#10: Generating Play

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Hmmm... maybe we should have thought about renumbering the order of things, so that this Thing could fall right along about 7 1/2?

Karen has referred to this week as Play Week, and it did not strike me until now (and reading Mo's post about the 7 1/2 Habits and Renee's, especially!) that this might have worked better (numerically but in a literary way ;) last week. Anyway....

This Thing is about playing around with images using what are known as image generators.

Image generators? No, you don't need a publicist or stylist - and the generator isn't a backup energy supply (although, with three little ones here at home, I'm thinking I'd very much like a personal one!). What we'll be exploring are sites that allow users to manipulate images by entering text or altering portions of a picture to create something new. We've already encountered some Flickr mashups that do this, but this Thing's tools are not necessarily Flickr based.

So, what am I talking about? The animated sand and surf above is an example. And take a look at this:

What?!? There's a careworn book about 23 Things?! You mean Karen and Christine are putting me through this when I could have just checked out a book?!?

These are just simple examples of images you can make with these generators. Ever wanted a street named after you? Your name in lights on a marquee? Your team's moniker (or alma mater, or pet's name, or vacation spot...) in place of the Hollywood sign? A favorite saying tattooed on someone's back? (me neither, actually)

Other examples can be found among the blogs of our fellow explorers for 23 Things. Marla, Karen, and Kathy have each used the Face Transformer for generating painterly images of themselves. And others have tried the Warholizer (looking fab, Sue and Susan!).

Discovery Resources
Here are just a few of the many sites that enable us to fool around with images in one way or another. The 'big momma' list I found here at The Generator Blog provides lots of links - but also mixes the types of generators (and does not organize them other than alphabetically). Our Thing is focused on images - but if you want to generate a Zen koan, an alien limerick, or a wedding toast, The Generator Blog is worth more exploration.

Most of these sites are text oriented: you insert text (or captions) to appear on an image provided by the site.

• ImageChef
• RedKid.net
• Add Letters
  
• ACME Labelmaker (okay, so it's just a simple labelmaker, but the font selection is so cool - as are the typeface names!)
  

Sites for you to upload your own images or pull in from Flickr (or elsewhere, if you've been intrepid explorers!). As with the above (except ACME), there are multiple options/tools:

• dumpr (you'll find museumr here - perhaps you want your Face Transformer image to appear in a museum gallery?)
• FD Toys (this is a repeat from our Flickr mashup Thing) BTW: FD stands for Flagrant Disregard (yikes!)
  

Discovery Exercise
Play around with these!

1. Choose an image generator tool (among these, or impress us with one you've found) and create something fun. As with the first Flickr Thing we did, if you're hesitant to upload an image, you can just use a text-in-image generator. Most of these sites host the image for you, so you don't even have to download either.
   
2. Share your generated image through a blog entry. If you've downloaded the image to upload it to your blog, please include a link or url to the site where you generated the image.
   

Have fun - remember, this Thing is in the spirit of the 7 1/2th Habit: Play!

#6: Flickr Fun - and then some!

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If you thought Flickr was cool in and of itself (I certainly did!), there are a gazillion more things to do and see using Flickr that will amaze you!

Continuing the web frontier spirit of sharing, Flickr invites users to go forth and experiment. For those with technical expertise, this invitation prompts creative design challenges for building new online applications. For those of us without technical expertise, this provides an almost dizzying array of Flickr-based tools that go above and beyond our humble digital dreams.

Examples:

• The the images above, spelling Thing #6, were generated using Spell with flickr. *
• Flickr Postcard Browser - enter a place name to search and watch an array of thumbnail Flickr images as they arrange themselves all over a black screen; click on one for a close-up view. Click the image again to return to the thumbnail screen selection.
• Color Fields Colr Pickr - color wheel with scale for changing hue/tone.
• Flickeur pulls random images from Flickr to merge, move and blend them into an artistically unique display with electronic music. It can be odd and beautiful (from one moment to another!).

Wow, huh?

Now, if you noticed the urls, these are not Flickr addresses.

These are created and hosted elsewhere by those blessed techno-experts who took Flickr, went forth, and multiplied its power. These folks (who will excuse me, please, if I misapply the use of jargon here) have written APIs (application program interfaces) using Flickr's API to create new programs based on Flickr content but transforming or translating it into either new interactive tools or new displays.

These are "mashups." People smoosh two (or more) cool ideas together with tech know-how to create hybrid web applications. When these applications are made available to us, they become third party tools. Ready to mix and mash?

Discovery Exercise:

Two routes for this discovery exercise - no commitment (just play online) or invest something of yourself (err, well, of your images). Whatever trek you undertake, please write a blog entry about it.

1. Low threshold: Just play around with dynamic tools

• A game called Matchr that presents 16 Flickr photos that look random, but are actually 8 pairs with matching tags. If you get the gist my brief explanation, I recommend skipping the beginner stuff in the main "Hi there" box and just clicking the New Puzzle link at the right, midway down the screen.
• Solve an online image puzzle - jigsaw, slide and stick puzzles, play around with kaleidescope variations - variety of options. Scroll down to browse categories, top 40 lists of popular puzzles/images, or search by keyword (on left, more than halfway down scrolled page).
• Flickr Sudoku!
  

2. Taking it up a notch: Do something with image(s) of your choosing

• Use the Warholizer to create pop art out of one of your images. Or choose another mashup from fd's Flickr toys site. Flickr lists this guy's tools at the top of their list!
  
• Create an online jigsaw puzzle! FlashPuzzleZone provides a template for you here. Note: your image will be scaled down as necessary due to parameters for the program and some images work better others. But if it turns out for you, FlashPuzzleZone provides the html code to you, so you can post it to your blog.
• Create a slideshow/animated gif of your Flickr images using Gickr. If you're a digital photo-taker like I am (inexpert), you click click click trying to get just the right shot. This tool looks to be the thing to make use of all those lame shots leading up to just the right one! Again, as with the tool above, not all your images may work well.
  

*Okay, actually only Thing and 6 were generated there. This tool does not create spaces between words nor does it seem to have all typical keyboard symbols. So, I went into Flickr, searched for pound sign (disregarded British pound sterling and other stuff and fortunately found a Creative Commons image originally uploaded by mag3737). His tag is actually poundsign, but Flickr found the variation for me! I inserted the uploaded image between what Spell with flickr provided.

#5: Discovering Flickr

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Let's Dance!
Originally uploaded by greeneyedhedgehog

Flickr - yes, that's not a typo. There isn't an e missing between those last two consonants.

Flickr is a web tool for posting and sharing photos openly online. There are other tools and photo sites, but Flickr sort of revolutionized this web photo album idea (and it's very Web 2.0).

First, Flickr took 'sharing' to a new level by allowing users to make public or private individual photos; then, Flickr added a feature called tags (with a cute little tag/label icon). Tags are keyword labels users associate with their images. They are not unique to Flickr, but my background reading indicates that Flickr was among the first (if not the first) photo site to making tagging available. We'll be getting into more tagging in Week 6.

So, for this 5th Thing, we encourage you to look at Flickr and find out what it's all about. Okay, maybe not what it's all about, but check it out!

You can head straight to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/) to start your own exploration, or you might want to start with their tour.

• Tour (7 pages of brief info)
• Explore
  
• Here's some info about tags. And/or here are examples of popular Flickr tags
• Images from the last 7 days WARNING! Hitting that reload button might absorb a lot of your time
• About interestingness, Flickr's great word for Last 7 days photo selection and a very vague explanation of how they apply it...
  
  

Discovery Exercise:

In this discovery exercise, you have three options… one involves creating an account, the other involves multiple steps to avoid creating a Flickr account but still selecting an image to blog about, the last involves using a digital image you already have (and creating an account).

For all of these options, my verbosity will make the instructions look daunting, but really, this stuff is easier than the length of this page makes it look!

Option 1
Creating an account is really pretty easy - but it is another account (refer again to tips on keeping track of accounts from Karen's first podcast - #1: The first thing!). Well, it's sort of two more accounts but really one account that let's you do more stuff in other places. Flickr requires a Yahoo! ID (essentially a Yahoo! email address) for creating an account - but they walk you through this step by step. [If you already have a Yahoo! email account, just use that and log in right away.]

Once you have the account created, Flickr will ask you for a screen name - it doesn't have to be the same as your account name. Have fun! People have cool, fun, and mysterious screen names. And then you can create an icon for yourself (photo of yourself or an image of anything you like) - or leave it as the default indifferent emoticon. Add as much or as little to your profile as you wish (or are ready to complete at this point) on the Personal Information tab. Before finishing your profile, though, click on the Extending Flickr tab to link your blog to your Flickr account.

Under Your blogs click the link "Configure your Flickr-to-blog settings" then Set up your blog. If you set up a new Blogger account for Thing #3, you'll use the first (default) tool listed, "Blogger Blog (New)," and click the Next button. The next page will say stuff about beta, beta.blogger.com, and things that might confuse you and me, so just click the link "Head over to Google now."

Enter your Google/Blogger/Gmail account and password, then on the next page Grant Access. Flickr assumes you have more than one blog (what a compliment to us newbies!); just click next if your blog title shows. Confirm the blog settings, click All Done. You then have an option for creating a custom post template, layout and settings for posting images to your blog.

You're done with account creation and linking your blog.

Now, go find a picture! Just about every page in Flickr has a search field in the upper right - even the one where you just finished linking your blog. Search for something you fancy. The Italian Alps? snow cones? serenity? From the search results page, click on the image you like best.

The page displaying the single photo will present, just above the image in gray text and icons, options of what you can do with the photo. Select the "Blog this" option and follow the prompts. You can edit this later when you log into your Blogger account (or change it from published post to a draft as I did with the image above while I fretted over verbiage).

Option 2
So, you're not ready to create yet another account. But we still want you to actively explore Flickr. Remember one of the few rules we have? Rule 2 is Share - and Flickr is so good about sharing! They have even incorporated Creative Commons licensing with the images available publicly.

Okay, so head to Flickr and search for something of interest to you. The beach? windswept plains? a Snickers bar?

Got one? An image, that is, not a candy bar.

3 Ft R > 1,
originally uploaded by
MyAngelG.

Select your favorite from among the results and click on it. On the page with the single image, just above the picture you'll see a magnifying glass icon and "All sizes" - click on that button. This brings you to a download page with options for the size you want (mind you, you'll be downloading this for your blog, so think about what size image you want there). Select your size and download the image. Make a note about who posted this image so you can provide an attribution and/or a link to the Flickr page.

Now log into your blog, create a new entry and "add image" following Blogger instructions for uploading images. Publish your post!

Option 3

If you have lots of digital images, you might want to browse through them before getting into Flickr so you have something in mind to start uploading to your Flickr account.

Head to Flickr to set up an account if you don't already have one. Flickr requires a Yahoo! ID (essentially a Yahoo! email address) for creating an account. If you already have a Yahoo! email account, just use that and log in right away.

Once you have the account created, Flickr will ask you for a screen name - it doesn't have to be the same as your account name. Then you can choose to create an icon for yourself (photo of yourself or an image of anything you like) - or leave it as the default indifferent emoticon. This was an obstacle for me because I didn't have a small enough image to use for an icon. (That'll be my 24th thing, maybe?). Add as much or as little to your profile as you wish (or are ready to complete at this point) on the Personal Information tab. Before finishing your profile, though, click on the Extending Flickr tab to link your blog to your Flickr account.

Under Your blogs click the link "Configure your Flickr-to-blog settings" then Set up your blog. If you set up a new Blogger account for Thing #3, you'll use the first (default) tool listed, "Blogger Blog (New)," and click the Next button. The next page will say stuff about beta, beta.blogger.com, and things that might confuse you and me, so just click the link "Head over to Google now."

Enter your Google/Blogger/Gmail account and password, then on the next page Grant Access. Just click next if your blog title shows (if you have more than one Blogger page, there is a drop down menu of your blogs). Confirm the blog settings by clicking All Done. You then have an option for creating a custom post template, layout and settings for posting images to your blog.

You're done with account creation and linking your blog.

Now, upload an image or two (or as many as you wish!). Once you have uploaded an image, you can blog from that image page! Look just above the image to find gray text and icons giving you options of what you can do with the photo. Select the "Blog this" option and follow the prompts. The title of the blog entry defaults to the image title, but you can change that. Type in blog entry and hit the Post Entry button. (You can edit this post more extensively when you log into your Blogger account.) Pretty cool, huh?


Notes about searching in Flickr

• use quotation marks around phrases (otherwise Flickr inserts AND between words)
• the ubiquitous Search box searches on full text, not just tags; you can narrow your search somewhat from the results page by clicking the option "Tags only" and re-running your search.
  
• to go directly to a search page for searching tags only, click on the Search link next to the search box (without typing anything in search box)
• looks like it automatically searches for both singular and plural (e.g. searching "snow cones" will result in images tagged "snow cone")
  

P.S. If you are curious, like I am, about how the site name Flickr was determined, I found a blogged interview of Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake (yes, that's her last name) and learned that they went for "a name that meant light and motion" - and that she is relieved they did not choose a variation on the word photography.