Design Tool for Non-Designers Canva makes it simple to create headers and visual elements for websites, social media pages, and a whole lot of other things. Design Guide I like this Pixel Perfect Guide to digital design principles by UsTwo. Useful reading + rules of thumb. Image sizing TinyPNG is a free web-based service that shrinks …
Category archives: Tools
Maths, locks & sewing machines: the beauty of educational GIFs
Loving the educational GIFs popping up around the place. This one, which I saw on an IFLS post that pulls together 21 maths GIFs, demonstrates ‘how to make an ellipse’. It’s from giphy.com. This one I find so simple but so illuminating. A GIF from NikolayS that shows how a sewing machine makes a stitch. …
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This Chrome extension of Google Earth images just keeps on giving
The folks at Quartz pointed me to this Chrome extension years ago and I still love it. The extension displays a new Google Earth View image every time you open a browser tab or window. Just lovely. Highly recommend.
Matt’s guides to Google Analytics and the value of informative file names
Matt Lane has done a nice job explaining how Google analytics works in two nicely illustrated posts over on Medium. I particularly like the way he explains (and shows) what the snippets of code look like and how and where to add functionality. The first piece, An Idiot’s Guide to Google Analytics, looks at the basics, …
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Hats off: a whole week with only one tab open at a time
Some people at Fast Company had a go at using only one browser tab at a time – for a whole week. The premise behind this challenge is that multitasking rarely works–yes, we can walk and talk at the same time, but when we’re quickly shifting between email, filling out spreadsheets, and checking our Twitter, …
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How logarithms work (in a poetic x10 kind of way)
Wish my maths teachers had been this poetic. A fantastic explanation of logarithms from Vi Hart. Via Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing.
A simple web-to-print workflow using Google Docs, WordPress and InDesign
An interesting video explains a simple web-to-print workflow used by the Bangor Daily News (Maine, US). Thanks to William P Davis, online editor for bangordailynews.com, for sharing it on Screenr. The reporters write in Google Docs using a very simple markup to indicate a headline. Editors use Comments for notes about accompanying images, points to …
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How Google works – the graphic
From seobook.com , a graphic of how Google Works (and one further down of how it used to work). Online Marketing Graphic by SEO Book Here’s the earlier version:
The beauty of checklists
I enjoyed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, a surgeon and New Yorker writer who previously wrote a notable piece about finding that more expensive healthcare wasn’t necessarily better healthcare. He’s written a whole lot more since then. The premise of The Checklist Manifesto is that a simple (but well devised) checklist is perhaps the best tool we …
Using the Official Information Act
The good folks at TVNZ Media7 have kindly shared this cheery video tutorial on what the Official Information Act allows and how to use it.