The power of connectivity 2020

The power of the internet is monumentally impressive. Just look what can be achieved in one minute. Big data and data analytics will be playing a significant role. Why wouldn’t they? The Internet of Things has grown enormously over the last few years along with artificial intelligence. Are we making the most of it? Doesn’t it look like we have an awe inspiring capacity to connect, consume and engage through the ether? Doesn’t it look like there is so much processing power there in terms of social connection, ideas sharing and participation to solve all our world’s problems? Is this vast array of internet use just about income or could it be used for outcome too? Use all that power to conceive  the world differently?

 

Reverse image search

Sometimes you have an image on your phone or computer and you want to find something similar or where the image came from or what it is. You can use an image to search. There are three things you can do easily:

 

1. Go to images.google.com. In the search box there is a camera. You can click on the camera and choose to search by URL if you have the web address of the image. Or you can pick the Upload image tab and load an image from your device.
2. You can go to tineye.com One of the advantages of this site is you can check if an avatar is from a fake account, or whether the image has been used elsewhere on the web or whether, in fact, your images are being used on sites on the web.
3. If, like today for me, the camera icon does not come up in the google toolbar you can type:

ctrlq.org/google/images

Scroll down and look for the upload image box.

Look good on a webcam

 

Yes, some of us need to do better. No shame in that. We have been thrown into working from home, video calls, increased use of socialising over the ether because social distancing and social isolation is saving lives and jobs as we stay safe at home.

There are simple things we can do to improve our visual look on a webcam.

makeuseof  has 13 ideas to help you improve your webcam look. You need a decent camera. You need plenty of ram because it is video and if you are talking and trying to open files and do web searches then you need even more ram. Tablets and phones will often manage video calls better than a laptop or desktop but that is if you are just talking and it can be limiting on a mobile device because you can’t easily do other things. Rehearse. Run your webcam and talk to yourself and open and close files to see if it interferes or slows down your computer.

Caleb Wojcik in the video explains things clearly, quickly and well. There is no nonsense. It is all good information and help. I like his plain background. Think of the backgrounds you have seen in webcams and don’t like. Think of the looks you don’t like. I don’t like people peering down the camera, am over the interminable bookcases and don’t especially like looking up people’s nostrils. Don’t do what you don’t like . Don’t overly worry, either. The more you video chat the better you will be.

 

Google Keep

Google Keep has been around for a while but not everyone knows about it. If you like Google apps and use them a lot it is worth making use of this in the suite of apps available from Google since it means you don’t have to go and find anything else. It can sync across devices and run alongside Gmail and so is quite handy.

It is like Evernote and that is an app many people would be familiar with. Basically , it’s an app for curating information and ideas as you work and interact with your devices. For study and working at home it is a handy way of storing your information. One of its advantages is that it can reproduce text saved from, say, a newspaper clipping. It can save the images too. There are plenty of YouTube clips about Google Keep. I have just selected one to get you started.

You can find out more about it on the Google Keep site.    makeuseof  also has a good comparison between Google Keep and Evernote so you can see the difference if you are used to Evernote.

 

 

Make a gif using giphy

Steve Wilhite invented gifs and he said they are called gifs…jifs. Soft g. I am never going to be able to do that…gift, gizmo, gill. That pronunciation problem aside, gifs are even more popular than before. They are an effective form of visual communication which fits a purpose. They can be custom made using a site like giphy.com. You can use Photoshop too, but not everyone has Photoshop. Professor Nick Carbonaro walks you through the giphy site to give you an idea how it works.
YouTube has videos for Photoshop. There are apps like ImgPlay which make gifs too. When it comes to image software , everyone has their own way of doing it and device plays a role in what software you will access and prefer, hence just pointing you in the right direction if you, too, want to have fun with gifs.