Monday, April 14, 2008
Take Better Object Photos for eBay or Tutorial Sites
11:11PM Kevin Purdy | Whether trying to win bidders on eBay or attract eyeballs on a tutorial or craft site, the best way to stand out is with an attractive, detail-showing picture. Photography tutorial site Photojojo offers a wealth of tips for your camera, your staging, and other things to keep in mind while trying to represent your goods. Two bits of advice many commerce-minded shooters should heed: For small items such as jewelry, you can use more interesting backgrounds. Gemmafactrix uses vintage books and industrial surfaces to show off her jewelry on Etsy, and it works great. Wood, paper, cloth and metal can all add a little something to your images. For tutorials and larger items like clothing, you’ll have to pull back to get everything in the shot. Make sure the rest of your studio/ apartment/ mobile command unit isn’t visible in the shot. Set up by a blank wall and use it as a backdrop. More »
Download YouTube Videos in Higher-Quality MP4 Format
10:29PM Kevin Purdy | YouTube recently started offering video playback in higher-resolution, better-sounding formats like MP4, and that bump in quality can now be downloaded for desktop use as well. The Google Operating System points out two easy methods for grabbing files: A bookmarklet that adds a “Download as MP4″ link to video pages when clicked, and a Greasemonkey script that automatically creates the link. Both require that you right-click and assign the to-be-downloaded file the “.mp4″ extension, and both may violate YouTube’s terms of use, but, as blog author Ionut points out, the same files are available in your browser cache after watching. Hit the link to grab the bookmarklet and Greasemonkey script for Firefox (and Opera) users. Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files [Google Operating System] More »
Share lists and other gadgets at iGoogle
5:22PM Sarah Stokely | Google already let you share your favourite gadgets through iGoogle, but now you can share and edit data within your gadgets -which means you can do things like share shopping lists created in Sticky Note.It’s easy too – just click on the drop down triangle, and you’ll see the option to ’share this gadget’. If you use Gmail, now you just need to pick the friends you want to share with via the contact list that will pop up, or type in their email address.You get to decide if you’ll just share the data, or let them edit it also. Click send and it will go out as an email which gives the recipient a preview of the gadget and invites them to add it to their iGoogle page.Sharing gadgets just got better [Official Google blog]
More » Take better photos to help you sell on ebay
4:29PM Sarah Stokely | If you’re decluttering, or have been thinking about trying out ebay or etsy to sell your wares online, the Photojojo site has a helpful guide for improving your chances of making a sale by taking a great photo.It’s a helpful guide because it gives tricks and tips for using what you have on hand (ie best ways to capture natural light or create a good back drop for a photo of something small like jewellery).This was my favourite tip:
“For small items such as jewelry, you can use more interesting backgrounds. Gemmafactrix
uses vintage books and industrial surfaces to show off her jewelry on
Etsy, and it works great. Wood, paper, cloth and metal can all add a
little something to your images.“
Got any tips for how to make your photos stand out on ebay? Share in comments please.
Shoot to Sell: Taking better photos for ebay, etsy and instructables [via Dumb Little Man] More » XP on Eee
4:14PM Sarah Stokely | David Flynn has reviewed the new ASUS Eee PC which comes preloaded with Windows XP. If you’re an Eee fan you will probably be curious to see how well XP cuts down to run on this small form factor laptop. My heart sank to see that just the XP install used up half of the hard disk space. :( More » Will social software take your job away?
11:10AM Sarah Stokely | Sci-fi blog IO9 takes a look at the future of social software and says that while we may be worried about its hit on our productivity, in the future we may need to work about whether it will actually make our jobs obsolete.Their interview with interactive telecommunications professor Clay Shirky on the future of social software and communications asks if freely produced user generated content will lead us to a world in which content producers won’t get paid. He says we’re creating a whole new social environment, not just new forms of content. The gist of it seems to be that your greatest potential for survival in the new online world order is to be one of the builders of this new world (eg create a social network or application that works) or be the top of your niche in content production.
Will efficient social software take your job away? [IO9] More » Bosses to get right to snoop
10:53AM Sarah Stokely | The Federal Government is considering changing the Telecommunications Act to give bosses the right to snoop on their employees email and internet communications without their consent. The law will only apply to companies providing “critical infrastructure” and is being considered as an anti-terrorism move. If it comes into play, the law could affect millions of workers. More » 
Panedia offers panoramic wallpaper for multiple monitors
8:50AM Sarah Stokely | I got an email from Aaron Spence at Panedia letting me know about his new site offering gorgeous panoramic landscape photography as wallpaper for multiple monitor users.
An offshoot of panoramic mapping site Panedia Maps, they’re now offering their widescreen panoramic Australian landscapes as desktop wallpaper for single, dual and triple monitor users. They’re Windows and OS X friendly, and each wallpaper is available in 16 sizes for single, dual and triple
screen. They add a new picture every day, and there are free or paid memberships to the site.Paid memberships also offer a “favourites” feature which lets you save your preferred wallpapers for quicker access.If you’re interested in a 12 month membership to Panedia, Aaron’s kindly given us a few to give away, so look for the free membership code under the cut.Thanks Aaron!
More » 
Keep Rewards Card Numbers on a Mobile Phone
5:30AM Kevin Purdy | A reader at the Unclutterer blog suggests that since stores only really need the number off the cards they issue, she’s put all her account numbers in her cell phone contacts list to lighten her wallet: Basically, I have every membership number saved in my phone, organized to be alphabetised together such as ‘aMemb-Barnes&Noble, aMemb-Southwest, aMemb-Avis, etc’ so they are easy to find. It has uncluttered my wallet/purse and made is substantially easier to find the number when I need it. More »
