Yesterday I attended my first ever NJLA (NJ Library Association) IT Section meeting. Our speaker was Janie Hermann. I would like to share with you some of the helpful tools that Janie shared with us:
- Zamzar — a free file converter tool. Converts files to/from many different formats including Word, graphics and PDFs.
- Doodle — polling & scheduling made easy. Library staff in Madison just started experimenting with this tool yesterday. You can use Doodle to survey people about meeting dates, vote on issues, etc.
- WriteRoom (Mac) / DarkRoom (PC) – a full screen writing environment. Use these tools and don’t be distracted by other things going on on your PC.
- Senduit — send and share very large files using a private URL link. Stop cluttering up your Webmail account with photos, PDFs, Powerpoints and other large files. It allows you to set an expiration date, so unlike your Webmail account, the files won’t be there forever.
- Jott — Do you text while you are driving? An alarming number of folks at the meeting admitted to doing that until they switched over to Jott. This tool allows you to send text messages, emails, and other documents (to do lists, songs, etc.) via your cellphone, just by talking into your cell phone (i.e., voice activated). Sign up for an account and put Jott on your speed dial. Note: the text while driving folks all seemed to live in PA or South Jersey, so maybe it’s a regional thing. Try that in North Jersey and you will likely end up in an accident. Oh, and if you are using Jott while driving, please wear your Bluetooth headset.
- Twitter — no time to write long blog posts? Try Twitter — it’s microblogging with a limited number of characters. I feel this is something that I need to pay attention to. Anyone else want to try it?
- TaDa List — create, share & store “to do” lists. I am going to try this one today. As techie as I am, I write my grocery list on paper and pen and am always leaving it somewhere where I am not. With TaDa, I can access my lists from anywhere!
- Pandora — free Internet radio station. Fine tune it so that you will never hear a song that you don’t like.
- Screenhunter 5.0 free version — customizable screen capture tool. May be comparable to Snagit (which I love, but free is free).
- Picnik – For all of you shutterbugs, this online photo editing tool blew me away. If you are intimidated by Photoshop (and who isn’t?), then this is the photo editing tool for you. It can access your Flickr photo stream. It does all of the basic photo editing (red eye reduction, cropping, shading, etc.), plus it can add some fun special effects to your photos.
- Slideshare — last but not least, Slideshare is a place where you can share presentations. There are a lot of library-related slideshows in Slideshare. It is a great place to get ideas, inspiration and background on a number of topics (ex., “intro to RSS”). You can embed slideshows in a blog. Janie promised to post yesterday’s presentation there. Once I find it, I will try to embed it here.
More, interesting web tools can be found on my del.icio.us page.
