MediaWiki and Wikkii

Though there are others out there, MediaWiki is the best wiki-creation software there is. Not familiar with it? Just go to Wikipedia or Wikia, and you're seeing MediaWiki in action. For site owners, it has nearly limitless options for customization. But then comes the First Law of Computer Software: more customization, less simplicity. If you want to install MediaWiki, you have to do all this advanced installation stuff that an average person doesn't know how to do. Even if you go to the MediaWiki website, most of the terms they use in their installation guide wouldn't be familiar to you. So what should you do when you want to start a wiki?
When most people want to start wikis, they go to popular wiki-hosting sites like PBWorks, Wikidot, and Wikispaces. But there's a catch: none of these hosting services use MediaWiki; they all develop their own wiki software. This means that you have to learn a totally different syntax (simple language used for formatting) than the one used on MediaWiki wikis like Wikipedia.
That's where Wikkii comes in. Just go to their website, register, and create as many MediaWiki wikis as you wish. Since Wikkii gets all of it's money from ads (which aren't even that annoying), most of it's features are unlimited, and all of it's features are free. Probably the only problem with Wikkii is that they have an older version of MediaWiki and don't upgrade. So get out their, create a wiki, and make it as large as Wikipedia.

And a happy Thanksgiving, too!

Posts

I've been blogging way less then I aught to this summer, so prepare to see an extra long post soon.

Wikia and Wikipedia

Let's face it - one of the greatest wonders of the internet is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You might hear stuff like "since anyone can edit, you shouldn't use it." But whoever told that to you probably didn't know that there are people who spend all day making sure that everything on Wikipedia is valid. So why use those limited book encyclopedias that don't have one percent of everything Wikipedia has? Some people have said, "I just like to flip through encyclopedias. On the internet, you can't do that." But they're wrong. On Wikipedia is a "random page" feature - just click and it will take you to any page from Aa (a village in Estonia) to zZz (a band from Amsterdam). However, there is one disadvantage to Wikipedia. It is strictly an encyclopedia, and if you post any false information it's instantly deleted. Why would you want to post false information to the world? There are two possibilities: one, you are a vandal, and you want to be evil; two, you want to show off your creativity. This is where Wikia comes in.

Wikia is a series of wikis (if you don't know what that is, see bottom) that are more in-depth about stuff on Wikipedia. For example, you can find some of the more basic Narnia facts on Wikipedia - there are approximately 110 pages. As for narnia.wikia.com, there are 610 pages. And Wikia doesn’t just have information on books and movies - it also has information on non-fictional subjects too. My favorite hub (category for wiki) is Creative - it has stuff from Alternate History to Con(structed)Worlds. So get out there and start using Wikipedia - and don't forget about Wikia as well.

Merriam Webster's definition of "wiki": a Web site that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections.

Alice

is a 3d animation software. Though the animation is very lame, it's also very easy. It is similiar to (yet easier than) IClone, in that you don't create what you animate, you just get all from an online database. And unlike IClone, it's all free.

The best part about Alice is that it takes a much smaller amount of time to create your movie. When it took me nearly a month to make Specimen A, which is one minute long, it took me less then a day to make "the Sea Epic," which is thirty secons long. In other words, for Anim8or, it takes one month a minute, and in Alice, it takes two days a minute. Big difference.

Of course, you couldn't animate a yawning, scared, sad beach-ball in Alice.

Audcacity

is probably the leading sound-editing freeware on the internet. It lets you do everything - record, modify (wanna sound like Alivin and the Chipmunks?), and export to WAV, MP3, or OGG. I have used it for many things, including recording for making movies. Go to this website to download.

Credit Maker

In Windows Movie Maker, I found credits to be - let's face it - lame. If I wanted something like:

CASTING

John Johnson

Peter Peterson

CAST

Ed William Wonderous

Mary Anna Banana

you would have to have the "Casting" go from bottom to top, and then the "Cast." from bottom to top. With Credit Maker, you don't have to wait for one section to be finished for another one to begin. It exports to avi, and can be downloaded here.

Tourney Master

Tourney Master is an awesome program for creating tournaments. It includes Single and Double Elimination, Round Robin, and Pool Play formats. You can create brackets, fill them in, scedule games, etc, etc...

Pardon my bad spelling

ToonDoo

In a previous post I talked about Comiqs. Comiqs is photo-based. There's another online comic creator where you insert characters, backgrounds, and props instead of images:

ToonDoo

I like to make comics, but when it comes to drawing I'm horrible. ToonDoo has helped me make this comic right here:

Celestia

I found out about long before I started blogging, so I've had it for a while. Bassicly, it's a grand tuor of the universe. You can fly around in your spaceship to anywhere, at any speed possible. You can make time go fast and see the planets rotate, have time go as it is (the planets still rotate, but too slow to notice,) or pause time all together. My only critique on it is that it dosen't have nebulas, which in my opinion are the most beutiful things in the universe.

Click on the picture to download.

Here's a video I found on you-tube:

How the Market Works

Have fun, and buy and sell your own stocks. It's just like the real market, but you don't get or lose any real money. Good for learning economics: http://www.howthemarketworks.com/

Anim8or

Amimation - an esteemed modern art that was once only for trained proffesionals. But now, you don't need to develop your own software to animate good-looking animations; nor buy expesive programs like IClone. Now, with Anim8or, you can do it all for free.

The only problem is that it takes forever. Watch this movie:

The Seed That Turned

Anim8or.com

FaceMorpher

Don't want to morph multiple photos? Want a really simple program to morph two photos only? Try FaceMorpher Lite! All you have to do is to load two images and point to the faces you want to morph.

It's fun! Imagine your home video enhanced with stunning effects. Filmed a wedding? Try to morph the bride into a little girl and vice versa, or morph the groom and the bride together to see how their kids will look. Amuse your friends morphing them into political celebrities, movie superstars or popular musicians. Express yourself in morphs!

FaceMorpher Lite is the first fully automated image morphing software on the market. It is tuned to work with human faces. No need to manually define control points. 

FaceMorpher Lite uses its AI to analyze images and to automatically recognize parts of faces that should be morphed into each other. Putting it simply, all you have to do is to load two images and point to the faces you want to.

iClone

is very awesome - you can animate realistic 3D people. It comes with two free people and two sets, and you can buy waaaaaaaaay more. The fact that I  don't like to spend money has given me limits, but if you're a spender you can animate anything.

One note: Iclone is awesome in everything except for price and facial animation. If you get "CrazyTalk" from the same makers, you can import CrazyTalk files into iClone and make your characters talk like they aught to. Haven't tried it because I don't really need to, but if you want to make it seem more realistic get CrazyTalk.

both programs brought to you by...

Stykz

http://www.stykz.net/Home.html

Mosaic Maker

This one is better.

http://click7.org/image-mosaic-generator/?create

iDailyDiary

It's bassicly a computerized diary. Instead of having a key, it's password protected.

Personally, I don't keep diaries, and I am using it for a writing project in the form of a diary. 

http://www.splinterware.com/products/idailydiary.htm

Algebra Callculator

http://www.myalgebra.com/

It works!

Mosaic Maker.

http://www.pixisnap.com/

Comic Creator

Here's a sample of http://comiqs.com/. That I made

Roman Humor from personak on Comiqs

Trading-Card Maker

I have just found an awesome trading-card maker. You don't have to download anything, either, because it can be found online at:

http://www.bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php

Other things can also be found at www.bighugelabs.com, so be sure to check it out!

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