How to Be Safe on the Internet

As many of you are aware, the head of the CIA has recently had to resign because his email was hacked and personal information was leaked. If this can happen to the man in charge of the CIA, it can easily happen to you. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to protect yourself online! This list includes some great advice that everyone should be aware of. One important strategy that not too many people practice is to make sure you turn off file sharing and network discovery when using a public wireless network. Be smart, and don't let others access your private information!

stock.xchng - free stock photography

Though I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find anything free on most stock exchanges, that isn't the case for this massive collection of free stock photography.

When a quick Google search isn't giving you quality images and if you're concerned about violating copyright, head to stock.xchng and make a free account to download images (though you can search and browse without one).

What's great about free stock photos?

What is great about stock.xchng is that users can appropriate any uploaded photo for creative projects as long as they abide by a set of reasonable usage guidelines. It's important to honor these contributors and credit them for their work (some users have specific requests, so take note of these under the "availability" heading to the left of the download button).

So how do I use them?

To use the photo above, I had to leave a comment explaining where I was using the work. For we users, this is a minor obligation if it means getting excellent—and free—photos for our projects! For someone who isn't all that savvy with Wall Street, this is one stock.xchng that I can get excited about.

Free audio services

The following are examples of free audio creation services where you can experiment with your creative side and make some new music to use in your videos -or just share with others. Most can be used without a download or login. Beat Lab: http://www.beatlab.com/ There are twelve default sounds provided in the Beat Lab grid which you just click and drag across to use. You can add more sounds by selecting "add more sounds" and choosing from the huge catalog of sounds or upload your own sounds. I found this a little slow and not as easy to use. Soundation http://soundation.com/ is similar looking to GarageBand; it provides five tracks on which you can place music clips and sound effects to mix together.You can also pick from a gallery of 400 free sounds, upload your own sounds, or record new sounds using the instruments and keyboard built into Soundation. UJam: http://www.ujam.com/ujamstudio You can sing and it will try to create music to go along with what you sing (No, I didn't try it since I'm not singing at work...) :) Incredibox: http://www.incredibox.com/en/#/application --I had SO much fun playing with this application. It almost made me feel like I do have an ounce of musical talent! If you like the human beat box style, you will like it too.

UD Library now checking out eBooks!

Welcome to the Brave New Library World! The UD Library is making eBooks available for loan. Read this UDaily article for details. They can be read on a variety of devices including iPhones, Android phones, Windows and Mac computers. They are searchable through DELCAT and one can also choose eBooks as a Library Collection to search. I won't keep adding links, you can see them in the article. It's possible we will get questions down here about them. I assume (unless Shelly indicates otherwise) that Circulation will handle questions relating to circulation issues, and Reference other in depth questions regarding this new resource.

Tricks for Your Project Success

Recently we all handed in our project mock-ups to be assessed so that when we get them back we can make them the best we can. This project was the first time I had worked with Photoshop and it took a lot of googling and trial and error to reach my final product. Since we all want our projects to come out perfect and this definitely won't be the last time we work with Photoshop I thought I'd share a few cool tricks I just learned.

1. If you want to warp an image, for example make it look like it's bent or dancing, you can use the Puppet Warp button. Simply go to edit-puppet warp. The image will become covered in lines moving in different directions and you will need to place at least two "pins" among the lines. You can make active pins (the ones you want to move) that are symbolized by a yellow dot with a black one in the center and inactive pins (the parts you don't want to move) that are just yellow dots. This allows you to play with the parts of the image you want to warp while leaving the other areas alone.

2. I did a lot of things while creating my poster that I probably wouldn't have been able to duplicate later without this trick. Simply click on they layer that  you want to save for future use (if you made a design that you want to use again) and click on the tab at the top of the layer called "styles." Then all you have to do is click the "new style" button and name it something you will recognize.

3. When choosing a font for my poster I struggled to find the buttons that would help me adjust it exactly the way I wanted.
     Command + Shift + B = Bold (if your font has a bold)
     Command + Shift + I = Italic (if your font has an italicized form)
     Alt/Option + the up and down arrows and Alt/Option + the left and right  arrows will alternate between the font's weight (if it has a set one) or add a faux weight style to it.

Good luck fixing up your projects to perfection!

Soon to be Unveiled: Sony HDR-PJ710V

For at little bit we've had a new camcorder in the back.  It will be a replacement as some of the cameras start to die.  I figured now would be a good time to get acquainted with it.  It is the Sony HDR-PJ710V.  I found a good review of it here at http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-PJ710-Camcorder-Review.htm (minus a multitude of ads).  Basically one of the coolest new features on this gadget is a built in projector.  WOW!  Well it remains to be seen how that will function since I haven't got to see it in action yet.  I'm not sure it will be be all-end all of projectors, but I am at least excited for the possiblities!

Gangnam Style UD!

OK so I'm sure all students and most staff have heard of "Gangnam Style" (yes even middle-aged people have heard of it ;-). There was a flash mob performing this on campus recently. There are three videos on Youtube. Besides being fun, any suggestions for camera technique? Unfortunately I don't feel any of these are the best in that regard. Looks like they could have benefitted from using a tripd. Also Memorial Hall in the background looming over the dancers seems distracting. What do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpzfLGw0uo "Official" video with some split screens, interview at begnning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDUszg7-SZ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNJfYpHuH8w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COZFltha-QM This one was done with a phone. Actually looks a little better than some of the others.