Innovative+Products

I've created a list of what I call "innovative products" worth examining. Since most of them require an account, I suggest that you use the same email address, login, and password information for all. But then you could use LastPass (see below) to manage that sort of stuff.

 **Platforms**  A platform called **QuickBase**, produced by Intuit Inc., allows nonprogrammers to develop their own system to mangage an enterprise's resources. How does this apply to education? A user might use this build-your-own software as a tutor tool. Suppose you have a student who just doesn't get a concept in history. You might create a program that can provide extra tutorials!

 +**Microsoft Bing**--It's a free search engine that works a bit different than Google and Yahoo. Google and Yahoo feature quick-loading designs and a list of results that match the users query. Microsoft Bing features results in categories. You've probably seen Bing's search box when you last looked at msn.com or last checked your Hotmail account.

**URL shorteners**  Surely in your searches you've encountered URLs that were as long as the Mississippi River. If you use Twitter or a blog you might find that you are limited to 140 characters. Suppose you want to share a link with someone. What to do? Be sure to read the information found at https://kimstechtips.wikispaces.com/Facebook+%26+Twitter  on using URL shorteners safely.

 +Bit.ly--is a URL shortener. It assigns characters to the URL of your choice. All you need to do is use Bit.ly to "translate" the URL into a Bit.ly string of characters ** and plop that shortened string in your Tweet or blog. The Bit.ly string will work like a URL. **


 *  Videos **

 +**Boxee**--a FREE video service with software downloadable to Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems.

 +NinjaVideo--a FREE video playing service with movies and TV shows. Watch Lost, your favorite news programs, and documentaries.

+Vuze--an open source peer to peer torrent for sharing large files.

**Music**

 +Blip.fm--a FREE music service that allows users to share and discuss music. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> It works with Facebook and Twitter

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">**Data Managers**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> +Xmarks--a FREE Mozilla Firefox automatically updating bookmarking software. It's especially handy for when you need to turn in your laptop at the end of the year and you want to be able to access your bookmarks from other parts of the globe. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 98%;">By the way, Mozilla Firefox is the Web browser that many of us with Macs use. Its icon is an orange fox curved about a globe.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> +**LastPass-**-a FREE password manager. It synchronizes your passwords to any device you use regularly. At last a sensible solution to the problem of yellow self-adhesive notes posted all over your keyboard!

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> +Digsby--is a FREE message service that allows users to connect with other people using different instant messaging (IM) clients or social networking (think Facebook) sites.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> +Evernote--is a FREE (well, the basic service is FREE) online content manager that helps you find what you want in your own email messages, business documents, images, and Web clips. What's more, it can read text in your photos! <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Evernote is a download that helps users keep lots of bits of information in one place. For example, a user can use a mobile device to capture a picture of a business card and store that on the device. Travelers can use Evernote to organize travel documents. Notes from meetings can also be stored and categorized in Evernote. A standard account is free. A premium account, which grants users more storage space and the opportunity to save Word documents and spreadsheets, costs $45 per year. With Evernote's Sponsored Accounts, schools can (for a fee) offer a common place for housing


 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Collaborations--a day's class notes
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Keeping documents and presentations together

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">For more ideas about using Evernote at school, click here <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">For even more ideas, click here.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">** Operating Systems **

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop edition**--is the latest in the Linux OS family. This is considered IT in FREE operating systems. According to PC World December 2009, Ubuntu has the best hardware support in the history of Linux and includes tools to manage displays and wireless network connections.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%;">**Search Engines**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Google Chrome**--Check out its page under on this site under the section called Google World.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Wolfram Alpha**--Unlike Google, Yahoo and other search engines, W.A. returns information in graphs and images instead of Web pages. It's no as comprehensive as Google, for example, but it does work well for certain data on deep topics. Give it a try!

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> By the way, how many different search engines are you familiar with? Here's a list of some of the engines available:
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Google
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Cuil
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Yahoo
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Lycos
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Ask
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Lexis Nexis
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Bing
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Dogpile
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">AltaVista
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">MetaCrawler

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Not enough options? Click here to visit a site that claims to have a comprehensive list of search engines (as of May 2010 anyway).

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">One of the most useful search engines for podcast lovers is Podscope. Podscope scours the Web for actual words spoken during a podcast. You input the words and Podscope does the rest!

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Presentation Applications**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> +SlideRocket--a FREE presentation application that is meant to rival the (free) Prezi and (not free) PowerPoint applications that you've probably seen many people use. It works with any operating system and its accessible from anywhere. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> The basic service is free. As far as I know, the basic service allows users to store presentations in the cloud, not on their own devices.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> +**Prezi**--There's a separate page on this site devoted to Prezi. Prezi is featured on this wikispace under the <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> Hot Hot Hot! section.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">**Brain Food**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;"> +**Wordnik**--a FREE online product for word nerds. It includes definitions, audio pronunciation guides, synonyms and more.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">+Google Books--a FREE online service that provides access to over 10 million public domain books and magazines. Eat your heart out, Memory Alpha.*

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">*For all of you Star Trek the original series fans, Memory Alpha is the name of the planetoid set up by the Federation to house all of its cultural history and scientific data. By the way, there is a real Memory Alpha, but it exists as a wiki. It contains information about Star Trek. Visit Memory Alpha.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%;">**Social Media Services**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Facebook**--It's a combination of a digital scrapbook and a discussion forum with the folks you designate in Facebook as "friends". Please be sure to visit the separate page on this site devoted to Facebook.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Twitter**--It has lots of media sites, client applications and features photo and music sharing. Tweet today!

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">**Linked In** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Reconnect with former colleagues and classmates, get and give advice related to your industry, search for job opportunities.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Ning** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Converse with others in a virtual space about topics that interest you--entertainment, politics, publishing, sports, non-profits and more. The cost is $2.95-$49.95 per month depending on the service you select. NESA sets up a Ning site with sub-pages for its institutes.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">**Gather** <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Offer your perspective on news, travel, sports, technology, entertainment and more.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">StumbleUpon <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">StumbleUpon is like a news aggregator, Google-type search engine, and social networking application all in one. You tell the StumbleUpon server what you're interested in, and based on that information, plus the information about your interests gleaned from the friends linked in, StumbleUpon directs you to news and events that match your interests. You might find stories that you wouldn't normally find through your subscription to other news aggregators. See what one New York Times writer has to say about StumbleUpon. Click here.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%;">**Security Software**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Avira AntiVirus Personal**--This is a FREE anti-virus program. PC World December 2009 claims the software has a 98.9% virus detection rate.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%;">**Gaming**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **ValveStream**--a FREE game distribution service with contributions from publishers shuch as Ubisoft, Activision, and EA (EA is the maker of the SIMS). You must purchase the actual games, though.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 143%;">**Getting back what was lost**

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Retrevo**--pegs itself as a FREE shopping service. It analyzes how close a product is to retirement, offers reviews of products, and offers information about a product's current price. What's more, the service helps you retrieve copies of gadget manuals you misplaced eons ago.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;"> **Sendmehome**--is an identification service that claims to help you get your lost gadget back. Print out its ID stickers (wait, there's more) with unique ID numbers. The hope is that some kind soul will help your gadget find its way home.