OverviewCool Tools Update For Library Web Sites

Darlene FichterUniversity of Saskatchewan

Frank CervoneNorthwestern University

November 15, 2004

Cool Tools

Third year – Highlight new tools each time– Check our site for past presentations

Types of Tools– Server– Client side– Web based– Inexpensive or open source

Crafty Syntax Help Chat

http://www.craftysyntax.com/CSLH/A multi-user, multi-operator, multi-

department live Help support chat system that allows the operators of the websites to monitor their visitors as they are browsing the site and proactively open a chat session with the visitor

Zoom In: Bookbinding's, Maps and Photos

CSS and JavaScriptCompatibility

– cross browser support for newer browsers with good implementations of CSS

http://persistent.info/archives/2004/05/08/magnifier

The Rasterbator

Create huge rasterized imagesCover a library wall with:

– New program or service– Winning photo

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

Open ClipArt Library

http://clipart.freedesktop.org/Public domain clipart library

Dimensionizer

Menu plugin for Mac OS X that allows you to find out the dimensions of an image with one click

http://automaticlabs.com/products/dimensionizer

Height, width

Online Image Editor

Free editor if you’re in a bind and need to work on a couple of images

Downside: annoying ads and you’ll need to maneuver around them to use controls

http://www.myimager.com/

3D Flash Animator

http://www.3dfa.com/Create animations, interactive components

for sophisticated website interfaces and arcade-style games

Multimedia

Serious Magic– Do-it-Yourself Video– $199.95 basic product for web training videos

http://www.seriousmagic.com

Wink

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/Tutorial/presentation creation software

– Primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software

– Creates Flash files– Demo file

For Developers

HTML text editor that you can add to your applications

Has powerful WSIWYG toolset like Word toolbar

Free, Open SourceInternet Explorer 5.5+ and Gecko browser

(Mozilla / Netscape) compatibility XHTML 1.0 support

http://www.fckeditor.net/

FCK editor

Server side– ASP.Net – ASP – ColdFusion – PHP – Java

osTicket

http://www.osticket.com/Open source, problem tracking system

Handy Lookup Tools

HTTP Headers– Verify that the correct MIME type (the Content-

type: line) is being sent for each file type – Is your web server dishing up UTF-8 when

you’re character set is charset=iso-8859-1 – http://www.delorie.com/web/headers.html

What is my IP?– http://whatismyip.com/

META Tag Analyzer

http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/Critique and advice on web page META

tags

Productivity Tools: mail2web.com

http://mail2web.com/

Access: Web Browser, PDA, …

Lynx viewer

http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.htmlUse for testing web site accessibility

Lynx on Windows

http://csant.info/lynx.htmA version of Lynx that runs directly on the

Windows platform

Spurl – Social Bookmark and Research Tool

Thumbnail, Internet Archive,

who links to them?

http://www.spurl.net/

SubEthaEdit

Edit the same document, live, in real time, together with everyone in your group

Mac OS XCost: $35.00

http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/

WebNote

http://www.aypwip.org/webnote/“Sticky note” note taking application

Primo PDF

Download and install Microsoft ®– Windows® 98– Windows ME, – Windows 2000 – Windows NT®– Windows XP®

A minimum of 30 MB of available disk space

Convert from Word, Excel, PowerPointhttp://www.primopdf.com

Font Comparison Utility

http://www.howardesign.com/exp/fonts/compare.html

NXPowerLite

http://www.nxpowerlite.com/index.phpReduces the size of a Powerpoint

presentation

Tools that Keep You Smiling

Your own library “ELF” Consolidate your library accounts Get email notices before items are due Receive email alerts on overdues and

holds Receive text message alerts for holds

http://www.libraryelf.com/

Translation Wizard

http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/Let’s get international!

More Cool Tools ?

Choose Cool Tools in Darlene’s furl bookmark service

www.furl.net/members/fichter/

Subscribe to Darlene’s RSS feed for the Cool Tools topic

Link on her home page - http://library.usask.ca/~fichter