Orangeinks

Pictory: Inspiring Photos with Stories Told by You

Pictory is a website owned by Laura Brunow Miner that showcases photos that are collected from their original source: You. It is all about true, personal stories, and documentation of different lives and cultures.

The Internet is brimming with eye candy, but the vast majority of these images have lost their original context. Photo credits are rare and captions usually garbled, so I find myself often wondering: Who made this? What does it mean? The forces of the Internet can sometimes turn good work into confusing shrapnel.

Pictory members don’t have to be professional photographers or writers. All you need to do is to look, observe, photograph, and consider. All you need for a submission is one large, stunning photo and an informative caption. The captions don’t have to be perfect. They will be proofed and edited by the Pictory staff.

I want to collect images and stories directly from their sources: the people who create them. And then I want to make the best work that much better by editing, proofing, and compiling submissions into glossy online showcases. Big images. Careful details. Practical design. Credit and context.

A few don’ts

• Don’t add text or watermarks to your images.

• Don’t stretch your photo in one dimension.

• Don’t send nude photos or inappropriate content.

• Don’t add borders to your image.

• Don’t send in illustrations, drawings, paintings, or other non-photographic images.

Tags: Photos, PicTory, Stories

Photoshop: Make Objects Shine

This Photoshop video tutorial will actually show you how to create a shiny chain. This tutorial covers creating shapes using techniques with Shape Layers to applying some fairly sophisticated contours with Layer Styles. The techniques that were used in making this shiny chain will also help you with other projects as well.

Tags: Layer Syles, Photoshop, Shape Layers, Shiny, Shiny Objects

ModWar: A Modern Warfare Social Networking Site

ModWar is a sort of fantasy social networking site for modern warfare fans. You’ll be able to create your own modern warfare profile to share with people that has the same interest as you are. I don’t know if the site is related to the video game but for all of you who are interested in the technologies behind modern warfare then you might want to try out the site.

The social network still in the works and will only allow you to register, create a profile and do basic social networking. They are hoping that the community will lead them the way into making the social network better for everyone. Listed below are the things that you can do in ModWar:

• Create a MW2 & MW1 Social Network Profile

• Create clan groups

• Show off your favorite weapons, killstreaks…

• Post comments

• Add friends

• and more coming soon…

The site only targets a small audience, but it will surely have loyal followers which will consist mostly of gamers and people interested in modern warfare technologies.

Tags: Modern Warfare, ModWar, social networking site

Sputnik: Simplifying Search for the Best Online Tools and Applications

Sputnik is a website that aims to deliver you the best of the web in the simplest manner possible. It defines itself as the first Online System. It is a system that organizes and selects the best online tools and application while delivering them to you in very few clicks possible.

The free service divides the selected applications into the most popular categories. The system’s search tool allows you to make fast and targeted search. You’ll be able to take advantage of 50 search engines divided into different categories (between the other web, images, videos, music, download, encyclopedias, maps, etc). The results that Sputnik provides are the results that are provided by the best search engines available on the web.

Listed are the rest of Sputnik’s features

Communication: connects you to the most popular e-mail providers, Instant Messaging services, social networks, SMS, fax… all for free.

Music: listen to 24 hours/24h music, watch live concerts in streaming… and all the best music services in one click.

Movies: offers a list of movies (divided by genre) which can be viewed in streaming (that means without need to download).

TV: provides a selection of free online TV channels.

News: allows to read the daily news and to access to the best national and international newpapers online.

Games: allows to play games online, also in real time with other users.

Language Tools: provides translating services, dictionaries, language lessons and applications which allow other user, in the dialogue with the selected language.

Apps: allows the access to the best online applications without need to download (from text elaboration to the photo editing from the file transfer to SMS sending…)

All the services found in Sputnik are completely free and does not require you to download. All you need is your browser and you can enjoy free online tools and applications.

Tags: Online System, search, search tool, search-engine, Sputnik

PupilTube: Find the Best Tutorial Videos, Instructional Videos and How To Videos

There are tons of videos on the web that teaches us about something. The problem is that sometimes finding them from millions of YouTube videos alone not to mention thousands more from other video sites can be a real pain. Sure, there’s a this thing you call search, but what if a group of people already collected the best ones for you to enjoy.

PupilTube is a website that promotes knowledge by collecting and sharing How-To videos, Tutorials and Explanatory videos online. You can browse them by categories or use their search bar to further narrow your quest.

Same as with any other video sites, you can upload and share your own videos. Just make sure that the ones that you’ll upload are appropriate for the site. You can also help the PupilTube community by rating videos that you have seen. It will help others on locating quality tutorials and not waste any more time viewing the crappy ones.

Creating a site that contains the best tutorial videos available is something useful. This eliminates the need to dig deep into YouTube and other video sites just to find what you are looking for. It somehow narrows the search further for instructional videos without having to deal with distractions brought by other unrelated videos.

Tags: How To, Instructional Videos, PupilTube, tutorials, videos, youtube

LEGO Design By Me : Design Your Own LEGO Sets

Design By Me is home to a software made by Lego that allows you design your very own custom made LEGO sets. The LEGO Digital Designer software can be downloaded and installed on computers that run on Windows and MAC-OSX. You can get the digital designer for free on the LEGO Design By Me website and will roughly take you only a few minutes to download and install provided that you meet the minimum machine requirements that is needed in order for it to run smoothly.

Minimum System Requirements for PC

Operating system: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

CPU: 1 GHz processor or higher

Graphics card: 32 MB graphics card (OpenGL 1.1 or higher compatible)

RAM: 512 MB

Hard Disk Space: 100 MB

Minimum System Requirements for Mac

Operating system: OS X 10.4 or higher

CPU: Intel processor or faster processor

Graphics card: NVidia GeForce 5200/ATI Radeon 7500 or better (not integrated)

RAM: 1 GB

Hard Disk Space: 100 MB

Once the LEGO Digital Designer is installed in your computer, you can begin building your dream LEGO sets. You can also use their Box Designer to give your model the proper packaging according to your preference. You can design, decorate and tweak it using their graphics library. The software is linked to the LEGO online store where you can place orders or buy through Design By Me.

This is great news for LEGO fans and for people who are looking for something personalized to give as gifts or keep for themselves.

Tags: Custom Lego, Design, Design By Me, Lego, Lego Sets