Blodget’s Blog

SlideOO.com offers a free web service for creating horizontal slideshows like this one using your photos from Flickr.

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Merry Christmas everyone. This slideshow is done using Picasa.

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You can use delivr.net to create unique Christmas e-cards from your Flickr photos. You can even put a link in the description of the Flickr photo so people can send a card using your photo. You can use returns in the message to keep lines short so they fit in the narrow message box. You can also use commas in the Send To field to separate multiple email addresses.

Merry Christmas

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

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Let’s see if this offline blog editor will work with my wordPress blog. It’s called “Bee” and is an example of a webapp written in adobe’s new “Air” application builder.

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I stumbled upon directions for converting text to speech. The solution for Mac uses an Automator script.

SETUP – MAC
1. Make sure the document you want to use is converted to plain text and that your document is saved with the .txt extension.
1. Open Automator.
2. Add an action by searching for and dragging “Get Contents of
TextEdit Document” from the menu on the left to the blank box on the
right.
3. Add action: “Text To Audio File” and complete the fields: System Voice, Save As, and Where.
4. Add action: “Rename Finder Items (Make Finder Item Names
Sequential)”. In the first drop down box, select “Make Sequential”.
Select “Add number to existing name”. Place number “after name”, and
separated by “dash”
5. Add action: “Import Audio File”. Select “MP3 Encoder” and check the “Delete source files after encoding.”
6. Save the Automator workflow as “Text to Speech”. Go to File – Save as plug-in, and select Script Menu to save.

Now you are finished with Automator and only have a few more steps to complete. Continuing with the process:

7. Open the document in TextEdit.
8. If needed, make any modifications to the text at this time.
9. Select the Scripts menu located in your menu bar. It looks like a
scroll or curly “S” and choose the “Text to Speech” workflow.

You will see the status of the conversion at work in your menu bar.
When it’s complete, an audio file will automatically be added to your
library in iTunes.

I was surprised by how quickly the conversion was done. It took only about 30 seconds to convert a book length text to an hour and 20 minute mp3 file. The previous way I did it required recording the file in real time using TextEdit and Audio Hijack.

Here’s the book length sample mp3 file. (18Mb)
It’s taken from “A Conjurer’s Confessions by M. Robert-Houdin

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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Crayola has a great online drawing tool. You can choose between a variety of different markers, pencils, and, of course, crayons. When you are done, you can print your creations. Lot’s of fun.

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Your results:
You are R2-D2

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)

Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test

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Check out http://www.cameroid.com/ . It’s basically Mac’s Photobooth

online.



Webcam Fun

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

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This is a short recording made with the new free video streaming service ustream.tv. You can serve up live video or you can record a clip and embed it on a page as I did here.

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