Edit YouTube Videos

Sometimes you want the whole YouTube video.  Sometimes you don’t.

What happens when you don’t?  Use TubeChop that’s what!

Go to TubeChop.com. Paste in the URL of the video you want to chop.  Slide the fuschia pink slider beneath the video to the section that you want.  Click Chop It. And there you have it.  A snippet of only what you want.  How cool is that.

Here’s an example using video of the effects of the horrid tsunami that recently hit Japan. I just wish that I could embed it like a YouTube Video.  Guess I can’t have everything,  huh?

Tsunami damage in Japan

Photo Sharing on Steroids

I recently came across a nifty new technology.  (Well, it’s new to me . . .) As I read about it, I thought, “Huh! What a great idea!  I’m surprised that somebody didn’t think of it sooner.”

And then I did a wee bit o’ research.  Found out this technology has been around for 5 years.  Ahem.  Where have I been?  (Answer: pondering the meaning of life and leading strategic military maneuvers against hordes of encroaching dust bunnies . . .)

Where was I?  Oh yes. New technology.

You’ve got a digital camera, right?  Right. Got a Facebook account where you share your digital photos, right?  Right.

Got a Flickr account to share photos with Grandma Bertha, your second cousin twice removed in Des Moines, and your best friend LeRoy, right? Right.

You make photo books with Shutterfly and snapfish depending on who is having a good sale, right?  Right.

You print your photos at Costco or Walk-Mart, right? Right.

You take movies and upload them on YouTube, right? Right.

You have an account with Zenfolio, right?  No?  Don’t know what Zenfolio is all about?  (Don’t worry.  Neither do I.)

And you want an easier method for all of that uploading, right? Right.

Then have I got the memory card for you!  Eye-Fi has a memory card with built-in Wi-Fi capabilities. Did you catch that?  Built. In. Wi-Fi.

Pop the card into your camera.  Specify up to 32 different networks.  Then, when you snap all of those special Kodak moments (and those quirky odd moments and all others in between), the card automatically transfers  your photos and videos to their specified destination.  Now how cool is that?

Of course the memory card acts as a memory card and stores the photos and videos that you take.  Of course.  (It comes with either 4 GB or 8GB capacity.) Of course you can also transfer them to your computer if you want.  Of course. Of course you see how this is way cool and you want to run out and buy one right now.  Of course.

Me, too.  So, I’ll see you later.  I’m pulling out my credit card so I can buy a whole gaggle of them online.

Sweet Find in iTunes

I know that you are probably already aware of this little feature in iTunes. But I wasn’t. And I am so glad to learn about it.

Do you have duplicate songs in iTunes, like I do? And are you having a Dickens of a time scrolling through your long list of songs to find them?  Scroll up.  Scroll down.  Back up again.  Are those songs the same?  I dunno.  Better scroll back down.

This little tip can save you lots of grief.

Open up iTunes. Hold down the Option key. Click on the File menu. You will see Display Exact Duplicates in the menu. If you have duplicates, you will get a list of songs that are exact duplicates of each other.  Now, you can go easily go through and delete the duplicates (and free up some room on your hard drive).

(Stop rolling your eyes at me.  While you might have known about this, like, for-ever, it’s new to me.  Okay?)

Sweet.

Design Your Own Twitter Background

I just discovered a great site for creating a free theme for  my Twitter account.  Sweet.

I love it when I have the option to change the theme, design, or look and feel of things.  I’m not a graphic designer at all — but I sure like to play around.

If you are a Twitter user, check out Free Twitter Designer.  It’s easy to use to jazz up your Twitter theme.

First, you’ll have to decide whether to sign into the site with your Twitter login info, or use the site without signing in.  If you don’t sign in, all you will be allowed to do with your completed theme is to save the image.  Then, you will have to personally log into Twitter and upload the design that you just created.

If you choose to log in with your Twitter info, when you are finished Free Twitter Designer will automatically upload your theme and save it in your Twitter account.  You don’t have to take the time or have any hassle uploading your new theme.  (I really like this option.)

In creating a background, Free Twitter Designer has 11 background styles that you can use. If you don’t like what you see, you can start with a blank screen and create your own design.

Once you have selected a theme, you can then accept it as is — or modify it.  You can add text, shapes, or an image.  You can change the color of the shape or add a filter (glow, bevel, shadow).  You can change the background color, the color of links, the color of the text, and the color of the sidebar.

Even though this is a fairly simple designer, you can create a fairly sophisticated design — assuming that you have design skills.  Even if your skills are novice, you can still create a theme that looks nice.

After you get your theme tweaked just right, you generate the image.  After the image is generated, you can export it to Twitter.  You can also save the image.  You never know when you might want to use the same image . . . on your blog, your stationary letterhead, or business card.

There is one caveat, though.  If you are a Firefox user on a Mac (like me) the design elements won’t show up.  They do show up in Safari and in Flock, however.  Just not Firefox (which happens to be my browser of choice). Rats.

Your design will show up in Firefox on a Windows machine.  Sigh.  Is there no justice in the world?  

Needed to Know This Long Ago

Why is it that when I learn about some technology, I find that it’s been around forever?  And why is it that I could have used it over, and over and over again — had I only known about it?  Sigh.

Such it is with Backdrop.

Backdrop is a simple FREE utility that fills your desktop screen with a solid color (or an picture).  This is great when you are taking screen shots for tutorials or whenever you need to capture a portion of your screen but NOT all of the clutter that is residing on your desktop.

You can select your background color in the Preferences.  Sweet.  I like not being tied to a color that someone else thought was good.

If you prefer a background image instead, simply click on the Browse button to find the picture that you want.  If you don’t like how the picture looks, click the Clear button.

If I had a dollar for every screen shot that I had to redo because of some unwanted thing in the background, I would be a millionaire.  Or at least have an extra ten bucks in my pocket!

Of course this is a Mac app.  Of course.  Windows folks couldn’t come up with something this wonderful on their own . . .

Check it out.  And please consider a donation.  John Haney deserves to have his palm crossed with silver for all of his wonderful efforts!

Get Krunchd

Krunchd.  Not the kind that builds killer abs.  The kind that makes life easier.  Lots easier.

Are there times when you want to inundate someone with a whole gaggle of URLs?  What’s the best way to do it?  Fill up an e-mail that gets lost among all of the spam?  Type them in a document?  (That gets clunky for your friend to access the sites.)  Krunchd to the rescue!!

On the Krunchd website, you paste in the desired URLs.  Name and describe your link.  Then, viola!  It creates a Krunched URL (like they say — a Tiny URL on steroids).

Then, send the URL to your friend.  When she clicks on the link, it takes her to the first URL that  you entered in your list.  To access the other links, she clicks on the drop down list on the right hand side of the window.  She will see all of the other links in the list and can easily navigate to the next site.  (See the example below. The red arrow points to the drop down list of the URls. )

Click on this link to see it in live URL action.  It’s a random lists of grandmothers’ blogs.

Krunchd.  Cool.  Much easier than trying to build up your abdomen!

Mouse Locator

Sometimes in life there are things that are not used very often.  But when they are, they are extremely valuable.  Extremely.  Something that you just can’t live without — even if it is just momentarily.  The Mouse Locator is just that type of seldom-used necessity.

There have been times that for whatever reason my mouse pointer is MIA.  Is it off to the right side of the screen?  The left?  Wait!  No!  It is at the bottom. . . or maybe it really was off to the right side.

Sometimes it feels like I’m playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego with my mouse.  No amount of movement can reveal its location.  Rats!  (Or should I say ‘Mouse?’)  Darn that little rodent.  2point5fish to the rescue.  (Now, where in the world did they ever come up with a name like that???  Guess it makes sense to those folks in the UK who own the site.)

2point5fish has developed this sweet application, Mouse Locator, for the Mac.  It’s easy to download, install, and set up.  The hardest part (for me anyway) will be remembering the key stroke that locates my mouse.   Control-space, control-space, control-space.  Maybe if I repeat it enough times to myself it will lodge permanently in my long-term memory.  Hopefully.

Mouse Locator.  Give it a try, you Mac users.  It’s the cat’s meow.

Skimming Thumbnails in iPhoto 09

iPhoto 09 has some very different features.  For those new to iPhoto 09 and especially those new to iPhoto in general, navigating around your photos can be daunting.  It’s like being in a dream where you know you are supposed to go somewhere or do something but you have absolutely no clue what to do.

Well, here’s what you do.  Open iPhoto and select Events in the left-hand navigation panel.

Then, slowly move your mouse over the pictures of an event thumbnail.  It will automatically scroll through all of the photos that you have in that event.

Click here to see what this navigation will look like. (You don’t see my cursor arrow, but I am slowly dragging it across the thumbnail of the Seattle 2003 event.)

Another way to navigate the thumbnails in an event is to use your right- and left- arrows on your keyboard.  Simply point your mouse over the thumbnail picture.  Then, press the right-arrow key. Every time you press the key, you will see a different picture in your event.

I feel I have a little more control when I use the arrow keys instead of dragging my mouse across the thumbnail.  It’s easier to pause on the exact picture I want.

Rotating Photos in iPhoto

Sometimes when you take pictures with your digital camera, you turn your camera sideways to get a better vertical shot.  But then when you import your photos into iPhoto, the photo is horizontal.  And you want it displayed vertical.  Like the picture of the darling baby in the photo below.

But then you notice that the Rotate button in iPhoto rotates the picture the opposite way than what you want.  One way to solve that problem is to hold down the Option key on your keyboard.  When you do this, you notice that the Rotate button switches the arrow to rotate in the opposite direction.  You can then click on the Rotate button to rotate the picture in the desired direction.

Watch the little movie below to see how the arrow changes.  (You won’t be able to see me holding down the Option key on my keyboard but know that when you see the arrow change directions on the screen that is what my finger just did.)

Watch the short clip here.

You might find that the great  majority of the time you need to rotate in the opposite direction than what the Rotation arrow is.  If so, you can make a change in the preferences.  In the text menu at the top of the iPhoto screen, click on iPhoto and drag down to Prefercnces.  In the Preferences window, click on the General tab.  Then, click the Rotate radio button that you want.  See the picture below.

Searching on Your iPhone

Do you need to search for something on your iPhone but you don’t know how?  It’s quite elementary, dear Watson.  If you are on your Home screen, tap your Home button to bring up the Spotlight. Type in your search item. (The icon to the left of the search results tells which application the results are from). Tap the search result to open it.  (If you are on a different screen in your apps, just slide your finger across the screen from left to the right.  Keep sliding until you pass all of your apps and the Spotlight appears.)

This Spotlight searches Mail, Calendar, Notes, Contacts, Applications, Music, Podcasts, Video, Audiobooks,  If you want to modify what the Spotlight searches, go into Settings, General, Home, Search Results. Tap the options to remove the check by the ones you do not want to search.

If you are already in one of these areas, you can search exclusively within that area.  For example, if you are in Notes, you’re search will search only Notes.  To get the Search Bar in Notes, tap the top of your screen.  Drag your finger down.  The Search Bar will appear at the top.

To search within iPod search, open iPod.  Tap the area under which you’d like to search (playlists, artists, etc.).  Tap the top of the screen and drag your finger down.  The Search Bar will appear at the top of your screen.

This ‘tap and drag down’ works