to use the Google Reader RSS application to subscribe to an RSS-enabled Web site. If you are new to the idea of using a feed reader, it’s probably best to start out with using Google Reader. However; there many different feed readers available for any platform with a variety of interfaces. Here’s a chart comparing the different features of three popular feedreaders: Bloglines, Google Reader, and Newsgator with a list of pros and cons for each. If you are looking for a list of feed aggregators and tools, take a look at Mashable’s Ultimate RSS Toolkit. RSS feeds and RSS readers can be used to easily and effectively keep up with the latest news headlines, journal abstracts, blog entries, and organizational activities.
Are you currently using an RSS reader application to make the Web’s latest, greatest content manageable and useful? Can you provide any examples of great RSS-enabled Web sites? Please leave your ideas in the comment section or email them to me at jbehnke@fordham.edu or Kristen at treglia@fordham.edu. We would love to hear from you!!!
A common misconception we encounter in the FTC is that one needs Acrobat Professional to comment on or review a PDF. That is simply not the case. If someone sends you a PDF that has been properly review-enabled, you can add your comments and edits using any recent version (7 or of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
One of our most frequently asked questions in the FTC is “how can I save a YouTube video,” for offline use, to insert into a presentation, or just to save for later in case it gets taken down. The answer, as long as you feel you have rights to save the video, either explicitly or through Fair Use, is http://vixy.net. Just paste the url of a YouTube (or Google Videos, or other video service) video into the input box on vixy.net, and in a few minutes you’ll have a downloadable video to take with you, in the file format of your choice.
If you’ve been hearing about Twitter, but aren’t sure what it is, how it’s different from blogging, or why you might be interested in it, the latest episode of the Common Craft Show lays it all out for you, in an easy-to-follow papercraft presentation from the people who brought you Wikis in Plain English and Blogs in Plain English, previously featured here.
The Spring technology training schedule for faculty and staff has been posted. New offerings for this year include wikis, social networking, and Google Documents, as well as classes on a range of MS Office products and basic web tools. See http://www.fordham.edu/training for details.
SPSS 16 is now available to members of the Fordham community. Version 16 represents a major upgrade to the SPSS platform and, for the first time, introduces an SPSS version for Intel Macs.
For installation on faculty office machines, please contact User Support at 718-817-3999. For home use or other needs, please contact the Faculty Technology Center on your campus: http://www.fordham.edu/FTC.
Have you ever scribbled a note to yourself on a convenient piece of paper, and then lost it? Or maybe you’ve taken a picture of something you wanted to remember with your cell phone, but it got accidentally deleted? Well, Evernote is a free application that can help you keep notes and ideas easily accessible and organized on your phone, computer and/or web:
of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.