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Net Gains (Jun 14, 99) |
Picture This Postcards
is a natural extension for Kodak on the Net - they allow you to
send snaps as electronic postcards to anyone with an email address.
And the process is an easy 4-step process - choose a theme, choose
a snap, write you message, address it and send it off! While they
have a few standard photographs you can use, you also have the
option of using your own snaps to create your cards - how about
that! For those with good connections, multimedia cards can also
be created and sent.
Kodak Picture Playground
is my favourite section, and I've already spent hours in this
fun section of their site. If you have a scanned snap, they offer
you all of eight effects that you can use to play around with
that snap. 
The one effect I like the most is the cartoon maker. It makes your snap look like something out of Superman or Batman
comics. Though I was pleased with the results, my friends insist
that I don't need that effect - I look like one anyway! The antique
maker gives your snap that old faded look, while solarizer and
oilpaint effects make your picture look totally zany. The classic
effect makes your picture black and white, but the super saturator
goes overboard on colours - if that's your taste. Flower power
and You animal effects morph your pictures with flowers and animals
respectively, with amazing results. I got my face superimposed
on a dog and have put it up as a desktop image on my computer
at work - hope the HR director gets the hint that I'm working
like a dog! And after fooling around with your snaps, you can
either save them or send them off as e-cards!
Kodak has also used their website
to foster community with PhotoQuilt2000 - a program that
takes pictures submitted by people all around the world and arranges
them together like a quilt. The PhotoQuilt also lets you include
the background story of the picture you upload, weaving in its
meaning and significance. When you see the quilt, you can zoom
in or out, pick out picture after picture and read more about
that picture. If that sounds tedious when you're looking for something
/ someone in particular, use the search feature to find what you're
looking for. Searching for "India", I found nine pictures
- including the Gateway of India and the Ganges. There was also
a small girl named India, after her Indian mother. According to
the story accompanying the snap, her French father met her mother
in India in 1982, and married her after a long struggle with the
girl's parents. So things like that don't happen only in Hindi
movies!
Nine snaps in an Internet population
of 9 lakh of us is not good enough, so add your snaps to the PhotoQuilt
before December 31, 99 - take a memorable moment, your pets, home,
whatever and contribute to weaving the PhotoQuilt. But you'll
be able to do so after a few days - mid June they say - since
they are currently expanding their capabilities.
It goes without saying that you need
a TCP / IP account to fully appreciate and enjoy the above features
on the Kodak site, but that's no problem for us. VSNL announced
last week that they would be converting shell accounts into TCP
/ IP accounts. Normal shell accounts that is, not the student
shell accounts. The good news for students is that they can use
their shell account like a TCP/IP one - click here to learn how you can do it!