A Few More Tech Tools

Here are a few tech tools I've been using lately. Enjoy!

BibMe
Requires a free account, but worth doing so your citations are saved for you. First, click on the colored tab that matches what type of material you want to site cite [update: (thanks for the correction, anonymous commenter!)] (book, magazine, etc.) Let's look at a book example. Type in an ISBN, a title, or an author and BibMe finds the book. *Shameless Plug*: I searched for "Making a Collection Count." If you click on a title in the results list, a new browser tab opens to the WorldCat.org record for that title. Do this to make sure it's the right one. Once verified, close that browser tab and go back to the BibMe tab. Now click on the green "Select" check-mark next to the title. A form appears with the citation information for that item. You can choose to site the whole book or a chapter from the book. If you scroll down, there is a place to add an annotation if you want. Click on "Add to My Bibliography." An ad appears. Your choice: click it or ignore it. Your citation is now saved in the "My Saved Bibliography" tab at the top of the screen. In that tab, you can choose a different citation style and the list changes to that style. Genius!

I still love Son of Citation Machine, too, but it doesn't save your citations. I can see using BibMe while writing papers and books, but even just to keep a list of books and articles you want to remember to read later.


PDF to JPG Online Converter
No accounts or software downloads required. Ignore (or click if you like) the ad in the middle of the page. Scroll down to the "Choose File" button. Find the PDF saved on your computer. If you want to be notified when the conversion is completed, enter your email address. I never do this, honestly. Click on "Convert PDF to JPG" and sit back. About two seconds later, a new screen comes up. Again, an ad is prominent at the top of the page (hey, it's a free service, isn't it?) usually, you will have two choices below the ad: JPG Pictures and ZIP Archive. Just click on "Download" under JPG Pictures and save your new JPG. Very, very simple.

There's always Zamzar for other file conversions, too. Upload your file, get it back in another format. No accounts or software installations necessary. It'll convert just about anything to just about anything else.


Fagan Finder
Fagan Finder is a search engine for finding specific things, like definitions, images, quotations, Wikipedia articles, videos, weather, maps, etc. Yes, Google will find all of that for you too, but Fagan Finder lets you just select a radio button for your choice and put in your key word. Fagan Finder is more like a collection of the best sources for your answer. It is useful for those times when Google is too much, or too irrelevant. Fagan Finder will give you the best tools to search. It is a great starting point for research on a topic. Read their about page for a great description of this tool.