With the freeware version of LiveBrush, you can export your drawings as PNG files. With the $10 paid version, you can export vector files for professional use.

The Interface

While LiveBrush is easy to use, there are no tool-tips to help you get familiar with the interface. In order to get comfortable using LiveBrush, we must first understand the various interface controls.

The Project Bar at the top shows the current project and brush style. It also has buttons for LiveBrush app settings, and saving the project.

The Styles Panel at the top right is the key place where you select brush styles with which to draw. You can create new styles, import and export styles, or rearrange their order.

The most interesting thing however, is that you can select multiple brush styles to draw. It is fun letting your imagination go wild experimenting with different brush styles! It is also useful to preview a style before using it, using the “eye” button.

The different Tools in LiveBrush are shown in a vertical bar at the top right:

• Brush: the main drawing tool. This is a motion-enabled “live brush” as it responds to the speed of your mouse gestures.
• Pen: used to add “points” to previously drawn lines. These points are used as control points for transforming lines.
• Transform: used to transform layers or line points.
• Bucket: standard solid color fill tool.
• Sample: color picker tool.

The Tool Settings panel displays settings for the currently selected tool. For the Brush tool, it provides access to three kinds of settings:

• Brush Behavior: specifies brush response to mouse movements (velocity, friction) and when decorations are attached
• Brush Line: specifies how the line looks at each point, such as width, stroke type, angle, opacity, and color
• Brush Decoration: settings for the graphics attached to your lines in different brush styles

For the Transform tool, the Tool Settings panel gives access to transformation properties for the currently selected line points or layer.

At the bottom is the standard Layers panel to work with layers. You can duplicate, rearrange, remove, transform and flatten layers using this panel.

Drawing and Editing

Drawing is easy! Just select a brush style and draw. Apart from some basic styles, you will find floral, ink splats, fractal, light, smoke, and ribbon styles of brushes. Experiment with different brush behaviors – velocity and friction settings. Try out different Line and Decoration settings.

All graphics are organized in Layers. Use the Layers panel to remove, flatten, or change colors of layers. Click the Transform tool after you’ve drawn a few lines, select a layer, and see how you can move, rotate or resize layers.

Import and Export

Livebrush encourages you to share your drawings with the community. The Livebrush forum is a great place to check out art that others have created. Here is an example from the Livebrush photostream on Flickr:

The File > Import and File > Export menus let you import and export different parts of Livebrush projects such as the whole image, individual layers, brush styles, or a Deco list. New brush styles (Typography, Geometry, etc) and decorations are regularly added to the community, so make sure you check them out to import and use them in your drawings.

Did you like using Livebrush? Share your creations (and experiments) with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Drawing Cartoon Faces Easily with PimpTheFace (5)
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You do not have to sign up or register to enjoy SketchFu to create drawings online, contrary to popular belief. But if you want to save your doodles or submit them for others to see, you will need a free login and password. I did not do that for this article.

Let’s see how it works.

Navigate on over to SketchFu and you will be greeted by this screen:

They have up a basic doodle showing what you can do with the application with a little imagination. You can see drawings other users have created on the right hand side. You can click on them and see what the users created. You can also “cheer” it or comment on it if you have an account.

To create a drawing online yourself (why else would you have gone to the site?) all you have to do is hit the New button at the bottom of the home page. There are 5 colored arrows pointing to it and a circle saying try it. Hopefully you will find the button!

The drawing interface you see above is all there is to it! You can choose the color of your brush and your brush size… That’s it! The other buttons at the top let you undo or play back your drawing, stroke by stroke, anywhere from twice to 256 times. Check that out after you are done drawing – a very cool feature and it can show others how to create your image from scratch!

Above you can see the color picker which is activated simply by hitting the black box next to the word color at the top of the interface. You can either type in a color’s hex code or choose from the chooser.

Next up we see the different brush sizes that we can use. You select the one you want by clicking on it and then drawing. There are 6 different sizes ranging from teeny tiny to whoa that’s fricking big!

You can see I drew a line with each one below:

After finding the site I decided to draw a little. Show everyone how awesome I am with a paint brush….but oh wait! I can’t paint! So maybe you will get a laugh out of my SketchFu sketch as you can see below it is on par with my 2 year old’s skills

Now that you all had a good laugh at my expense let’s take a look at what talented people can do with this application:

So that is the top bunch of sketches that have been cheered on by the community. It is really amazing what some of these artists can do with a simple application like this! Here is my favourite - you can click on it and watch how the artist drew it line by line. This is sooo cool!

I am very impressed by this site and it’s contributors – do you know of another similar site to create drawings online? We would love for you to tell us about it so we could check it out!

SketchFu

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• LiveBrush – A Versatile Freeware Image Editor That Lets You Draw Like An Artist (12)
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BKChem is a chemical drawing Ubuntu chemistry software that’s packed with features. It supports, according to the developer team website: bond-by-bond drawing, bond length and angle restrictions to assist with the drawing, ready to use templates of common rings, the ability to expand common groups from abbreviated to structural form, support for linear formulas, radicals & charges, arrows (several types – normal, retro, equilibrium, etc.), rich text, color support, simple vector graphics (rectangles, circles, polygons etc.). Another nice touch is the automatic validity check of the drawings.

Editing is also a breeze with unlimited undo and redo capabilities, aligning, scaling, rotation (2D, 3D), aligning of molecules so that particular bond is horizontal/vertical, rotation of molecular fragments around bonds (conformation changes), definition of personal preferred drawing style (bond lengths, widths, colors).

You’re not locked in if your school uses another software. BKChem has export capabilities for SVG (native data are transparently embedded into SVG file), OpenOffice Draw format, ODF (OpenOffice 2.0), Encapsulated PostScript, PDF, PNG, basic support for both CML1 and CML2, Molfiles and generation of SMILES.It can also import CML1 and CML2, Molfiles, SMILES (subset) and INChI (subset). BkChem is translated in English, French, Czech, Polish, German and Traditional Chinese translations.

Chemical Calculator or GChemCalc is another Ubuntu chemistry software app that’s a simple chemical calculator for determining molecular weights of a formula and their respective percentages, all really fast and easy. There’s not much to be said about it, except I use it all the time – simple is almost always better.

Kalzium provides you with all kinds of information about elements in the Periodic Table of the Elements. You can lookup information about the elements and also use visualizations to show them. It is free and licensed under the GNU Public License.

You can visualize the Periodic Table of the Elements by groups, blocks, and families. You can plot data for a range of elements for properties like the boiling point or the atomic mass and can go back in time and see what elements were known at a given data.

Kalzium is divided in a navigation panel on the left and the table view which shows the elements of the periodic table. The standard menu bar allows you to choose what you want to display and the status bar reports facts. You can hide the navigation panel by using the View->Show Sidebar menu.

When you move the mouse cursor on an element of the table, an overview of the current element in the Overview tab of the navigation panel will be displayed. You can choose  several views for the table: display the elements per families, per groups, per crystal structure, depending on their acidic behavior, etc. You can change all that in the menu bar in the View->Scheme menu. If you want to know facts about a precise element, click on it in the table and the information dialog will be displayed.You can also calculate the molecular mass of molecules with the tool in its sidebar. You can enter linear formulas to calculate their weight.

You can install any of the Ubuntu chemistry software applications discussed in this article by searching for their name in the Synaptic Package Manager, checking the box on the left of its name and clicking ”Apply Changes”. To launch Synaptic, choose System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

Most educational software is readily available for other distributions such as Fedora or SuSE, in their respective package managers, so try searching for the application name. We describe the installation process for Ubuntu because it’s the most widely used of the bunch.

Another aspect worth noting are the custom made distributions, designed from the get-go to be used by students in an educational environment. We’ll get into the details of this in the upcoming eBook, a handy guide for setting up your kids with a computer.

You might want to check out some other posts related to Linux, Ubuntu or education, here on MakeUseOf. We have also published the “Newbie’s Getting Started Guide to Linux” ebook.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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What PimpTheFace lets you do is create a awesome face with their different body parts. You can create some really cool looking faces with this service. Drawing cartoon faces of someone is definitely a good way to kill a few hours.

Let’s take a look at how it works and then I will show you two videos on the service. First start off by browsing on over to PimpTheFace.

Once you are there, click on the paint splatter that says click here. Right after you click on that you will be pushed to a page with a Photoshop-esque editor. It might look intimidating at first but it is really quite easy to use and master.

You will see two columns on the left and one more on the right. One of those columns – the left most one, allows you to pick the body part out of the choices. This includes the head shape, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, facial hair and more.

The column closer to the middle is how you select which body part you want to add next. Select the top icon like you can see in the below screen shot. This is the faces outline or silhouette. Once you click on it, the items you can pick are on the left. Click on one of them and it will appear in the drawing window. If you want to change it simply select another icon. It will replace the one that is currently there – easy peasy.

In the above shot I added my silhouette and below you will see my head or dome type. I am really having fun with this – are you having fun yet?

Now you should have the hang of it. Once you see how it works it is pretty intuitive. Keep on adding facial items until you reach the bottom of the list and have a full face. You can go back and change any items you like until you have an image you love.  Here is the image I created in about 5 minutes.

After you are happy with your face you can let him travel the world in the form of adding backgrounds. You can do that by using this toolbar on the right: It allows you to save your face as well as print or store it online. You will need an account for these features. I just copied my face out.

Here is a video on creating a face with PimpTheFace:

And one more on how to draw President Obama using PimpTheFace.

We would love to see your creations! Post them up for us to see. Link to em’ or what ever you want but we can’t wait to see your creativeness! If you’re familiar with any other website offering easy tools for drawing cartoon like faces please let us know about them.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But I do enjoy doodling, so a boring meeting plus a pad and pencil equals time-killing fun. I have been doodling since elementary school and I enjoy looking at other people’s doodles’ as well. I am not talking about the application Doodle, either. I am talking about good old fashioned pen and paper doodles!

Now, I came across an awesome blog that not only showcases people’s doodles but they also let you upload your own! It is called DoodlerBlog.

Have you ever came across a website and said “ I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT!” – well this is one of them!

I can see this going the way of lolCatz or Failblog and blowing up.

The first time I visited the site I enjoyed looking at doodles from Billy Gates, Barrack Obama and even George Bush. But that is not why I like the site so much. It has a uploader so you can submit your own doodles and have them published on the site for posterity!

I choose a few of my favorites to show you:

Barrack Obama Doodle

Inferno Doodle

Ronald Regan Doodle

Tribal Doodle

And I even uploaded one of my Doodle’s and it was published

Graffiti Doodle

You can visit the site and upload your own doodles (or email them at doodlerblog@gmail.com) to use the aptly named “Nifty Submitter Thingy” on the right sidebar as you can see below:

Simply fill in your Name and Email address. Then, locate to the doodle on your computer. It needs to be in .jpg, .gif, .png or .pdf format and under 2 MB. After you select the image, hit the Upload button.

Then, hit the confirm button and off it goes! Do you doodle? Does sharing your doodles with the world interest you? Have some doodles you want to share with us? Link us or upload them to DoodlerBlog!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The Preparation
Let’s start with the concept of the design: it should be simple enough with as little color variation as possible (more color means higher cost, and my friend’s on a tight budget), but he wants the design to be cool and a bit “Web 2.0-ish”.

Problem is, I have no idea what is the parameter of “Web 2.0-ish” design. I don’t even know what size a namecard should be. So, I turn to my best friend Google for a help. I found 2 articles that helped: Web 2.0 how-to design style guide and What size should I put. That should be enough to start. If you want to get some more ideas for business card design, check out Cool Business Card Design part 1, part 2 and part 3; and Web 2.0 Logo List.

The Process

First, I opened new document from DrawIt Lite and set the work area to 1062×615 pixels with 50% grey as the background color. I wanted to set the background to a neutral color so that I can add lighter or darker colors for the other elements. You can set the background to be transparent if you want.

The next thing to do is to add some words. So, I clicked the “Insert” button from the top left-hand corner and chose “Text”. Now you’re ready to start. I double-clicked the work area and started writing the company’s name. You can adjust any elements of the text (font type, color, size) in the “Special Attributes” area at the top right of the window.You may also adjust the parameters of the text box (position, size, angle) in the “Attributes” area down in the left-hand corner of the window.You can also drag and position the text box to the location you prefer.

Then, I added another text box for the name and another for the logo. I tried to keep everything simple by using only text and didn’t use any other elements like images, shapes or vectors. But that doesn’t mean you can’t. Each element is be added as an individual layer and can be edited (and deleted if needed) individually.

The Result

Finally after a few adjustments, here are the results. Maybe a little too simple for your taste, but hey, it’s only 30 minutes’ work of pro-bono work.

And to give my friend a few choices, I tried to redo the process using different color combinations.

Another vector drawing app that you could try is InkScape.

Enjoyed this article? Do you want to learn how to make a real Web 2.0 business card? Check out 5 Ways To Create Your Business Card 2.0 by David.

DrawIt Lite is Mac only.

Why don’t you try creating your own card and share your result using the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The first step is buying them a Windows Mobile cellphone. The next is loading it with the coolest downloads that any college kid would love.

1. Give Them Instant Access to Blogs With HubDog

In today’s academic world, students are gathering just as much information for research and homework help from blogs as they do from other “official” informational sites.  Blogs often provide valuable links and resources, but with added commentary that helps students understand concepts.  Bloggers are almost free tutors for college students, and blogs have become an invaluable resource.

One of the best mobile apps to stay connected with your favorite blogs is HubDog, which provides access to blogs and news, as well as an integrated music and video podcast player.

I mostly use Hubdog to stay on top of the latest gadgets and technology news, but if you click on “Discover,” there are countless topics you can choose from. As you can see on the right, the blog and news updates are displayed in an easy to read format on your mobile screen, with nice clear pictures and easy touch screen or keypad navigation.

2. Use vTap To Watch Videos Or Research On Wikipedia

Every time I find myself trapped in an airport terminal, or waiting in a doctor’s office, I find myself firing up vTap to pass the time.  Travis previously reviewed vTap here. Whether it’s passing an hour between classes or looking for the latest news, vTap offers students access to thousands of streaming video clips.

The video content students can access through vTap include categories such as news, sports, movies, music and more. Trust me, it’s impossible to get bored with this app on your mobile phone, and the feeds are constantly updated with new content all the time.

I’ve attempted to use mobile video streaming sites before, and I’ve always been disappointed by quality. To test vTap’s video streaming capabilities, I downloaded a clip of the trailer for the movie Twilight.  To my surprise, using a standard AT&T cellphone data network, the file downloaded in under two minutes and the video quality was surprisingly good.

The screenshot above doesn’t do it much justice, but considering the screen size and the fact that the video was streamed over a cellphone network, the quality was better than any I’d seen before. Although keep in mind that vTap serves an international audience, so read the titles carefully so that you know what language the videos are in before you download it.

And should students have the need to conduct instant research on Wikipedia in class?  vTap now offers instant, searchable access to all Wikipedia content. This fact alone makes vTap an extremely valuable mobile research tool.

3. Access to Instant 24 Hour Streaming Radio With Mundu Radio

At the very center of almost every student’s life is music. College students listen to music while walking to class in the morning, while waiting between classes, or while working out at the gym. One of the greatest benefits to having a Windows Mobile device is access to the Internet, where there are countless sources of streaming radio stations broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Mundu Radio gives students the ability to plug headphones into their mobile device and transform it into a music machine, no matter where they are. The application provides a long list of music genres to choose from, and a nice clean player interface with simple controls to play and stop the music or adjust the volume.

Let’s face it, most students don’t have the cash to keep buying MP3’s to download. And the last thing you want is your kid dumping their scholarship money (or your savings account money) into music downloads. Mundu radio lets a poor (or frugal) college student listen to great music 24 hours a day without spending a dime.

4. Find Wi-Fi Hotspots Anywhere With WeFi

Now here’s a secret for parents considering purchasing a Windows Mobile device for their kid, but unsure about the expensive monthly data charge. Another alternative is to do what many mobile laptop users do – go hunting for Wi-Fi hot spots.

WeFi lets you search for an active network within range, where you can run unlimited data transfers at no cost.  David mentioned WeFi in our article about WiFi hotspot finders, and Tehseen reviewed it as well. These days, there are free Wi-Fi networks everywhere, and most universities have Wi-Fi across an entire campus.

WeFi offers a useful Wi-Fi map tool on their website displaying free Wi-Fi networks near you.  Just have a look at the Boston area for example – no problem finding free Internet access there!

The application, installed on the mobile device, has a nice, simple interface and is easy to use. After installation, it includes a status display on the “desktop” that shows the current wi-fi network that’s connected as well as the connection status.

Launching the application (as shown on the right), displays all of the available hotspots in your area, and lets you choose which network to connect to, as well as entering any login details if required (like on a university network.)  With this app, a student can quickly connect to any free hotspot with just a few clicks.

5. A MiTo Doodle Pad for Those Boring Classes

Every student ends up taking one of those classes – the boring lecture or the terribly dull class where there’s any place else that you’d rather be. The solution for that boredom is the addictive MiTo Team Paint app. Pull out your mobile phone and launch this paint application, and get to work doodling your work of art.

The application lets you pick whether you’ll draw with a pen or a sprayer, and you choose from 7 basic colors, or use the RGB selector for more color options.

As you can see, some of us are a bit more gifted in the “art” department than others…

6. Always Stay Connected When You’re Mobile With Fring

As usual, I’ve saved the best for last. There are few mobile apps out there that have the functionality and capacity to keep you connected with all of your social networks in one easy to use application. Fring pulls it off in style. Aibek listed it as one of 20 apps that should be on your mobile and David listed it on his 5 cool mobile apps list.

This particular mobile app gets high reviews for good reason. These days, students have accounts on many social networks like Facebook, Skype and MSN. Having an application that gathers all of those contacts in one place where you can chat when you’re mobile is a very useful tool.

Adding your networks is as simple as clicking on the icon and entering your logon credentials. Even the Facebook display shows your current status, friends, and all of the details listed under your account.  The tabs on the bottom let you flip between chat sessions with your friends. This particular mobile app is a student’s dream come true. They’ll never need to spend another moment offline again.

Are you a college student with a Windows Mobile phone? What are your favorite mobile apps? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Dabbleboard, a whiteboard application brings its own host of features to heighten the whiteboard feel. Call it a ‘thinking’ whiteboard.

For the uninitiated, let me just define virtual whiteboards. Whiteboards are software applications that allow for collaborative communication through writing or drawing, in fact all the attributes of a real world whiteboard (and more).

Dabbleboard is currently in beta, though the features provided make for a well rounded and proficient web application. Starting with it is as easy as walking up to a whiteboard. Sign-in and enter.

When you look at the spartan interface, your impression will be that it should be easy to use. In fact, it does not disappoint. Drawing squiggles, doodles and approximations with a mind let loose on the interface is not only easy but also fun.

The ‘intelligence’ bit comes from the flexible way the application understands the basic shapes of our drawings and with a click turns it into smooth lines and shapes. Drawing everything from an organizational chart to a mindmap is straight simple. For all your mistakes, the undo / redo button is but a few pixels away.

Dabbleboard lives up to its name. Its fast and flexible nature is its main ‘draw’. Draw freehand, draw shapes or just write text; select, copy, resize, delete, all functions seem intuitive. The user does not need to hunt around for the next tool to use. A good feature is that Dabbleboard saves your previous drawings and makes them available on the left sidebar. This area is the personal library. Save and reuse previous drawings you painstakingly made. You can also borrow liberally images and drawings made by other users from a public library.

To further your aspiration to be a Picasso you can also use some available ‘Toolkits’ to start off with your drawings. These can be easily incorporated into your library for use. If you think that an idea can be better expressed through an image, just upload one from your computer (or from a web link) and use it or just blemish it with doodles.

The real time collaborative environment is where whiteboards find their greatest application. The online collaboration facet of Dabbleboard allows a group to share a common drawing space to make and edit their images. Of course for co-ordination, only one person can be making the changes at any single moment of time! The application is prompt with its notifications.

The user can share the images publicly through the public library or privately in a secure collaborative environment. (The site mentions the use of a 160 bit key for encryption and a SSL mode in development) Quite handily, the images can also be downloaded in ‘.png’ format or emailed to any address. They can also be shared publicly in blogs and social networks through embeddable URL’s. To cite the site, if anyone makes a change in the Dabbleboard copy of the drawing, it gets updated in the embedded shared image too. To further add to the collaborative environment, there is a chat (with video chat) box too. You can’t get more real time than that.

Ostensibly to make it more popular but with a thought on utility, Dabbleboard offers a developer API which can be integrated with other websites/blogs/services. A user can login with his ID, doodle an idea and share it with others.

Though still in beta, Dabbleboard offers enough to keep one interested. With more development hours and user feedback some of the rough edges like shape detection can only get better.

The plusses so far outweigh the minuses – I liked the ease of use between drawing shapes and writing text. The speed is noteworthy especially when one considers the collaborative nature of the software. Reusing my clips not only saves time allowed me to create some ‘templates’ for e.g. organizational diagrams.

For the final byword – an unostentatious, well rounded collaborative whiteboard.

Do you use Dabbleboard?   Or do you use a similar alternative?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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What would a bundled app of 145KB have to offer? Some nifty help if you look at it closely. Imagine you are giving a PowerPoint presentation to a roomful of people. Perhaps you need to get your point across with a chart but the guy on the fourth row can’t make it out. With a click of a mouse you can now zoom in and focus on that part of the screen with the important information and then zoom back out. You save your audience the pain of squinting.

Plainly speaking, ZoomIt gives you three tools to play around with.

• Zoom (zoom in on any area of your screen)
• Draw (draw on your screen, whether zoomed or not)
• Break Timer (to countdown till a break is up)

Zoom : Screen Magnifier for Windows

As a screen magnifier, I think this tool is the best free one out there. It does show quite a high level of magnification which can be seen clearly from a long distance. The screen can be panned around to the desired area of focus. The entire operation can be controlled by a toggle keystroke and/or the mouse.

Draw : Freehand Drawing Tool

The freehand draw function serves as a great presentation aid. Of the three features, this one is the richest. Use the mouse to circle or highlight any part of the display. Then, with a simple push of the E (’E’ for Eraser, maybe?!) key, the drawings are erased again. You can erase all the drawings or just the last one.

Or just use the screen like a white or black sketch pad to give an impromptu drawing or a typed remark. Or just have fun by drawing some simple shapes like circles, rectangles or ellipses. Change the width or color of the draw pen. To further enhance its appeal, you can combine the zoom function with the draw to give your presentations the savvy edge.

Break Timer

After the first two tools, this one is more of an anti-climax. It just acts like a countdown timer rolled into an alarm clock. You can get bit of a reminder help from it if you configure it to play sounds when the break time is up.

Inside the 145 Kilobyte Package

The first time you click the ‘exe’ file, it presents a simple configuration screen. The three functions (the ‘type’ function makes it four actually) are well explained with default hotkeys. Of course, it also allows you to specify your own. The program sits unobtrusively on the tray and all features are easily accessible with a right click.

ZoomIt is a free download, does not require Microsoft validation and is installable on all versions of Windows.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Who would want to have dozens of windows open while trying to explain some website to a fellow worker? It seems that there have been a lot of people who have been frustrated by working with others because there are quite a few tools out there to deal with this problem.

The tools that are going to be mentioned are all free to use and do not require you to install any programs at all. Just visit each site and you’ll be ready to work.

1.Scriblink

This tool has been mentioned before in the Make Use Of directory, and it’s probably the fastest to set up. All it requires is for you to go to the website. No extra clicking, just start it up and invite people to join you. Scriblink is basically a giant whiteboard where you and your fellow workers can get together to jot down ideas. While it may seem silly to draw on white space, you have the option of uploading images, which you can later mark up.

You also have very useful features such as saving what you have, printing everything out, or sending it to for your boss to see. The chatbox makes it easy to communicate with others without having a separate IM window open.

You can also have the option of chatting via VoIP. However, I do not have a microphone or a webcam so I am unable to test this function out. If you try this feature out, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Scriblink is a very simple to use way of communicating with other people.

2. Twiddla

Twiddla is currently my favorite way of working with others and has also been previously covered here at Make Use Of. It’s simple to use, and you don’t even have to register which makes everything faster. This site has a plethora of features. One of the most notable features is that you can visit other websites within Twiddla and mark things up. This is extremely useful if you want to show a worker something you found and is much better than sending the link via mail or something similar.

Here you can draw freehand or use many different shapes to get your message across. You can post sticky notes as well as images you upload. Like Scriblink, you have the option of saving your work and can chat with others via voice or IM. It’s also very easy to invite people to your Twiddla. Just give them the link along with the password (if you choose to set one) and they’ll be able to work together with you. This is a very handy tool with many features that every business person should use to work with others.

As much as I love the tool, I’d like to warn everyone about some problems I’ve been having with Twiddla. I’m not sure if Firefox 3 is causing the problem or if Twiddla itself is causing the problem, but I’ll sometimes lag out or Firefox will remain frozen for a long time. The app runs fine in Internet Explorer, but I hope this ‘problem’ gets fixed because I really don’t want to use IE just for this site. Anyway, it’s definitely worth checking out.

3. Vyew

The final web app I’d like to cover is one called Vyew. Vyew is a nifty site that seems a bit more complicated than both Scriblink and Twiddla, but has a ton of great features you’ll love to use. I’ve just recently discovered the site, and I’ve pretty much fallen in love with it. As soon as I can figure out how to use all the available features, I’m sure I’ll be using Vyew more than Twiddla.

Vyew includes most of the features from both Twiddla and Scriblink, including the option to draw, chat, and print out your work. With Vyew, you will get those options along with many others. Here are just a few awesome features.

• The folks at Vyew have made it possible for you to be able to share your screen with others. This way, your co-workers will be able to see exactly what you’re doing.
• You can upload much more than just images. The upload feature supports documents, PDFs, Powerpoints, and even FLV videos.
• You can take screenshots of your desktop if you’re too paranoid for screen sharing, which works just as well.
• There are many plugins that you can add to your Vyew. These plugins include a graphing calculator, Flash Video player, MP3 player, polls, and more.
• An innovative feature called the Vyewbook makes it easy to separate your different meeting. One could be for your boss, one could be for your friends. It all depends on you. Within each Vyewbook, you can have many different pages on which to have content. One page could be for all the pictures, and the other could be all the videos/music.

I have tried every of those features except for the screen sharing because I can’t find anyone to share my screen with. The other features work fabulously, and I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed when you use this tool. Granted, it is a little confusing to figure out at first, but looking at the demonstrations really helps.

While Vyew is completely free to use, you’ll get extra benefits if you pay. Without paying, you’re subjected to some ads and limited to 20 users (which is still a lot). You will only be able to have 5 Vyewbooks with 50 pages. You’ll be able to have more users and more Vyewbooks if you pay, but most home users should be content with the free offer.

This tool really is awesome, and I hope you guys enjoy all the features. Just take a few minutes to find all the features. Some are dugg really deep and it took me a while to find all the great things.

Hopefully, these three tools will be able to help you in all sorts of different collaboration problems. You have Scriblink for the simple tasks, Twiddla for most other uses, and the powerful Vyew to tackle even your toughest jobs. I hope you’ll find one you like and stick to it.

Do you know any other great collaboration tools I might have missed? If so, please tell me about it in the comments.

(By) Ken Burkes, who is an active web surfer that diggs, stumbles, and blogs in his free time. Being too lazy to get a blog of his own, you should stay up to date with Make Use Of to find more of his articles.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Basic Mind-Mapping Tools

(1) ImaginationCubed – awesome looking, simple to use, live brainstorming tool. Invite your partner and share single dashboard to create mind maps. Draw, add objects, type, etc.

(click to enlarge)

Features: Demo

• live collaboration
• send maps by email
• replay your steps
• save/print maps
• background grid on/off

(2) Bubbl.us – lets you quickly create custom bubble mind maps and share them with colleagues for further refining.

(click to enlarge)

Features: Demo

• create/save/print/share/collaborate on maps
• embed maps elsewhere (blog, web profile, etc.)
• export maps as XML, HTML, or as image (JPEG, PNG)
• interactive Drag’n Drop interface
• keyboard shortcuts, mousewheel zoom

(3) Mind42 – cool mind mapping tool for creating highly customizable organization charts. Each chart node can be colored, converted to an image, supplemented with a custom icon, link, attachment and more.

(click to enlarge)

Features: Demo

• sharie and collaborate on notes
• embed maps elsewhere
• print maps
• integrated live chat (Google Talk)
• keyboard shortcuts
• Drag’n and drop interface
• export maps (as Freemind, Mindmanager and RTF)

More Powerful Mind-Mapping

(4) Mindmeister – slightly more flexible alternative to the above mentioned mind42: more styling/formatting options, more diverse collection of embeddable icons, provides handy sidebar next to the mapping dashboard, and more.

(click to enlarge)

Features:

• free account is limited to 6 mind maps
• share and collaborate on mind maps
• print maps
• integrated Skype conference call
• embed maps into your blog or website
• drag’n drop interface
• keyboard shortcuts
• import maps (from FreeMind and Mindjet’s MindManager) / export to an RTF or a GIF image

(5) Mindomo – feature-rich mind mapping tool. Probably the most comprehensive one, check out screenshot and demo below.

Features: Demo

• free account is limited to 7 private and an unlimited number of public maps
• share and collaborate on maps
• keyboard shortcuts
• drag’n drop interface
• import MindManager and FreeMind type maps / export to maps to TXT, MMAP, RTF, PDF, JPG, GIF and PNG formats
• print maps

(6) Gliffy – extremely powerful techy-oriented diagram creation and collaboration tool, create anything from basic flow-chart diagrams to well-documented troubleshooting guides.

Features: Demos Video / Trial

• free account is limited allows you to 3 private and unlimited number of public diagrams
• share and collaborate on mind maps
• embed maps elsewhere (blog, wiki, etc.)
• export mind maps as SVG (Microsoft Visio, Adobe Illustrator, and Macromedia FreeHand)
• interactive drag’n drop interface
• print maps
• map edits history (instantly revert map to earlier version)
• keyboard shortcuts

[UPDATE] Awesome related links contributed by Vic

• Bubble-Mind
• Kayuda (concept mapping more than mindmapping)
• Mapul
• Comapping (kinda rigid, forces left-to-right mapping)
• Webofweb (prob. the oldest still surviving – mayomi came first but has sunk from sight)
• Glinky

And in the area of more general diagramming tools, there’s

• FlowChart
• CumulateLabs (Cumulate Draw)

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