Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today I’m going to introduce you to one of my all time favorite game sites on the web. Now, before we get in too deep, I want to tell you these aren’t your normal collection of flash games- they’re more like layered brainteasers. You must solve the game in exactly the right steps, or you can’t win. And the deceptively difficult trick is that there are often few options to choose from- it’s just that these options have many “levels.” You must max out each level to win- but each step, no matter if it’s the wrong order, will produce a different result. So, on this rainy, cold, miserable day, let’s take a look at Eyemaze.

There’s really not much for me to walk you through, but I honestly can’t recommend these games enough. I will link to some of the major games, but if you poke around there are mini games galore. The interesting thing about this site is that the games are labor intensive to create- so the site doesn’t have new games all the time. BUT, if you enjoy them as much as I do I recommend bookmarking them and checking back every once and awhile to see if new games have arrived.

And, I have to brag, I’ve solved them all. But I won’t help you- what would be the fun in that? At the bottom of this post I’ll post some screen caps of what it’s like to win a Grow Eyemaze game.

The first Grow Eyemaze I’d like to show you is called Grow Cube- this is the game that brought me to this site. It’s fun, maddening, and just addictive. Click here or on the picture to play.

The game that started it all is called, hilariously enough, “Original Flash Game.” Click here or on the picture to play.

One of the most interesting and inventive is “Grow Version 3.” Click here or on the picture to play.

Remember earlier, when I said that these games could be deceptive? Well, “Grow Version 2″ is an example of just how deceptive these games can be. Click here or on the picture to play.

The next game is completely whimsical. There is a solution to this puzzle, but getting there via any series of clicks in totally fun. “Grow Version 1″ is definitely one of the less maddening, but equally satisfying games on the site. Click here or on the picture to play.

And now, one of my all time favorites: “Grow Island.” Click here or on the picture to play. Believe me, you’ll like this one.

And last, but not least, I’ll show you “Grow Tower,” as it is when you start and when you solve. Grow Tower is one of the newer games on the site, but I really enjoyed it.

Here is Grow Tower, fresh and unsolved. Click here or on the picture to play.

Now, keep in mind the solution is LONG. So, I can’t really do it justice with screen caps. I did my best, though. This of it as a representation of what the solution actually looks like.

Now, that’s not perfect and I know it. But it’s dynamic, the solution moves, so it’s hard to capture.

This site and series of games has been around for awhile. In fact, for several years. So it’s possible that some of you have run into this series before- but if you haven’t, I hope I’ve been able to introduce you to a site that is really rewarding and fun. Not only does it test your patience, it will test your reason. Good luck, and let me know what you think!

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll be taking a look a tool that puts you out there: you can represent your pictures, your music, your tweets! Anything, really, provided you belong to the included social networks. And, as a bright spot, this Tuesday Two.Oh! goes out by request for a lovely friend of mine. Hopefully it’ll be the tour you’ve always wanted! And to the rest of you, enjoy enjoy enjoy! Let’s take a look at Flavors.me.

I could not find them on Twitter.

They don’t have an “about us” page, per se, but you can learn a bit about what they’re all about by looking at the homepage.

There isn’t a lot of initial “depth” to the site- but it is what you make it. Essentially, from what I could see, Flavors.me is all about what you want to display to the world. If you’d like a great tour, check out their video posted on Vimeo.

The first thing you need to do is sign up for an account. If you need a hint, look here. Signing up could not be easier.

Once you’ve gotten an account, you need to set up your identity.

Once you’ve accounted for your basic information, you choose which social networks you would like to represent on Flavors.me.3

One interesting thing, you can’t “flavor” your tweets unless you have them unlocked. So when I entered my twitter handle, I got:

No big deal! I protect them for a reason, so threading them on Flavors.me wasn’t exactly high priority. I do wonder how google might search the content on your Flavors.me, though. If you protect your facebook under layers of blockage, will connecting them here lead to pictures or other information being shared in a fashion you might not want it to? At any rate, as with anything, protect yourself on the web.

I did go back to see what Facebook information was linked, and there appear to be holes in what’s displayed on Flavors.me. So, if you protect your Facebook, it appears that only things you don’t protect will show up.

Once you’ve chosen to connect to the various networks (I chose Last.fm and Facebook) you’ll be given your blank Flavors.me page.

From here, you can sort of take it anywhere. You can upload an image, play with the font, change themes. Though, I thought changing themes was a little more annoying than it had to be- but overall, it was still very easy. You can change the orientation of your information, the placement of your picture, and basically create anything you want within the confines of the page.

Your information will appear once you or the user clicks on the (+) button. My last.fm appears like so:

My facebook like so:

It seems like only pictures from facebook are linked. The music that shows on my last.fm feed are probably correct- it’s been awhile since I synced.

Overall, I found it to be an interesting and fun site to use, but I’m not all that convinced of it’s usefulness. That said, I’m willing to be convinved. I suppose you could send a link to this site to your internet-wary parents who may just want to be checking up on you in one place as opposed to on several different networks.

Have you used Flavors.me? What do you think? Comments and thoughts are welcome!

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll be taking a look at a tool for all you food lovers out there. I wanted to feature something fun for Thanksgiving, and when I stumbled across this site I thought it would fit in perfectly. You can use this site to find new recipies by ingrediant, or browse though vivid and beautiful pictures to choose your next kitchen challenge. I also stumbled upon a restaurant review while clicking around this site. Let’s take a look at Tastespotting.

Find them on Twitter.

From the site: “Founded on the idea that we eat first with our eyes, TasteSpotting is our obsessive, compulsive collection of eye-catching images that link to something deliciously interesting on the other side. Think of TasteSpotting as a highly visual potluck of recipes, references, experiences, stories, articles, products, and anything else that inspires exquisite taste.”

The first thing that I like about this website is the color and pictures. It’s literally a feast for the eyes, if you pardon the cliche!

The page is mostly set up as illustrated above: pictures, with short descriptions beneath them. I think that featuring the pictures like this is smart- it draws the viewer/reader in, and makes clicking almost unavoidable.

Once you’ve narrowed in on something that looks interesting….

…say yummy looking little bread turtles, you can click on the picture to be directed to the page on which the recipe appears. For instance, the turtle recipe comes from a blog named Diamonds for Dessert.

Some pictures will link to restaurant reviews:

on blogs like this:

You can use the search feature on the site to find recipes that include certain ingrediants. For instance, I searched for “persimmons” and came up with this result:

If you sign up for an account with the site you can submit recipes and mark favorites. I thought the marking is a good though, and won’t clutter up your social bookmarking or browser bookmarks. The sign up was quick and easy.

There is a lot to experience, recipe wise, on Tastespotting. As represented below, there are too many pages to just scroll through. Enjoy this site, and maybe take home a few ideas for Thanksgiving.

All in, I liked this site. The one thing I thought might be lacking was some sort of automatic filtering; meaning, if I could set up a search, and any time a recipe came in matching my preset requirements, I got an email. That would be a nice addition to the site. Other than that the site really does do what it sets out to do.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll be looking at a site that’s…well, it’s probably better experienced than it is toured. I’ll go ahead and give you a walk through, but I think that the best way to get to know this site is to click around it yourself. It’s not a very “deep” site layer-wise, but it’s definitely interesting and different. Let’s take a look at Moodstream.

I couldn’t seem to find Moodstream on Twitter, but Getty Images is there.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you click on the site are the pictures and the music. Both of these things are copyrighted, with a pretty hefty terms-of-use policy. That said, I ended up speaking with a representative of the company about featuring the site here, and he was extremely helpful. So, thanks again, Erik.

The basic gist of the site is to give you an option to choose which mood you would like to listen to and watch. The pictures will sort of correspond with the music- which instead of being driven by genre, is driven by “mood” which you can choose by sliding the menu around.

To make it easier on the user, Moodstream has a “Preset” Wheel from which you can choose moods. I thought this was a pretty handy feature, as I wasn’t sure how “happy” might correspond with “calm.” But choosing the presets gives you insight as to how the creators of the site would like to use their own creation.

You can use this menu:

to keep certain channels, or Moodboards, that you create.

The Moodboards will not remain if you navigate away from the site, but will if you sign in with an account. I didn’t sign up for an account in this instance, but it’s easy enough to do.

All in, Moodstream is a really interesting web goodie. I don’t really know the practical use for it, but it’s visually interesting and musically intriguing. It took me a little while to figure out how I might want to use the site- and the one thing I keep going back to is having it on while there’s a dinner party. It would be really cool back ground stuff. I’m not sure how it would work on the job, if only because I need to be looking at other things both on the web and off. So the visual element would render itself pointless.

At any rate, I really do suggest that you check it out. It’s cool and fun, and I really dug it.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll take a look at collaborative story telling on the web. I really enjoyed this tool- I recently was asked to be a Godmother to a friends’ first child. Unfortunately, these loved people live in Hawaii, and as I find myself in Oklahoma it will be difficult to be a close part of my little God Daughter’s early years. And likewise, my husband lives a long way from his niece in Maine, and this could be a good tool to encourage communication between family members. Let’s take a look at Storybird.

Find them on Twitter. (http://twitter.com/Storybird)

About us: a peek inside Storybird on Storybird

One of the things I immediately enjoyed about Storybird was the simple and easy-to-understand clickable interface. The site is so incredibly visual that it’s easy and intuitive to click around the site and build a story.

First things first. Signing up for the site requires very little information. I created a username, entered a working email address and chose a password.

From there you can begin creating your story. However, you might want to spend some time browsing other stories that users of Storybird have already written. The thing to remember here is that you don’t have to make your story public. It can be a private story, and according to the site propaganda, you should be able to print these stories in the future. I imagine that the art copyright might be a problem, and it will be interesting to see how they solve that challenge.

Once you’ve gotten a feel for how the site works by looking at other Storybird’s, you can click on “create” to start your own. The first step it to select pre-loaded art that appeals to you (artists join the site and upload art for users to put in their Storybirds).

Having chosen your art, you can choose a theme if you choose to.

The art I chose for my first Storybird was created by Victoria Usova.

When an image strikes you, you can choose to use it in your Storybird. Once you have chosen a particular artist, you will have to choose pieces of her art for the rest of the story. It’s an interesting endeavor, as the options of pictures sort of drive your story.

The single problem that I encountered was that I never realized that I was supposed to create a title page/cover until after I was done with the story. It could be that I just missed the “C” icon at the bottom of the page, but when I went to publish my finished Storybird it said I couldn’t until I created a title page. It took me awhile to find the space to create it, but it’s there. When you make your own, try to click on the “C” at the bottom so you don’t run into the same speed bump.

Below is a preview of what it is like to create in Storybird.

When you have finished creating your Storybird, you’ll be prompted to add your metadata.

Then you will have your finished Storybird.

In closing, I thought this site was adorable. For those with creative kids, or family strewn about the country, this could be a fun and interactive way to stay involved as well as to inspire creativity. I liked the site, and thought that it was fun and easy to use.

As always, leave thoughts and comments if you are inspired to do so.

I’m sorry, folks! Due to the fact that I’m buying a house, and turning 30 (yes, on the same day!) there will be no Tuesday Two.Oh! today. However, I will leave you with some real estate related 2.0 sites to check out.

In no specific order, please enjoy:

From the site: “We aim to be a delightfully smart partner when you are looking to buy a home. The smart part should help you find your dream home (or at least the dream home within your budget) and arm you with data and information about local real estate (without too much work). The delightful part should make you smile and keep you coming back.”

From the site:”HotPads strives to build the most comprehensive, interactive marketplace of real estate and location-based services, presented with an innovative user interface and a memorable brand.”

From the site:”Our roots go back almost 6 years but unlike many new “real estate technology” companies we are not trying to change the business model, but rather provide the technology to augment an existing one. Over the years we’ve worked very closely with agents and companies both large and small, providing the technology to support their core business, selling homes. Our goal is to “Empower the real estate professional” and as an extension empower the consumer. We don’t believe in placing additional barriers between the consumer and the agent.”

From the site:”Zillow.com is an online real estate service dedicated to helping you get an edge in real estate by providing you with valuable tools and information.”

From the site:”Homethinking is an online service that helps home owners choose the most remarkable neighborhood real estate agents to sell their house. We measure performance by monitoring real estate transactions to know which houses each real estate agent has sold, for how much and how long on average it took them to do so. There are also user reviews by home owners who have sold their house with the particular agent that helps determine the rank of them. If you’d like to know more, read our manifesto and why the decision to engage a real estate agent is possibly the most financially significant you will make.”

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’re going to have some fun. I am not going to be able to post next week- or at least that’s what I’m thinking right now. For now, let’s take a little bit of time to take a look at Friv.

Friv is extremely easy to use- and it’s all about currently popular flash games. The site consists of small picture previews of the game, which you click on to get to the embedded version in Friv. Then play. It really is that simple. Your choices are any of the 264 games currently featured on the site. I’ve used Games.Com in the past, and this is more visually pleasing and has a (in my opinion) better and easier interface than Games.Com.

Games are set up like this:

You just click on the picture and start playing the game:

On just one game I noticed ads during the load time, but they were not intrusive.

So, get out there and have some fun killing time. I enjoyed this site- especially since this time in the semester is busy busy busy!

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today’s Tuesday Two.Oh! goes out to my Mom, who likes to give away books as soon as she finishes reading them. I, on the other hand (and much to my husbands shagrin), am a keeper. I have loads and loads of books that I’ve been keeping since I was a teenager. Hey, what do you expect when you marry a librarian? Let’s take a look at Book Mooch.

From the site: “BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books. BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.”

Short and sweet, and in reality that really is a good reflection of the site. The concept is nothing more than what they say it is- upload books you would like to give away, look for books you would like to get in return. All for the price of postage. Keep in mind when signing up for this site to know your limits when sending books. Choose either in your country or worldwide. Shipping internationally can get expensive, so if you’re not willing to spend money on shipping it far, make sure you say so in your preferences.

That said, signing up is very easy.

Once you have filled out this information, Book Mooch asks that you log in. That done, you will see your homepage. It’s very simple.

The first thing I decided to do was browse Book Mooch for title I was interested in. I chose to look for All Quiet on the Western Front, an oldie but a goodie.

The search brings back categorized results, by author and edition. Though I don’t know how they choose their “related searches” as I don’t know what Stephanie Meyer or Chuck Palahniuk have to do with this specific search.

Here, if you would like to take a closer look at the book, you can see a brief synopsis, as well as see reader reviews.

If you would like to upload a book to give to someone else, it’s really easy. Just search for your title and edition. Once you’ve chosen to add it to your list of books you’re willing to give away, you’ll get the following warning.

Your uploaded book will look like this.

A requested book will look similar.

If you’re interested, here’s a snapshot of the most listed (to give away) books on Book Mooch.

As well as the books that are most often borrowed:

In closing, I think this site has a ton of potential. I am looking forward to using it myself once I have my books unpacked. One of the things that I like the most is that I don’t have to give away a book if I don’t want to- I just list books I would like to share and then can keep the books I get in return. It’s an even-stephans swap. I know I did a lot of screen caps, but I think that the best way to check out this site is to sign up for it if you’re interested. Watch those mailing preferences, and get to reading!

As always, thoughts and comments are welcome.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’ll take a look at a site that helps you create web forms. I know that a lot of you out there are very good at html, but for those of us who might be a bit….rusty, a site like this will help us to create something that looks good as well as being functional. Let’s take a look at Wufoo.

Find them on Twitter.

When I was working for NSU I thought a lot about web forms. The librarians there disliked email contact, but I kept thinking that a web form with a report would be a good way to go. I wanted our patrons to be able to go to our site, fill out a form with their research question, and have it counted, sorted and archived as well as answerable. If the questioner fills out a form, it would be easy for a group of librarians to route it to the correct research professional.

Currently, however, I no longer have the need to create an online reference form. We are interested in creating a course reserve request sheet, and that’s what I’ve experimented with while using Wufoo.

Overall, the site was extremely easy to use and navigate. The first thing you might want to concern yourself with if you’re interested is site pricing.

There is a free account option, but I definitely think that if your institution is interested in using this site, one of the paid accounts would be optimal. Sign up was very simple, with no need to check your email for a confirmation link. Simply fill in the information and you can begin building your web form.

The site has some humorous qualities, and I enjoyed that as I went through.

Creating the form was extremely easy. Essentially any user of the site (who doesn’t know CSS) will have a basic template to work off of- and I use the phrase “template” loosely. Essentially, you can create whatever kind of form you would like. The site allows for complete manipulation of page elements. Simply use their drag-and-drop interface and you will have created a unique form. Keep in mind, though, if you choose a free account as I have done, the form has a limited amount of fields that can be entered.

Your choice menu for page elements will look like this:

Which you drag and drop to get something like this:

From here you will edit what each element says. This will be where you can add directions for the user if something on your form is a little more complicated than “yes or no.”

One of the things that I appreciate most about the set up to these elements was the option to require a response from your form-taker. For instance, if we decide to use Wufoo to build a Course Reserve Request sheet, we will require the professor to fill out the course information, because without it the request would not make any sense. So, when submitting an unfinished form, the site would send a pop-up asking that the user finish all required fields, hopefully eliminating error and time spent tracking down this information.

When you have finished adding and editing all of the form elements, save your form. You will get a pop-up that will tell you that your form has saved and that you can either return for more editing, check out the sharing options, or quit. Since I’m interested in sharing my Course Reserve document, I clicked on sharing.

To share your document in Wufoo, you do actually have a lot of options. From a weblink you can copy/paste into email to embedding code to put it on your website. There are also mobile/emailing options to share your web form.

Also, you can choose how to receive notifications that your form has been filled out.

Now we’ll move on to the only part of the site that I found frustrating: adding pizazz to your web form. There is a “themes” tab that you’ll see at the top of your screen, and the creation of a them is easy enough. What I found a little frustrating is figuring out how to apply it. But, first let’s take a look at how to build a theme.

Pick a heading image, which will appear live in the preview screen below.

Then, choose a background.

There are a lot of other options you can choose while setting up your theme like “shading” and “highlighting.” I really didn’t mess around with all of that too much, but the set up of your options is pretty straight forward. I enjoyed the creation interface here.

The problem I ran into was trying to figure out how to apply my created whale theme (which I named “Busy Busy Whale) to my already created web form. Luckily this moment of confusion and several minutes spent clicking from my form to my theme lead me to the extremely well put together help wiki.

Keep in mind, that help screen might only be accessible through your own account setup.

The next step is to get your user to fill out the form. Go ahead and fill mine out if you would like.

When someone has filled out your form, you will get a notification in whatever form you had chosen previously. You’ll click on the link and head back to your homepage, where it will show that a new response has come in and that you are able to look at it.

All of the answers:

Take a look at my finished product here.

In closing, I really do think there is a lot of potential for this site to be used in libraries as well as other business entities. Students might even be able to mold the options here to conduct surveys for classes. I felt that the site was easy to use, and though I did run into some confusion their help page was excellent. And there’s nothing better than a well put together help page.

One drawback that I saw would have to be the limitations of their free account- but they are a business and they are offering a product. When I spoke with my colleague about using this site potentially to solicit course reserve requests we wondered if 100 responses were enough to meet our course reserve demands. In this economy it’s hard to justify a small expense in order to ease life when the “way it works now” does actually work. I’m interested to see how people have been applying this tool. If you use it or have any ideas, I welcome your input.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Tuesday Two.Oh! is not meant as an endorsement, but as an exploration of the tools that are out there. Click at your own risk.

Today on Tuesday Two.Oh! we’re going to take a look at a tool that could be useful to any professional or public citizen; basically anyone who might have a need to think about a space virtually will be able to use today’s website. Personally, I will be able to use if for many reasons- we’re buying a house, so I will be able to visualize the space virtually. Also, at work we are rethinking the Circulation area, and this will be a tool I will use in order to imagine the space- which is very restricted. Let’s take a look at Autodesk: Project DragonFly.

Find them on Twitter.

I want to tell you that I have looked for room design tools before, and haven’t really come up with the most easy to use sites. The first thing that struck me about Project DragonFly was the apparent ease of use. The homepage of the site is clean, easy to understand and uncluttered. Right off the bat, you are provided with an easy-to-comprehend run down of what to expect from the site.

From the homepage, click on

to start designing.

I did like the fact that I was able to start designing immediately- without singing up for the website. The next few things I’ll show you won’t take much narration. The site has some clunky navigation while you’re flipping through room elements, but over all I found the process to be easy. On an amusing side note, while choosing furniture you have a lot of options, but none of the options really fit my own items. I suppose that the visual elements are a suggestion rather than finding the exact match.

The first thing you’ll see is a blank canvas.

From here, you use the tool bar on the left to choose the room you would like to start from.

Building your “space” can be a little tricky, and I was unable to full recreate my desired structure. However, I think that with a little practice I would likely be able to come up with a more clear representation of what I was trying to do. That said, once you have the basics in you will have something that looks like this.

From this basic room outline, you can add doors and windows.

You will be able to choose your elements easily using the side menu.

You will have options as to which room elements you choose, but as I mentioned before the choices are somewhat limited. Though, not so limited as you won’t be able to choose something that is similar to your desired outcome.

Once you have chosen all of your elements, you will have a finished project.

This project, if you have not signed up for an account, can be printed. I clicked on “export” before I did anything else and was thusly prompted.

Since I usually sign up for the sites I demo, I decided to go ahead and sign up. I have to admit, it could not have been easier.

I was not even prompted to check my email for a confirmation link. With my account set up, I was able to use the right hand menu to share my room. My email was opened automatically with the information supplied in the body of the message.

If you desire to save your room as a .jpeg, you have that option using the export feature.

Another thing I enjoyed about the site is that if you create an account, you can save your designs in your own personal gallery. I have only one design to open currently, but as I know that I will have other projects in future I know this feature will be useful.

If you’re curious to see what other people are doing with their designs, I suggest that you check out the public gallery.

In closing, I thought this site was very useful. Though I did find some of the navigation clunky and at times confusing. The site is essentially an open book: it does what it says it is going to do. And it does it for free- which is always nice when you’re used to using programs like Visio. I did find myself wishing that the walls and door openings were a little easier to manipulate, but, again, I feel that I might be able to better tackle these things when I have used the tool for a little bit longer.

As always, I enjoy and welcome your thoughts and comments.