The Librarian who likes technology blog

Wonders of 'Wonders of the universe'

2011-03-07T16:40:00.004Z

I watched 'Wonders of the universe' on BBC2 yesterday, presented by professor Brian Cox, and enjoyed it immensely. Not only was it a joy to view, with some outstandingly beautiful landscapes, especially of glaciers and breathtaking skies, but it was so thought-provoking, covering as it did so many deep and meaningful questions about the progress of time. We seem to be enjoying almost a

GroBoto - a unique 3D modelling tool

2011-03-05T21:47:00.004Z

I've been playing with the demo version of GroBoto, a unique and fun 3D modelling tool which also allows you to create animations. It's a bit strange at first, and is quite different to other modelling tools, but it's fun to use and the animations feature, where you can create an animation that morphs between two or more 'bots', is very easy to use and great fun. Here are two videos I created

Learning Blender with Dr. Grordbort's raygun shootout competition

2010-04-19T12:59:00.005+01:00

I've been meaning to re-learn Blender, the free open source 3D content creation software, for a while, especially since a new version is on its way (2.5). However, I've since got sidetracked with ZBrush, but last week I heard about Weta's 'Dr. Grordbort's raygun shootout' competition, and was really interested, since I thought this would be the perfect motivation for me to learn Blender. I

Happy Easter - with a ZBrush egg

2010-04-05T15:57:00.000+01:00

I created the above image using ZBrush software from Pixologic to create the Easter egg with writing, and the petals of the 'crocus'. This is one of my first models created with ZBrush and there's lots to learn, but it really is the most amazing software, which really lives up to its description of being software for 'digital sculpting'. This is exactly what it feels like when you start using

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-24T16:33:00.000Z

I've been playing with the graphical user interface to Karsten Schmidt's amazing digital identity code, created for the Victoria and Albert Museum's Decode exhibition - see http://www.vam.ac.uk/decode . Visit the Decode Google code page from the 'Recode' tab on this page for details of how to download the application. The Decode application was developed with Processing, which of course I love

Tiny sketch competition on OpenProcessing

2009-10-12T17:24:00.004+01:00

I've been busy recently creating Processing sketches under 200 characters in length to enter into the 'Tiny sketch' competition at OpenProcessing . Well, I didn't win but it was a great fun challenge creating these sketches and trying to cope with the limitations of keeping the sketch under 200 characters. I also now have a number of sketches which I can modify and perhaps expand for future

Fun with video - Picasa, YouTube, Windows Movie Maker, CamStudio, and Vimeo

2009-07-28T19:14:00.002+01:00

I've been having some fun with video lately, and thought I'd write about my adventures. It's funny how one thing leads to another, and this particular journey began with Picasa 3 (download it for free at http://picasa.google.co.uk/), software from Google that allows you to organise, edit and share your photos/images. Picasa was on my list of things to try and I must say I was very impressed

JISC Libraries of the future video

2009-07-21T12:16:00.005+01:00

I just watched this great 10 min. video from JISC (click below) about the 'Libraries of the future' from the great iLibrarian blog, via the Librarians Matter blog:I couldn't agree more about the need to act now, the importance of the need to change how we do things, and especially like the positive comments about Google (we and our users all use it so why are some of us so negative about it?),

Microsoft Popfly will soon be no more

2009-07-19T23:30:00.002+01:00

I was very disappointed to get an email recently informing me that the Microsoft Popfly service will soon be discontinued on August 24th 2009, and all the resources will be removed. I thought Popfly was a very interesting and easy to use tool, as I have blogged here, and I had created some very simple mashups, and even embedded one on this blog, which I've now removed. I hadn't created

Windows Live Writer – post to any blog

2009-06-28T23:00:00.001+01:00

I recently edited my Windows Live Spaces page (at: http://lib4tech.spaces.live.com/ ) to change the theme and started exploring some of the modules etc. available to add to your spaces web page, and while playing/experimenting I came across Windows Live Writer, software that allows you to post to any blog from this desktop application. Why should you want this software? Well, it’s free, and it

What's a QR code?

2009-04-18T22:51:00.001+01:00

A colleague sent me an email about QR codes the other day, and this spurred me on to find out more about them – they did ring a vague bell, but it was one of those things that didn’t really register at the time. I then remembered that I had an RSS feed awhile ago about QR codes being the subject of Educause’s very good ‘7 things you should know about…’ series, and sure enough I found the pdf at:

My first sketch on OpenProcessing.org

2009-03-18T21:31:00.002Z

Another post about Processing, so you can see I’m still having fun! The ‘Learning Processing’ book I’m reading, as mentioned in the previous post, is beginning to get a little bit tougher as you would expect (Classes and Object-Oriented Programming, I’m sure it will all eventually make sense!), so when it all gets too much, I just go back to the programme itself and start playing, trying to put

The wonder of Processing

2009-03-04T20:45:00.002Z

I've just discovered Processing (http://processing.org/ ), an open source computer programming language, and it's absolutely amazing! I had come across it briefly some time ago, I think there was a tutorial on the Computer Arts site, but I didn't pay much attention then. However, recently I spotted some books on our new library acquisitions with the word 'Processing', and my interest was

Do you Twitter?

2009-02-15T18:06:00.003Z

I do since yesterday! I've just created an account at Twitter, the micro-blogging site at http://twitter.com/, so you are welcome to follow me: 'lib4tech', to see my posts, or 'tweets'. At first, perhaps like some of you, I thought Twitter may just add to the 'noise' in our modern world, with people twittering about the minutiae of their daily lives, but like most of this Web 2.0 technology,

Oh dear...that problem with time again...

2008-10-08T20:56:00.001+01:00

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Chaoscope - free software for rendering amazing images

2008-04-13T17:14:00.006+01:00

I recently came across Chaoscope (at http://www.chaoscope.org/ ), free '3D strange attractor rendering software', and was amazed at how easy it was to create amazing fractal-type images with this software. As you may realise (by looking at my fractal images on Flickr - see below right of the posts), I really enjoy creating images from fractal-rendering software, and my favourite software for

Second Life - where are the learning experiences?

2008-04-08T20:31:00.000+01:00

I recently gave a brief lunchtime presentation on Second Life. I began with a short PowerPoint presentation on why I think Second Life has potential for learning and teaching, then showed a brief video of a tour through the virtual library I’m building (I don’t own any land in SL, so just carry this virtual library around in my inventory and yes, it’s getting very heavy!), and finished with a

I've widgetised this blog

2008-03-02T16:24:00.005Z

I've blogged before about Widgetbox (at http://www.widgetbox.com/ ), and whether putting widgets on blogs was a good idea. Well, I've decided to widgetise this blog, and then you can decide for yourself whether or not to use it on any of your own pages. The widget (a mini-application that can be added to a web page) form of this blog, which can be added to most blogs, social networking sites,

My first Popfly mashup

2008-02-23T23:25:00.005Z

I've just added my first Popfly mashup to this blog - it's on the right just under the 'Subscribe now...' section. If you try it out, don't forget to click the tiny black on white square icon (just scroll down the screen of the gadget) to view the results in full-screen, otherwise it's very small and not very impressive. I blogged about Popfly in my previous post, and since then I've been

Popfly - a fantastic mashup tool

2008-02-18T16:09:00.004Z

Microsoft Popfly (at http://www.popfly.com/ ) is an amazing piece of software for creating mashups and web pages really simply, and it's available as a free Public Beta. You just need to sign in with your Windows Live ID account (MSN Hotmail, Messenger, or Passport account) and download Microsoft's Silverlight, if you don't already have it. Popfly is made of online visual tools which allow you

The Skills Exchange - a librarian's forum

2008-02-10T19:41:00.000Z

I've recently joined a new online forum: The Skills Exchange at:http://www.the-skills-exchange.org/This online forum provides 'a place for librarians and information workers to meet and exchange ideas', and I think it's a great idea and just what I've been looking for. The uncluttered message board format is perfectly suited to discussing ideas on all aspects of library and information work, and

Explaining technology - another great post from the Common Craft Show

2008-01-26T17:19:00.000Z

I read this brilliant post from the Common Craft Show blog (at: http://www.commoncraft.com/discovering-rss-explanation-problem ), and thought "exactly"! These days lots of people, for whatever reason, don't seem to want to take the time to learn about new technology, even though it may eventually lead to them actually saving time, so it's so important to 'hook' them right from the start. As Lee

Have you stumbled upon...StumbleUpon?

2008-01-07T19:00:00.000Z

StumbleUpon (at: http://www.stumbleupon.com/ ) was on my list of things to try for awhile, so I finally created an account and am very impressed with this service to help you discover new web sites tailored to your own interests.Registering requires an email address and username, as usual, but there is no field for choosing a password. However, after you've created your free account and logged

Carrara 5 Pro free with 3D World magazine

2008-01-02T18:50:00.000Z

Happy New Year! I created the image on the left using Carrara 5 Pro, now available free with 3D World magazine's 100th special issue. I buy 3D World magazine quite often, especially when there's some interesting free software on the accompanying disc, so I was looking forward to the 100th edition and was not disappointed. The disc contains the full commercial version of Daz Productions'

To widgetize, ... or not to widgetize?

2007-12-31T13:08:00.000Z

I was reading an RSS feed recently from the brilliant iLibrarian blog (at: http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/ - by the way, what a great name for a blog) by Ellyssa Kroski, on blog widgets (or blidgets!) , and she mentions the Widgetbox site at:http://www.widgetbox.com/At first sight, I got very excited about creating a widget out of my own blog, and all the other widgets available for adding to