Homage to iUsethis

If you have never visited i-use-this, and you use the mac platform, you need to go there now!

I will be posting a series of blogs on applications that I find useful in-or-out-of the classroom.  I won’t try to number them but I will try to link to tutorial videos or just make my own.  So sit back, download a few .zip/.dmg files and see if I cannot make your mac desktop/laptop/mini hum with excitement for all the shiny new applications it acquires 🙂

I have found myself looking endlessly for certain theory applications or to-do apps and then graphic altering apps.  The good news is that iUseThis has them all!  At a recent staff day I made the booklet featured below (Mac App Resources) about applications that helped me with my day to day planning/lesson creation/+ organisation.  Not to mention finding and changing those icons on your hardrive’s folders to something more creative…

(For fellow windows users there are PC versions of the apps listed but you will have to search for them.  Sometimes, as is the case with CDPedia etc, the website links to a PC version from another company).

Continuing On…

Diigo Social Bookmarking, Sharing, Research Assistant & Web Highlighter – this is a social bookmarking site which requires a free signup.  As I am a member of MusicTechieTeachers they have a collection of music education bookmarks spanning the internet for quick access.  I can also create my own, annotate/highlight the websites I visit and even add ‘sticky notes’ for students when I send them to a music journal article as part of their homework.  This can be used for any faculty or subject!  See the video below:

& RSS Readers – I get a few emails on how to subscribe to my website’s RSS feed and also other sites across the net. What better way than to have a program subscribe to blogs across the internet and their information be delivered to you? Through a dedicated RSS Reader program!

The following three applications are, in my opinion, excellent apps to download and try out.  Best of all they are free, have clutter free interfaces and are simple to work out.

Visit the websites mentioned for RSSOWL (for Mac, Windows & Linux), NewsFire (Mac) and NetNewsWire (Mac, iPhone, iPad).