Today we had presentations in class about the different interfaces people interrogated. They went through what each did and how they were good or bad for using. All of the presentations were good and I learned a lot about different websites and how they could be used. There were some that I would use more than others obviously, but they all had their pluses and minuses.

For me, the most interesting and one I would use the most was SoundCloud. I love music and I love finding/sharing music even more. This is a great website for all of this. As Tinny said in his presentation you can search a wide variety of music and and even upload any you want. I thought the best feature was that it makes suggestions to you based on what you have already listened to. This is great for finding new music. The overall interface looked easy to navigate as well, which is always important as well. SoundCloud is definitely a website that I could see myself using in the future.

I thought that today’s presentations covered a really interesting range of tools. The ones I was most drawn to were Creativisit and PicMonkey. I think those would be good options for me to look into using for my Project 3.  I was drawn to PicMonkey because, while I enjoy using photo editing software like Photoshop, I’m not very proficient in it because it’s too expensive to buy. I thought that PicMonkey looked like a more user-friendly version of Photoshop, and it seems like a tool that could be useful in a variety of situations.

Creativist looked like a potentially useful platform for making my third project. I’m much better with writing and imagery than I am with video, so I might make my third project in a story format. If that’s what I choose to do, I think Creativist could be a good tool to employ despite its limitations that Jenna pointed out.

Overall, the presentations today were well done and helped me think about what I want to do for my third project.

Maddi G’s presentation on Comic Master really intrigued me, and I think it’s the interface I would like to explore further.  I’d never really come across a website that allowed you to design a comic series before, and the site seems pretty straightforward and easy to use.  It’d be a good tool for an extremely informal presentation, and seems like an extremely easy way to communicate a story.  While there are some constraints that Maddi talked about, such as the lack of variety in themes and rigidity of the one-page structure, its novelty is what intrigues me to explore it further.

I really like 750 words. It seems like an effective and user-friendly brain jogger. I might use it to jump start my writing if I ever entered a period of intense writing (as in trying to finish a long document). I liked the simplicity and I think it could be useful for clearing your brain before you focus on something in particular.

I found this interface the most interesting. I think if utilized well in a presentation setting, it can really be useful in presenting in a creative way. I really enjoyed Jenna’s presentation and curious to learn more about this interface. I found it useful in the way you could create a slideshow on one of the posts and the features overall seem easy to learn.

Out of all the tools I saw presented today, I think SoundCloud would be the most applicable in my life. I have so many friends that use it and I’ve definitely downloaded files from the site before but I’ve never really gotten into it or understood the range of capabilities the site has to offer. After learning so much about it today, however, I may download the app after class.

My favorite application was definitely 750 Words. I’m always happier when I make time to journal, but I’m pretty terrible at maintaining the habit. This site helps to solve that problem by creating a minimum and recognizing the user for doing it every day. The rewards may not mean anything, but they come with a sense of accomplishment, which is enough for most people on the internet. The only real downside is the $5 monthly fee. I was totally going to use this site until the $60 per year thing came up. I understand why they’d rather have people pay than run ads, though, because an ad would kill the minimalistic non-distracting design.

From the presentation in class today, I decided that I think PicMonkey is something I would be interested in learning more about. The presentation outlined some major benefits of bringing your own photos into PicMonkey. I love working with photos (Instagram is my favorite social media app) and I think that being able to do so on my computer aside from Instagram would be fun and useful.

Some features PicMonkey has to offer include: a touch-up tool for skin/mouth/eyes, over 60 fonts to insert text, frames, textures, overly stickers for funny additions, and filters that are similar to what you might use in Instagram. In the presentation, he also described that PicMonkey allows users to upload fonts from their computer to add more variety.

I am excited to go online to PicMonkey and being playing with the tools and features to enhance my photos. The tutorials will hopefully help me do so. Even though I am interested in using this site, I do not think that I would be willing to pay a membership fee. There are so many free photo editing apps, so I don’t see the need to pay for this one. I would love to use the free access however.