Inkscape makes for a great visual organizer. By creating circular icons from all of my most active social media services via clipping with circles, then using the connector tool to connect them in specific ways, you can see that I use my Android based phone to generate a lot of content that is dispersed in lots of ways, and that most of my content gets directed to FriendFeed, a social media aggregator, which then funnels into Twitter, then Facebook. I wonder, how do you do social media, and how would you show me?
Venue: Rider University Science and Technology Building.
Abstract: This session will introduce attendees to four of the most popular social networks, illustrating how specific features of each can be used to directly support academic goals. Using examples from Rider and other institutions, the audience will see how academics can use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Ning in support of curricular, co-curricular, recruitment, publicity, and community outreach purposes. We will discuss why social networks exist as well as the pitfalls, benefits, and usage best practices. Attendees will have the opportunity to create one or more social network accounts and be given guidance on how to start using them for some specific academic purpose.
A beach shadow-sign reminds us of the dangers of sunburn: 'The sun is a skin cell killer" cc-by lemasney
A beach shadow-sign reminds us of the dangers of sunburn: ‘The sun is a skin cell killer” cc-by lemasney
A shadow based sign reminds us of the dangers of sunburn
Today’s sketch is a sign on a beach reminding beach-goers to respect the sun. I was at the New Jersey Library Association which happened to be at Long Branch, a beautiful Central Jersey beach, and the bright sun was inviting, but even after an hour’s walk on the boardwalk, I got a little color. I also just wanted to quickly thank all of the kind people who came and saw my talks today at NJLA10.
“Sunburn — the skin reddening caused by overexposure to the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation — may seem like just a temporary irritation, but sunburns can cause long-lasting damage to the skin. Children are especially at risk: One blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence more than doubles a person’s chances of developing melanoma later in life. Don’t get burned: Read the articles below to learn all about The Skin Cancer Foundation’s expert advice on sunburn prevention, treatment, and relief!” – Sunburn – SkinCancer.org, http://goo.gl/kthTTv
Abstract: In this presentation, I will present the broad concepts shared in various social networks, how they can be used, why they should be used, and some concerns that people have with them.
Press release: “
Today hundreds of million of people take advantage of ‘Social Networking’ websites through which they share information on a variety of topics and interests as varied as our society and human history,” says John LeMasney, Manager of Technology Training at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. “Some people, however, find the concept of ‘social networking’ to be confusing, pointless, and a waste of time. I want to explain why it does not have to be.” LeMasney will explore some of the most popular social networking websites in a program entitled “An Introduction to Today’s Social Networking”. “There are literally hundreds of online communities one can join, each with their own culture and purpose,” says LeMasney. “During my program, I will demonstrate how one can use popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn and WordPress. I plan to highlight their key features, advantages, and disadvantages, as well as how to use them safely.” As Manager of Technology Training at Rider University since 1998, LeMasney assists faculty, staff and students in integrating technology into their work, classroom, and extracurricular activities. A Fine Arts graduate of the University of Arts in Philadelphia, he recently received a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership with distinction from Rider University. He holds LPI Level One Certification in Linux Administration and chairs the Ewing Web Committee. A self-proclaimed “open web advocate and open source evangelist,” LeMasney is also a designer, artist, writer, technologist and consultant who lives and works in the Ewing area. You can find and connect with John, known as “lemasney” on Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail.”
Hey, all. I decided that today I’d celebrate some of my favorite technologies. IconDock at http://icondock.com made this easy on me, as they distribute vector based icons for a whole boatload of social media and technology companies in a icon pack. However, that’s not what you see here. I took my own favorite icons from that set, sized them up, converted to bitmap (ctrl-m), bitmap traced them to get an outline, and then aligned the outlines into a 9 up grid. Then the fun began. Using the calligraphy tool in Inkscape, along with the eyedropper tool and the original icons, I would use the eyedropper to pick colors from the originals, then apply the colors in a painterly fashion on top of the outlines I had created. After I was satisfied with all of the color, I brought the outlines back to the front. Really loved this process!
Google before you Tweet is the new Think before you speak - LeMasney Consulting
Google before you Tweet is the new Think before you speak – LeMasney Consulting
Okay. Where to begin? I got the saying from my good friend @gservo on his tumblog at https://gservo.tumblr.com/#_=_ where he pointed to the original (at least as far as I’m concerned) a repost by artpixie at http://artpixie.tumblr.com/post/395862226/design-is-mine-isnt-it-lovely which was likely found originally at in the glorious letterpress form by Joe Newton. I thought it was lovely, indeed, but I wanted to make my own take on it. I’m counting this as a 365 Request from @gservo even though I’m fairly sure he has no idea that he was involved yet.
So, I typed out each of the words as separate objects in Inkscape, only keeping the fragment “is the new” together, so that I’d have plenty of placement flexibility. I then began to do separate treatments for each piece, trying to evoke some emotion and connotations with color, feel, and size. So, for instance, I treated Google as though I were creating a refreshed logo, adding a web 2.0 candy coating. I gave Tweet a twitter blue glow. I lifted the words off the page with shadows (dark dupes with some blur and distance) and invoked age and a bit of sadness with 70’s colors in the words “think” and “speak”. “before you” in the second phrase got muted, contrary colors. To give the whole design a bit of drama, I added a yellow tinge at the corners with a center gradient.
If I was successful, you get a bit of irony, humor, and perhaps sadness. I wanted the first phrase to almost seem superficial and short lived. I wanted the second phrase to have some direness to it, to seem like an old idea that’s really not.
I also just fell in love with the idea that this statement evokes: that we are changing in the way that we process, store, and deliver intelligence. I heard a recent interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on the idea that we are moving towards a time where intelligence is defined not so much by what we can hold in our heads and spit out when called upon to do so, but rather how quickly we can filter and manipulate the google-store of data, the invisible web, and the shallow web (which is how I refer to fleeting social media and data). How we use and interpret metadata, semantic supporting information, and tags will likely become more important than whether we can recall the capitals of all 50 states.
Google before you tweet (and think before you speak).
