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The past year proved to be momentous for TechSmith Corp., which has surpassed $50 million in revenue for 2012. TechSmith's visual software provides more than 10 million users with tools to create engaging visuals and sharp videos that grab attention and keep it. Over the past 25 years, TechSmith's Snagit and Camtasia product lines have captivated individuals and professionals in more than 160 countries, with their user-friendly interfaces that redefine how consumers communicate.

"The news of Google shutting down iGoogle (November, 2013 for existing users) has left people scrambling to find alternative start page services on the web. One alternative to iGoogle that I tried last fall is MyLinkCloud. MyLinkCloud just added a couple of important features that are attractive to longtime iGoogle users."

"Analysis of millions of tweets finds more precise use of social media which seems to contradict idea that Twitter users want to share everything with everyone"

To make Google Drive stand out from the crowd, Google opened it to apps developers  and allowed users to select from a wide variety of web apps to integrate into their Google Drive accounts. With the integration of these apps, users can now handle their files and documents ways not affordable by any other cloud storage tool out there. I have curated for you some interesting apps that are integrated into Google Drive and which you can install right from your Google Drive interface.

"One of the best services Google+  provides to its users is called " communities ". Any Google Plus user can easily create and host his/her community on the cloud and in a matter of few clicks.For us in education  we can use this service to create a community for our class. In this virtual space, you will get to share with your students resources, links, and also get them to participate and contribute in it. You can also create class events with dates, location, and more details and share them with your students and their parents as well. Needless to say that you can use Google Hangout right from your community to hold video conferences with your students."

"It's common for Facebook to undergo drastic (or silent) changes whether the users like it or not. The real question is, how ready are you when Facebook is determined to 'make the world more open and connected'? Have you made full use of the privacy and account settings to your advantage? Also, if you've been observant enough you should've discovered several improvements on the existing features to make them more visible and user friendly. Why not give this list a run-through and see if you missed any."

Ben W unpacks the world of APIs. He touches on their purpose and what they mean for the personal user. "The biggest reason to use APIs is to avoid re-inventing the wheel as a software developer. You're probably not going to build your own fully-featured mapping application, so if you need a map in your software, it makes sense to integrate Google Maps or OpenStreetMap. You don't want to build your own credit card processor (trust me), so it makes sense to use Stripe. You're going to have a hard time building a market of millions of enterprise software users, so you're going to piggyback on Slack. And so on. APIs present a pragmatic solution that allows us to build on other software while saving on short-term costs. They're not a magic wand, but used wisely, they allow us to build entirely new products and services. And maybe - just maybe - they will allow us to take control of our digital lives and build a new kind of internet."

Thinkcad is a free open source web-based tools that allows users to learn to design the products of their life. Students will be able to easily design in 3D what they have always dreamed of, but never thought possible. Until now. This is a fantastic tool to introduce real-world fabrication skills that teach student that that they can learn by doing. Tinkercad also has a growing community that helps users learn how to create their first real things in just a few minutes. A great tool!

By using our Street View technology, Google has a unique opportunity to make world heritage sites available to users across the globe. Street View is a hugely popular feature of Google Maps which is already available in dozens of countries. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. With advancements in our camera technologies we can now go off the beaten track to photograph some of the most significant places in the world so that anyone, anywhere can explore them.

Occasionally there is a piece software that comes along which astonishes me that I can download it for free. We have been recently investigating the ability for our users to sync their docs with a cloud service, primarily for backup. We have looked at Google Drive, DropBox and SkyDrive and there are many others. All have advantages / disadvantages however there is one thing that none of them seem to do - local storage. We simply can't have 1,500 users all trying to sync to the Internet and expect it to work across our 50 meg pipe.  We need it to be stored locally, on one of our servers. Sure we'll need tons of storage and won't have intercontinental redundancy and failover, but let's be honest we are not backing up nuclear launch codes here. One large RAID 5 storage should do the trick.

The Jetpack publishing platform enables users to create collections of interactive media called "packs." The packs can be run on most popular devices, and because the content is stored on the users' phones, it runs natively and doesn't have delays caused by downloads. From Purdue University.

"With over 170 million active users and playing a significant role in media consumption, Twitter has turned into the go-to site for real-time updates and gathering snippets of info from those we're interested in. Pretty much everyone knows how to put a tweet together and how to reply to users, but what about more advanced features such as shortcuts, apps and SEO. If you want to improve your knowledge or want to pick up a few tips and tricks to help you get more out of the service, then read on."

Welcome to the Apps User Group website. Our purpose is to connect and assist schools in the use of Google Apps for Education. The site contains resources for implementing and using Google Apps, news from the Google blogs, links to schools that use Google Apps, a discussion forum, and more. All uses are encouraged to share resources, ideas, questions, and comments.

"Weather Underground's WunderMap now allows the user to view historical weather records on a Google Map. A calendar control above the map allows the user to select a date and view the historical weather records for that day. The records include radar, storm reports and even weather related photographs and webcam images taken on that day."

A new Creative Commons license chooser launched this week.  The very simple interface presents four boxes that update dynamically as users select options and complete attribution metadata. After completing the form, users are presented with a suggested license, a choice of regular or compact size icons, and embed code for inserting their license on a web page.

"We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily-whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify. "

Skylines, a photo search engine based in Amsterdam, launched a new product today, a widget that users can customize to show a real-time feed of photos on their website. Through Skylines's widget, users have access to more than five million photos being added daily from various platforms including Twitter, TwitPic, Instagram, Yfrog and Lockerz. The widget, which can be added to any website or online publication for free, displays real-time photos on any topic of choice

There are roughly 792 mobile apps downloaded each second. As a result, more and more services are taking to mobile in an effort to capitalize on this trend. That also means location-based capabilities and features are being integrated into many apps, whether users know it or not. You may be someone who takes personal and digital privacy matters very seriously, or you might be more relaxed about your digital information. Either way, there are four types of settings users can check to determine how much information they make available to the world.

"Google does let you opt out, and every Gmail user will get an email from the company notifying them and pointing them to the privacy settings when the feature goes live. Here's what those privacy settings look like:"

"As I lamented in my last post, many of the fabulous Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. This limits what Elementary/Primary schools students can access online to create content to collaborate. To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available. Please note that generally the sites that allow for under 13s still ask for parental permission ( even Edmodo if you haven't read the Terms of Use) so a solid school user agreement is needed to use these tools. Some of the sites are not US based so are not bound by COPPA and CIPA regulations. It still requires schools to carefully check out what can be viewed on these sites to ensure they are appropriate to access."