Lots of digital savvy grands like their smart phones, but some baby boomers have pared down t he amount of connectivity they have. For those who like the information superhighway but want to keep it under control, there’s a new gadget called WikiReader. The tiny, capable, fascinating digital reader, the WikiReader, might be worth a look.

I had the chance to try one out.

WikiReader’s Good Points

1. The unit is quite small, like the size of a deck of cards, maybe, but square with rounded corners. Comfortable to use.
2. It has a pretty good display, with fair resolution, that can be seen indoors and outdoors.
3. Comes loaded with content – and the content can be free or upgraded to a pay subscription. The free is more than adequate, the pay version is fun, adding languages, dictionaries and other perks.
4. There are parental, or grandparental, controls.
5. Very simple. You select, read, review your history, or get random pages with one touch selection. I like the random stuff. Being a pretty random person, it suited me. I’m a Stumbleupon addict, so this felt good. Click and it brought me something to read I had never seen before.
6. Price point is as low as under $100.

WikiReader Weaknesses

• It’s a one-trick pony. Good for bringing your current events and encyclopedia type info.
• Not rechargeable. It runs, the maker says, for up to one year on two included triple A batteries, but nonetheless, it needs disposable or rechargeable batteries. Not very green, right?
• Fatiguing for long reading sessions. If the big-guy electronic readers are suffering a lag in popularity, this gadget may never get off the ground.

WikiReader Bottom Line

WikiReader is not exactly new. It’s been around a year or two, but has not taken off the way it’s backers would have liked. The team is now marketing heavily to us, the baby boomers who embrace tech and gadgets. Not a bad move since we tend to be pretty mobile and travel a lot. This gadget can slip into purse, pocket, briefcase, or suitcase and give you an edge in pulling info when you travel.

It’s a fun toy and a novelty that will set you in the early adapter echelon. For a few bucks, it’s probably worth the buy if you really like to keep up.

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Interesting things are happening at YouTube, now owned by Google. The cloud, cloud computing, is trying to be a big deal though it’s seems to start and stop. But this could be a shot in the cloud. Google says YouTube’s new editing tool allows users to manipulate video online, FREE.

Apparently there’s no complicated software download and a very shallow learning curve. You can be up and running, editing your video clips in the cloud to your heart’s content. YouTube Video Editor has a vast library of borrowable tracks to enhance your work and add some fun. You’ll need to register a free account to use the tools – all it wants is your name and email address.

Take a look, give it a try, and see if you can create your own cool portfolio of videos online. If that appeals, don’t forget to take a look at Animoto, as well.

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Animoto.com is an online do-it-yourself video production program so easy your grandchildren could absolutely create their own videos. It’s effortless and affordable. We found it fun and quick enough that the shortest attention span can hold out during the production process.

For free trial use go to the site and clicked on the get started link. We found seven options to make shorts, full-length, unbranded video and four kinds of greeting cards. We got an immediate nudge for upgrading to a paid subscription, but hey, they’re in business to make money. Once you buy a membership – you can begin creating videos. We chose the All Access level and decided to make an unbranded, short video.

We found we could turn photos or clips into a 30 second video the one featured above, with storytelling text. The site is straight forward and easy-to-use. We uploaded still images from our computer to the site. You can use your own images, select from Animoto’s stock library or retrieve from another website like Flickr, Facebook, Picassa. You’re responsible for monitoring copyrights on your own. In other words – use only material you have rights to.

Once we uploaded, the amount of time required was governed by length and resolution of the videos or stills. Animoto allows 8-15 elements (clips or images) in shorts. We chose four still images, typed a little text  and clicked. Animoto took us to background music selection, the  we gave the video a title and short description. Our video processed, analyzed and rendered, letting us know what it was doing each step of the way, for about 60 seconds. Then Animoto began actual production, showing us in color animation what it was doing. I was interested in following the progress over one and a half minutes it took to complete the video.

When finished, Animoto loaded the do-it-yourself video into the page and emailed me a copy. I didn’t have to keep the browser open. You can go do something else, or start another video in the meantime. The end result was attractive, high quality video in less than ten minutes. This process is slick and appealing. You can produce videos for your social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – or email them to friends and family. They would be suitable for showing customers your entrepreneurial products, or for sending a video resume to employer prospects.

An enterprising person could buy the pro-quality level and start a business producing wedding or family videos for profit. Animoto has been around for about three and a half years and began as a consumer level product. It has expanded to serve photo professionals and will increase its capabilities this year. Bottom line – we couldn’t find anything to complain about. The prices are justifiable, the quality outstanding, the process simple and fast. We recommend you give it a try. My partner, not easily impressed, said, “This is actually totally cool.”

Price points:

Pro account $249 annual subscription – produce unlimited length, unbranded, commercially licensed high res videos. Three months for $99.

All access: $30 per year. Unlimited full length greetings and videos for the price of an evening at the movies. Finished product has the Animoto brand name on it with music video style credits on it indicating your name as producer. It’s like watching real music videos and there are awesome embellishments available. Animoto will provide a downloadable MP4 file for $5 or a DVD for $20. If you can’t find a use for this product, you’re not a photo enthusiast.

You can make professional looking images with your digital camera, no matter what the pixel count is. I’ve always been a firm believer that it isn’t the equipment that makes the photo – it’s the photographer. Here are a couple of ideas to make your family photos pop.

1. Goo-free lenses are the best. They can be wiped gently with a lint-free, non abrasive cloth, like those micro-fiber things you dust with.
2. The owner’s manual usually talks in detail about white balance function. The balance makes colors look better, depending on where the photographer is shooting – indoors, in the sun, dim light. Those who know which white is the right white, make better pictures.
3. Composing is something only a human can do. I like capturing something interesting just off center frame. Centered makes me feel constrained. Offset just a hair looks good. I like to keep my background uncluttered, too, unless, of course, I’m shooting a landscape.
4. I love images that fill the frame. One of my favorite things is the macro setting (little thing that looks like a tulip) to shoot odd parts of objects. My little grandson’s toes, for example…filling the frame. Incredibly fun to frame and hang near a bathtub. No macro? Use telephoto – stand back, zoom in till a relatively small object fills your viewfinder. Click.

Want more tips? I like Kodak’s consumer photo Web site and Picture Correct has tips from beginner to advanced.

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Google just acquired a website called Picnik that you should know about if you like digital photography and photo editing. Picnik is FREE cloud computing, with an available upgrade if you want it. With a simple click you can edit and manipulate photos to your heart’s content. Use filters, special effects, and controls once only available in expensive editing programs.

People are bringing their photos off their hard drives now and sharing them, posting them, mailing then, printing them, and displaying them on my favorite gadget of all time, electronic photo frames. If you’re going to use your digital images, you might as well get all the functionality you can. Here’s how it works.

Browse the web or your hard drive and find a photo you like, but you think it needs a little work. Cropping? Red eye correction? Color shift? Ok. Go up to Picnik, there is no registration to fill in. Just click “Get Started Now” and — get started.

Follow the prompts to upload your image. The site is very intuitive and the documentation is right out front and easy to follow. Play around. Use the tools that appeal to you. Experiment. When you like what you’ve created, save the photo and download it back to your computer.

From there, you use it the way you have always used images. Picnik is an application that was ahead of its time and really did the cloud-thing right. I hope Google never decides to charge for this service. Picnik, along with Google Docs, Windows Live and a few other easy-to-use cloud-based application will get us into the nimbus very quickly. Let me know what you think of Picnik.

print your art

Digital photographers who still yearn for the old days of gorgeous printing papers and darkroom atmosphere will want to explore art-quality fiber papers available for ink jet printers. Exhibition quality fiber paper is made by several manufacturers for ink jet printers.

Some baby boomers consider ourselves very serious amateur photographers and today’s post is for those folks. Everyone else can stand at ease for a few – or whatever the military/corporate jargon is for “be right back”.

At least two companies, Epson and Sunset, are marketing paper rumored to look and feel like silver gelatin fiber paper you used to use in the dark room. It’s phenominal. Epson has downloadable color management profiles for the paper, according to PhotoReporter magazine.

Sunset’s paper is compatible with most printers –this, for the serious hobbyist, is a trend worth watching. The thing I miss most about printing in a darkroom is the luxuriously textured, full-of-body character of high-quality paper. Regular Ink Jet photo paper is a disappointment at best in most cases, even the good papers. I’ve worked well with watercolor papers and you might try them if you like to experiment, but they aren’t archival at all.

The expectation is these fiber papers can take us back to the excellence of Oriental papers when film was king. The tactile part of the job is a big sensual part of the joy.

If you want a more detailed look, visit PDN Online.