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A friend tweeted me a link to this app. It’s so useful that I couldn’t help but pass it along.

If you’ve spent any serious amount of time in a bookstore then you are probably familiar with the pain of having to tilt your head sideways to read the spines. This app can help with that. ShelfLook uses the camera on a late model iPhone to take a picture and then rotate the picture 90 degrees to the left. This incredibly simple trick is intended to help you avoid getting that crick in your neck.

You can find this app in iTunes for under a buck.  In my opinion that is overpriced; I’m sure there are free camera apps that can accomplish the same thing.

iTunes

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Facebook is going to go through its IPO later this week, so today it seems to me that it would be a good idea to look at where it came from. I’m not sure the following video will help in that regard, but who cares. It’s hilarious.

I’ll be honest with you; I just wanted to share this video. It was made by cdza, an experimental theatrical group. Check out their website for more details and to see their other videos.

In an era when everything is getting posted online so it can be shared, Scalado is bucking the trend.

This is your album, not the world’s so finding the photos you took is especially important. This photo album is built on top of Scalado’s custom engine, and that’s why it can offer sorting options by location, GPS, proximity, and more. Read more

Dream:ON might sound like the plot to a Philip K. Dick story, but it’s actually a new app. The free iPhone app promises to help you control your dreams by letting you design the kind of dream you’d like to have before you go to bed.

Say for example you’d like to dream about a space shuttle launch. Then all you have to do is choose this option, put your phone on your bed and catch some Z’s.

Here is more from the company’s website: “Dream:ON then activates and begins monitoring your sleep pattern. When Dream:ON senses that you are dreaming, it plays a ‘soundscape’ that has been carefully designed to help create your desired dream. Whilst your chosen soundscape is playing, Dream:ON continues to monitor your movement and adjusts the volume accordingly to ensure you’re not woken up.”

When it comes to apps, Apple’s walled garden is quite large and it offers most of what you might want. But there’s also a vast world of possible things for you to do with it outside the garden – once you’ve jailbroken your iPhone and escaped Apple’s control. This video, which was made by Jailbreak Matrix, shows 100 different reasons to do it.

I have to say that most of the tricks shown are new to me, and really tempting. Luckily I don’t have an iPhone.

Youtube

Good news for academics that like eBooks down under. OverDrive, the digital book company that distributes eBooks and audiobooks to libraries throughout the world, is now going to distribute eBooks and audiobooks to corporate and academic libraries in Australia.

OverDrive has been distributing eBooks and audiobooks to schools in Australia through a company called Softlink. But now the two companies have expanded their partnership to bring digital titles to corporate and academic libraries.

Hillary Noye, Director of Business Development Asia Pacific, at Softlink stated: “Softlink has recognised the shift towards digital content and our current focus is to create more opportunities for libraries to offer users 24/7 information access on any device.”

Have you ever wanted to read Hemingway and been turned off by the prose? I have an alternative for you today.

Gizmodo has turned up the most unusual Cliff Notes version of the novel that I have ever seen. It’s a 4 minute video of someone drawing the story – one scene at a time – in pen and ink. It leaves out some of the nuances in the story, but it is fascinating to watch nonetheless.

the old man and the sea from Marcel Schindler on Vimeo.

Did you ever wonder what drinks go best with which books? Then check out the following infographic.

Ryan Gielen, author and satirist, has matched 8 bestsellers with the alcoholic beverage that best fits the book. His choices are, at times, silly and spot on commentaries about the topic, readers, or what have you. (The Twilight recommendation made me giggle.) Read more

For some publishers, eBooks are a scary brave new world. To help these folks navigate the waters of the digital publishing revolution and learn by example, we’ve put together a list of some of the leaders in the eBook world. It is worth exploring the work of these leading digital publishers. We’ve listed 5 innovators whose work we are watching.

In the coming weeks, we will be doing a series of posts listing leaders in the various aspects of the eBook business — from digital publishers, to app makers and eBook formatting gurus. Feel free to recommend your eBook publishing experts in the comments section.

5 eBook Publishing Experts To Watch

Mark Coker, founder of digital publishing site Smashwords: “Mark Coker founded Smashwords in 2008 to change the way books are published, marketed and sold. In June, 2010, The Wall Street Journal named Mark one of the ‘Eight Stars of Self-Publishing.’”

Read more

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) is standing up to PayPal, who has recently been cutting off payments to digital booksellers that sell eBooks that include rape, incest and bestiality.  Last month, digital publishing site Smashwords updated its policy, requiring certain restrictions to erotica content published on its site, because of pressure from PayPal.

Comparing PayPal’s policy to the other censorship movements such as the Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Books and the film industry’s Hays code, ABFFE and NCAC wrote in a letter to eBay (PayPal’s parent company): “The commitment to free speech is firmly embedded in our society, legally and culturally. Those who find sexual (or any other kind of) content disturbingor immoral don’t have to buy it, but it is widely accepted that they have no right to impose their views on others, or to expect society at large to adopt their perspective.”