Since it has been awhile since we pointed out the handy work of new media specialist Andy Rush, I figured it was time again to give him props.

While it seems like a deceptively simple question, “How do you resize an image?” if you stop and think about it for a moment you will realize this is no easy matter. Sure you could bust out your MS paint and and do terrible things that new human being should ever do with it or you can take a look at a great resource list Andy blogged about.

So now that you have some tips from the new media pro himself go out and properly resize that blurry image you have on that social networking tool you use, we are tired of staring at pixelation.

The last time we discussed aviary, SfSS told you all about Aviary (http://aviary.com/home) and its ability to be your photo editor, for free.  Well, while Aviary is still all about that, it has some new functions that you should know about.  Let me introduce you to Myna, Aviary’s new free audio editor.  Have you ever had a dream about being that awesome DJ, spinning incredible tracks with laser lights going off all around you?  This could very well be your first step to realizing your ambitions, you go getter, you!

To start off with let’s talk about the layout:

It looks straightforward and comes with the same basic options that you would find on the older program Fruitloops, for those who have been in to making your own tracks for a while now.  Although the snap shot only shows a few of the tracks it carries ten tracks that you can test.  My favorite thing about this stuff is how absolutely painless it is for me to use.  Everything can be simply snapped to the grid and edited within there.  You have a whole host of options, creating fading in and out transitions, changing the gain, editing the clips, and more.  The best way to get yourself acquainted to this fun tool is to just start playing with it, although there is a helpful quick screencast to get you started.

Clips for this program come from three possible sources.  The library within Myna, which comes with a user’s agreement, boasts a wide range of clips from different cds, all of a techno genre or another.  Next, your own media library can be used as a resource for clips.  However, if you have say a part of a song that would fit so nicely into your mix, unless you have a clip prepared, it will generally pull the whole song, major buzz kill.  Oh and that third source of clips?  Well that is you, of course.  You can record directly into Myna, instruments, your voice, a baby crying, whatever.

Aviary as a whole is really awesome, especially with its support.  I had some funky saving issues when I created my first song, but I dropped aviary a line, got a response in no time flat and straightened the issue out.  So give it a whirl already!

Have you ever tried setting up a meeting with a lot of people via e-mail? If you have you probably know the confusion that can occur as people reply, reply-all, change their minds and never respond. Or maybe you already have a day picked out but your group can’t decide where to eat or what movie to see. Is there a web 2.0 solution for your problem? Why yes, yes there is.

Let me introduce you to a lovely site called Doodle.

So how does Doodle work? Let me quote directly from the site
1) Create a poll
2) Forward the link to the poll to the participants.
3) Follow online what the participants vote for.

I used Doodle to help set up a meeting for those students interested in writing for this site (and if you are let me know!) and with a few clicks I was able to give them many time and day options. A nice feature of Doodle is that it will show you how many votes there are for each day/time combo. It may seem simple but this can give you a visual view of what day/time may be better and if you have more than one option for your get together. Another idea is creating a list of things you need people to bring to a party and have people sign up for what you need.

Give it a try and you will find that is much easier than the back and forth of e-mails and allows for many more nuances than simple e-mailing can’t get at. So throw a party, have doodle help you set it all up and don’t forget to invite your favorite starving students.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Joe Shlabotnik

I’m one of those people who looks online continuously for computer programs that will help my computer become more lean.  Be it defragging, antispyware, firewall, or antivirus software, I’m always looking for the greener pasture, and although this robs me of work time every now and then, it does mean my computer doesn’t have any viruses.  When I think of computer programs that have improved my productivity, I sometimes actually think of an entire company–IOBit.

IOBit has three major products:  Advanced SystemCare, Smart Defrag, and Security 360, which just left beta testing recently.  These three programs will clean your registry, delete spyware, optimize settings, defrag, and protect your system from threats that one can easily pick up while downloading the latest Jessica Biel screensavers.  While there are paid versions offered, the free versions work pretty much the same except with a few gimped settings, including their periodic scans being locked.

As said earlier, Security 360 is the latest addition to their arsenal and acts much like other anti-malware products do (except better).  Being as the main selling point of these programs is how easy they are to use (and they really are), it only takes one click to scan your system for spyware, and another to protect your computer from malware actively, much like Spybot Search and Destroy uses the its “immunize” function.  It also includes a scan for security holes and a privacy sweeper.

There really isn’t anything like trying these programs out for yourself though, and if it makes you feel any better, they are clean and easy to uninstall, too.

Converter Magic!

Have you ever had a song that you can’t find on itunes and you really want to get it? I have, and this is the way I figured out how to do it for free! A friend of mine introduced me to this website and I think that it is really cool. so the website itself is http://www.mediaconverter.org and this is how I have been using it. First of all this website as far as I can tell is open to anyone and you don’t even have to sign up or give any information. The purpose of this website, or what I have been using it for is to rip the audio track off a video (I use Youtube) and then be able to transfer it to your ipod or musical device. So, this is how you do it (keep in mind there might be easier ways to do this but this is what has worked for me)  When you go to the website on the home page there is a box in the middle of the page that’s called the conversion wizard. Click the “enter a link button” and then copy and paste a link from a video of which you want the song and then hit “ok”  Now the screen should look a lot like it did when you started but now on the far right there is a green arrow that says “go to the next step” click on it. Now it’s going to ask you what output file type you would like select mp3 there are a lot of options here and you could probably play around with it and get it to do something else if you wanted to but I haven’t gone as far to do that yet. So, hit ok and now it should say that there is one file in the queue, hit “start” now there should be a loading bar on the lower half of the page telling you how far along it is. Once that is finished loading then a link should appear that says download, click on that. A screen should pop up asking you what program you want to open it with, this works with itunes however it does have a few quirks. The song title will be whatever the title of the video was and you can’t change it. Also, I have found that once you exit Media Converter that the song becomes unplayable. My suggestion is to put it on your ipod while you still have the site open. This may seem like a hassle but it does work and if you really want a song it is free! One more thing, you might notice that at the top of the box on the home screen it tells you that you have a certain number of conversions left I have been using this for a while and I have never run out**. I also tend to only download one song at a time so maybe if you download say five songs in a short span of time it will make you wait a while before you can download any more. I hope this is helpful to people and if you have any questions I will try and answer them. Thanks!

**The counter lets you know how many conversions you can do in a day.  If you’ve got a free account, which is what we are all about, then you get five conversions per day.  But!  Don’t let that fool you, you can get five conversions a day, which should work just fine.  If dealing with that restriction isn’t for you, check out the cash-money version.  The “pro” isn’t too expensive, but I like it free.

Like we stated many many months ago when Stuff for Starving Students was first kicking off, we are huge fans of Firefox. One of the best features of Firefox is that ability to use add-ons to extend the functionality of your browser. We have discussed a couple of add-ons in the past, like Zotero, Delicious and Aviary. Today we present another add-on to decorate your browser – Video DownloadHelper.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by umwdtlt

Video DownloadHelper is capable of searching a site you are on for videos and allows you to download the video off the site so that you can repurpose them in ways you need. Nothing illegal going on here (unless you choose to use the content you download illegally of course) it just gives you easier access to content that your browser is downloading anyway. Wondering how you might use this neat add-on? New Media Specialist Andy Rush has a post on embedding YouTube videos in PowerPoint presentations offline using the DownloadHelper add-on.

After enabling the add-on in Firefox whenever you see the DownloadHelper icon (it looks like a molecule) light up and rotate you will know that there are videos on that site available to download. YouTube is just one of the many sites that this add-on supports. So if you find that perfect video for your next project you no longer need to worry about the internet working in your classroom that day if you have already downloaded it.

There are many more possibilities with this add-on and we are curious to know how you use it in your travels, so leave a comment!