DIAGRAM DRAWING SOFTWARE

DIA, http://live.gnome.org/Dia is an excellent digram drawing tool. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams.

It can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).

Dia is quite a comprehensive tool and offers a range of objects and options to aid diagram drawing.

ONLINE WHITEBOARD

Here's another useful tool but an online one. Dabbleboard, www.dabbleboard.com is a whiteboard tool and offers many useful options, some real good ones as well. It takes the concept of a board further by introducing options like intuitive shape guessing, inserting images, pdf documents, etc. It offers a good number of toolbar options to help the user do things like freehand drawing, colouring, and much more.

The tool works on the philosophy of "share-chat-collaborate" and leaves it to the discretion of the user whether to share the drawings or not.

With a number of created drawings available, the user can definitely judge what this tool can do. So, don't forget to view the 'Drawings' section.

FOR PIVOT STICKFIGURE LOVERS

For all the Pivot Stickfigure lovers, sharing about an excellent online Pivot Stickfigure group by Peter Bone. The group is available at
http://groups.msn.com/Pivotanimation/
The group has a host of activities, ranging from tutorials, contests, samples, awards, collaboration and more.

A good place to connect your children so that they can start sharing their creations. But please follow the guidelines properly before joining the group. Go ahead and let the world see your creativity. Here's an opportunity for you to show your gratitude and appreciation for the creator of this tool.

Indeed an excellent site to find out what all is achievable through this excellent tool.

A word of caution - the msn group is active only till February 2009, so better keep a track on the happenings

IMAGE BASED SOFTWARE - IRFANVIEW

Sharing about an excellent software ( forgot to share it before though i have been using it for quite some time). The software is IRFANVIEW, www.irfanview.com . It is an excellent software which does so much, so can't really put it under any single category. It serves the purpose of a viewer, converter, slideshow maker, image editor, media player and so on. Though it does not boast of a very impressive interface, which is because of a dearth of toolbar options but the capabilities are quite impressive. The user needs some time to get comfortable with the menu but once done, user can work wonders with it. Everytime i have used this tool, i have discovered some new capability. It is quite a comprehensive software and can solve many requirements of a teacher. Some of the features that i have explored/ experimented are

• editing images
• creating executable slideshows
• compressing images
• creating panoramic images

I can go on and on and still there are options that i haven't yet explored.

With a range of plug-ins available, one couldn't ask for a better tool

A very good tool and thanks to Irfan Skiljan for being pretty regular in coming out with updates/ revisions.

IMAGE TO AVI CONVERSION TOOL

Keeping the promise that i would only share fully working, useful and appropriate tools as i do not want teachers/ readers to be wasting their time on demo/ trial versions. This blog is meant to share tools which are free and open for anybody to use. The idea is not to populate this blog by posting about every other tool that i test or find out. I try my best to post about only those tools/ softwares which would be free to download/ use and which would bring in some value to readers (especially teachers)
Here's another useful tool - image to avi conversion tool. This tool can aid in creating a movie out of static images. The interface is simple and with some good options provided, the tool can be very handy. The tool provides support for .bmp, .jpeg and .gif formats. Some of the useful options provided are pixel format, frame speed, audio addition. The output AVI file has a size limit of 2 GB.

When you visit the download link provided, please ensure that you click on the basic version only as there are paid versions available for the same tool. The tool can be downloaded from
http://www.aswsoftware.com/products/imagetoavi/imagetoavi.shtml

SCREEN RECORDING SOFTWARE - CAMSTUDIO

Sharing with you a highly needful software, Camstudio, http://camstudio.org. At times, there is a need to record the screen events for teaching, etc. and that is when Camstudio would be very helpful. Camstudio can help create software tutorials, etc. Some examples are when you need to show how to work on a software, what steps to take to complete an action/ activity, etc. The software has a very simple interface and is very easy to use. The software is an open source alternative to Camtasia. The range of features help achieve the desired output. Some of the important features are :

• Option to save the output file in AVI or SWF format
• Ability to provide annotations - both video and screen
• Ability to record sound while capturing screen
• Ability to select desired range for screen capturing
  
• Ability to convert existing AVI into SWF format

A highly recommended tool

MORPHING TOOL

Sqirlz Morph is an interesting tool for Morphing. The tool looks different from the rest because of the range of features and capabilities offered. The tool has taken the morphing to a different level. The tool boasts of features to enable one to go through the examples to get an idea about what all could be done with the tool. There is a Help option available to guide the user to work on the tool. The tool has a very simple user interface and just about anybody could get started working on it instantly.

Compared to other Morphing tools available, Sqirlz Morph is much ahead of them. There are few user samples available on the website, so don't forget to check them.

The tool is available at www.xiberpix.net/SqirlzMorph.html
and the chief highlights of the tool are

• ability to morph videos also
• ability to work with multiple images
• ability to save the output in various formats - swf, avi, gif

Alos, check the other interesting softwares at www.xiberpix.net

Good tool to bring forth your creativity !!