Tag Archives: skitch

A few of my favourite things…

Over the last two years of owning the iPad, I have downloaded lots of different apps, some of which were free and a fair few that cost hard cash!

At the recent JISC RSC SW TurboTEL event in Taunton I delivered a ten minute presentation on my favourite iPad apps.

Here are the links to all the apps in the iTunes App Store as well as a brief description of what the app is about and why I like it. Continue reading A few of my favourite things…

Skitch – iPad App of the Week

Skitch – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is Skitch for iPad.

Express yourself with fewer words, emails and meetings…with Skitch for iPad!

Use shapes, arrows, sketches and text annotation to get your point across fast. Mark up photos, screenshots, maps, and webpages then share them with anyone you like.

Free

In my line of work I often have to make screenshots and sometimes annotate them. In the past I would take a screenshot using the built in function in the OS and then paste into Fireworks before using that to add annotations. I would then need to either e-mail the image or upload it somewhere.

For a while I used TinyGrab, mainly as it automatically uploaded the screenshot to the web and copied the resulting URL to the clipboard so it could be pasted into an e-mail or as I was doing more frequently then into Twitter. However TinyGrab wouldn’t let you annotate (so sometimes I would resort back to Fireworks) and then there was the premature launch of TinyGrab 2.0 following the hacking of TinyGrab. It was at this point I decided to look for another app and fell upon Skitch for the Mac. This was (at the time) a paid app, but it worked really well and I still use it on a regular basis.

So when Skitch for iPad was announced I downloaded it for my iPad.

Having started Skitch for iPad, the first thing is to get a screenshot or an image into the app. You can use an image or photo from your photo library, use the camera in the iPad, take a screenshot (using that built in function in iOS to take screenshots). You can use the built-in browser in the app to snap webpages. The app also allows you to browse Google maps and then snap a map before you annotate it.

Finally you can also start with a blank canvas (think whiteboard). The app adds previous snaps to the apps main screen so if you need to go back to a previous working image you can find it pretty easily.

Once you have an image in Skitch you can annotate it to emphasise or add information.

So you can create arrows, shapes and add text. Though there are limitations in the options you have for the different annotations, I can live with that. If I really really really need to do something really really really complex then I won’t be using Skitch. Skitch is for quick screenshots with quick, rough annotations.

You can edit your annotations once places, however editing is quite limited in the same sense of adding them. However you can reposition them, recolour them or remove them!

The sharing options built in are “limited”, you can send to Twitter, e-mail or save to your photo library.

Of course once in your photo library then you can “push” them out to where you need them. Now that Evernote own Skitch you can also send your annotated snaps to Evernote.

For those that want to “show” their snaps, you can use Airplay and an Apple TV connected to a projector or TV. Another option is to use the VGA or HDMI cable.

There are lots of uses for an app such as Skitch.

  • Point out details in a photograph or a screenshot.
  • Show someone how to use a particular app or website.
  • Where to find stuff on a map.

Overall I really like Skitch for the iPad. Though I don’t use it as much as I do the Mac version, it is still a key app for my iPad. If you ever need to annotate screenshots on your iPad then do have a look at Skitch.

Get Skitch for iPad in the iTunes App Store.

Top Ten Web Tools of 2011


This is the fourth time I have posted my top ten web tools of the year. Looking back over 2008, 2009 and 2010 it’s interesting to see what new web tools I am now using, which old ones have been left on the shelf and the web tools I still use.

There are still a few services that I like or use irregularly that didn’t make the top ten. I used Foursquare for a while, I then did a podcast with David Sugden and after that I never used it again….

Facebook and Linkedin I just don’t use and so aren’t in the list, but I hear they are quite popular…

I did use Prezi this year to demonstrate it, but have not yet used it in anger so it’s not in my top ten either.

Delicious has had a few upheavals this year and drops out of my top ten, I do still use it, but it had lost some of the core functionality that made it so useful in the past.

I still like Screenr, but don’t use it as much as I think I should and I would like too. The same can be said for Audioboo. These are two tools that I really like, but don’t use much or use them effectively. I may use these better in 2012.

TinyGrab which was in my top ten last year also had problems, so that got dropped and I went with another tool.

Posterous dropped out too, however the only reason was that I decided to host my own blog on my own server, it’s still a great service. Spaces is pretty interesting too.

Google Docs dropped out of my top ten after been in for the last three years. Looking over the documents from the last year I realised how little I was using it. It’s a great collaborative tool and that was my primary use, but for lone document working I realised looking back that I now had a different workflow, so Google Docs dropped out.

There are other web tools I do use now and again and I am sure there are some peoples’ favourites I have missed off, so let me know in the comments what web tools you are using.

10. Evernote

I really do like Evernote and I use it a lot for making notes. I really like the mobile applications on the iPad and the iPhone (and Android) and I really like how I can make audio notes and photographs of notes. I am sure it would be much higher if I used it more effectively and my plan for 2012 is to become more organised and systematic on not only how I make notes, but how I use and share notes.

9. SlideShare

Though most of my presentations (as in the slides) rarely make sense on their own, the use of SlideShare does allow me to easily show them on my blog alongside the audio recording. This is often quicker and easier than trying to match the two up myself and I can let others choose how they want to listen and view the presentation.

8. WordPress

I have been using WordPress for a fair while and though I swapped to my own host over a year ago now I still think WordPress.com is a great starting place for a blog. My own blog is self-hosted, in other words I bought a web hosting service on which I have installed the WordPress software. This has given me flexibility in how I manage the blog. Having said that I still subscribe to various WordPress.com services including VideoPress and storage. Much easier for example to have the podcast files on the WordPress.com server from a bandwidth perspective than to have them on my own server. I do like the VideoPress service, but I think other video services have now caught up, but I like the fact that I have much more control over the videos on VideoPress than say on YouTube or Vimeo.

7. Skitch

My main screengrabbing software use to be TinyGrab, it allowed me to quickly grab parts of the screen, upload them to a website and copy the URL to my clipboard, making it very easy them to paste a link to a screen grab in Twitter or Facebook. However problems with the TinyGrab software meant that I looked for an alternative. I had forgotten that I had an alternative already installed on my Mac, part of a MacHeist deal or similar called Skitch. This is a great piece of software that not only allows you to grab part of the screen, but you can also annotate it with text, arrows and other shapes. Really quick and easy to use, you can either then save the image, or upload it and share the link. I really do like it and it has made explaining stuff easier because I can do it visually.

6. Instagram

I have been using Instagram since it came out in 2010, well I started using it about a week after it was released. Over 2011 I used it a lot more and have posted nearly five hundred images to Instagram. One aspect that I do like is the social aspect. With any social app the key is the community, now that many more people I know are using Instagram, the social aspect, even though it can only be accessed from the phone is much better and more social. I do like the multi-posting ability, so usually not only will I post to Instagram, I also post a link to Twitter and upload the image to Flickr. As for the photographic effects, I know it is possible to do much better with PhotoShop and even Snapseed on the iPad is superior, however the filters on Instagram are not there to be the perfect photorgraphic filter they are there to add a little something to the photographs you take and to have a bit of fun with. To think that Instagram is a serious photographic app really does miss the point of the app; it’s fun and it’s social, enjoy it for that and not as a photographic app.

5. Flickr

I now have over 4,500 photographs on Flickr and though (in total) Flickr does not come anywhere close to the number or quantity of photographs uploaded to Facebook, I still much prefer using Flickr for uploading, but also for finding photographs for use on the blog or in presentations. It is so easy to find great photographs and so many are CC licensed making it also legal to use them too.

4. Flipboard

Flipboard has become my primary RSS reader and in many ways I also use it to browse Twitter and Facebook. The iPad app has made it so much easier to flick through and browse the news, the social news and even images. I’ve not really used the iPhone version yet, but the iPad is a key way in which I can keep up with what is going on.

3. Twitter

Twitter was my number one web tool for the last two years and this year it has dropped two places. It is still a really useful tool.

I usually access Twitter via Osfoora on the iPhone and on the iPad. On my computer I will generally use the web interface.

So what do I get from Twitter?

Well the key thing is a community of practice from which I can get curated and useful information from. I can ask them questions and offer points of discussion to see what they think. I also find it a useful source of news and links, much easier in some respects than RSS feeds, a more personalised approach.

I post lots of stuff to Twitter, yes I do feed into Twitter posts from my blog, photos from Instagram and other stuff. This is stuff I do want to share with my community and my view is that if you don’t like this then don’t follow me. However I do try and keep my posting of links to my stuff to a minimum, I try whenever possible to only post links to my blog only once to my Twitter stream. I know that this means people may miss that link, but I also know that clicking on links to blog posts I have already read are annoying. Twitter is a key tool for me with the conversations I have with my fellow learning technologists, e-learning specialists and library professionals. However one of the reasons it has dropped a couple of places is that I don’t think the conversations I am having there are as good as I am having in a different place…

2. Google+

Straight in at number two for me is Google+ and the reason is the quality of the conversation. I never really found Buzz or Wave useful, but Google+ seems to have worked well for me in 2011, much more so than Twitter. I am unsure if this will continue, a lot will depend on how the community use and continue to use Google+ as a service. I think the main reason I like it, is that it reminds me of Jaiku, which was my number one web tool back in 2008 (back then it beat Twitter). I like the fact that I can have a threaded conversation and people can easily join in. I hope it continues to work and be useful, but we will have to wait and see.

1. Dropbox

Well my number one web tool has been one that isn’t social, but I use it every day and in some cases all day. Dropbox is a fantastic tool, in the main because it works! I use to really love the concept of Apple’s iDisk, but it never worked for me, either it was too slow to be a useful cloud storage, or if syncing seemed to sync either really slowly or would forget to sync! What I like about Dropbox is that it is fast and reliable. So much so that if I have to move files from my laptop to my desktop on my home network, I usually use Dropbox as it “appears” to be faster than trying to move a file between shares across the network, and Dropbox moves the file via the internet… Virtually all my working files are now on Dropbox and I have it installed on my home and work machines. I use it for sharing files across my mobile devices and for sharing files with others when e-mail doesn’t cut the mustard. The main reason Dropbox is my number one web tool is that it just works, to the point it is transparent and it never gets in the way of me doing my stuff, which is as it should be.

Skitching

I have been using Skitch for a while now and more so more recently for making screengrabs, annotating screengrabs and for sharing them.

In this example I used it to show a member of staff how to backup their course without the user data so then been able to create a fresh version of their course. This makes it much easier for the member of staff to see what I mean.

The advantage of Skitch over using the built-in screen grabbing tools in OS X is that you can edit the screengrab, add comments, highlight areas or even redact sensitive user information if required.

You can of course do all this with an image editing programme such as Photoshop Elements, however the advantage of Skitch is threefold, firstly it does the grabbing as well as the editing and has a bundle of editing tools. Secondly you can grab the entire window, a snapshot of part of the screen, or a delayed screengrab. Thirdly it comes with image hosting, so it’s very easy to upload and share the screengrab.

I have had the free version since it came out and due to my increased usage was considering buying the $20 plus version that has a few more features. Well as of today, Skitch has been bought by Evernote and as a result the plus version is now free.

The plus version has a few more features, the main one is that it can grab entire webpages and not just the part that is viewable in the browser.

So if you have been sharing screengrabs and want more than just the built in version that you get in OS X then get Skitch.

Get Skitch now in the Mac App Store.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #031: Store it, Tag it, Share it

With David Sugden, Ron Mitchell, Lilian Soon and James Clay.

This is the thirty first e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Store it, Tag it, Share it.

James, David, Ron and Lilian discuss various web tools that can be used to store your stuff; like documents, notes, files. Tools that allow you to tag your stuff and share your stuff. They talk about the tools they use with their stuff and they talk about how these tools can be used for learning. 

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Store it, Tag it, Share it

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

  • Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer or device you use.
  • Dropbox is a way to store, sync, and, share files online.
  • Etherpad – When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone’s screen. The result is a new and productive way to collaborate on text documents, useful for meeting notes, drafting sessions, education, team programming, and more.
  • Now that Etherpad is open source, other versions of the service are now available such as iEtherpad
  • Our snow podcast from last week.
  • TinyGrab is a simple yet extremely powerful utility for Mac OS X and Windows. Harnessing the power of pre-existing and new OS screenshot taking capabilities, TinyGrab instantly uploads and allows you to share with a small URL— all in under thirty-seconds.
  • Skitch is a Mac application for  making screen grabs and then annotating them, before uploading them to a web service.
  • Screenr – Instant screencasts for Twitter. Now you can create screencasts for your followers as easily as you tweet. Just click the record button and you’ll have your ready-to-tweet screencast in seconds.
  • Jing
  • Screencast-O-Matic
  • Format Factory
  • iPadio takes any phone call and streams it live on the web, makes phonecasts and phlogs simple and immediate.
  • Veho USB Microscope
  • Delicious

Photo source.