The
Cooliris plugin is a web browser
plugin made by
Cooliris that provides interactive full-screen
slideshows of online images (
wikipedia). The instructions for how to install
Cooliris in
Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari is located via
cooliris support. If you find yourself enjoying using
cooliris as much as I am then you can also follow the
cooliris blog. Once you have installed
cooliris you are able to search things like
Flickr and
Google Images.
Searching images through
cooliris is fantastic in that the images you find can be displayed on a wall.
Cooliris then makes it easy to scroll across many images, focus on a particular image, bookmark your favourites and jump out to the site the image is located on. I had seen
cooliris demonstrated at a conference last year. However, it was only when a colleague dropped the
URL on my desk and said try this did I give it a go. They gave no explanation beyond that and I think you will only truly understand what
cooliris is if you yourself give it a go.
While looking at
cooliris the first time another colleague asked me what I was looking at. I showed them and then asked if there was something they wanted to search. They suggested trying to find a photo of the All Saints Church in Dunedin - so I put in the terms Saints and Dunedin. Then the most wonderful thing
occurred: the first result was of them in the church, which had been taken by the local newspaper. They were thrilled :-)
This in itself is a wonderful way to find images yet it gets better.
The power of
cooliris comes into play when you discover sites that have enabled
cooliris -
how to enable your site. As already mentioned
Flickr,
Google and
Facebook have enabled
cooliris.
Now to start my
blogroll to show you why I love
cooliris so much.
One of my favourite blogs is
Secret Agent Mama: shooting from the hip. The photography is breathtaking and there is sprinkling of poetry throughout, which as a poet I love. Now go to the
photostream in
flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/secretagentmama and activate
cooliris. I have to admit it took me a bit of playing to figure out how to look at a site like this in
cooliris. At first I tried searching in
cooliris itself with "
secretagentmama" but I kept picking up other images as well.
I have discovered that any blogs on
blogspot also seems to let you activate
cooliris.
For me this means I can see a wall of amazing doodles that Beck posts on her blog
BeckaDoodles. And then for a change I can view a wall of
gorgeous vintage postcards from
Cpaphil Vintage Postcards.
If you love history then you will really like the last example I will give you, which is via the National Library of New Zealand in the
Manuscripts and Pictorial Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library digitised collection. Once you arrive at the site search for something like "
shortland" and activate
cooliris. Though I have noticed you might have to refresh once or dig a little before
cooliris realises it should be working. Dr Edward
Shortland was the nephew of one of my ancestors and to see his letters like this is fantastic.