Monday, December 8, 2008

Cool Tools Episode 37 Screencast: ReadingSocial

ReadingSocial is a web application for people who love to read and discuss books. Created by the people at LivingSocial, it is part of their suite of applications that enhance online communities, allowing people with similar interests to find and connect with each other. Their applications include games, music, movies, tv shows, restaurants, and beer. ReadingSocial integrates seamlessly with Facebook, Orkut, mySpace, Bebo, and hi5.

View the screencast (3:00)

Cool Tools Episode 37 Podcast: ReadingSocial

ReadingSocial is a web application for people who love to read and discuss books. Created by the people at LivingSocial, it is part of their suite of applications that enhance online communities, allowing people with similar interests to find and connect with each other. Their applications include games, music, movies, tv shows, restaurants, and beer. ReadingSocial integrates seamlessly with Facebook, Orkut, mySpace, Bebo, and hi5.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Cool Tools Episode 35 Screencast: Splashup

Splashup is a web application that performs basic editing of images through your web browser and even connects to a few of the more popular online communities to download, edit and post photos. This screencast will discuss the functionality of Splashup and demonstrate how it can be used for basic photo editing and connecting to online photosharing communities.

Cool Tools Episode 35 Podcast: Splashup

Splashup is a web application that performs basic editing of images through your web browser and even connects to a few of the more popular online communities to download, edit and post photos. This podcast will discuss the functionality of Splashup, the technology that supports it and its place in the world of Web 2.0.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Cool Tools Episode 34 Screencast: BookGlutton

This screencast gives a brief tour of BookGlutton and highlights a few of its main features. But beware! It also demonstrates the pitfalls of emerging technology, which often has glitches or blips that are still being worked out. However, these bumps in the road should not discourage online readers from trying out this fun new website, which is adding more books to its digital library everyday.

View the screencast (3:35)

Cool Tools Episode 34 Podcast: BookGlutton

BookGlutton is a free social networking tool that revolves around reading. Members read books online within a group environment using a piece of software called the Unbound Reader. The Unbound Reader allows members to post comments in the margins of the online books or chat in real time with other readers. Members can also join groups, a great feature for book clubs or classes.

Listen to the podcast (4:08)

[transcript]

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Cool Tools Episode 33 Screencast: Bloglines

Bloglines is a free web-based service that collects and aggregates a user's online subscriptions, often in the form of RSS feeds, in a central location. When new updates to the websites are made, Bloglines will mark the subscription as having an unread posting. Many people use this cool tool to keep track of their favorite blogs and news websites. Within Bloglines, users are able to customize settings and organize their subscriptions into folders.



Cool Tools Episode 33 Podcast: Bloglines

Bloglines is a free web-based service that collects and aggregates a user's online subscriptions, often in the form of RSS feeds, in a central location. When new updates to the websites are made, Bloglines will mark the subscription as having an unread posting. Many people use this cool tool to keep track of their favorites blogs and news websites. Within Bloglines, users are able to customize settings and organize their subscriptions into folders. 



Monday, December 1, 2008

Cool Tools Episode 32 Screencast: Survey Monkey

This screencast covers the basics of setting up and publishing a survey using Survey Monkey, an online tool for creating and publishing online surveys. It includes a demonstration of three primary steps: creating a survey, collecting responses, and analyzing the results. Within these steps, viewers will see an example how to add a question to a survey and customize individual question settings.

Cool Tools Episode 32 Podcast: Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey enables users to easily create and customize professional looking online surveys and publish them online. Individuals and organizations can use Survey Monkey to create and publish their surveys, collect valuable feedback by posting a link to the survey on their website, emailing an invitation to specific user groups, or by creating a pop-up window from their website. Survey Monkey also offers tools for analyzing the results of a given survey.