Reflectionmaker

Reflections on the bottom of images have been all the rage on the web (well, maybe ‘rage’ is a little too strong a word!). You can accomplish the task in photoshop with a few steps. In fact, you can even make an action to do this. But, not everyone has photoshop (or even photoshop elements for that matter). And, you could even accomplish this with some free image editiors like GIMP. But, if you don’t want to take the time to learn these programs, there is another way. I recently ran across a web site that does it for you for free! The name of the site is, oddly enough, Reflectionmaker. It is straight forward and thus, extremely easy to use. You can use a picture that you’ve uploaded to a web site (private or flickr), or one that is still on your computer. Using the text boxes on the homepage you type (or browse) where the image is located. Next, you determine how big you want your reflection to be (0 to 100 percent) using a slider. You can even choose the color you want your background to be (it will show through the reflected area of your image). Your new image will be generated in about 10-15 seconds. You can then choose to download it to your computer. I have several examples below. I’ve played with different color backgrounds on them. The site is free with one limitation. The file size of your image cannot exceed 200 Kb. If you happen to make some images using the site send them to me. I would be interested in seeing your results!

Questions and Answers

Do you feel that you're bothering someone whenever you need to ask a technical question. Or, maybe you're like me and think that people believe that you should know the answer. Well, I've found a web site that you can ask and receive no strange looks for the simplicity of your question! It's zolved. Check out the link above. I've found that generally they will get back to you within 24 hours!

I really need to update this column more often. Being selfish - it would benefit me greatly. As those who know me, I have trouble keeping track of things (to put it mildly!). Of late, because of my interest in Web 2.0, I've been running into a lot of new technology and resources coming out. This column would be a perfect way to store it. That way, when I can't remember the name of some technology or the url of a site I could just come to my column and find the information! Brillant!!

Cl1p.net

Have you tried cl1p.net yet? It solves a problem for students. They now can use this page (personalized first) to save their research in the classroom/library and then access it from home to continue their research. It's like having a personal laptop to take with you. You can save your page, password protect it and even hide it from view from anyone else. Two students (or groups of students) could collaborate on a project by creating a page. They could both edit the information on the page even while not together. This might create a problem if both tried to edit from separate locations at the same time! Not sure what happens here as I have yet to try this. One could easily test this by trying it. If you do, let me know!

Mr Gross and I have set one up to work on a new project we've started. It called broadcasting. We are trying to get all the equipment together we would need to broadcast a baseball or softball game this spring across the internet. We are going to try to use Skype. to create a 'skypecast'. Since there will be at least two people doing the broadcast we needed to use a sound mixing board. Mr Stegman generously donated one. He is also involved in getting us an internet connection at the field. Thank you, Mr Stegman! If you check the cl1p page out above, you will see we still have many 'todos' to check off before it becomes a reality.

The ultimate outcome of the broadcasting project will be to have way of broadcasting from Shepherd Schools by next fall. We hope not to just broadcast sports, but other creations of the students (such as podcast, videos, etc). To go along with this we hope to start a Digital Club of sorts that students can use to create and work on digital projects (broadcasting, video, photography, web pages, etc).

Macul

Here I sit with Mr Gross! We're putting the finishing touches on our presentation on Podcasting (Podcasting from the Rockies). It's going to be a little weird. I've learned so much new information about podcasting. I have mixed thoughts about what to include. It seems that I'm changing the presentation everytime I think about it. It probably won't matter. We're the last presentation of the day, so no one will probably show up! At least it's given me time and a reason to organize my thoughts about podcasting. Oh well, here we go.....