Animoto photo videos – pure fun for your ordinary flickr collection

I’ve recently discovered Animoto, a service that lets you easily create inspiring photo presentations, with music and motion. You just have to deliver some photos from your laptop or from services like flickr, select a music from Animoto or again your laptop, and done. Animoto analyzes both, photos and music and creates a inspiring video which you can distribute by email, download or post in your facebook account or blog.

Even some less good pictures make a good presentation, like my poor shots from Silvester 2007. Unfortunately the posting to my blog didn’t work out, so you have to go to Animoto.com to check it yourself.

It is plain fun. It is easy to use. And it does the artist part for you.

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Your daily flickr photo slideshow

A nice entertainment during a break, especially for flickr fans: flickrvision shows the current uploads to flickr from all over the world. This endless slide show gives you a feeling for the size of the flickr community.  And (mostly) nice and random photos too.

Flickr in Windows Life?

So Microsoft finally akquires Yahoo. That means my flickr account (which is now a Yahoo aaccount) becomes finally a Microsoft account. When they rise the fees, I’m leaving the service. Time to think about backups.

Web 2.0 conference keynote session

Jeremy and Duane during keynote
Originally uploaded by Porsche Pilot.

Today there been a lot of interesting keynotes. As everybody can see, I (second raw, 1st from right) was fully concentrated on the speech. Independent what happened else. 😀

tomtom, tomtom, ist da oben jemand drin?

Odyssee 2007, Teil 1: Ein Dialog mit dem TomTom-Support:

Kunde 10.05.2007 10:21 :

“Ich habe tomtom home mit meinem xda orbit auf WinXP installiert und alles läuft super. Nun habe ich einen Mac, neu. Tomtom home ist installiert, erkennt aber das Phone nicht. Wenn ich links unten im tomtom home auf das Icon ” Mein Gerät” drücke, wird “HTC Artemis” erkannt,danach stürtzt Tomtom home ab. ”

Antwort (DE) 12.05.2007 11:40 :

“Guten Tag , Vielen Dank fuer Ihre Anfrage.

The art of speaking

DSC_3837.JPG
Originally uploaded by salimfadhley.

Yesterday I was at a presentation of Mr. Markus Renevey, owner of the Swiss “The Talk Company” about “Confident Speech making and Presentations”. He was heavily preaching his message:

“be genuine, have a message, be credible”.

Not really new to me. But the discussion after the presentation showed, that this basic ideals are still not a matter of course. Many attendees came up with the “need to not tell every piece of truth”.
But I totally agree to Mr. Renevey, that this is a important step to longterm credibility & trust.
Here is an other quote from him which was very inspiring to me:

“If you want to get people to an island, don’t tell them how to make boats. Tell them about the wonderful blue lagoon there.”

I think we often forget the goal by emphasizing the way to much. It’s the goal what keeps us moving.

Sharks and Herrings

Today I figured out that the “Red Herring 100 Europe” web page has a slight different design especially in the header picture than the “Red Herring Spring” which are the Red Herring 100 awards for North America.

Does that makes sense to you??

gadget review: my samsung digimax i6

samsung-i6
Originally uploaded by vlowe_ktm.

It’s time for a small gadget review. At Christmas I’ve got myself a digimax i6. I was long time wrestling with myself if I should by a new camera, and which I should by. Up to that time I was using a (analog) Minolta reflex camera with two additional lenses. But I was bothered by the volume and wight, so I did it use mostly on vacation or family events. Some times it took me more than half a year to finish a started film. And because I wanted to use my pics on blogs, flickr and some other web pages there was no other choice than a digital camera.
So the bottom line of my decision was to get a small, flat and lightweight camera for every day use. Just to point and click.

Digimax i6 PMP ad
Originally uploaded by nguy0833.

Therefore I was a long time watching the Casio Exilim models. They had a big screen, they are lightweight and flat. But after reading some user reviews in the web, I hesitated to by one, because those reviews didn’t praise them at all. In a newspaper test I’ve seen the digimax 6i, and I immediately got hooked by the appealing flat design. There the camera was approved as the best camera for automated pics. What did I want more? All my other technical details I was looking for have been fulfilled too: > 5 M pixels, triple optical zoom, good macro functions, image stabilization, additional Memory on the cheap SD cards, long battery live, good capabilities for photos at night and low light.
After all, I’m happy with that decision. I’m really carrying it every day, and it’s without delay time to shooting. It’s handsome and you can carry it like a flat cigarette case in your pocket. I’ll never mis a opportunity for a interesting photo.

Google flickr

I don’t know how long I have it, but I dedected recently on the top program menu bar in my gmail the link to “photos”. Is that the killer application for flickr? I guess not. I can use flickr even with not having own photos in it. Just to browse through some wonderful photos.

Google’s picasa online is just a storage place for your own photos, allowing sharing with friends. But it’s far from being a community. I guess I’ ll keep my photos still in flickr for a while.

Finest Grasshill Music

This afternoon I’ve picked randomly a radiostation at iTunes: Grassy Hill Radio. Usually I check after some songs for other music. But this time I was hooked on that cushy music stream and had no need to scan for other music. I briefly checked their website and their FAQ-topic: “How can I help?” said: Spread the word about Grassy Hill Radio! That easy pay back I’ve done herewith.