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: