The Ultimate Mind Blower

I sit here writing (or rather dictating to my still quite annoying Dragon software) with a mixture of excitement and relief, and oddly, a bit of sadness. My digital communications course has come to an end, now I am just trying to eek out a few more blog posts to solidly get a B on the assignment. I walked out of class on Monday telling my professor that my last blog posts were going to blow his mind, then left thinking... "oh crap, I was only joking, what am I going to write about to wrap this thing up?"

So I decided to give you a list of a lot of cool things (online tools, websites, apps) that I learned from my classmates during our weekly knowledge share. I wanted to review many of these for blog posts, but didn't quite get to it. I can't vouch for whether these are worthwhile, because I've not tried them myself, but my classmates are pretty knowledgeable and trustworthy. There is a little something here for everyone, enjoy!

For the do-gooder:

If you still like to print paper, but feel guilty about it, GreenPrint allows you to print only the parts you want from any kind of document.

FirstGiving allows you to select a particular charity and fundraise on behalf of someone, without having to be linked to a particular event.

For the social media buff:

Tired of logging and different sites and see what your friends are up to? Meebo.com allows you to sign into all of your accounts at once and have the streams appear in one dashboard view.

For those Twitter lovers, Twiangulate compiles Twitter lists and lets the user triangulate the data which helps them to find and revise the list of people that they follow.

For the creative types:

Issuu is a digital platform for individuals, businesses, and publishers to create content with traditional print design features (i.e. turns pages like a magazine) but with greater interactivity.

Customink allows users to create their own designs on all sorts of merchandise: t-shirts, mugs, hats etc.

For the effective project manager:

LessProjects is a free application for managing collaborative projects.

Remember the Milk, is a free, Web-based to-do list manager (with a poor name) that allows for offline use so you don't always need to be connected to the Internet.

For the data nerds:

Many Eyes is a cool online data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive visualizations of their data (sounds kind of like Wordle, but more extensive).

Lynda.com is an extensive library of tutorials for software such as Flashbuilder, Excel, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Avid Media Composer, Encore, Illustrator, etc.

Neighborhoodly Love

This week's New York Magazine article, the New Collectivism, highlights the increasingly communal nature of New York City. Social networks are being taken off-line, so that like-minded people can meet in real life to swap and share information and resources, or to simply spend time together participating in common activities or interests. From cabs, child care co-ops, and community gardens, there is no limit to what can be shared and enjoyed in this new communally-focused society.

I'm sure this idea is not specific to New York, however it feels a little progressive for smaller towns, where your neighbors might not be on the other side of an inch of peeling drywall. New Yorkers often are dying for excuses to get out of their cramped apartments. The idea of getting together with fellow pickle lovers might not appeal as much to people have to drive 30 miles to Walmart to pick up a gallon of gherkins. Many of these shared networks start online, often through popular websites such as meet up.com that help to facilitate these type of connections.

Although I don't currently engage in this collective New York, it's comforting to know that these types of groups are emerging and are available to me if the desire or need arises--could definitely be worth my while. It seems like a great way to take social networking a step forward to make more meaningful connections. New York is a stressful place to live, with a little help from your community, it could make life a little easier, and enjoyable.

Does anyone have any personal experiences participating in these types of networking groups? I'd love to hear them. If you're single, this could be an alternative to a dating site and a great way to meet people in a somewhat organic way. Just an idea:) Enjoy!