Aviary is a free image editor that you can use through a browser.
It doesn’t just have “photoshop” capabilities. There are 7 different programs within this site: Image editor (Phoenix), color editor (Toucan), effects editor (Peacock), vector editor (Raven), image markup (Falcon), screen capture (firefox extension) and audio editor (Myna). For beginners, they have a long list of video tutorials to help get you started, which sorts by application and difficulty. All of this is for FREE. Check out the G4 review below.
My Latest Obsession
15/02 Aviary : Free easy-to-use web based editing tools
04/02 J.D. Salinger’s fan mail
Joanna Smith Rakoff just started as an assistant at Harold Ober Associates in 1996 (who was J.D. Salinger’s literary representative) and one of the tasks she has to do was take care of Salinger’s fan mail.
The rules were to NEVER give out Salinger’s phone number or address and give them the standard form letter as a reply.
Some of these letter writers wanted something specific from Salinger—his permission to make a film version of one story or another, often—but most simply wanted a letter back from him. For the most part, they knew that Salinger didn’t read his fan mail—in fact, he’d insisted that nothing, not one letter, be passed on to him—but each was convinced that his letter was going to be the one that was so moving, so brilliant, so funny, so perfectly aligned with Salinger’s interests and sensibilities, that we, at Ober, would pass it on to him. And that Salinger would then, of course, recognize the writer—the teenage girl from Japan, the World War II veteran in Kansas—as a kindred spirit and write back. Though the authors of these letters varied in age and nationality, there was a theme common to nearly all the letters: Salinger was the only person who understood them.
Read the rest of the Slate article here.
(credit: Scott Lamb)
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03/02 Vapur : The Anti-Bottle
Vapur is a portable refillable collapsible attachable bottle.
The Vapur Anti-bottle ($9) is a reusable BPA-free, foldable bottle that you can roll up when empty and stash back in your bag. There’s an integrated carabiner to help it hang around, you can freeze it full of water and it will even go into the dishwasher on the top shelf. It has a small label allowing the bottle to be personalized with the user’s name. Perfect for outdoor using. Priced at $8.95 each, or $29.95 for a four-pack. (via LikeCool)




02/02 Urban Skiing
Skiing on the street.
I’ve actually done something like this with my friends but sledding, in a rubbermaid bucket, pulled around the back of a 4-wheel-drive Subaru by a rope, on an iced over street. It was awesome.
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18/01 Home Bouldering
This guy created a bouldering route in his house.
This is the “Sofa route” in 37 moves, rated: 6a+ V2. He used 42 screw holes through the plaster ceiling connected to the wooden beams above. This guy (Maximo Kausch) also goes ice climbing in the mountains in Paris.
Home Bouldering from Maximo Kausch on Vimeo.
(credit: LikeCool)
01/01 For all you Noughtie Fans
The NY Times gave a little shout out to The Noughtie List and asked Jason Kottke a few questions.
To contain all the measuring, the bloggers Jason Kottke and Jenni Leder created the “Noughtie List”, with many of the best-of lists linked from a single page. I asked Kottke about the impetus behind his list of lists.
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30/12 Follow-up to my “Random Fact”
I just recently twittered: Random Fact: there were were only about 130 websites in 1993 and have more random info.
• The Web went publicly online posted by alt.hypertext (a newsgroup) (good explanation of hypertext) on August 6, 1991.
• Some historical hypertext milestones.
• First webcomic: Doctor Fun
• Wiki has a list of all the websites created before 1995.
You might be interested in:
• A brief documentary: History of the Internet
• The machine that changed the world
• Internet Archive, I always forget about the Wayback Machine. What Thoughtbrain looked like in 2004, I wanted to create a creative collaborate magazine… Too bad I only updated twice.. hah! My favorite (you have to wait for it to load) was my Feature, an interview with Gary Baseman. I used his illustrations and made this interactive sound enhanced flash animation for showcase the interview. It STILL works!
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23/12 Mother’s $10,000 Honest spam
21/12 “The Way I Work”
Inc. has a great article by Jason Fried of 37Signals, called “The Way I Work“
Very good article on the day in the life of Jason Fried, worth a read and a new perspective.
After lunch, I get a little lazy between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. I don’t feel that productive, so I’m usually screwing around, which I think is really important. Everyone should read stuff on the Web that’s goofy or discover something new. I hate it when businesses treat their employees like children. They block Facebook or YouTube because they want their employees to work eight hours a day. But instead of getting more productivity, you’re getting frustration. What’s the point? As long as the work gets done, I don’t care what people do all day.
(credit: Smashing Mag)
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29/09 reactions to the original airing of Orson Welles’ adaptation of The War of the Worlds
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Letters of Note : Reactions to the original airing of Orson Welles’ adaptation
of The War of the Worlds
Letters of Note is quickly becoming one of the most interesting blogs I read. This one is two letters with different reaction to the famous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. I’ve always heard about how people went crazy listening to it, thinking it were true, but reading actual letters of the aftermath completely fascinating. Apparently, over 600 letters were sent to the FCC after this aired. Read it all after the cut below.
Read the rest of this entry »
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