Cover Photo / Profile Picture Tutorial + Downloadable Photoshop Template — For Brand Pages

This article will show you how to create an integrated Cover Photo and Profile Picture for your Facebook PAGE, and I’ve created a Photoshop Template for Facebook Brand Page Timelines to help you in this effort. Just follow the instructions below.

Want to create a Profile Picture / Cover Photo Integration for your Personal Profile?

There are some differences in the relationship between the Profile Picture and Cover Photo on Personal Profiles and Brand Pages. If you’re doing this for your Personal Profile Facebook page, read Photoshop Template for Facebook Personal Profile Timelines.

What is an Integrated Facebook Masthead Design?

When I say “integrated” masthead design, I mean a masthead where the Cover Photo (the big image) and the Profile Picture (the image inset on the lower left corner of the Cover Photo) seem of a piece, where the Profile Picture appears to be transparent:

Creating the Cover Photo and Profile Picture images in Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to create an integrated Timeline masthead using Photoshop, and the Timeline Template I offer for download is in Photoshop format. If you use other image-editing software, the following instructions won’t fit. However, you should get the general idea and be able to apply it to your image-editing software of choice.

There are several things that make the integration of the two images tricky:

• Aligning the Cover Photo and Profile Picture to create a seamless continuity between the two images;
• Although the Profile Picture renders at 160 x 160px (with an additional 5px border), Facebook requires the image you upload be a minimum of 180 x 180px — it then CROPS your 180px image, 10px on each edge, to display the 160px image;
• Your Profile Picture also functions as your icon, on all your Page posts on your own or other Facebook Pages, so make sure that it works well in both roles, icon and part of the Timeline masthead.

Aligning the Cover Photo and Profile Picture to create a seamless whole

I have found that the best way to create your Facebook Timeline masthead is to create one image that includes both elements, so that you work out exactly how the two images will look when rendered together on your Facebook Timeline.

To make your life easier, I have created a Photoshop Timeline for Pages Cover Photo Template you can use to create your Cover Photo and Profile Picture for your Facebook Timeline Page.

How to Use the Timeline Masthead Photoshop Template

Because of Faceboook’s requirement that the uploaded Profile Pic image be at least 180 x 180 pixels — which Facebook crops to 160 x 160 pixels, i.e., 88.88% of the original size), it’s best to create your entire masthead design at a width that, when re-scaled to 88.88% its size, will be 851px.

This width is 958 pixels, and the total height — including Cover Photo and Profile Picture — is 450 pixels (Facebook enforces a minimum height of 399px for the Cover Photo), and those are the dimensions I’ve made the Timeline Masthead Template PSD. (Facebook DID enforce a 399px height for your uploaded Cover Photo image, but no longer, it appears.)

Let’s get started!

FIRST: It’s now June 2013 and I noticed that Facebook had made changes that caused me to have to update this post. This is the latest as of June 22, 2013…

1) Download, unzip and open the template file in Photoshop. Note the transparence where the Cover Photo and Profile Picture will go:

2) Create the main image for your masthead at 958 x 450px — or larger so you can experiment with different positions.

3) Drag your image into the Cover Photo Template, and move the template layer to be ON TOP of your image layer:

4) Add any additional graphic elements:

After you designed your masthead to your satisfaction, it’s time to export the Cover Photo and Profile Picture and upload them to Facebook.

Export the Profile Picture image as GIF, JPEG or PNG

1) With the layer called “TEMPLATE BORDERS” selected, select the Magic Wand tool — set to “0″ tolerance, “contiguous” checked, and “Anti-alias” UNchecked — and click inside the Profile Picture (the inset box) area so that it’s selected (this will be 180 x 180px).

2) From the top menu, select: Image > Crop — and crop the image;

3) Export this Profile Picture image, either as a JPEG, GIF or PNG.

4) Undo (Mac: Command+Z; Windows: Control+Z) until you’re back to the full template image.

Export the Cover Photo image for your Timeline masthead

Now it’s time to export your Cover Photo.

1) Disable the “TEMPLATE BORDERS” layer;

2) Crop your Cover Photo image, from the top, to a height of 353 pixels. So you’re going to cut off 97 pixels from the bottom of the image. Your image should now be 958 x 353 pixels.

3) Export your Cover Photo image — Facebook downsizes, via CSS, your 958 x 353px image to 851 x 315px (approx. 88.8%), with the ability to use the “Reposition” feature to make one horizontal adjustment to the right of up to 4px — and you WILL have to adjust your uploaded image!

Upload the images to your Facebook Timeline Page

Uploading your Cover Photo and Profile Picture to your Facebook Page is fairly straightforward, and chances are you’ve done this before. Here’s a quick rundown….

1. If this is the first Cover Photo you’ve created for your Page, just click on “Add a Cover” to locate it on your computer and upload it.
2. If you’re replacing an existing Cover Photo, just mouse over the Cover Photo and click “Change Cover”. Once it is uploaded, you’ll have to use “Reposition” to move the image to the right, as you just want to move your Cover Photo image to the right. Just click and drag the Cover Photo image and drag it to the right as far as possible (this should make it align with your Profile Pic. You need to move it the maximum to the right — 4px — so just give it a tug to the right, and Save.
3. Repeat for the Profile Picture, mousing over it and selecting: Edit Profile Picture > Upload Photo.

If you’ve followed the above instructions to the letter, it should look just as you planned it.

View our example Timeline Page — this page was done using our latest template and this tutorial.

Share your creative work…

I’d love to see what you come up with using our template. Please share in the comments. Thanks!

Since the beginning of 2013, four major library vendors have announced the launch of new or expanded streaming services that will enable patrons to view movies and television shows at their library or at home using computers, tablets, smart TVs, or any device equipped with a web browser.

Most recently, Library Ideas debuted its new Freegal Movies and Television service at the 2013 American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference in Chicago. Formal announcements regarding whose content Freegal will stream are still pending, but three major studios are involved. The service will go live this month with access to 1,100 feature films and 2,500 television episodes, according to Library Ideas co-founder Brian Downing.

The new Freegal Movies and Television service is available separately from Freegal’s music service and Freading ebooks on a flat-fee subscription basis. Each valid library card from a subscribing institution will allow a patron to stream three movies per week, with each movie or television show available for unlimited viewing 48 hours after checkout. In addition, the company announced at ALA that its Freegal music service will now also offer downloadable music videos and streaming albums. These features will be included to subscribing libraries as part of the upgrade to Freegal 4.0, which is scheduled to go live on July 31 [CORRECTION: an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that all features of Freegal 4.0 will be available at no additional cost. New content, including 5 million new songs, site upgrades and downloadable music videos will be available at no additional cost. The streaming music feature will be available for a separate flat-rate fee].

Although patrons will not retain copies of streamed content, each patron will be able to stream almost all music content currently available on Freegal for three hours per day. Streaming, Downing said, “really takes away a lot of the limits on the end user.”

Library Ideas follows Midwest Tape, OverDrive, and Recorded Books into the streaming movies market. Midwest Tape first announced its hoopla platform—which offers streaming movies, television shows, music, and audiobooks—during the Public Library Association conference in March 2012, and earlier this week announced the conclusion of a successful beta test with seven library systems, as well as some 20 new participating libraries

The Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) was the first to go live with the beta version this spring, and in a conversation with LJ, Robin Nesbitt, director of technical services for CML, praised the pay-per-circ streaming service’s ease of use, comparing it to consumer platforms such as iBooks, Netflix, and audible.com.

“It really mimics that consumer experience,” she said. “I see something, boom, I get it.”

With hoopla’s pay-per-circ model, there are no platform or subscription fees. Instead, libraries pay between $0.99 and $2.99 per circ, depending on the movie, show, album, or audiobook. More than 90 percent of audiobook and video titles are $1.99 or less, and almost 100 percent of the albums are $1.49 or less, according to Midwest Tape. Monthly or weekly caps can be set for downloads.

In January, OverDrive announced that streaming video capabilities would be incorporated into its next generation library services platform, enhancing the discovery and access to a library’s existing and newly purchased digital video content, where allowed by the publisher. At ALA, the company said it was close to announcing partnerships with several U.S. movie studios. Distributor Criterion Pictures USA, was also announced as a new partner, giving libraries access to a significant collection of titles that could then be licensed for patrons to stream on any device with a browser.

As with other features on OverDrive’s next generation platform, the company has made an effort to simplify checkout procedures to one-click access.

“With our browser-based ebook reading technology OverDrive Read, users simply ‘See Book—Read Book.’ Now, streaming technology will similarly empower library users to ‘See Video—Watch Video’ or ‘See Audiobook—Listen to Audiobook,” Karen Estrovich, OverDrive’s collection development manager, explained in an announcement about the new features.

Recorded Books has taken a different approach to streaming content. Rather than develop or enhance their own content platform, the company began testing a partnership with online movie service IndieFlix in November 2012. For an annual subscription fee, libraries can give their patrons unlimited simultaneous access to the IndieFlix service, which hosts thousands of independent films screened at more than 2,000 film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Sundance, Berlin, and SXSW. And unlike hoopla, Freegal Movies and Television, or OverDrive’s next generation platform, these independent films can be streamed via Roku devices, Xbox Live, and PS3 game consoles, as well as computers, tablets, mobile devices, and Smart TVs.

“What’s lacking in independent films is distribution,” Jim Schmidt, vice president of business development for Recorded Books Digital, told LJ during a demo of the service at ALA’s Midwinter Conference in January. IndieFlix was enthusiastic about the partnership because it helps expand the potential audience for independent filmmakers, he explained.

Some libraries have begun to express concern about how the growing popularity of streaming video services might impact the circulation of their DVD collections. Ray Lyons and Keith Curry Lance noted in 2011 that “virtual transactions to acquire streaming media are now included in IMLS circulation data—at least for libraries that are up to speed on the ability to count them,” but some communities do not allow views of subscription-based digital content to be included in total circ figures. Other libraries have been so eager to follow the consumer trend toward streaming rather than physical materials that they even circulated streaming devices despite possible concerns that they might be violating the terms of service. Now, thanks to a variety of library vendors, they won’t have to.

Via Romenesko, a particularly excellent moment in the new Comedy Central series "Drunk History," and the drunk part is no joke. In this episode around 4:40, as a very intoxicated Matt Gourley is explaining the story of Carl Bernstein, “Robert Woodward” and the Watergate scandal-- he stops to barf. And then, he returns to the story. Guest stars include Jack Black, Dave Grohl, Bob Odenkirk.

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:
How To Opt Out Of AT&T's Plan To Sell Everything It Knows About You And Your Smartphone Use  —  Your smartphone knows a lot about you.  It's with you all the time.  It knows which apps you use.  It knows which websites you visit.  And it knows your gender, your age, and even how fit you are.

23 Amazing Labyrinths To Get Lost In

Jason Griffey who is speaking in July at our Creative Making in Libraries and Museums Symposium [http://www.creativemaking.org/] has started a Kickstarter campaign to get LibraryBox to the next level.  Here’s his pitch and a video:

LibraryBox v2.0 & the Kickstarter Campaign

http://jasongriffey.net/wp/2013/06/28/librarybox-v2-0-the-kickstarter-campaign/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+griffey+%28Pattern+Recognition%29

“Way back in February and March of 2012, I had an idea that was to basically try and take the “pirate” out of the PirateBox project, and make it more friendly to use by libraries. I called this fork LibraryBox, and I rushed during those two months to finish it in time to take it with me to Computers in Libraries 2012 to test it.

That initial 1.0 version was very rough, absolutely a bespoke build and wasn’t something that was easily replicated. It was a proof of concept, though, that was interesting enough that some began to use it, experiment with it, and find it valuable enough to stick with despite its difficulties. But it was clear that making the installation process easier and less error-prone was the primary goal for moving forward.

So I plugged away as I could, and in October 2012 I was able to release v1.5 of LibraryBox, and a complete redesign of the accompanying Web site. The v1.5 was faster, easier to install, and a huge improvement, but only a small step towards what the project could be. The community that sprang up around the v1.5 has also been more robust, and as it grew the list of enhancements grew alongside it. These included the need for anonymous usage statistics, even easier installation, alternative energy sources such as solar, and more direct editing of the pages that LibraryBox serves.

The project has grown from an idea to something that is being used in 14 countries on 5 different continents, by educators, librarians, and technologists trying to distribute digital information in places off the grid. There is a huge list of things that should be done with LibraryBox, and it’s gotten to the point where I simply can’t do them…for both technical proficency and simple logistical reasons. But the project is something I believe in, something that I want to see succeed and be used in even more places. The only way forward that I could see was to find money that could be traded for the expertise and time of someone other than myself.

Thus it is with great excitement that I announce the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to support LibraryBox v2.0. It is a meager amount of money that I am asking for ($3000) and I could easily use 3-5x that amount in various ways…but I wanted to ensure that the project stays true to its open source roots. If you think that LibraryBox is worth supporting, back it for some amount…but more importantly, spread the word. LibraryBox is much larger than just libraries, and the more eyeballs that see the campaign page the more likely it is that it could gather some attention outside of the LibraryLand that we all know and love.

I’m incredibly excited about the project. I’m terrified of seeing how it does on Kickstarter, and if people can grok the potential in the way that the LibraryBox community has. And I’m really looking forward to continuing to work on the project.

Help make LibraryBox great along with me.”

“Less than 24 hours in and Jason’s already more then 50% funded. You know you want one of these! Full details are available on the project’s Kickstarter page.”

http://travelinlibrarian.info/2013/06/librarybox-2-0-kickstarter-project/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TravelinLibrarian+%28Travelin%27+Librarian%29

Stephen

 

Want reliable info about the new health law? If your brother-in-law has sent you another e-mail about how Obamacare is going to kill or bankrupt us all, or you're simply wondering where you fit into the big picture of the Affordable Care Act, bookmark this: Healthcare.gov. It's the government's updated website for consumers, with accurate, straight-forward information on how it's all going to work. One useful new feature is a simple interactive quiz that will help you figure out what, if anything, you need to do to get ready for 2014, when all of us will have to have some kind of health insurance or pay a fine. If you're on Medicare, for instance, you will find that you have to do...absolutely nothing, because Medicare fulfills your obligation and will change not at all next year. If you're uninsured, you can get yourself on an email list for updates concerning the Marketplace that will open in your state Oct. 1, where you'll be able to compare and shop for private health insurance and possibly qualify for subsidies to help pay for it. For more information, see our Health Insurance Buying Guide as well as rankings of health insurance plans. Got a question for me? Ask it here. Please include the state you live in. The site has both English and Spanish versions and also a live chat feature. If you would rather talk to an actual human, there's a new toll-free number: 1-800-318-2596.

Subscribe now! Subscribe to ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products.

Update your feed preferences

Google Reader is slowing down. Over the past few days, buttons have broken, marking feeds as read seemed to take a bit longer than usual, and the Android mobile website on some devices shifted over to the desktop view with no way to change things back. As users up until the bitter end, we can no longer complain about these events because Google doesn’t care – it’s shutting down Google Reader on July 1st and we all have to leave.

It’s the digital equivalent of bringing up the house lights when the rock concert is over. You don’t have to go home, folks, but you can’t stay here.

No one cares about RSS feeds, except for maybe 50 million of the Internet’s most voracious news readers*. Journalists, bloggers, programmers, technically-savvy I.T. workers, researchers, students, startup founders, and anyone else who has grown accustomed to a simple product that lets you – not algorithms or tweets – be in control of which news sources to track and which stories to read.

In the wake of the impending shutdown, a number of alternatives have sprung up to offer a “replacement” for Google Reader. Though some come close, none have completely nailed the experience yet.

*50 million: Digg’s estimate of those who care about RSS.

The Only Real Contenders So Far: Feedly & Digg

Feedly

Feedly has been building its RSS product for years, which gives it a huge head start in this space. Last week, it announced a reach of 12 million users as it officially launched “Feedly Cloud,” a backend infrastructure to power the ecosystem of RSS reader client applications like Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify, gReader,  and more, left abandoned by Google’s exit from RSS. These apps had only offered a front-end RSS browsing experience, which means they needed someone else’s API to function. Feedly is one of the few to step in and serve that need.

Why Feedly: Google Reader uses will love Feedly because it comes closest to mirroring the Google Reader experience, and it offers a number of settings which can be tweaked to your liking. The service’s “Titles Only” view (which can be set globally in Preferences) offers the same sort of compact view, perfect for headline-scanning action, that Google Reader once provided.  It also supports a number of Google Reader’s features, including support for many of the same keyboard shortcuts, tagging, favorites (“Saved for Later”), and “Mark as Read” functionality to quickly plow through categories.

What’s wrong: Feedly currently pulled out its “search” functionality, which lets you pull up content by keyword or topic – something that’s one of the top user requests today. That’s still in the works, the company says, but it’s a big undertaking to deliver upon. In addition, though the company offers clients for web and mobile, the mobile apps are still somewhat over-designed with big, colorful category headers instead of the basic list of folders like Google Reader.

That being said, it’s hard to find a lot of fault with Feedly, and the company is quickly working to add in the few missing pieces. There will be little things here and there which you’ll need to get used to, of course (like the “t” shortcut no longer lets you tag items, but rather tweets them). However, in some cases, they’re changes for the better (like the option to set the default view by category).

Digg Reader

Betaworks’ quickly built take on Google Reader is the new kid on the block, and has a lot of potential to be a viable Feedly competitor. Though initially, the team has been working to launch something that offers the core RSS reading experience, the plan is to bring the RSS reader into the modern age, by alerting users to what’s most popular among their network and better connect users with Digg.com. In Digg Reader’s “popular” section, the service scans your feeds and then ranks them with one, two or three dots to help you discover trending articles. In practice these recommendations were hit or miss at times, but the beta build we’ve been testing is unfinished.

Why Digg Reader: Like Feedly, the app lets you organize content into folders, view unread counts, move around with Google Reader shortcuts, save posts for later, and share to social networks. With the above-described “Popular” section, it also offers something similar to Feedly’s “Today” for an at-a-glance list of what’s trending. Ex-Google Reader users will also appreciate Digg Reader’s minimalistic look-and-feel, which is almost entirely black, white and shades of gray (outside of the RSS content itself.)

What’s Wrong: Most of what’s wrong with Digg Reader is a function of time – the team had a limited number of weeks to build this service, having only started after Google’s shutdown announcement went live. That being said, there are still a number of features which ex-Google reader users likely relied on that aren’t ready in the new reader’s product at launch (planned for this Tuesday). Search is also missing here, for example, as is the ability to tag content, or share to other social services beyond Facebook, Twitter or Digg. (“Read later” services like Pocket, Readability and Instapaper are supported, however).

Digg Reader offers just two views, “list” and “expanded.” While the former is meant to give users a headline-scanning option, Feedly’s “Title Only” view is even more compact, which means its more like Google Reader’s “compact” view.

At launch, Digg Reader will have an iOS app, but the Android version will not be ready for another few weeks.

The Startups

Offering a full Google Reader replacement is no simple task, so it’s notable that some startups have tried to take on this job without the resources of a larger company like Facebook or Betaworks behind them. That being said, for power users of Google Reader, none of these smaller companies will be able to replace what it is about to be lost.

NewsBlur (unlimited feeds, $24/year): This cross-platform news reader offers Reader import, compact views, saving stories, and even an interesting “training” feature which is meant to help teach the reader what sorts of stories you like best. But NewsBlur’s interface is too busy and cluttered, it lacks search, and can be slow when you have a lot of feeds to load.

Feedbin ($2 / month): Feedbin’s paid web app is another good alternative for tracking feeds, viewing unread counts, subscribing, tags, and it uses Reader-like navigation via keyboard shortcuts. However, while it supports Reader data import, it lacks a number of key features like search or Feedly’s wide variety of layouts. But most importantly, it’s not a fully cross-platform product on its own. If you use Feedbin on the web, then to keep data in sync across mobile, you’ll need to use an app powered by its API like Reeder, Press,  Favs, Tafiti, or others, or beta test the newer Feedbin Reader for Android.

The Old Reader and Hive (previously HiveMined): These two startups sounded promising in theory as both are focusing on simply rebuilding the original Reader – the former working to bring the social aspects back, as well. Unfortunately, neither of these have made it yet, and won’t be solid replacements by the time Google Reader shuts down.

Both apps have issues with speed at times (The Older Reader is far better on this front than Hive, though). Though The Old Reader does have search, it’s title-only, not full keyword search. Hive meanwhile has no search, and struggled to import Reader subscriptions. Sometimes Hive’s buttons are so slow to register clicks that you’re unsure if the app has gone down. Sharing to outside services is either limited or non-existent. Neither service offers a mobile app.

Reeder (paid): Until recently, Reeder was not a Google Reader replacement, it was only the front-end interface for viewing feeds hosted by Google. Since the Reader shutdown announcement, the company said it’s now making plans to continue development, but this involves major changes on its part. Today, Reeder uses Feedbin and Feedly’s APIs on mobile, and is also working to support standalone RSS (introduced in the iPhone app, but not yet the iPad or Mac apps). Because Reeder was built on top of others’ infrastructure, it’s not ready to replace Google Reader at this time. That said, it is one to watch given it has an engaged Apple user base and some traction.

The Rest: Me-Too’s, Flipboard Alternatives, Plus Aol’s Disastrous Attempt

Ever since the Google Reader shutdown announcement, our inboxes have been filled with pitches for “replacements” nearly every day. It would almost be a disservice to TechCrunch readers to list these here, because real replacements are huge investments in infrastructure, APIs, and show an attempt to honor the needs of Google Reader refugees with features like compact views, keyboard navigation, tagging and search. Simply offering an RSS-based product DOES NOT make a service an alternative to Google Reader, and attempting to position it like that is band-wagon jumping at best and dishonest at worst.

Many of these pitches look cobbled together overnight as weekend projects. None are any good. (And yes, I got your email.)

Also, several of these “me too” products tend to look more like watered-down versions of Flipboard, not Google Reader. Really, if you just want a news magazine, use Flipboard then, or wait to see what Facebook has in store with its forthcoming “newspaper for mobile” product.

Aol Reader 

Even Aol (disclosure: TechCrunch parent) bungled its RSS reader debut, and launched a product which the lot of us here at TechCrunch can’t even get to work properly. Aol’s RSS reader claims to offer Google Reader import, but refuses to upload Google Reader’s XML file in a multitude of browsers, according to several of us here who gamely tested the service anyway.

Aol’s Reader had intermittent issues in Chrome especially this morning, refusing to ever add the TechCrunch feed, for example (thanks Aol), and taking a good 30 seconds or so to do the same in Safari. This slowness may have been a launch bug, but it wasn’t promising. The reader is also missing is search, but does offer tagging, limited sharing, favoriting, four different viewing options (which are suspiciously identical to Feedly though), and oh, giant Aol On Originals video ads in the sidebar…

Well, at least they have a monetization plan.

There Is No Google Reader Replacement

In each of the products listed above, and the dozens of those we haven’t linked to which are still promoting themselves as a home to Reader refugees, there are huge gaps in functionality – like Search, for example, which no one has fully fleshed out just yet. Because of this, users will also lose their ability to search and uncover content from older websites which have long since shutdown, taking their RSS archive with them. Google Reader let you time travel into the web’s past, a personal Way Back Machine of sorts. Unless you’ve diligently been tagging or starring this older content over the years, it will essentially disappear into the ether without a search feature like Google’s, which once dug into seemingly infinite RSS archives.

Reader was also more than a web service. It was a mobile website, a mobile app and an API that allowed an ecosystem of RSS clients to flourish.

It was a quantified self tracker, who “Trends” section told you about your news reading habits, including which sites you read, clicked, shared, and emailed the most, and when, and one that kept track of the feeds that stayed fresh, or had become inactive.

It was also a discovery service, that connected you with friends, let you package up bundles of subscriptions and share them, search for content by keyword, and browse through posts that others found interesting. And it was an alerting tool which could track whenever a person, topic or keyword was mentioned on Google News, Blog Search, Twitter or eBay.

For anyone looking for a Google Reader replacement, the saddest news of all is that there really isn’t one yet.

There are only alternatives.

What does it feel like to stand on top of the tallest building in the world? To give you a better sense of how that may feel, we took Street View to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, our first-ever collection in the Arab World. Described as a “vertical city,” the Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest manmade structure, towering over the Dubai skyline at 828 meters (2,717 ft).


This is the first time we’ve captured a skyscraper on Street View—making Google Maps even more comprehensive and useful for you. The imagery was collected over three days using the Street View Trekker and Trolley, capturing high-resolution 360-degree panoramic imagery of several indoor and outdoor locations of the building.

In addition to the breathtaking views from the world’s tallest observation deck on the 124th floor, you can also see what it feels like to hang off one of the building’s maintenance units on the 80th floor, normally used for cleaning windows!



Visit the highest occupied floor in the world on the 163rd floor, experience being in the fastest-moving elevators in the world (at 22 mph) and check out the highest swimming pool in the world on the 76th floor.

Even if you’re afraid of heights, we hope you enjoy the view from the top! To see highlights from the Burj Khalifa Street View collection, visit www.google.ae/streetview.

Posted by Tarek Abdalla, Head of Marketing - Middle East & North Africa, Google

A lot of folks feel a bit overwhelmed in library land – so much change, so little energy and leadership.  Check out this LifeHacker post :

Meet Any Challenge Head On with This Four Step System

http://lifehacker.com/meet-any-challenge-head-on-with-this-four-step-system-512050861

“Guy Neyens at Tiny Buddha suggests his own four step process for overcoming the curveballs of life. Guy’s four steps are simple, but work well when used in combination:

1. Accept and let go.
2. Observe and decide.
3. Face your fears and take action.
4. Practice gratitude.

Rule #1 suggests that we stop blaming ourselves for getting into these predicaments. What happened in the past should stay in the past. Second, you should look at the problem from a detached, unemotional viewpoint, and gather all the facts. Third, you need to get over whatever preconceptions or fears you might have, and enact a solution. His fourth step though is my personal favorite:

You may label problems as such because dealing with them takes you out of your comfort zone. Dealing with them in the correct manner means you are growing as a person. So, learn to be grateful for the challenges in your life, because they make you stronger.”

Stephen

Generally speaking, if you want to save a file from the internet to a service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Skydrive, you have to download it to your computer first, then upload it into cloud storage. Save Web Files is a simple webapp that cuts out that middle step.

All you need to do is enter the URL of the file you want to download, and click the cloud storage service you're using. Save Web Files does the rest without downloading the file to your computer. This comes in handy when you're on a machine you can't download files to, or when you just don't want to waste the time downloading and then uploading a file.

Save Web Files | via Digital Inspiration

Cropping an object out of an photo in an image editor can be a tricky task, but Clipping Magic is a new webapp that does it for you in seconds. All you have to do is paint the foreground object one color, the background object another, and the app does the work for you.

Just drag and drop a photo onto the site, and you'll get a green box you can use to paint the foreground image, or the area of the photo you want to select. Click the red box to paint the background—or the part of the photo you want removed. You work with a version of the photo on the left, and you can see a live preview of the changes on the right, so you can always backtrack, or zoom in for a finer touch if you want.

When you're finished, just download the finished product to get the object you wanted, now on a transparent background. You can also just share a link to the finished image, so you don't have to email a file. Clipping Magic is ideal for logos, screenshots, and other images where there's a sharp pixel edge to the item you're trying to highlight or pull out of an image. The developer points out that hair, blurry boundaries, and partially transparent things are difficult for the webapp to handle, but they're working on making it better. Clipping Magic is in alpha, and while it's free right now, but when it leaves alpha the developers note they may start charging for the service. Right now though, using it couldn't be easier.

Clipping Magic

Choosing the right smartphone for you from the sea of phones available today is no easy task. Which one has the best battery life? The best photo quality? The fastest processor? PhoneRocket has the answers.

The site scores smartphones based on aggregated reviews, benchmarks, and specs. PhoneRocket also offers some common phone comparisons (Galaxy S4 vs. iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 vs. HTC One, for example), and the ability to pit any two phones against each other.

Specs and benchmarks may not be the ultimate considerations (after all, the HTC One ended up being our most popular Android phone, even though PhoneRocket puts the Samsung Galaxy S4 slightly ahead), but the site can quickly provide the info you need to make a better buying decision.

PhoneRocket

In our ceaseless quest to provide you with the most helpful tips and tricks in the known universe, we frequently refresh old stories with more accurate information. Nothing lasts forever, after all, and life hacks are no exception.

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A reader writes:

I have been at my position for over a year and a half. I work in a college administrative office. We offer small business counseling for free twice a month. And twice a month, the woman in charge of the program tells me how to process the clients needing counseling. It’s simple things — copy this, check off the list, etc. I feel like she is insulting my intelligence by constantly telling me how to do these simple tasks.

She is an older woman (60′s/70′s) and I’m young (25). How do I kindly say to her “I know what I’m doing”? I feel like I’m being treated like a child.

Say this: “I’ve noticed you go over this with me each time we do this, and it makes me wonder — am I making mistakes or otherwise not doing this correctly?” Don’t say this in a snotty tone — say it in a tone of genuine concern.

This might be enough to make the point to her that you’ve got it and don’t need it repeated each time. (Or alternately, you might find out that she has some concern that you didn’t realize and that she’s not addressing head-on.)

And in general, that’s always the right pose to take with this kind of thing — if someone is treating you in a way that seems condescending or untrusting or inappropriately micromanagey, express genuine concern about what might be causing it. It’s a reasonably direct but non-aggressive way into a conversation about what’s going on.

But if that doesn’t work with her, then you can try, “I really do know the process well at this point, and I hate to have you spend your time reviewing it with me so often. Could I take it from here and check in with you if I run into questions?”

And if that doesn’t work … well, at that point you accept that she’s oddly neurotic about this program and you’re going to be receiving very basic instructions about it twice a month.

The animated GIF has seen a resurgence lately among many sites and social networks, but they're still not quite simple to create. GIF Camera for Android makes it a little easier by allowing you to create a short animated image out of a series of photos, or by taking a video with your phone's camera. More »

Pat Robertson scores a "Christ, what an asshole" prize here, in which he explains that the reason that "simple, humble" Africans and other foreigners experience miracles is that they are free from the sin of over-education. As Charles Johnson has it, this is "the wingnut trifecta... anti-intellectual, anti-science and patronizingly racist."

Pat Robertson: Simple Africans More Likely to Experience Miracles Than Over-Educated Americans (via Skepchick)

I have used this as a tool for self understanding for many years.  I find it helpful to think about what are my unknown unknowns.

Self awareness assessment in four squares:  The Johari Window

http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/post/45426096566/self-awareness-assessment-in-four-squares-the

What do you know, don’t know you know but others know about you?

Sometimes your blindspots can hurt you.

Stephen

AT&T has just posted an update to its Consumer Blog revealing pre-order details of the Samsung Galaxy S4. The phone will be available for order beginning April 16, for $249.99 with a two-year commitment. Samsung had previously announced that the Galaxy S4 would be coming to the U.S. sometime in Q2 2013, and didn’t reveal launch pricing at its event earlier in March.

The ship date of the AT&T Galaxy S4 wasn’t revealed this time around, so there’s still no guarantees about when consumers will be able to actual hold the hardware, which boasts a 5-inch 1080p display, in their hot little hands. Based on Jordan’s initial impressions, the Galaxy S4 looks like a worth successor to Samsung’s flagship smartphone role. The hardware specs include either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, but AT&T hasn’t yet specified what exactly you’ll be getting for your $250.

Pricing for the Galaxy S4 at AT&T is interesting, since it puts the smartphone above the starting on-contract price of the iPhone 5 ($199.99 with contract), and also carries a lot more sticker shock than the $99 downpayment it’ll carry with T-Mobile when it launches with that carrier beginning May 1.

Today, Amazon has announced the acquisition of social reading service, Goodreads. Specific terms of the deal weren’t disclosed and it should close by the end of Q2.

Goodreads had raised $2.75 million in funding from the likes of True Ventures since launching in January 2007. When we talked to them last August, the site had over 10 million members and had catalogued more than 360 million books, adding 22 million each month. Now, the site boasts over 16 million users.

This type of social integration could give Amazon a major advantage over e-sellers like Apple, who have no social components to their product whatsoever. With people actually discussing and sharing the books that they’re into, having an Amazon direct connect makes complete sense. The site can offer special deals to Goodreads users, which in essence is now Amazon’s book-reading social network.

Here’s a look at the spike in books added per month in a graph from last August. With a connection to Kindle, those numbers will skyrocket:

Amazon VP of Kindle content, Russ Grandinetti discussed how important this integration could be for its e-book division:

Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading. Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world. In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft. Together we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.

Goodreads’ CEO and co-founder Otis Chandler discussed the acquisition and the opportunity for the site to infuse some social elements into Amazon’s bookselling strategy:

Books – and the stories and ideas captured inside them – are part of our social fabric. People love to talk about ideas and share their passion for the stories they read. I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to partner with Amazon and Kindle. We’re now going to be able to move faster in bringing the Goodreads experience to millions of readers around the world. We’re looking forward to inspiring greater literary discussion and helping more readers find great books, whether they read in print or digitally.

Goodreads has also posted its own note on its blog, going a bit deeper into why the deal makes sense and making it clear that Kindle integration is a top priority, as it’s something that users had been asking for. Chandler said:

I’m excited about this for three reasons:

1. With the reach and resources of Amazon, Goodreads can introduce more readers to our vibrant community of book lovers and create an even better experience for our members.

2. Our members have been asking us to bring the Goodreads experience to an e-reader for a long time. Now we’re looking forward to bringing Goodreads to the most popular e-reader in the world, Kindle, and further reinventing what reading can be.

3. Amazon supports us continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Goodreads brand and with our unique culture.

In addition to bringing more social to Amazon, Goodreads has built some recommendation technology over the years, which is something Amazon always froths at the mouth for.

The closest that Apple has come to socializing the sale of digital goods was Ping, its music “social network” that never took off and died last October. If Amazon were to acquire sites like Goodreads for each massive vertical, the company could really ramp up reviews, suggestions and of course, sales. The amount of data that Goodreads has on its users alone makes the acquisition a slam dunk. People love to talk about books, people are creating groups on Goodreads to discuss the books they read, and that means everyone has to buy the book to participate.

Apple recently got into promoting self-published authors, which is another area where social can really kick up sales for Amazon.

The company also shared an interesting stat, which might have sealed the deal for Amazon:

In the last 90 days, Goodreads members have added more than four books per second to the “want to read” shelves on Goodreads.

With over 16 million users? You do the math.

For generations, a picture was worth a thousand words. Now, in the social network age, a picture is worth a few hundred likes, some +1's, a handful of retweets, stumbles, tumbles, pins, and shares of all sorts. Oh, and those original thousand words. More »