Photoshop: Create Clouds
Create a realistic looking and customizable cloud using a custom brush. Neat tutorial. Also check out the creating custom brushes and brush dynamics tutorial.
Tags: brush, clouds, dynamics, Photoshop
Protect your email Using TinyMail
TinyMail is a simple service with one goal, to protect your email address from spammers. We hand out our emails every day. We post it in forums, social networking sites, chat clients and other internet forms that ask for email. The purpose of handing out our emails on public pages is for other people to contact us and not for some spam bot to harvest it and send us a load of spam mails.
One of the solutions is to create another email for public use and not the personal one that you use with real people. Another solution is to mask your email using TinyMail. What it does is hides you original email and creates a link/page for you with captcha security to ensure that the one accessing your email is a real person and not some email harvesting bot. Just enter your email address and it will create an html link, forum link and a simple URL for you. The receiving end can only view the email after he/she answers the captcha keywords correctly. This will verify that a real person is picking up your email address.
This is a great way of protecting your email. It’s not very efficient on the receiving end because of the time it takes to unlock the hidden email. If you are highly concerned with protecting your email address from spam, then you might find TinyMail of great use. If the recipient of the person is interested enough in contacting you, then the few seconds it takes to unlock your email should be no problem at all.
Tags: captcha, email, protect, tinymail
Animasher: Create Animation from Images
Animasher is a place where you can create animation from still images. You can accomplish this by just dragging and dropping images to a timeline. No need to use complex and expensive animation software in order to create your masterpiece. Animasher will help you reach your creative potential in animation.
It only takes a short period of time to learn the basics in using the Animasher editor. After watching their tutorial, I’m pretty sure that you’ll grasp most of the concept on producing an animation and using their editor. I already got the hang of it after a few tries.
Like in most online editing tools, you can either use their pre uploaded images or upload your own. Animasher also lets you add a recorded sound or voice. This will give the created animation a more personal touch.
Animasher is a fun way of exploring your creativity through animations. It’s no Pixar but it sure is fun. Enjoy animating.
Tags: animasher, animation, images, online editor
Surf Together in Real Time with Screen2
Screen2 is a web service which allows you to navigate the web with your buddy in real time. There are many desktop sharing applications out there that allow you to do the same thing. The only difference in Screen2 is that it only lets you share the browser view and not the entire desktop. This will allow you to do other things while someone else is doing the surfing for you.
This web app is particularly useful if you want to do the surfing for a friend or let a friend do the surfing for you. Sometimes the web gets confusing and might need someone to guide you through it. It’s a great tool for showing online stuff to your friends in real time. Just choose a name and let your friend choose his/her Screen2 identity. Invite the screen name and you can begin surfing with your friend once the invitation has been accepted.
Screen2 does not allow you to see the cursor movements of the one in control of Screen2. It would have been useful if the cursor movements are displayed which will be a great help in live tutorials for navigating a certain web applications or sites.
Screen2 is an easy and safe application. There is no requirement of an installation of a software add-on in order to use Screen2. There is also no need to register for an account. All you need to do is to allow pop-up windows and cookies in your browser for Screen2 to operate properly. A chat feature is also available for additional collaboration.
Enjoy browsing together.
Tags: browsing, Real time, screen2, surfing
Navigaya: Reinventing Surfing Experience
Navigaya is a browsing service that gives a whole new experience in browsing. The service looks great and sports a futuristic design.The flash platform allows you surf in style and in multiple flash widgets. It’s customizable to a certain extent to fit your taste and cater to your browsing needs.
The search feature allows you to search multiple search engines at a time. The search results are displayed in windows from three of the most popular search engines out there namely Google, Yahoo and MSN. A fourth window for Wikipedia search results is also included. If you are not satisfied with the search result you got from the first three search engines, you can always go to the next set of search results from other search engines by clicking the next button or have your search power customized to display results from search engine(s) of your choice. If you found the result that you want, you can immediately start browsing from the window where you found your result. Just hit the full screen mode for a more focused browsing/reading and revert it back to its normal mode in case you want to browse other pages.
In addition to the great look of Navigaya, it also lets you listen to music (with video playing on the background) while browsing. It may not be for everyone for it may cause some distractions to others. You can however turn the playing music video in the background off easily if you don’t want it to interfere with your browsing or you can customize the playlist to fit your music taste or run a tutorial from YouTube while browsing.
The browsing capailities of Navigaya is far from perfect. When I tried to browse different URL’s (including my blog), It failed to load some widgets and CSS. I don’t know if this is the effect of going through their servers or that the pages just loaded a lot slower resulting in time outs in the loading process. Issues like these needs to be resolved in the beta process.
Navigaya also lets you choose from categories and displays related websites for you to choose from depending on your taste. The websites that appear in each category is however not customizable. You cannot add or remove sites from the Navigaya categories. It would be great though if they can add this feature or if not, just add a personal customizable category.
Navigaya works great with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. I tested it in Opera and it seems to work fine. Just choose the Internet Explorer and Firefox browser if you will be using Navigaya in Opera. It’s a must try if you are looking for a different browsing experience.
Edit: The cageories are changable/editable. You need to register in order to edit categories. Thanks to Amit of Navigaya for clearing it up.
Tags: aggregator, browsing, flash site, search-engine, surfing
Oriango: A Dictionary Style Search Engine
Oriango is a community powered search engine. What makes it unique from existing search engines is that instead of displaying search results via page ranking, it displays them in alphabetical order. The search is performed only on the information added by the users, not showing irrelevant or external content.
With Oriango, you can perform searches, add and share web links, videos, blogs, social networking profiles and many others. The service is easy to use and have ample sharing capabilities. There is also a preview button that you can use to take a peek on a search result. A commenting system is also available so you can report unusual search results to the administrator.
Oriango is a new and interesting search engine. The way it displays its search results is something you don’t see everyday. The user generated content is pretty common but the alphabetical order of showing it is something else. It will take you just a couple of clicks to view a search result. You can filter results under a particular letter by simply clicking on the letter of your choice. You can also filter results by type of search: site, blog media, and profile.
Check out Oriango and you may submit your blog or content for free and without registration.
Tags: dictionary, oriango, search-engine
