Technology Madness

Prezi - The Zooming Presentation Editor: Infinite space on one slide

Are you looking for some tool for presentation but not from Microsoft -powerpoint? Prezi is incredible service will change the way we create presentations. Do you remember when you want to present a flow chart in slides with boxes and arrows but it always goes in linear (and boring) fashion. Then Prezi is an answer for you to add coolness to ideas!

Prezi is a nonlinear presentation editor, with a very intuitive interface and support for online sharing. With the help of Prezi you can create dynamic and visually structured zooming presentations using texts, videos, drawings, and present it as a very dynamic and free experience. (Prezi definition: via aether.hu)

Whole presentation laid out as if it’s prepared on the dining room table, and you zoom in and out to your presentation topics based on predefined path. Its like infinite space on one slide! Sounds interesting? It is more engaging for the audience than waiting for the next predictable slide. I guess this kind of presentation is fun to create for composer and fun to watch for audience too! Creativity is a prime key here.

See demo here to see what you can do with Prezi and find a different prospective of presentation. Currently registration is available by invitation only.

I can’t say much about the service, because I haven’t got my invite yet, but I’ve tried the demo (see here) on the site and it’s a “wow” so far. When you sign up for the beta invite at the site, write down that you read about Prezi @ Technology Madness blog

Demo:

Don’t Miss: YouTube - Prezi used at various venues

Via [go2web20, blog.prezi.com and aether.hu]

New Website for Obama’s White house - Change has come to Whitehouse.gov

The Inauguration Ceremony went nicely. As President Barack Obama was giving his inauguration speech, another transfer of power was happening online. At exactly 12 PM ET, Whitehouse.gov , the official Website of the President switched over to a new design. A government website that doesn’t look like a government website.

My first impression of new whitehouse.gov website looks cool, very sophisticated, easy to navigate, most of the stuff accessible in few clicks. One cool addition is whitehouse blog. Today first blog post is written by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media. Macon Phillips is titled: “Change has come to Whitehouse.gov.” He suggested that blog post is going to continue by him and other staff of “New Media”. He assures that WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first and laid down three priorities for new media efforts. – Communication, Transparency and Participation.

There are a number of feeds (though some are still empty as I wrote this):

• Agenda Articles Feed
• Press Office Feed
• OMB News Article Feed
• Blog Feed
• Photo Gallery Feed
• Video Feed

Hopefully, the administration will continue some of the experiments with citizen participation which it tried on Change.gov, its transition Website. Whitehouse.gov certainly has the same look and feel. However, currently, no social networking connections to be found on new website.

Congratulations to Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President. And Good luck!

Via [WhiteHouse.gov, whitehouse blog]

PDF Hammer: Modify PDF in fly and much more

There is no shortage of alternative to Adobe Acrobat if you are looking for ‘convert to pdf’ and ‘modify pdf’ kind of software in the market without paying a penny for it. PDF Hammer is a new tool for PDF files with bit of a twist and many premium features for free. You have the option of using their web app to manage pdf files so you don’t have to download anything to your PC, and you have the flexibility to edit your PDF documents and export them anywhere you go. Also, No need to register first to use their service. PDF Hammer is a free Web service that allows you to…
.. Merge/combine PDF files together,
.. Rearrange, reorder and delete pages,
.. Lock your PDF files with password-based security.
.. Add and edit document information (metadata) fields, including author, title, subject and
keywords.
.. Coming Soon: Ability to rotate indivdual pages and option to apply custom watermarks and
stamps to the document.

Above features are not available in free version of Adobe Acrobat as well as in most PDF related applications. So PDF hammer is nice free tool with all premium features. However, PDF Hammer is lacking in other editing features, like the ability to manage text and formatting.

They also have desktop version of this application, just in case if you are skeptical uploading your sensitive pdf files online.

Check out PDFHammer @ www.pdfhammer.com

Via [makeuseof.com and www.pdfhammer.com]

MindBites.com: Where real people teach real things: like knife throwing

Do you know that you can sell your skills (like, how to cook Indian curry? Or how to buy a used car? or How to Act on Camera?) in form of instructional videos?

Austin, TX based MindBites.com, a social marketplace and publishing platform for instructional video, has raised $1M for your skills to show case to the world. MindBites has a paid content model where instructor can upload the video lesson and user can purchase it; using credits priced from $1.69 to $1.99, handing $1 of that to the instructor, users can watch it online or download it to their PC or iPod.

I believe this is bit expensive especially where competitors including 5MIn, VideoJug, ExpertVillage, Howcast, WonderHowTo, Graspr, Sutree, Sclipo and Zippidee are around. It is also noticible that they launched such business where iTune and youtube are market leader. (Reference here) Isn’t everything on the Internet trending towards free? (Extra reading: Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business: here)

This Startup’s founder and CEO is Jason Reneau who was VP Kiva.org

Everyone here at the MindBites team is excited to be building our social marketplace and publishing platform for video instructional content.  One of the fundamental reasons we decided to build MindBites, was that we simply believed that there needed to be a platform and marketplace to enable the millions of talented people out there who have something to teach.  A paid content model is the most direct way for users to compensate authors for their knowledge, innovation and creativity.  We are also (unsurprisingly perhaps) big fans of PaidContent, and proud to be joining the fray in the belief that there is a place for paid content models on the Web.  Thanks again, and we look forward to keeping the PC community informed of our progress and learnings. - Jason Reneau At paidcontent.org

Similar reading:

Not every video tutorial site would show you, step by step, how to beat the crane game in your local movie theatre, or how to make a fire using only potatoes, salt, and some toothpaste, but Wonder How To is completely willing. Only a few clicks from a video that explains how to cheat on any test is another video that teaches you how to make a perfect omelet. If this doesn’t sound like traditional fodder for a site that offers instructional videos, there’s a reason for it: Wonder How To is completely crowd-sourced, allowing anyone who wants to show the world how to do something to post a video or submit another video they’ve found elsewhere. There’s some editorial checking, but not as much as some other competitors in the instructional Web video space…. Continue reading here

Technorati Tags: News, Video On Demand, Awesome Videos to Watch Now, Documentaries, Educational, Lifestyle, Video Site Reviews, Health Videos TV, Social+Media, Video+Sharing, VC+M&A, Venture+Capital

Del.icio.us Tags: News, Video On Demand, Awesome Videos to Watch Now, Documentaries, Educational, Lifestyle, Video Site Reviews, Health Videos TV, Social+Media, Video+Sharing, VC+M&A, Venture+Capital

Via [MideBites blog and here and Appscout]

View PDF Files in Your Browser with PDFMeNot

The PDF as a file format has really helpful when interchanging documents with friends, family and clients. I would prefer to send it via PDF document rather than assuming they have Microsoft Word or OpenOffice. Generally it’s not a problem, but many people hate having to fire up Adobe Reader. And sometimes, loading it within a browser can even make the browser crash. PdfMeNot is a service/tool that converts PDF files into Flash files on the fly. It means you can view any PDF file as if you are visiting any other website without PDF viewer plugin, and needn’t to have Adobe software to view them. You can also zoom in and out and proceed page by page through the file. PDFMeNot allows you to submit PDF web URLs and local files for converting them into pdf and viewing. Pdfmenot also packs a few more features with a Firefox extension, a bookmarklet and blogger scripts. You can visit the site here.

So what’s the downside: You can not search through document (yet.) PDFMENOT is still in beta. There is already an option for Adobe acrobat viewer, like, Foxit Reader. It is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size.(only 2.1 M download size) Pdfmenot is one step ahead as you don’t need any plugin or software to view PDF document. (I am assuming that you have an internet access all the time)

via [readwriteweb]

Test posting via LiveWriter (Review)

This is my first post test via LiveWriter. Its an aid to blog writer, developed by Windows Live Space group of MSFT. Writer has lots of features for a better blogging experience such as WYSIWYG authoring and seamless photo and map publishing. Writer is a great client for Windows Live Spaces but also works with other weblogs including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others). Currently its only available in English only. It also required .net framework and currtly its in beta version. But I am sure once its outside of beta, this tool will be darling to many bloggers.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience such as WYSIWYG authoring and seamless photo and map publishing. You can also extend the types of rich content that can be inserted into your blog post by creating plug-ins using the Writer SDK. - from - Writer Team Blog

Connect your appliances into the Kill A Watt™, and assess how fficient they are. A large LCD display counts consumption by the Kilowatt-hour just like utility companies. You can figure out your electrical expenses by the hour, day, week, month, even an entire year. Monitor the quality of your power by displaying Voltage, Line frequency, and Power Factor (via this website)

So how much you can save? see below information from getrichslowly:

• Microwave (while dormant, simply displaying time): 2 watts — It costs us roughly $2/year to leave the microwave plugged in all the time.
• Microwave (while heating a bowl of homemade bean soup for dinner): 2020 watts
• Nintendo Wii (while playing Trauma Center: Second Opinion): 16 watts — Far less power than I would have guessed.
• Strand of Christmas lights: 39 watts — More than I would have guessed. It will cost us roughly $3 to have this strand of lights plugged in during the Christmas season.
• MacBook Pro (recharging with battery at 66%): 58 watts
• Oil-filled radiator-style space heater: 520 watts on low, 820 watts on medium, and an unknown amount on high. I tripped the circuit breaker when I tried.
• Dual-control electric blanket (one side set to three, the other turned off): 80 watts, declining by a watt every few seconds (presumably because it requires less power as it gets warmer — I don’t know). I stopped watching after it had dropped to 58 watts.
• Desk Lamp: 5 watts
• Nighlight: 1 watt — Assuming the nightlight is on 12 hours/day, it costs about 50 cents to run for an entire year.

Find drawbacks and review about this machine by visiting this website getrichslowly.com

Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision with 11.1mm glass lens

Logitech makes some great webcams, and is today showing off its newest offering. It seems everyone is going HD these days and improving the quality of webcam lenses. Add Logitech to the list of HD cam makers, the cam looks pretty cool too.

Logitech launched QuickCam Ultra Vision webcam, offering a true-to-life video calling experience by delivering twice the image clarity as that offered by typical webcams. It seems everyone is going HD these days and improving the quality of webcam lenses. The new webcam also brings with it updated Logitech RightLight technology.
RightLight 2, much like Right Light 1, adapts the webcam settings to the environment to give you better image quality. Logitech is not also shipping some of its older webcams with RightLight 2 technology including the QuickCam Fusion, QuickCam Orbit and QuickCam 5000 Pro. By having a bigger “precision-engineered” glass lens, it is able to capture more light and, in effect, produce more vivid images. This is especially useful in low light situations. The other big features of the new cam is its 1.3 megapixel sensor and HD wide-screen format.

System Requirements

• Windows® 2000, XP
• Pentium® 4 1.4 GHz or AMD Athlon™ processor 1 GHz (Pentium® 4 2.4 GHz recommended)
• 128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM recommended)
• 200 MB free hard drive space
• CD ROM Drive
• 16 bit color display adaptor
• OS Compatible Sound Card and Speakers (full duplex sound card recommended)
• Available 1.1 or 2.0 USB port (USB 2.0 high speed port required for megapixel image capture)

Hardware

• True 1.3 megapixel sensor with RightLight™ 2 Technology
• Live video: up to 640 x 480 pixels
• Still image capture: True 1280 x 960; Up to 4 megapixel** (software enhanced)
• Built-in microphone with RightSound™ Technology
• Up to 30 frames per second live video with recommended system
• USB 2.0 high-speed certified
• 6 ft. USB cable
• 2-year limited hardware warranty
• Adjustable base fits any monitor or notebook
• Fixed focus

Package Contents

• Logitech® QuickCam® Ultra Vision webcam with built-in microphone
• QuickCam® Software
• Quick Start Guide
• 2-year limited hardware warranty

Works with major chatting/calling softwares:

Software

• Logitech® QuickCam® (easily capture, save, and email your web camera´s pictures and videos)
• Logitech® Video Effects™ avatar and face accessory software
• HP Photosmart Essential Software (web download required)
• Skype™ with free, full screen video calling
• Windows® Live Messenger™ with free full screen video calling
• Yahoo® Messenger with free video calling
• Video enabled AOL® Instant Messenger™ Service

Via [Aving.net]

technorati tags:logitech, quickcam, untravision+quickcam, logitech+quickcam

bk_keywords:Logitech, QuickCam, webcam