Orangeinks

Blow Up your Flickr Images

Blow Up is a new way of viewing your Flickr images. Using this web app, you can showcase your Flickr photos in full screen. Blow Up grabs your public Flickr images and displays them in a well designed layout for better viewing experience.

You do not need to register in order to use the service. Just enter your Flickr username and you are all set. This is a cool web app for breaking Flickr’s limitation on viewing images. The interface is well designed and it will surely provide great viewing experience to your Flickr images. Navigating through different albums can be easily done by clicking on the thumbnails.

You can also use Blow Up in your blogs/websites. A download file is available so you can integrate it in your websites. This is great for Photo blogs and online portfolios for Photographers and Illustrators. You can customize the Blow Up interface and color palette in your sites to complement your brand. Blow Up’s size is under 50KB so you can expect it to load quite fast. The service is free and so is the downloadable Blow Up file.

Tags: blow up, flickr, images, Photos, web app, web service

Regator: A Cool Blog Aggregator

I just got a private beta invite from Regator and got a chance to test the new service.

Regator is a web service that focuses on bringing the best and latest news in the web from blog sites. It carefully categorizes blogs depending on their niches and creates an interface which is both easy to read and navigate.

The blogs that you see in Regator are popular blogs and the ones nominated by the users and approved by Regator. If you don’t see your favorite blog in Regator, you can easily nominate it in its proper category and will receive a reply from the team if your nomination got approved or denied. By carefully selecting blogs to be included in Regator, clearly states that the service is after quality content and not quantity.

Aside from reading partial blog posts in Regator, the service also supports video and audio playback. You do not have to go to the video or audio site in order to view the featured media. Users are also allowed to comment on the articles featured in Regator. A list of related (or kinda related) articles is also included along with the featured post. This will give users the ability to select a related reading material aside from the current post that they’re reading. Saving a blog post can only be done in one click and you can also favorite a blog in the same manner. Once you have chosen a blog to be one of your favorites, it will automatically be added in your “My Regator” page. Saved posts can also be seen in your personal page. A personal RSS is also created for you so you easily read them in your favorite RSS reader. This is great if you are reading a lot of blogs and just want a single RSS feed from all of them. You can also view the feeds from each category by subscribing the favorite channels feeds.

Regator’s focus on blog content will give small blog owners with good content a chance to get more readerships from the Regator Community. This is an awesome new way of reading content from the blogosphere.

Note: Regator is still in private beta. I tried to get some invites for you guys but they are all out.

The demand for our private beta invites has been incredible. That said, we have given out all of our allocations to blogs that we had for this round.

* You can now view Orangeinks in Regator (It’s located under Technology\Industry\Startups).

Regator

Tags: blog aggregator, regator, RSS, web service

GifMake: Online Animated GIF Maker

Want a quick solution in making an animated GIF file? Try GifMake. It’s a simple web application which turns your images into an animated GIF. It supports gif, jpeg and png image file formats. You can easily transform the mentioned files into a single animated GIF file by using the service. You can also use GifMake to decompose existing animated GIF’s.

How to Use:

Simply upload an image file from your computer or use an existing online image file by placing in the URL of the image. Once the images are properly uploaded, place the length of time (measured in milliseconds) you want the images to appear before displaying the next image. You can also enter a value in the Animation Loop to limit the amount of times the image will animate. If you want an infinite loop then just leave the Animation Loop value at zero.

If you happen to decide to change an image in the GIF file, you can just put a check on the checkbox located on the right side of the image and click the button Picture Replace. This will also be helpful when decomposing existing animated GIF files and changing or removing images in the animated file.

This is a very useful tool for easily creating animated GIF images. You don’t have to seek professional help or read/watch an image editing tutorial just to create your own animated images. Bloggers can also produce animated banner ads or animated favicons for their sites. I would suggest though that before uploading images to GifMake, make sure that the sizes of the images are about the same size if not the same. This will make your creation process a lot faster and with less or no distorted images. Check out the sample I made using GifMake.

Tags: animated gif, gifmake, web app, web service

PicJuice: Simple Online Photo Editing Tool

PicJuice is a very simple online image editing tool. Equipped only with seven functions which will allow you to resize, flip, rotate and adjust contrast and color levels of an image.

To use the service, all you need to do is upload an image or photo and you can select from the mentioned tools and you can begin with the simple editing. Even if you could do this in easily in Photoshop and other image editors, the simplicity of the service is hard to ignore. This will be most useful in cropping image files but not as useful to me because I mostly use screenshots and then I crop.

Anyway, to use the crop tool, just highlight the part of the image that you want to crop or place an exact width and height value (measured in px).The resize tool is very handy. It features a resize bar which tells you the current size of the image and changes in real time while doing the resizing. The Flip feature, from the name itself flips the image horizontally or vertically and the rotate button will let your rotate the image. The color adjust button is actually the main feature in PicJuice, it’s an automatic color adjustment tool. The “I’m feeling lucky” of color adjustment in photo editing. Once you press this button, PicJuice will automatically adjust the color level and contrast of your photo depending on the color adjustment algorithm of PicJuice. If ever you made a mistake, just upload the same photo and you can start all over again. After everything is done, you can save your image in JPEG or PNG format.

This is quite an interesting tool. Given the time, I think it can turn into a powerful online editing tool. It’s only in beta version so we can expect more from PicJuice. As for now, it can only be used for simple photo editing tasks. It’s a neat tool to play around with. Give it a shot with your favorite photo and tell us what you think.

Tags: image editor, online photo editor, Picjuice, web app, web service

Emmy the TasteKid: The Recommendation Robot

Meet Emmy, the taste kid robot. Tastekid provides recommendations based on stuff that interests you. It’s a great site for discovering other interesting things that you might like. There are lots of recommendation sites out there but I find this one very unique. Maybe it’s because of Emmy, the character (mascot) of the site. It kind of feels like getting recommendations from someone other than an algorithm, even if it is actually a robot.

Who is Emmy?

I’m glad you’ve asked ^^ I am Emmy the Taste Kid and I currently live in Romania.
Although I’m young, I’m very much interested in music, movies and books. I’ve currently heard about 22,370 bands, some 13,100 movies and around 9,440 books.

To use the service, just tell Emmy a book, movie, band and she will give you recommendations of other related stuff that you might be interested in. It’s actually a fun site to visit if you’re looking for something new that will interest you. Emmy is constantly improving and learning from mistakes and bad recommendations, so bear with the service for it is still young.

You can also help Emmy improve by giving her your own recommendations through the contact page. This will help the creator to improve Emmy’s suggestions. Give it a try and you might enjoy it.

Tags: emmy the tastekid, recommendation, web service

Create your Own Mobile Page using Jag.ag

Jag.ag is a free web application where you can easily create a simple online page optimized for mobile browsing. The service is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that lets you design and upload a mobile page with ease.

The editor is very easy to use and the layout is very simple. Personalization of the created pages will be reflected only once the personal images are uploaded. Jag.ag allows you upload up to three images. You will be allowed to create your own subdomain under the jag.ag domain. Once you have registered, you will be given up to thirty (30) free SMS credits that you can use to invite friends to your mobile page.

This is a simple solution for people who want to create a personal mobile page without going to the trouble of registering domains and coding a mobile based website. It can also be useful for promoting other online sites through the use of the mobile page or just having simple fun with it by creating your own personal mobile page. There is just one little thing I’ve noticed when I tested the service. I can’t seem to place link tags using the editor. I have emailed the team and asked them about the placement of links in the mobile page. Maybe I’ll get a reply in the next day or two. It would have been great if they allowed links to be placed on the personal mobile page.

Anyway, it’s quite a cool and simple service that you might want to check out and have some mobile fun with.

Tags: editor, Free, jag.ag, mobile sites, web service, webapp