The Nashville Public Library Foundation is a local nonprofit that promotes the initiatives of and raises funds for the Nashville Public Library.  Their offices are in the main library campus downtown, and they have been a lovely bunch of people to work with. 

Here’s what their website says about their mission:

“The Nashville Public Library Foundation seeks and stewards funding from private sources to enhance the programs, facilities and collections of the Nashville Public Library.”

We are really proud of this website design.  It’s elegant, easy to read and navigate, and has a visual style that feels modern-yet-classic all at the same time.  We hope you’ll check out the new NPLF.org. 

Remember last year when Google unveiled their new Street View feature on their maps?  At first, the feature only worked for New York and Los Angeles, but Google promised to slowly start adding more and more cities. 

And now they’ve added Nashville, which is pretty sweet.

If you’re totally clueless as to what I’m talking about, let me briefly describe Google Street View.  You probably already know that you can choose to view a Google map in one of three ways:  traditional, satellite, and hybrid (the first two views combined together).  Satellite is, well, satellite photos of the mapped area.  So you can see real pictures of the tops of buildings. 

Well Street View is a revolutionary new way to see Google Maps.  It gives you an image from the angle of the street.  You can rotate 360 degrees and look all around you.  So you could run a Google map of a location you’ve never been before, and then after you get your directions you could choose Street View and get a feel for the neighborhood you’re headed to… find some landmarks to help you make sure you don’t get lost on the way to your destination.

So here’s a shot of the Ryman:

And now one of the Parthenon:

The way Google accomplishes this impressive collection of images is with a special new camera.  They mount the camera on the top of a van or car, and the camera is like a big ball, that actually has 8 or more cameras pointing in all directions.  Then, as they drive down the street, they capture images all around them. 

It’s pretty dang cool.  I spent several more minutes than I should have “touring” Nashville on Google Street View–checking out old houses I’ve lived in, finding landmarks like The Exit In or LP Field.  Hey look… there’s the corner outside the Sommet Center where I always buy my Nashville Predators tickets from a scalper! 

Neato. 

Anyway, check it out when you have a chance.  It’s WAY more addictive than you think it will be.

Photoshop has been the gold standard of professional photography software.  Several years back, they expanded their brand’s reach by releasing a scaled down version (for a much cheaper price tag) called Photoshop Elements. 

Now Adobe is gunning for even more by releasing Photoshop Express, a free online version of Photoshop. 

Aimed squarely at the core audience for already-established free photo-editing software like Google’s Picasa, Photoshop Express is a web-based application that uses Flash as a platform. 

You create an account and upload your photos.  From there, you have some basic editing tools at your fingertips such as cropping, color adjustment, red-eye reduction, and much more. 

You can also then create a gallery and export your edited pictures to that gallery for all the world to see.  In this way, Express is a lot like Flickr or PhotoBucket or any other photo-sharing website. 

It’s a crowded marketplace, so Adobe has their work cut out for them.  After all, any Windows user can already perform most of the same kinds of basic picture edits using Microsoft Office Picture Manager, which comes with the Microsoft Office suite of programs. 

But Adobe has their brand name going for them.  Everyone knows of Photoshop.  And now, what was once an expensive and complicated software for the elite has a new younger brother that is trim and simple and, best of all, free. 

So I tested it out for you.  I created my account, and uploaded a few photos.  The main photo on this post is one of the results of my edits.  I tried to use as many Photoshop Express features as I could on that picture, but if I’m honest… a lot of them weren’t terribly useful.  The main feature to rave about is the “color pop” control.  You can see that I’ve made everything in the photo black and white except for the jellyfish.  That’s a nice touch, I think, and not something I can do easily with some of the other basic photo-editing suites. 

I did feel like the Flash interface really slowed things down for me.  There’s a lot of wasted time spent waiting around for sections of the site to load, and that was aggravating.  Maybe I just have a slow connection today… but I doubt it.  Flash elements are notorious for slowing down a site’s performance. 

Overall, though… for something that’s free, you can’t beat it.  And since the project is still in beta (testing mode), you can be sure that customer feedback will help fine-tune things quite a bit.  So the end product will likely be even better. 

Check it out yourself here. 

Oh, and here’s the original photo for my example above… almost a shame I chose this picture, because the original is pretty darn good to begin with. 

So it’s that time of year again… & the NCAA Tournament (code name: March Madness) has begun.  Sweet! 

This is a time of great productivity loss for many employers.  In fact, it is estimated that nearly $1.2 Billion was lost by U.S. companies during last year’s games, due to employees’ fascination with the tournament.  Many employees call in sick on various March Madness days. 

Others still will keep up with the games online.  You can even watch 2008 NCAA Tournament games on your computer… streaming live.  I tried it out myself just now, catching part of the second half of the Xavier game, and it’s pretty slick.  I had to “wait in line” about 30 seconds before I got admitted into the “screening room”, and then had to watch a soft-drink commercial before the game came on… but then I was treated to some really great quality live-streaming video of the game. 

Try it out.  But be careful.  As USAToday notes, there are many employers who are hip to your jive… and they might be blocking your web access to the games entirely (the wonderful WebSense Internet filtering service we offer does a fantastic job of slapping offending employees on the wrist).  There are ways around this, of course… if you feel that strongly about watching the action.  You could set up a television in your office somewhere and sneak a peek between doing chunks of work (I’m looking at you, my fellow Keystone employees).  But you run a pretty obvious risk of being caught if you do that. 

You can always go to Yahoo Sports and follow the game action with their fabulous Game Channel system.  It won’t be live streaming video… but at least you’ll know who’s dunking on whom. 

This past year, I watched a couple of games on the NFL Network’s website when I didn’t have access to an actual cable-equipped television.  You can watch some PGA tournaments on live streaming video as well.  It is the golden age of sports fandom, folks.  Don’t have an HD TV?  No sports bar near you?  No problem.  Just log online and watch it live… for free.  Fantastic. 

Between these giant leaps for fan-kind and the rapid growth of sites that feature high-quality video of TV Shows and Movies online for free (such as Hulu or Fancast or Joost)… I almost don’t need a television anymore.  Which is kind of a bummer, since I dropped several hundred dollars on it only 6 months ago.  Oh well.  TV as we know it isn’t going anywhere just yet.  So for now, I just have more options. 

But soon, everything I want or need to watch will be online–probably for free, supported with ads–and I’ll need a 72-hour battery life on my laptop.  

Go grab some popcorn or a hot dog, sit back (maybe even in your office cubicle) and enjoy the games… but keep a wary eye out for the bosses!

The current iTunes business model is that you pay $0.99 per song.  It’s been that way for quite some time, in fact. 

But according to news reports, Apple is negotiating with record labels for a new model that would be music to the ears of iTunes fans:  free music access. 

That’s right.  Free.  Apple is trying to get the labels to consent to an iTunes where users gain access to any and all music they desire.  The catch–there’s always a catch, isn’t there?–is that Apple would then charge more for their digital music devices, and pass that extra revenue on to the record companies as payment. 

So your new iPod might cost $500 or $600, but then you’d have free music access to download all the free songs your device can hold.  Well, there’s also a rumor that Apple may include a sort of “membership” or “download subscription” fee–and I can’t tell if that’s in conjunction with the added cost to the mp3 player or as an alternative pricing model.  Either way… free music is probably on its way to iTunes soon. 

Pretty sweet, eh?  Just look at the guy in that picture; that dude is loving this news. 

Theoretically, you’d never have to pay for music again… only for mp3 players.  Granted, those mp3 players might end up costing as much as a gently used motorcycle, but hey… unlimited free music downloads, right? 

Unfortunately, if you own a Zune, you’re out of luck.  Sounds like the only folks who will be able to take advantage of this new model will be people who own or buy Apple products like the iPhone and the iPod.  Of course, if you own a Zune, you’re probably already used to being in the minority. 

The change in revenue model will be huge news if it goes through, and will further cement iTunes’ status as the top destination for digital music downloads.  Check back frequently for updates as news of this development becomes more readily available. 

If you’ve ever been to our offices, then you’ve certainly seen the two-monitors phenomenon in action.  All but one person in our office uses a two-monitor computer set up. 

I must admit, somewhat sheepishly, that I am that lone single-monitor user.   However, I do have a large wide-screen display that has greatly increased my on-screen “real estate.” 

A new study shows that two monitors do much more than just making you look cool… seems they help your productivity as well.  Sweet. In fact, they can help you complete tasks up to 52% faster than your one-monitor peers.  Actually, it’s not the adding of a second screen itself that increases productivity… but, rather, it is the increased size of your on-screen real estate.  So simply buying a bigger monitor would help. 

From the article:

“The study concluded that someone using a larger monitor could save 2.5 hours a day.”

Wow.  That’s a number that could easily justify the added cost of a new or bigger monitor.  Our employees find that the increased productivity comes from having multiple programs open and readily available at the same time.  Your Outlook inbox, for example, open on one screen… with Quickbooks or Internet Explorer open in the other.  Hopping back and forth between the two is beyond simple, and the time you save from not having to minimize and maximize program windows adds up quickly. 

Microsoft also has an excellent “how-to” article on setting up a dual-monitor work station. 

So the bottom line is this:  dual monitors–even just bigger monitors in general–are not just for power users anymore.  More and more companies are seeing employee productivity rise dramatically from the two monitor set up, and the trend is picking up serious steam. 

Obviously, if you are a Keystone customer, we would love to talk to you further about our own dual monitor set ups and help you place an order for the right monitor additions for you and your employees.  Let us know if we can help.