Having spent a lot of time working with WordPress, it is exciting to see some other options and see how other tools can handle dynamic content. Webvanta hold a lot of promise. It is a hosted CMS, so it is a bit different from the open source CMS options out there. Check out the Webvanta website.

Also, it is a good idea to point out that they have a design contest starting up. Build something in Webvanta (for free) before the end of the year, and you could win a nice MacBook Pro, or an iPod Touch. You can follow them on Twitter for more info.

The Kalexo Teamwork software combines task management, file sharing, text chatting, voice chatting, screen sharing and tons more. I have been helping them with bits and pieces for the last few years, kind of on the periphery, but I am really impressed with how useful and cutting edge the software is. I strongly recommend you check them out.

Other qualities I want for this job include: Easy to use, simple clean results (not ugly!), and if possible, FREE. Well, my quest is over. JAlbum, where have you been all my life? I have looked at plug-ins for Dreamweaver, php web based solutions, Flash with XML file solutions, desktop applications that generate files for the web (JAlbum fits into this category), photoblog solutions, and Content Management System solutions.

JAlbum is a great tool for free, with lots of customization possibilities and several skins included. You can design your own skin or customize a pre-made skin. To use the program, you just drop your files on the space provided and configure how you want your images to be presented on the web, and then create the album. Later, if you want to add or take away, or rearrange pictures, you just open the JAlbum file and make your changes and save the album again. That is it.

You can go to the JAlbum site and download the program for yourself. I will leave a link for it in my links on the right. Thanks JAlbum crew for making such a great application available at an unbeatable price! Also, how often do you get to ligitimately post a picture of a frog on your web site?

You can see my new portfolio, created with JAlbum here, and my old portfolio site is still up and running too at www.williammead.com, but I will probably retire that site at some point.

This tool is used to take photos and quickly mark them up in such a way as that they can tell a story. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on photos, marking people, places and times. You can of course annotate photos if you like. From there the software takes over and you can select various filters to display just the photos of a particular person, or a particular place, or a particular time or any of the photos where any of these things intersect. You can pick two people and see only photos that have both of them, for example. Or pick a time and place and see what turns up. It will do things like fetch maps of places from the Internet, so you can put this stuff into that kind of context. You can then export stories to the web, create slide shows, etc.

At the price, this can’t be beat. But beyond this particular tool, it is this kind of context driven way of looking at information that is truly revolutionary. Can you imagine this on a grand scale?

The age of photography started over a century ago. Photographs were precious things. Then they became something that filled shoe boxes. Then iPhoto allowed us to have a digital shoe box. By applying context to the images and putting them in some sort of shared space, they could become an interconnected web rather than singular items. I wish I could be alive for another century to see what happens.