Tuesday 21 April 2015

Android phones 103

Notes, Calendars, Maps and favourite apps

Noosaville Library Wednesdays 10 am - 12 noon
April 8th, 15th, 22nd

Week 1
Week 2

Cooroy Library Wednesdays 10 am -12 noon
May 6th, 13th, 20th

This week sees the last in the series of three classes listed above. If you would like more help, Tech Help sessions at Noosaville Library are held on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month 2-3 pm. There is no need to book and assistance is provided for phones, tablets, ereaders and laptops. Bring your own device.

Wednesday 15 April 2015

Android phones 102

Noosaville Library 
Wednesdays 10 am - 12 noon
April 8th, 15th, 22nd.

Week 1 here

Cooroy Library 
Wednesdays 10 am -12 noon
May 6th, 13th, 20th.

Help videos

One of the quickest ways to get to know your phone is to watch a video as you can pause while you find the features mentioned. Droid Life has a great video channel. Find your phone in their 25 tips series. Here are some of the popular models.
Samsung Galaxy S4
HTC One M8
LG G3



Photo editing apps

Aviary
Photoshop Express
Pixlr
Snapseed

Communication

Viber
Whatsapp
Skype

Transfer to computer


This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

Sunday 12 April 2015

Storehouse for photo stories

Recently I've been experimenting with some new ipad apps suitable for visual storytelling. This one is Storehouse. After downloading the free app, sign up via email, Facebook or Twitter.

Photos and video clips are added through a simple interface and can be rearranged with drag and drop. They can be sourced from the ipad or iphone photo library, Dropbox, Flickr, Instagram or Creative Cloud accounts. It is simple to move, scale and crop pictures with your fingers and create interesting patterns with layout. Text adds detail to a photo story. It can be converted to headings or quotes where emphasis is sought.

If you have multiple photos from an event or from your travels, this app provides a quick and easy way to share a collection through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or email. Once the story is published it can be embedded on a blog or website. Click or tap on any one photo to see it in full, then scroll left or right. Return to the story by with another click or tap on any photo in that section.

I love to revisit my photo collection from the Chelsea Flower show, so here are some favourites via Storehouse. Enjoy!


UPDATE - September 2016 I obviously missed the announcement that Storehouse was closing in July 2016 and so failed to save my story! Another service that had a great idea but could not make it commercially viable.


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/04/storehouse-for-photos-and-stories.html

Tuesday 7 April 2015

Android phones 101

Made with http://www.classtools.net/SMS/

Getting the best from your phone

The slides and links are intended to provide a guide for those participating in the Android phone classes provided for Noosa Library Service at:

Noosaville Library 
Wednesdays 10 am - 12 noon
April 8th, 15th, 22nd.

Cooroy Library 
Wednesdays 10 am -12 noon
May 6th, 13th, 20th.

The lessons are intended to cover basic operations and provide a venue for individual help. 
It is advisable that you get a free Google account if you have do not have one. This will allow you to download apps from the Play Store as well as provide access to a wide range of other free Google services.

Slides

Use the arrow key to advance the slides to review content. Click/tap the Expand icon to have them fill your screen.

Online lessons

How to Geek- Basic Android guide

Manuals and guides

I recommend that you locate the appropriate guide for your phone to help you along the way.

Android Quick Start guide available from Google Play books
Telstra mobile support Choose your phone and be guided through excellent help pages
Example of the Telstra help pages
Optus also provide excellent help pages for a wide variety of phones.

Support manuals and guides for other phones and providers are listed here.


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/04/android-phones-101.html

Saturday 4 April 2015

Congress on Slate

Here's an elegant new way to share your stories from your ipad. Just add text, photos and links to the app Adobe Slate.  Professionally designed layout features add another dimension to your content. This easy to use tool may appeal to family historians who would like to present their information in a visually attractive manner. Your story can include headings, text, quotes, images and buttons to link to websites.

Slate pages can be public or private, can be embedded on your blog or website as below, or shared via email and various other social platforms. There are 11 different themes to choose from so with a simple click the page or post can be modified to your preferred style. I've used the 'Tereza' theme. I've added only small snippets of text but longer blocks of text can be written.

If you have an ipad why not try it? Photos can be added from your own collections whether stored on your device or in Dropbox. There is a Creative Commons search if you do not have suitable visuals and the sources are credited at the end of your page. This is a free app, you will need to use your free Adobe ID as the pages are stored on Adobe's servers.

Here's an overview of last weekend's Congress made in Slate on my ipad. Click or tap on the picture below then scroll to view. The back button will return you to this post.

Congress 2015


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/04/congress-on-slate.html

Thursday 2 April 2015

Sharing the goods

Canberra - City Walk

At the AFFHO Congress 2015 held recently in Canberra a lot of information was shared in sessions and through social media. Subsequently I have added a wide range of people and organisations to my social networks. Here's a few I've recently followed on Twitter. To see more view my profile @crgalvin To get an excellent overview of Australian libraries, museums and archives on Twitter view the range followed by the National Library of Australia and those followed by Trove .

Books

I love a new book to read and the titles shared below are just a few mentioned during sessions I attended. As I read the rest of the Congress papers supplied on a nifty USB, no doubt there will be plenty more titles to read and recommend.

The labour of loss by Joy Damousi
Broken Nation: Australians in the great war by Joan Beaumount
The invisible history of the human race by Christine  Keneally
Help! Historical and genealogical truth by Carol Baxter
In darkest England and the way out by William Booth
Farewell my children by Richard E. Reid
Single and Free: Female migration to Australia 1833 - 1837 by Elizabeth Rushen
Fair Game Australia's first immigrant women by Elizabeth Rushen and Perry McIntyre
Forensic genealogy by Colleen Fitzpatrick

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/04/sharing-goods.html

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