Orangeinks

FFWD: StumbleUpon for Online Videos

FFWD (Fast Forward), dubbed as the remote control for online videos, is a video recommendation site which syndicates online channels depending on your viewing habits. It will stream different videos which are related to the channels of your choice with just a click of the Fast Forward button. It’s like StumbleUpon for online videos. Ffwd displays videos from different sources such as YouTube, Funny or Die, New York Times, Comedy Central, Hulu and CBS.

The fast forward solution does not remake television in the image of the Internet nor vice versa, but instead reinterprets the television channel from the perspective of crowd sourcing, personalization and the social graph. The result is a personal remote control for the video web that is as simple as channel surfing but more powerful than search.

Ffwd also lets you choose which types of videos to view. You can choose to omit short clips and view only full episodes, view related shows and show ones enjoyed by fans on a particular channel. There are also recommendations for other channels that you might enjoy which you can easily add to your list. If you’re up for some video hopping, you might want to check out FFWD.

Tags: fast forward, ffwd, recommendation site, video

Tube Chop: Chop and Slice YouTube Videos

A month ago, I shared a service called SplicD. It’s a tool for slicing up YouTube videos so that you can share with your friends only the parts that mattered. The only comment I have for the service is that it does not allow you to embed the sliced video so that users can feature them in blogs and websites.

TubeChop is a similar service which also allows you to get the part of the video that you want in a manner that you will find very convenient. What is great about TubeChop is that they host the chopped/sliced videos which allow the users to embed them everywhere.

Using TubeChop allows you to search for videos without going to YouTube. You can search directly from their site or you can also paste the original YouTube URL for faster chopping. Once the video is fully loaded, just adjust the black bars on each side of the stream bar. It represents the timeline of the video which you will adjust to your satisfaction. Just play the video again to check if your desired part was chopped properly. Once you are done, just click the “chop it”button and you will be redirected to the chopped video URL where you can get the embed codes and the link to the original video.

This is a far better way to easily extract a portion of a YouTube video. Maybe in the future we can see features like extracting several portions of a video clip to create a somewhat edited video. Oh, and a volume control would also be nice.

Sample Chopped Video:

Visit the chopped video page.

Tags: chop videos, slice videos, tubechop, youtube

UsernameCheck: Check Your Online Identity’s Availability

Usernames that we use in registering for an online service is generally described as our online identity. Most of them will appear on public pages for everyone to see. Some people use their real names for their online identity and some use aliases.

UsernameCheck is a great way to find out if the current username/identity that you are using online has been taken by others on other websites. What it does is search for the availability of your username across dozens of social media sites and services. It will tell you if the username that you seek is available or already taken.

The service is rather new and it only features popular social media sites and services. The site sometimes fails to load and there are some reports of inaccuracy to the results. For curiosity’s sake, it’s still a great way to find out if your username is being used by others and it’s also a great way to discover services that you aren’t familiar with.

Source: [TechCrunch]

Tags: online service, username, username check

DrPic: Free Online Photo Editor

DrPic, formerly PicResize is a Free and very easy to use image editor. It began as a small college project and evolved into a full-fledged web application. If you’re looking for an alternative to offline image editors, this might just do the trick for you. No registration is needed and it’s free. You can start editing right away upon landing on their main page.

DrPic is packed with features that you can use to make simple photo enhancements/editing. I won’t elaborate much on the features because most of them are self explanatory. Instead, I’ll just provide the list of features along with the tool-tips found on each tool on DrPic.

Features/Tools

• Resize: This allows you to change the dimension of your pictures

• Crop: Trim down unwanted portions of your image.

• Rotate: Turn your picture around on its side or upside down.

• Brightness/Contrast: Increase/decreas luminance of your picture.

• AutoFix: Will adjust the brightness/contrast of your pictures according to DrPic’s standards

• Brush: Draw lines

• Text: Insert Text

• Gaussian Blur: Allows you to create out of focus effects on your picture.

• Sharpen: Adds focus to your picture

• Raise: Allows you to add a translucent 3D outer bevel effect to your image.

• Raised Frame: Add a 3D colored frame to your picture

• Polaroid: apply a unique Polaroid effect to your picture

• Oil Paint: apply an oil paint effect

• Spread: Add noise to your picture

• GrayScale: Eliminate color

The image editor also have an undo and redo feature which is a must have for image editors. There’s also a “revert to original” tool and a “selection/deselect” tool which works great with the other tools mentioned above. DrPic will allow you to save your images in BMP, JPG, GIF and PNG format in different sizes/quality.

If ever you are in need of an online picture editor for your photo enhancements, DrPic is a great web app to check out.

Tags: drpic, image editor, online photo editor

Different Ways to Create Animated GIF Online

I compiled a list of web apps that can be used to easily create animated GIF. The tools featured here will not require you to register or sign up. Just upload the images and create your animated GIFs. Here they are.

Gickr

Gickr is a YouTube and Flickr tool which allows you to generate animated GIF images using Flickr photos or turn a YouTube Video into an animated GIF image. You can select photos by using your Flickr username or by using a keyword which will display a gallery of photos from other users. Select from the photos displayed and they will be included in your animated image. As for YouTube videos, just place the link of the video that you want to convert into an animated image.

Gickr comes with the usual sharing tools so that it’ll be easy for you to share your creation. This is a pretty cool service and very easy to use.

AjaxLoad

AjaxLoad is not your average animated GIF creator or editor. What it does is allow you to easily generate and customize your own animated ajax loader icon. You can select from a list of indicator, choose a background color (or make it transparent), and place a foreground color. That’s pretty much it. When you’re satisfied with your creation, all that’s left to do is to download it.

Online Image Editor

This particular tool is not only focused on helping you create animated images. It also have several editing features that you might find useful. It may not be a looker design-wise but as long as it works, who am I to argue. But I’m not here to discuss editing features of Online Image Editor. The OIE Animation wizard is what we’re here for.

To use the animation wizard, just upload your images and every image that you upload will be considered as a frame. The engine will only allow you to upload images not bigger than 250x250px. You must resize your images if they are bigger than the said limit. After uploading your images, It will bring you to the image editor where you can choose to add more effects, do a bit more of editing to your animated gif or just save your image.

GifMake

GifMake was featured here a couple of months back. It’s a simple animated GIF creator which allows you adjust the frame rate speed of your animation and how many number of times the images will loop (animate) before it halts to a static image. Read more about Gifmake.

Smirk

Smirk lets you create an animated GIF image directly from your webcam. It will display your recorded video as an animated image for you to share with your friends. Read more about Smirk.

Tags: ajaxload, animated gif, gickr, gifmake, online image editor

Photoshop: Create a Grungy Looking Poster

An amazing photoshop tutorial in giving your designs that grunge look.

Tags: effect, grunge, Photoshop