Make Your Own Playlists with Grooveshark!

Do you want to stream music like you do with Pandora, but have a specific playlist in mind?  Then Grooveshark is for you.

Step 1: Create an Account

1. Go to http://listen.grooveshark.com and click the Create an Account button in the upper-right corner.
2. In the Sign up for Grooveshark dialog, create your account with a Desired Username and Password (as well as other information required) and then click Signup button.

Step 2: Create a Playlist

1. Click the New Playlist button on the left column.
2. In the Create New Playlist dialog, give your playlist a Name and optional Description.  Then click OK.
3. Select your new playlist.  An empty timeline will appear at the bottom of the browser window.
4. Use the search tool in the upper-left corner to find music.  When you find a song, left-click and drag the song to the playlist timeline at the bottom of the browser window.

Tip: You can left-click and drag the songs to reorder them along the playlist timeline.

Step 3: Saving and Sharing Your Playlists

1. Click the Save button on the playlist timeline.  (If you want update your playlist, choose Replace Playlist.  If you want to create a new version of this Playlist choose Save as New.. and rename the Playlist in the Create New Playlist dialog.)
2. Click your playlist from the left menu.  The list of songs will appear in the main pane of the browser window.
3. From the Options dropdown menu in the right-hand corner, click Share.  From here, you can shorten the playlist URL and email a link to your playlist.

Tip: If you want to create a Grooveshark widget with your playlist, click the Export button and follow the wizard to get the code you can use to paste a Grooveshark widget onto your Web pages.

Using Creative Commons Images from Flickr

Are you looking for an image to go with a PowerPoint Presentation, a handout, a Web page, or a blog post? Thanks to photo-sharing sites like Flickr task of creating large image galleries has now been crowd-sourced.

On Flickr, many people upload and share their photos and then choose what rights they wish to retain for their work. Some of these people may decide that sharing and exposure of their work is more important than monetary gain.

You benefit by being searching Flickr for these images, using them in your work, and crediting the original creator. The creator benefits by having his or her work seen by more people.

Searching Flickr for Creative Commons Images

1. Go to http://www.flickr.com/
2. Enter search terms into the textbox and click the Search button.  Thumbails of all images that meet your search criteria appear, including those with more restrictive copyrights.
3. Click the Advanced Search link.  The Advanced Search page will appear.
4. Under the creative commons section, make the following selections:
   
   
   
   
   1. Check Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content.
   2. If you are using the images in a for-profit project, check Find content to use commercially. (If unsure, check this just to be safe.)
   3. If you plan on cropping, editing, retouching, or modifying the images in any way, check Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon. (If unsure, check this just to be safe.)
5. Click the Search button.  Thumbails of all images that meet your search criteria and are licensed for sharing appear.
   
   
   
   
   If you plan on searching for images with these search terms again, add this search page to your bookmarks so that you do no have to recreate it again.
6. Select the image you wish to include in your work and click on the thumbnail.
7. Verify the licensing of the image:
   
   
   
   
   1. Find the Addtional Information section on the righthand side.
   2. Open the Some rights reserved link in a new tab to view the specific details regarding the licensing of the image.
8. Copy the following information into a document so that you can credit the author:
   
   
   
   
   1. The URL of the current page.
   2. The title of the image, if given.  (It will appear in a large heading just above the image.)
   3. The creator of the image.  (It will appear as Uploaded on date by creatorusername in the upper-righthand corner.)
9. Click on the All Sizes link.  The Available Sizes page for the image will appear.
10. Select a image size and click on its link to download it.
11. When using the image do not forget to credit its creator. Example: Photo Credit: Title, by Creator (URL), as in Photo Credit: The circle (of laptops) is complete. We are those guys. #eduweb by opacity (http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/3742796009/in/set-72157621760200034/)

Advice for Using Images from Flickr

• Periodically recheck the licenses of the images you used to make sure you can still use them.  Sometimes creators may change their minds and decide they no longer wish to share their work.  (See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:FLICKRVIO#Flickrwashing:_is_the_work_original_with_the_uploader.2C_or_a_copyright_violation.3F)
• Avoid images that appear to be photographs of artwork, logos, posters, etc.  The creator may not have the full rights they are granting you. (See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:FLICKRVIO#Flickrwashing:_is_the_work_original_with_the_uploader.2C_or_a_copyright_violation.3F)
• Credit the original creator, even when you are not required to do so.  There are many reasons for doing this. First, by crediting creators is a courtesy and it encourages more people to share their work.  Second, it gets you in the habit of crediting authors so that you don't forget to do so when your required to credit them.  Finally, you don't have to worry about going back and crediting a creator he or she changes it to requirement later.

Tagging and Addict-o-matic

On the Web, tags are keywords that users themselves assign to content.  Tags can be used in blogs, photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa, video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, social bookmarking sites like Delicious, and microblogs like Twitter.  In Twitter, a hashtag is simply a tag with a pound sign or "hash" in front of it, as in #ala10.

There is no central authority or official set of tags, but if many users begin to use the same tag for the same topic across all Web content, the information can be aggregated to a fuller picture of participants' experiences.

One way to view the aggregate all of this content is with a site like Addict-o-matic:

1. Go to http://addictomatic.com
2. Enter a tag (ex: Chile or ala10)
3. Click the Create button. 

A custom page is created based on the tag you entered.  Based on the activity of a particular tag—I tried Chile for one page and ala10 for another—you might have some of the following:

• Twitter "tweets",
• FriendFeed updates,
• Wordpress, Twingly, and Bloglines blog searches,
• Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.com searches,
• Digg articles,
• Flickr images,
• YouTube and Truveo videos,
• and more!

Here's a Tip: If you are planning an event, like a conference or an open house, use Addict-o-matic, to check to make sure the official tag you want to promote is not being actively used by another group with a very different topic in mind.

Time's 50 Best Websites 2009

About this time every year, Time produces its recommended list of the year's 50 Best Websites. It's fun to peruse the annual list to see what's new, what's hot, and sites you might not yet know about.

We discussed ten of the heavy hitters on this year's list in earlier Tech Tips and Tech Updates:  Internet Archive, YouTube, delicious, Google, Hulu, Amazon, Wikipedia, Twitter, drop.io and Pandora. To make an even dozen, here are two additional websites from one from this year's list that we suggest you take a look at.

• Academic Earth lets you experience the Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UCLC and Yale classrooms from your desktop. Here's a snippet from AE's mission statement: We are building a user-friendly educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• popurls.   Launched in 2006, popurls is a gateway to a selective list of the world's most popular web sites. popurls describes itself as the mother of aggregators, a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the internet. If the web site looks a bit manic, it's because in one place popurl provides access to YouTube, delicious, Flickr, Twitter, NYTimes, Technorati, and more. You can personalize the page to suit your own needs. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Now that we've whet your appetite, here's the link to all 50 Best Websites.  -buzz, a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the int
  
  

Lynda.com Technology Training Video Tutorials Penn State-Wide

Lynda.com tutorials are now available to Penn State faculty, staff and students via a University-Wide site license.

What is Lynda.com?

• Short technology tutorials delivered via 3-10 minute videos.
• Content can be watched from any Web browser.
• You can pause or replay in any order. Skip ahead to just the question you need answered!

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Example Lynda.com Titles

• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional: Essential Training,
• Adobe Captivate 4 Essential Training,
• Adobe Photoshop CS4,
• Getting Started with Adobe Connect,
• Google Docs Essential Training,
• Office 2007 Essential Training, etc.
  

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What does "Universty-wide site license" mean?

• No cost to users. Just login with your PSU Access Account.
• Supports 250 concurrent users.
• Does not provide individual user profiles, track course usage, or allow for transfer of courses from current individual accounts.

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How do I access Lynda.com?

1. Go to http://its.psu.edu/training/lynda/
   
2. On the ITS Training Services page for Lynda.com, click on the Penn State access page on the lynda.com Web site link. (You may be prompted to log in with your Penn State Access Account.)
   
3. Find a topic by Subject, Software, Vendor or Author or Search.
4. Click on the link for the tutorial to begin viewing.

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hulu: TV, Your Way

Hulu.com launched in March 2008,with this simple agenda: Watch your favorite videos right from your browser, anytime, for free. With full episodes of TV shows both current and classic, full-length movies, web originals, and clips of just about everything. What's not to like?

Hulu users access premium streaming videos when (24x7), where (just provide browser) and how (full screen or pop-out) they want it from such entertainment giants as: NBC Universal, Fox, ABC and Disney. There's a rich array of TV channels, in categories such as Food, Sci Fi, Music, Horror, Reality, News, Sports, Politics and Sci/Tech, and an ever-growing list of popular movies, documentaries and trailers. Need that social network fix? No problem! Go ahead and share your favorite videos via email, embed full-length or program clips into your own web pages, join discussion groups, and/or write reviews.

Who pays? Advertisements, video streams from partner websites and from the embeddable Hulu video player provide revenue.Hulu focuses on streaming videos, and does not currently offer commercial-free downloads for purchase.

Hulu management believes that users want to consume media on their own terms: easy to use and consumable when, how and where they want it. Following that strategy, Hulu is dealing with its main competitors... the Piracy Bad Boys ....by providing access for free to content that it knows users want to see. Smart, very smart.

TED.com

Thanks to Jon Leslie, AV Technician, Media Tech, for suggesting this Tip!



TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) website provides access to the “world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” The TED conference has been held yearly since 1984, with more than 50 speakers each year delivering impassioned speeches in a crazy-quilt kind of program to an ever-growing audience. In 2007, the website ted.com was launched; its aim is to provide the best talks and performances for a worldwide audience, for free. Currently, there are more than 400 TEDTalks available, with new ones added weekly. Participants view for three $100,000 TED Prizes, and “the granting of one wish to change the world.” These wishes open the door to far-reaching collaborative initiatives. Good ideas beget further good ideas, so to speak.

The range of topics is as diverse as the world is interesting. If you aren’t sure where to start, try the three 2009 TED Prize Winners: deep ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, astronomer Jill Cornell Tarter, and maestro José Antonio Abreu. It’s a good bet you find something in ted.com to keep you coming back.

Try It! Microsoft's Bing

This is a big week for Microsoft, with the release of its brand new search engine, called Bing. What? isn’t Google enough?? Well, here’s what Microsoft says in its press release….

The way the world searches is changing. You want more than just information. You want knowledge that leads to action. The truth is you’ve evolved. It’s time search caught up. We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine.

Among Bing’s features ….

• Fast searching
• Clean look
• Left-hand navigation, with the kind of look and feel that we’ve seen in Endeca catalogs
• Quick Preview: text-based synopsis of the pages search results. Drag you cursor over individual search results, and up pops additional relevant information!
• Video mouse-over. In a word: amazing!
• Cashback program
• Location sensing
• Instant Answers, which serves up answers to questions such as currency conversion, weather forecasts, and movie items

Since today (June 1) is Bing's birth date, it's a great day to join the crowd, and take Bing for a test drive!

Setting Default Email Client in Windows

Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Go to Tools→Internet Options... and a dialog box will open.
3. Click on the Programs tab.
4. Set your default E-mail client from the drop-list and click OK.

Tip: You may also set other default programs such as Calendar from here.

Firefox

1. Open Firefox.
2. Go to Tools→Options... and a dialog box will open.
3. Click on the Applications tab.
4. Under Content Type, find mailto, set your default email client in the Action drop-list, and click OK.

Tip: You may also set other default programs such as Calendar (webcal) from here.

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YouTube Videos -- Deep Linking

Thanks to Jon Leslie, AV Technician, MediaTech, for submitting this post

Using a YouTube feature called Deep Links, it's easy to start watching YouTube videos at any point that you specify. To do so, just add to the end of the web address (URL) the minute and second where you want the video to begin playing. The format you must use looks like this: #t=2m27s

Here's an example:
Ordinarily, YouTube starts at the beginning of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM

However, this URL starts at "2 minutes 27 seconds":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM#t=2m27s

You can, of course, change the minute/second values as needed.

The Mouse: Back to the Future

As we begin 2009, let’s take moment for a technology backwards glance. Did you know that the humble mouse just celebrated its 40th birthday? The mouse is question is not Mickey, but rather the ubiquitous computer mouse. On December 9, 1968, at a computer conference in San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute demonstrated a small wooden device with its single button which could control a computer. On that day, Engelbart also showed the audience what would today be considered very primitive but which then was revolutionary: his research team’s NLS (oN-Line System), which featured rudimentary windows, hyperlinks, text editing, and video conferencing. The tool Engelbart used to demonstrate with was… the mouse. In 1970, Engelbart received a patent under the name, "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System."

Here’s a little more information about Engelbart.

It took more than a dozen years before the mouse (named by Stanford researchers because the cord attached to the rear of the device resembled a tail) was first marketed. In 1981, Xerox included the mouse as part of its Xerox 8010 computer system, and Apple and Microsoft followed in the next few years. When you use your mouse for your computing activities today, remember that you are touching a part of history!

Another Way to Get Your Monday Tech Fix

Last Monday, Nov 10, 2008 NPR launched a new segment called "All Tech Considered" on its All Things Considered show. The show wants to hear from its listeners about the world of technology and how it is changing the way we live, and invites questions and story ideas. You can join the All Tech Considered Group and participate in the group blog and Technology Questions discussion list.

You can also listen to the short Monday Podcast segments. Last week's podcast discussed the wonders of the new Android phone, including the T-Mobile G1 and the Apple iPhone. You were already introduced to that topic in last month's Androids Tech Tip.... it's definitely a hot topic.

Android !!

Get used to the word … you’re apt to hear it often. Android is open source operating system and software for mobile phones. Android was developed by more than 30 technology and mobile companies who united to form a group called Open Handset Alliance; members include giants such as Google, T-Mobile, Sprint, Motorola and eBay. Their goal is to accelerate innovation in mobile technology and offer consumers a better and less expensive mobile experience. They intend to accomplish this by providing an open, complete, and free platform created specifically for mobile devices.

On Oct 22, 2008, Google and T-Mobile USA, Inc announced national availability of the T-Mobile G1, the first Android-powered mobile phone. The marriage of Google and T-Mobile ensure that beloved Google products like one-touch search, maps, Gmail, Calendar and YouTube and more are well represented in this phone. On its website, T-Mobile brags that T-Mobile G1 is “Everything you love about the web, now on a phone.” But wait, isn’t that what we heard just a few months ago about the iPhone? Can the T-Mobile G1 go head-to-head with its muscular competitor, the iPhone 3G, released last July? They do share some similarities, including:

• WebKit-based browser and touch-screen interface

• accelerometer, to change view from portrait to landscape

• multiple apps

• wireless

• 3G broadband

• support for multi-megapixel photos and music

• no video support

So what’s different? According to Lance Ulanoff, PC Magazine, these differences keep the iPhone at the head of the pack:

• G1 has a keyboard; iPhone does not

• G1 has a dedicated search button; iPhone has barely any physical buttons

• iPhone supports Microsoft Exchange server; G1 does not

• G1 is built on an open-source; iPhone has an applications development platform, but Apple tightly controls what people can deliver through its App Store

If that’s not enough of a head start, in its 4Q earnings report, Apple announced that it sold 6.9 million iPhones in just two months. And, while the T-Mobile G1 offers more than 50 applications for download, the iPhone App Store offers ten times that many.

However, here’s the kicker that has technologists buzzing: Google’s Android Market. Beginning today (October 27, 2008) any developer, anywhere, will be able to register and upload applications which will be available for free. Early next year, developers will also be able to distribute paid apps in addition to free ones. Developers’ appetites have already been whetted; Google ‘s Android Developer Challenge supplied $10 million for mobile apps built on the Android platform.

It will be fun to watch the race of the iPhone and the Androids. With more than 3 billion mobile phone users on the planet, there’s great incentive to be the first across the finish line!

Internet Explorer7 … Website Security Certificate

Requested by Amy Pfeffer, Lending Services,University Park

Amy asked us to revisit this Tech Tip, which had originally been published in August 2007. Since IE is one of the browsers supplied on the Libraries' life cycle image, and the page illustrated below is frequently encountered, it's a good idea for us to review it. Thank you, Amy!

Internet Explorer, Version 7, warns users when it doesn’t recognize web pages as trusted sites. In such cases, IE sends users to the screen displayed here:

In this example, Amy used IE to access the Libraries Helpdesk. IE didn’t recognize the Libraries locally-created security certificate, and was unable to determine that it is a trusted site. IE presented the intermediate screen to let Amy evaluate whether the site being accessed was secure.

In the case of the Helpdesk... it is secure, so it is OK to “Continue to this website.” However, this is a good reminder to always heed such warnings and evaluate each site before going there. Don’t just click through.

You may encounter this page when you use IE. The folks at IE have placed this page “in your way” as an extra step to help you practice safe computing.

Help Desk Hub

Submitted by Peggy Myers, Technical Support Coordinator, DLT

The Help Desk Hub, which provides peer-to-peer sharing, ITS alerts, and other support information, was launched on August 14^th. DLT’s Senior Director, Mairéad Martin, took the audience in Foster Auditorium and MediaSite live for a tour and discussion of the new web site, found at https://communityhub.libraries.psu.edu/HelpDesk.

If you haven’t had a chance to try out the Help Desk Hub, we encourage you to do so. Log on with your Access ID and password and share your ideas by submitting a comment on an existing conversation or start one of your own. While you are there, take a look at the Message Board, ITS Alerts or try out the ITS Knowledge Base. And of course, you also can submit and review Libraries Help Desk Requests from the Hub.

If you missed the presentation, you can still view it via MediaSite Live at http://live.libraries.psu.edu . The presentation is entitled “UL Help Desk Community HUB” and the open presentation does not require a log on.

Wikipedia added to Google Maps

Wikipedia articles have been added to Google Maps! The new Wikipedia tags can be turned on through the “More” button that appears in the top right-hand corner of the map you have chosen.
When you select the Wikipedia box, small “W” tags appear on the map where Wikipedia articles are available.

Clicking on the “W” opens an information window containing the Wikipedia article.

What is CAPTCHA??

CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing [test to tell] Computers and Humans Apart. Although you may not be familiar with this acronym, it’s very likely that you’ve experienced one on various web sites. A CAPTCHA is a challenge-response test used with computers to determine if a user is human or not. Whenever you are asked to type in a series of letters and numbers, often distorted, on a web page, you have been presented with a CAPTCHA test.

CAPTCHAs may be used to limit access to web services such as banking and e-shopping sites to “real people,” and to try and block access by computer “bots” masquerading as people. They are also used on other web sites such as Yahoo mail. In short, they are a useful ally in the effort to make the web secure.

Text Lingo

Every day, millions upon millions of people text message each other using IM, cell phones, Blackberries, chat rooms, blogs and newsgroups. Cryptic abbreviations such as those illustrated here are part of the standard lexicography of the texting crowd.

AFK	Away from Keyboard
BRB	Be Right Back
CUS	See you soon
F2F	Face To Face
GTG	Got To Go
IAC	In any case
IC	I see
IMO	In my opinion
JK	Just Kidding
L8R	Later
LOL	Laugh Out Loud
NP	No problem
THX	Thanks
TTYL	Talk To You Later
TY	Thank You
YW	You're Welcome

Google recently discussed this very issue in Google Talk goes green posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 12:01 am. Deep scientific discussion or an epistle in honor of April Fool’s Day?? You be the judge. LOL-CUS!!

Crunchies, Anyone?

On January 18^th, 2008 an all-star award show took place at the elegant Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Winners who walked the runway to receive their award statues weren’t movie stars or songbirds, but a new breed of Beautiful People: Favorite Web 2.0 innovators selected by the internet community using website voting.

The event, called the Crunchies 2007, was a collaborative effort among the tech blogs GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat and TechCrunch. It was hailed as their “first annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.” We’ll provide some more details about these Web 2.0 favorites in future Tips.

And the winners are….

Best Overall site or product 2007: Facebook
Best technology innovation/achievement: Earthmine
Best bootstrapped startup: Techmeme
Best new gadget/ device: Apple iPhone
Best business model: Zazzle
Best design: SmugMug
Best enterprise startup: Zoho
Best consumer startup: Meebo
Best mobile startup: Twitter
Best international startup: Netvibes
Best user-generated content site: Digg
Best video startup: Hulu
Best clean tech start-up: Tesla Motors
Best use of viral marketing: StumbleUpon
Best time sink site: Kongregate
Most likely to make the world a better place: DonorsChose
Most likely to succeed: Automattic (WordPress)
Best startup founder: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
Best startup CEO: Toni Schneider (Automattic)
Best new startup of 2007: iMedix

YourStreet

Do you like reading the local news for your city or locality? Or perhaps you want to know what is going on "back home?" The Google mashup called YourStreet allows you to read news, blogs, articles, and conversations based on the map location you've chosen! The service instantly indexes news sites & blogs, and plots them onto your map. Go to: http://www.yourstreet.com

The advanced algorithm indexes thousands of articles daily, analyzes them to find out specific locations in the body of the text, and then uses a service called MetaCarta to help with location identification. For example, the next time a news article appears reporting a house burning at a specific address, YourStreet will plot it onto its map.

And just like a Google map, you can zoom in and out to see articles from different parts of the city. You can also specific time ranges, including today, last 7 days, last 30 days, or last 90 days.

Once you type in the address, 3 colored balloon buttons will appear on the map: News, Conversations and Neighbors. Just click on them to get more details! You can also read the news in a list format directly below the map which provides a short synopsis of the article.

YourStreet also has a customization and social networking aspect. You can create a profile and as others join the service, they will show up as neighbors if they live close to the selected area.