Robin Good - new media publisher

Create Your Own Doodle Animations with VideoScribe.tv

Robin Good: I am speechless. This is one of the best visual communication tools I have seen this year. Videoscribe.tv allows anyone to create effective doodle animations with the minimum of complexity and with really excellent results.

Videoscribe.tv has been available as an iOS app already for some time, but now a desktop version is being launched any day now.

I have purchased both the iOS and the desktop version of Videoscribe.tv and I have been blown out of my socks after I have seen with my eyes what this little app can do. Amazing.

There is a great library of vector art included, plus the software can scour the Internet searching for other vector images to use in your doodle animations. Not only. VideoScribe takes care automatically of crediting the original image authors/source.

Videoscribe.tv can export finalized doodles at different resolution levels from low quality to HD, and as JPG/PNG sequences or standard .MOV files. The final video can be saved locally, uploaded directly to YouTube or your Dropbox account or shared on Facebook.

You can get Videoscribe.tv only by purchasing a Sparkol PRO license (apx. €15/month) here: http://www.sparkol.com/gopro.php?uid=1764 

More info: http://videoscribe.tv/ 

Create Your Own Doodle Animations with VideoScribe.tv

Robin Good: I am speechless. This is one of the best visual communication tools I have seen this year. Videoscribe.tv allows anyone to create effective doodle animations with the minimum of complexity and with really excellent results.

Videoscribe.tv has been available as an iOS app already for some time, but now a desktop version is being launched any day now.

I have purchased both the iOS and the desktop version of Videoscribe.tv and I have been blown out of my socks after I have seen with my eyes what this little app can do. Amazing.

There is a great library of vector art included, plus the software can scour the Internet searching for other vector images to use in your doodle animations. Not only. VideoScribe takes care automatically of crediting the original image authors/source.

Videoscribe.tv can export finalized doodles at different resolution levels from low quality to HD, and as JPG/PNG sequences or standard .MOV files. The final video can be saved locally, uploaded directly to YouTube or your Dropbox account or shared on Facebook.

You can get Videoscribe.tv only by purchasing a Sparkol PRO license (apx. €15/month) here: http://www.sparkol.com/gopro.php?uid=1764 

More info: http://videoscribe.tv/ 

Cut and Slice Large Images Into Any Number of Tiles with Tilen

Robin Good: Tilen is a free downloadable software for Mac and PC that allows you to easily slice any image into any number of image slices all saved separately.

Tilen can save tiles in JPEG, PSD, BMP, PNG, TARGA, or SGI formats, and open many more.

Tilen will run on Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher, or Windows 2000 and higher. Tilen requires Apple QuickTime to be installed. Tilen runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.”

Free to download.

Windows: http://www.nasolab.com/tilen/download/1_2/Tilen_Setup_1_2.exe

Mac: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tilen/id409199185?mt=12 

More info: http://www.nasolab.com/tilen/index.html 

Create Your Custom Infographic with Venngage

Robin Good: Vengage is a new web app which allows anyone to created, edit and personalize professional-looking infographics by utilizing ready-made elements and an easy-to-use interface.

From the Carlispina blog: “The newest tool for creating interactive infographics online is Venngage from the Vizualize.Me team.

Building on the concepts that are at work in the Vizualize.Me infographic resume tool, Venngage allows users to create infographics on any topic with great simplicity.

Despite this simplicity, Venngage is also extremely versatile, offering 14 different infographic templates, each of which is highly customizable, including the ability to resize the overall infographic to meet your specific needs.

… a wide range of data types since it offers more than a dozen different types of charts, a host of symbols and shapes and the ability to add your own images.

Unlike many other infographic tools, Venngage also includes the ability to link to other web content directly in the infographic’s text.”

Venngage offers the option to export a .png file, to share your final work on social media, to keep private, or to embed it on any website or blog.

”Unlike image-based infographics, Venngage’s infographics are pure HTML elements and 100% search engine optimized.”

(Source: Carlispina Blog)

Find out more: http://venngage.com/ 

Upload and Share All Your PDF and PowerPoint Presentations With This SlideShare Alternative: SlideOnline -

Robin Good: If you are looking for a free and simple alternative to SlideShare you may want to give a look to this new free presentation sharing service which allows you to upload PowerPoint and PDF files without much hussle.

Presentations can be viewed in full screen, shared on social media, tagged and categorized, and made available for download if so desired.

The service looks clean, simple to use, and promising. (I needed one).

Note: Just to warm-up their engine and see how it reacted, I have uploaded both a 74MB .PPT and a 2Mb one. The first one reached its end but then nothing showed up while the smaller file gave me no problems at all. Here is the uploaded presentation:  

http://slideonline.com/presentation/116-design-delle-informazioni-test-slides (it’s a test file)
 

Examples of other uploaded presentations: http://slideonline.com/presentation/latest 

Free to use.

N.B.: There is hardly any information on the site, “About”, and “Learn More” links are not working, so be prudent before uploading your whole library here.

Update: As I have just learned from a timely email (who wrote me as  am writing this very Scoop - without knowing it) from Julian working on the development team, the only reason is that the service is just brand new… so, just give them time… and lots of feedback.

Try it out now: http://slideonline.com/  

Create Dynamic Presentations for iPads Right on Your Mac with Presto

Robin Good: Presto is a system which allows you to author dynamic presentations for iPads. Presentations are created on the Mac with Presto Builder and then exported to your iPad for final delivery.

Presto presentations are non-linear and you can swipe and connect to other slides in multiple ways. 

The final content created with Presto can also be shared with your Twitter and Facebook contacts.

The iPad app is free to download.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/presto-player/id512561996?ls=1&mt=8 

Presto Builder for the Mac is available inside the Mac App Store and costs: €4.99/$5.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/presto-builder/id512551858?ls=1&mt=12 

More info: http://www.presto-app.com/ 

Present From Your iPhone/iPad By Transmitting To Any Projector-Connected Computer: Air Projector for iOS

From the official site: “Leave the VGA dongle at home. Project PDFs and photos directly over WiFi.

Air Projector projects PDF documents and photos wirelessly from your iPhone or iPod Touch to a browser connected on the same local network.

No additional client software is required.

Just fire up Air Projector and type in the displayed URL in your web browser.

Then flip through the pages or photos on your iPhone and the remote display updates automatically.

-> Tap and hold to show a laser pointer on the remote screen.

-> Send PDF documents from Mail, or a third party document manager such as Dropbox, to Air Projector to present them.

Works great with exported PDFs from PowerPoint or Keynote (note: transitions and animations are not stored in PDFs).

Share presentations with remote colleagues via online meeting or desktop sharing software (such as iChat).

Note: Air Projector requires iOS4.0 and above.”

You can even use Air Projector peer-to-peer with a computer via an ad-hoc network when a WiFi hotspot is unavailable.

Download on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/id388376531 ($0.99)

Free version also available (to test and verify if you like what this app does): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-projector-free/id411380678  

Find out more: http://www.qrayon.com/home/airprojector/ 

(Thanks to Ana Cristina Pratas for discovering this one)

Simple Presentation, Annotation and Whiteboarding Presentation Tool: PDF Presenter

Robin Good: PDF Presenter is an open-source free cross-platform presentation software which allows you to edit and annotate existing content, import images and draw annotations .

With PDF Presenter you can type text next or over existing content, create multiple tabs with different whiteboards, and save your final work as a PDF file.

System requirements:
Java version 6 or higher.

Free to use.

More info and download it here: http://pdfpresenter.sourceforge.net/ 

(Thanks to Baiba Svenca for uncovering it)

Custom Tag Cloud Builder: Tagul

Robin Good: Tagul is a web service that allows you to create custom tag clouds while being to control many aspects of your creation.

Tag clouds can be based on URL content, on specific words you input or by modifying a tag list. 

Key features include:

• Text inside text
• Rich fonts choice
• Fancy rollover effects
• Custom colors and shapes
• Support non flash devices (ipad, iphone, etc.)
• Export in SVG format
• Only 50kb in size
• Instant delivery through a CDN
• API access
• Free

Gallery: http://tagul.com/gallery 

FAQ: http://tagul.com/faq 

Try it out: http://tagul.com/ 

(Thanks to Liz Wilson for uncovering it)