PhotoVisi
A great online collage tool with lots of templates
Creating Collage can be tricky. If you don't have the right template - it can look boring and lose the appeal of the pictures. Thankfully there are sites online that can make it easy to combine photos.
One site to consider is Photovisi. as they have a lot of design options to pick from. In fact, there are more than 250 designs to choose from. Thankfully there are broken into 19 categories, so you can search for the design that works best for you.
Photovisi has templates for YouTube Channels as well as Facebook covers.
Photovisi is free to check out - even the editor is free. However, if you want to remove the watermark it cost $4.99 a month. Which isn't a bad price if you do a lot of collages.
Website Description
Making photo collages with our easy to use editing tool is the simplest way to get stunning results. Giving you total freedom over the way your photos are displayed by cropping, resizing or adding effects to them.
With our unique photo editing tools it's never been easier to create great-looking photos. We got you covered with filters, frames, stickers and tons of other image editing capabilities!
Sample Designs
Clothesline Layout Example
Inkblots Layout Example
ezgif.com
Convert MOVs to Gif super easy
Animated Gifs are all the rage, and there's no better place to create and touch up GIfs than ezgif.com. It's the one stop shop for all your basic GIF editing.
I like to use their optimize feature to better compress GIF files that have been created using different applications.
Website Description
Ezgif.com is simple online GIF maker and toolset for basic animated GIF editing. Here you can create, resize, crop, reverse, optimize, and apply some effects to gifs.
Sample GIF Images
Here's a couple of images that I converted from H.264 to GIF:
Boston's MBTA Commuter Rail. Using ezgif.com I was able to convert the original 2.9 MB MOV file to the 732 K GIF
This Movie was 1.8 MB, but using ezgif.com I was able to get it down to 652k.
Spot the International Space Station
Find out when you can see the space station from your home
NASA has a cool site that shows you when you can expect to see the International Space Station. This is a fun thing to look for when you know when it appears.
You enter in your street address and the site will tell you when and where to look up at the sky.
Website Description
Watch the International Space Station pass overhead from several thousand worldwide locations. It is the third brightest object in the sky and easy to spot if you know when to look up.
Visible to the naked eye, it looks like a fast-moving plane only much higher and traveling thousands of miles an hour faster!
https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/home.cfm
Bonus Video
Did you know that there's a live video feed from a camera on the International Space Station? If you time it right, and the camera is pointing in the right direction, you may see your area from Space!
Check out the Live ISS Stream video cam and see the view from the International Space Station.
Next time the International Space Station is over your house, check out the video feed from the space station. Miss the live feed? Don't worry there's a 6-hour replace video available.
PermalinkBrowser Information
Getting detail information on what the world gets from your browser.
Getting Browser information from an external source is a good way to learn what information your browser is sending. It's a good way to learn your external IP and what features might be enabled.
MyBrowserInfo.com is a great site that makes it quick and easy to get information about your browser settings. I like it because it can tell me the User Language, which some sites use to determine if they need to display information related to Canada's Anti-Spam Law.
Website Description
MyBrowserInfo.com is the fastest and easiest way to determine your IP address and information about your Web browser.
Browser Information List
Here's the things that MyBrowserInfo.com can find out:
Operating System, Platform, Internet Browser, Beta Version, Connection Speed, Restrictive Firewall, Local Date/Time, Language, System Language, User Language, Popups Blocked, SSL Support, SSL Enabled, Style Sheet Support, Supports Tables, Table Cell BG Colors, Table Cell BG Images, CDF Support, Color Depth, Supports GZip, Supports Cookies, Cookies Enabled, Supports JavaScript, JavaScript Enabled, JavaScript Version, JavaScript Build, Supports VBScript, Supports ActiveX, ActiveX Enabled, Supports Java, Java Enabled, Java Vendor, Java Version, MS JVM Build, Supports DHTML, Supports Uploads, Supports Frames, Gecko Engine, Screen Dimensions, Browser Dimensions, Supports IFrames, Images Enabled, PNG Support, XML Support, MS XML Parser, Background Sounds, Supports MouseOver, Windows Installer, .NET CLR Installed, MS Media Player, Apple QuickTime, RealPlayer, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe SVG Viewer, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director, Macromedia Authorware, Citrix, iPIX Image Viewer, Crystal Reports, Viewpoint, Autodesk MapGuide, NetMeeting Build, Using PDA, WAP Support, Proxy Connection, Font Smoothing, Font Sizing, IE Text Size, Fonts Installed
PermalinkDillinger
Online Markdown Editor
Dillinger is a great Online Markdown editor that makes it easy to create markdown documents. The nice thing is that you can see the results of the output in the second pane.
It's a good way to learn Markdown and how to apply the various tags. You can actually use Dillinger to store Markdown templates - information is stored by browser session. This means you can't access that data on a different machine.
Website Description
Dillinger is a cloud-enabled, mobile-ready, offline-storage, AngularJS powered HTML5 Markdown editor.
You can:
- Import and save files from GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive
- Drag and drop markdown and HTML files into Dillinger
- Export documents as Markdown, HTML and PDF
My Birthday Hits
Find Out the Number one songs on your birthday
Music has always been a part of our lives. It inspires and can help change the mood that we are in.
Thanks to My Birthday Hits, you can find out what songs were popular in your life.
Website Description
Want to know what song was number one your birthday? We bet you've already Googled it. But how about when you were 10? Or 15? You know, when music actually meant something to you... My Birthday Hits gives you a list of the number one songs for each of birthdays. It's the actual soundtrack to your life! Simply enter your birthday and then scroll through each number 1 song on your birthday every year since you were born.
Why not check out all the number one songs throughout your teens? Or the number one on your 21st birthday? Or how about the #1 when you turned 40? Watch the videos, create a Spotify playlist, or buy the tracks you like best on Amazon.
https://www.mybirthdayhits.com/
There's this interesting tweet:
Whatever song was #1 on your 12th birthday Is the official theme for your life, mine Is Irreplaceable by Beyonce, what's yours??? https://t.co/1TRyjwPqN2
??? Chelsi #TeamNicole (@ChelsiLuvsBB) August 17, 2019
Markdown Guide
Easy to use Markdown Guide to master Markdown
Markdown is getting to be popular and most editors are now accepting the basic Markdown syntax. It's a good idea to get some fundamentals on how Markdown works. Soon you'll discover why more and more people are using it.
Matt Cone has put together an excellent Markdown Guide which makes it easy to understand the basic syntax . There's a section about the extended syntax which isn't supported in all platforms - but good to know the possibilities.
Website Description
The Markdown Guide is a comprehensive Markdown reference designed for novice and intermediate users. It was born out of frustration with existing Markdown references that are incomplete, inadequate, or both.
https://www.markdownguide.org/
Popular Playgrounds
If you want to play around with Markdown try https://dillinger.io/, it's a great way to get a real time view of how Markdown works.
PermalinkBBC Sound Effects
Great sound effects for your Video Collection
Having sound effects can go a long way to spice up a video. There are lots of places where you can get them, but many places lack quality sound effects.
The BBC Sound Effect is a great resource to for profession sound effects for your YouTube videos or Powerpoint slides.
Website Description
These 16,000 BBC Sound Effects are made available by the BBC in WAV format to download for use under the terms of the RemArc Licence. The Sound Effects are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license.
For commercial use, you can license sound effects.
Access dataset metadata by visiting our dedicated LOD site. If you have any queries regarding usage, please contact jake.berger at bbc.co.uk
http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/
Now you can have an awesome howling dog for the Halloween video, or the laugh track when you want people to laugh.
PermalinkYoda Speak Generator
Add some humor to Slackbot with the Yoda Speak Generator
Yoda spoke a funny way - inverses of a normal speak. A classic example:
The greatest teacher, failure is
Now you can translate any text into Yoda speak with the Yoda-Speak Generator.
Website Description
Yoda who? Our favorite little green friend from the Star Wars franchise, first seen in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, making a return in its sequel Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi. Learn how to talk like Yoda - just type or paste in a bunch of text and use the 'Convert to Yoda-Speak' button.
Try it with jokes, emails, song lyrics, card messages, whatever!
Have Fun and Try It
If try try again first you succeed not. Yes, hmmm.
Almost exactly the same, the road to success and the road to failure are. Hmmmmmm.
Robot.txt File
Audit your robot.txt file to make sure it is up to code.
If you have a website, you might be familiar with robot.txt file. This file that search engines use to determine what directories should get indexed.
Google has a robot.txt checker tool, which is pretty good. However, the folks over at websiteplanet.com created a useful robot.txt audit tool. Now you can see if your robot.txt file is up to specs! Simply enter the location of your robot.txt file and then go!
Website Description
It's never been easier to test the accuracy of your robots.txt file. Just paste your complete URL, with /robots.txt, click enter, and your report will be ready quickly.
Taking into account both the Robots Exclusion Standard and spider-specific extensions, our robots.txt checker will generate an easy to read a report that will help correct any errors you may have in your robots.txt file.
https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/robots-txt/
Robot.txt Tips
Three tips on using the Robot.txt file:
Put in a fake directory that only exists in the robot.txt file to indicate that it shouldn't be searched. Then check your logs to see if anyone has hit it. This is a good way to see if someone is harvesting the "forbidden search directories."
Yoast.com created The ultimate guide to robots.txt. This is useful to understand all the latest options that robot.txt files have.
Doesn't hurt to check out other websites on how they have their robot.txt file setup.
Robot.txt References
Useful Robot.txt Guides:
- Create a robots.txt file - Search Console Help
- How to Create a Robots.txt File - Bing Webmaster Tools
- Blocking the Baiduspider
About
I will highlight a fun Internet site every Saturday. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I regularly visit for a variety of reasons. All site recommendations are mine and are unsponsored. By highlighting these websites, I hope to provide value to those who may not know of the sites or who might be interested in visiting the sites. I also want to share the sites that I find valuable in the hopes that others will find them just as beneficial.
Check out all the blog posts.
Schedule
| Wednesday | iPhone 14 Pro Max |
| Thursday | New England |
| Friday | Macintosh |
| Saturday | Internet Tools |
| Sunday | Open Topic |
| Monday | Media Monday |
| Tuesday | QA |