Tech Tutor Mark

Now that my favorite photo editing web site, Picnik , is shutting down on April 19th (thanks to Google), here are some alternative and recommended photo editing sites to replace it: Aviary.com (requires a login, but also includes a music creator, audio editor, screen capture, effects editor and even a vector editor). Sumo Paint  (this is a lot like Photoshop, but may be too complex and powerful for most quick-use situations) PicMonkey.com (good, basic photo editor. A nice replacement for Picnik) Pixer (as simple as you can get.  Just upload, re-size or crop, and then save and re-name back to your computer). Creative Kit in Google+ (Picnik recommends this, although I haven't tried it yet myself).  If none of these excite you, there are even more online photo and graphics tools in this article from Brad Andersohn 's blog ( bradsdomain.com ).  Replacing Picnik will take a little getting used to, but I'm sure we will all manage and discover s...

Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers fame offers up seven great ways to quckly and easily share files.  I recently did a post on WeTransfer which has a 2 GB file size limit.  Now we have seven more .  Byrne, who is the foremost authority in "Web Tools," is a tremendous source of educational online resources, and these simple file sharing services raise the bar.  I'd never heard of any of them, so definitely check them out!

The Digital Inspiration blog uncovered a nice collection of online tools to help you share large files .  The one that I wasn't familiar with is WeTransfer ( https://wetransfer.com/ ), which looks promising.  It does not require a login and there is a whopping 2 GB file size limit.  That blows away just about all other freebies out there.  The uploading speed seems a bit slow, but it works.  Give it a try and share your thoughts. 

Two of my current favorite topics are media streaming and remote control/VPN solutions.  In this article , Lifehacker did a great job of combining both topics into a Best Of.  Anywhere from DJ-ing your iTunes from any room to watching recorded TV (without SlingBox) to giving remote tech support.  And pay close attention to #9 on the list: Installing Wake-on-LAN for remote power-ups.  This Top 10 is absolutely indispensable . 

If you want to stream media from your own collection, here are five great solutions for streaming your own personal media over your home network, or even over the Internet outside your own house. Thanks to Lifehacker for providing this impressive list of great tools .  

For the film buffs out there like me, I have found an alternative to Netflix.  True, Netflix has abandoned their latest stupid idea: to create a separate site for DVD rentals apart from their streaming site.  Quikster won't happen, thank heaven.  But, what if you're just having trouble finding what you're looking for on Netflix?  For instance, I am still a big DVD collector and I am particular about which edition of each movie I watch.  Netflix just doesn't always have what I'm looking for: 2-Disc sets, some Criterion editions, out-of-print titles, etc.  So, I did a search one night to find an alternative that I could subscribe to (maybe 1-2 titles out at a time).  I found exactly what I was looking for in GreenCine.com.  This review does an excellent job of describing GreenCine .  The site/service has been around for at least seven years and counting, and is enough like Netflix that a new user won't have too much to learn, and it fills needs...

We're back up and running for another school year.  For those of you who follow this blog, I apologize for completely dropping off the face of the Earth.  But I have been around.  I spent a week in Philadelphia at ISTE this summer (my first time at ISTE), presented at MACUL for the first time (see the post below) and presented at the 21st Century Learning Symposium at Marysville High School . While it's no excuse to let go of this blog for such a long time, I do promise to be back at it once again with abandon.  So, without further ado, let's take care of a big topic request that comes around every year.  Kid Safe Search Engines.  Many of the big portals for Kid Search have nearly abandoned their specific Image Search in favor of more broad search results not specific to images only.  Take Ask Kids and Yahoo Kids for example.  You will no longer see an Images or Pictures button on those sites.  However, the list I've compiled below presen...