Some Tools To Try
May 15, 2008 Filed in: Apps and
Tools
Many moons ago, I wrote
about Google Presentations and Ulteo's
online
implementation of OpenOffice Impress, but I
haven't had too much time to point out other web
services since then. Of course, Preezo and Zoho Show are sitting in my
bookmarks, waiting for evaluation, but I thought
I'd take a moment to point out some other neat
web applications that presenters might be
interested in.
Picnik
Picnik was the first online photo editor I was exposed to, and, to an extent, it's still my favorite. It has several editing tools and integrates with several photo hosting sites such as Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa – allowing you to browse photos uploaded to those sites without having to navigate away from Picnik. You can also upload photos stored on your computer.
From Picnik, you can add text (with many font options), shapes, and numerous effects to your photos. There is a $25/year subscription if you want even more feautres, but the free account should suffice for most. The only thing I hold against Picnik are the ads that clutter the screen in a free account.
Photoshop Express
While not quite as feature-packed as Picnik, Photoshop Express offers a much smoother, ad-free interface for working. Like Picnik, it integrates with popular image hosting sites, and it allows users to show off photographs in galleries. The experience of using Photoshop Express is very pleasant, and I could see this supplanting Picnik as my online tool of choice with the addition of a few more filters.
The only major concern right now is limited image format support.
Scribd lets you share documents (and slides) online through a Flash-based PDF viewer, allowing for tags, comments, and even embedding. It's simple to use and of clear benefit to presenters wanting to share their handouts as broadly and easily as possible.
ShowBeyond
ShowBeyond is an easy-to-use site that allows you to upload images and audio to create a small slidecast. You are limited to 24 slides, which seems a reasonable limitation, but the toolset seems more appropriate for the trip-to-Florida type slideshow over an actual presentation. Still, it's a good site for creating simple presentations or photo slides.
SlideRocket
SlideRocket is currently in private beta, and I haven't been accepted (yet) to try it out. Regardless, the site's tour makes SlideRocket look like a serious contender in the arena of web presentations (just so long as they don't cripple free accounts too much). This could turn out to be a very impressive product, and I'm excited to give it a spin.
Just take a look at this demonstration:
I'm sure there are many more fun and exciting web applications I either haven't discovered yet or just haven't had time to explore, but these should keep you busy for a while. Be sure to let me know of any online tools you use and want me to know about!
Online Photo Editing
Two websites really stand out in my mind under this category. Picnik and Photoshop Express.Picnik
Picnik was the first online photo editor I was exposed to, and, to an extent, it's still my favorite. It has several editing tools and integrates with several photo hosting sites such as Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa – allowing you to browse photos uploaded to those sites without having to navigate away from Picnik. You can also upload photos stored on your computer.
From Picnik, you can add text (with many font options), shapes, and numerous effects to your photos. There is a $25/year subscription if you want even more feautres, but the free account should suffice for most. The only thing I hold against Picnik are the ads that clutter the screen in a free account.
Photoshop Express
While not quite as feature-packed as Picnik, Photoshop Express offers a much smoother, ad-free interface for working. Like Picnik, it integrates with popular image hosting sites, and it allows users to show off photographs in galleries. The experience of using Photoshop Express is very pleasant, and I could see this supplanting Picnik as my online tool of choice with the addition of a few more filters.
The only major concern right now is limited image format support.
Document Sharing
I've referred to Scribd as YouTube for documents, and I still can't think of a better way to describe it.
Scribd lets you share documents (and slides) online through a Flash-based PDF viewer, allowing for tags, comments, and even embedding. It's simple to use and of clear benefit to presenters wanting to share their handouts as broadly and easily as possible.
Slide Sharing
A couple new services have recently come to my attention that allow for slide creation and sharing over the Internet, ShowBeyond and SlideRocket.ShowBeyond
ShowBeyond is an easy-to-use site that allows you to upload images and audio to create a small slidecast. You are limited to 24 slides, which seems a reasonable limitation, but the toolset seems more appropriate for the trip-to-Florida type slideshow over an actual presentation. Still, it's a good site for creating simple presentations or photo slides.
SlideRocket
SlideRocket is currently in private beta, and I haven't been accepted (yet) to try it out. Regardless, the site's tour makes SlideRocket look like a serious contender in the arena of web presentations (just so long as they don't cripple free accounts too much). This could turn out to be a very impressive product, and I'm excited to give it a spin.
Just take a look at this demonstration:
I'm sure there are many more fun and exciting web applications I either haven't discovered yet or just haven't had time to explore, but these should keep you busy for a while. Be sure to let me know of any online tools you use and want me to know about!