Internet Tools Blog Posts
Every Saturday morning, I'll feature a cool Internet website that I find very useful. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I visit all the time to do some task. All sites featured are personal recommendations and are not sponsored advertising. If you know of any site that should be included, let me know!
Internet Tools Blog Posts
Every Saturday morning, I'll feature a cool Internet website that I find very useful. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I visit all the time to do some task. All sites featured are personal recommendations and are not sponsored advertising. If you know of any site that should be included, let me know!
A list of all the Blog Posts in this category.
ShortPixel
ShortPixel is a great service for anyone looking for an easy way to compress images. Why compress images? If you maintain a blog or host websites, a good image compression tool can make the site load faster. In addition, smaller image sizes mean less disk space.
If your uploading images to Slack, a better-compressed image may help slack show an inline preview on those larger animated GIFs.
To use the site, simply create a free account and then drag and drop images to the compression optimize box on their website. Developers will be happy to know that there are API tools for PHP and a command line tool.
Website Description
ShortPixel algorithms were perfected while optimizing over a hundred and a half million real-life images. ShortPixel not only offers the best compression for JPEG, PNG, GIF and PDF files but it also saves you a lot of time. After the simple installation, ShortPixel makes sure that all the images on your site are immediately optimized after upload.
While ShortPixel promotes the use of the WordPress Plugin and API, you don't need it to use their compression technology.
https://shortpixel.com/online-image-compression
Sample Compression
This animated gif was originally 3.6 MB, and now it's 1.6 mb.
I compressed an old PDF file from 6MB to 795K. Check out the PDF to see if there's any serious quality lost: http://www.cryan.com/pdf/IncredibleUniverse.pdf
Letter Board Generator
The folks over at Letterfolk created a cool generator that allows you to create letter board graphic. This is a creative way to display a message in social media or in Slack. There are all sorts of settings, such as font size, board size, and colors.
If your serious about Letter board, Letterfolk is the place to go. They have all sorts of designs and options that sure to meet anyone needs.
https://www.letterfolk.com/pages/virtual-letter-board
Sample Designs
Note: Like all post on the cryan.com, this is not a paid endorsement. I found the Virtual Letter Board to be a very useful graphics generator tool and thought it should be featured as this week's internet tool.
Backronym
backronym.org is simple site that converts a word into a random phrase. This is useful if you're trying to learn a complex word, or just for fun. Since the phase is random it can give you some ideas on more useful backronym.
Webster's Dictionary: an acronym deliberately formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to create a memorable name or as a fanciful explanation of a word's origin.
Sample Generated Backronym
- YAHOO: that Yarn-spinning Admissive Houttuynia Orchestrated from that Organdie
- YAHOO: the Yellowish-orange Aerological Harmonics Overpaying one Octosyllable
- CNN: that Confined Narthecium from that Nuclease
- MBTA: that Maltese Brazilian Tortricidae in an Argument
- NRA: that Nonexplorative Reconcilable Alt
Graphic Burger Text Effect
Graphic Burger has all sorts of cool text effects to download and modify using Adobe Photoshop. While it would be great if these were editable online, I think having the templates makes it just as useful.
Description from the Website
GraphicBurger is a buffet of premium quality design resources offered for free to the community. Here you'll find exclusive PSD files "cooked" in-house along with featured top-notch freebies from creatives around the world.
https://graphicburger.com/tag/text-effect/
Some Notes
- None of the Text Effects will work with Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo.
- Some of the effects will work with Photoshop Elements Editor but it appears that you need the full version of Photoshop to use the smart object container feature of the files.
Favicon & App Icon Generator
If you own a website, you still need to create a Favicon for bookmark purposes. A favicon is an icon that is displayed next to the URL in the bookmark list. Not having a custom icon makes the site look unprofessional and boring.
While you can use any graphics format for a Favicon, Microsoft is playing hardball and still requiring the use of ICO files.
This is where favicon-generator comes in handy. The site is a single source to generate all the icons for your website so it looks good on iOS and all the browsers. You don't have to worry about what format is supported by which browser and interface. The site takes all guesswork for you.
If you don't have an icon in mind, you can browse the gallery to see other Favicons to get some ideas.
Description from the Site
Although many modern web browsers support favicons saved as GIFs, PNGs or other popular file formats all versions of Internet Explorer still require favicons to be saved as ICO files (a Microsoft icon format). This tool provides an easy way to convert any GIF, PNG or JPEG to ICO which is supported by all modern web browsers. It also enables you to create favicons from scratch via a handy online editor. Additionally, the editor lets you manually tweak generated favicons to ensure the best possible result.
https://www.favicon-generator.org/
Sample Designs
When you upload an image, you are giving simple instructions on downloading the generated ZIP file and code snippets to your index.html file.
Check out Favicon and see it
Google A Day
Google a Day is a fun way to learn all the capabilities of using google to do searches. The Website asks a question and you have to find the answer.
You can get a single hint and the opportunity to see the first few letters.
Newspaper Generator
The newspaper article generator at jaguarpaw.co.uk is a quick way to generate a simple fake newspaper story. This is fun when you want to highlight someone's achievement in a newspaper.
The site is very simple to use, loads quickly, and within seconds you get a generated PDF of your limited edition newspaper.
Site Description
Use this free online newspaper generator to create your own spoof newspaper articles. Just upload a photo and add your own text.
https://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/
Premium Services
If you need more features, check out the Premium Services, where you can change the date, add a larger graphic and add related articles. Perfect when you want to frame the special moment.
Sample Content
Here's a sample Newspaper story from the Newspaper generator.
Pablo
On Social media, graphic images tend to get more attention than just a text. Pablo, by Buffer, is a great way to make a quick image with any text. You can interact with Pablo through their website or using the Chrome Extension.
The Chrome extension is great because you can transform any image right into Pablo to use as a background image - obviously make sure to have permissions to use the image.
Description from the Website
Pablo is the simplest way to create beautiful images that fit every social network perfectly.
Create images with the perfect size and format for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest. Typography, font sizes, and formatting options make everyone a designer! Pablo designers have created more than 500,000 images!
Pablo has templates for Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin. No Need to worry about the right size to use. You can post directly from Pablo or download the image for latest posting.
Sample Images
A couple of images that were scaled down for the purposes of including it in this blog.
Clock Face Generator
Sometimes having a visual clock face can help deliver a message. There's no need to create a clock face in Photoshop when you can use an online graphics generator.
Description from the site
Set the time you want to display on the clock face in the box below. You can also change the size of the face by using the slider.
https://www.helpingwithmath.com/printables/worksheets/time/3md1-clock-face-generator01.htm
Example Clock Use
Simple example of using the ClockFace:
RedKid Generator
RedKid Generator is the go-to place to find entertaining image generators. They have 55 creative image designs to pick from. Perfect when you're looking to add a bit of humor to the situation.Site Description
RedKid.Net is dedicated to providing premium, entetaining, educational, and safe content for internet users of all ages.
http://www.redkid.net/generator/sign.php
Some Examples
