Latest
Here are twenty of the latest tools and inspirations I have added to the site.
You should be able to open this up, figure out how it works and have fun with this. There are lots of online "toys" that are actually worth playing with just for the experience, they'll give you ideas.
This category is for things that may take a little learning but don't need lots of effort.
These items will require some studying but are worth the time. You can watch a few YouTube videos to get to grips with it, right?
These are complex tools for those who are more technically minded, or researchers or professionals. But hey, don't let that stop you.
Quickpoint Author
CardStock
Callooh! Callay! A HyperCard clone that doesn't suck AND has programming in Python (rather than HyperTalk). Brilliant!
British Placename Mapper
Search for British placename by "starts with" or "ends with" ... for things like "wold" or "brough".
Zettlr
Zettlr is personal notebook, in which you use the Markdown format to create and link your notes together into a "Digital Garden" or Personal Knowledgebase. There are lots of tools like this (NotionAI, Obsidian, AnyType etc) but Zettlr has nice features, is free, and open.
Diigo
My favourite bookmarking, or tagging, app. Others include Pocket, Pinterest, Pinboard etc. With these, using any account (both your Chrome personal account, and York account) you can save a bookmarks, and even on your mobile device too. AND you can annotate PDF etc. I have used the free version for over 10 years.
AskPandii
A search engine that uses AI but can do interesting things with your results, such as "create me a timeline about xxx" or "give me alternatives to xxx" . Requires (Google) login.
ThreadQuilt
A search engine that only searches widely used discussion boards. No AI junk content (we hope!)
Globe Explorer
Globe Explorer is a search engine (that uses AI, but in an interesting manner)... When you do a search for a topic, it returns the results in a categorised form, as if you were going to learn that topic.
Stract
An open search engine with some interesting features, transparency about its alogorithms, and no tracking.
A Million Short
A search engine that removed the first million results - or what Google would give you - and instead rummages around in the "less popular corners" or the internet. Free for 100 searches.
Inoreader
Best RSS reader (freemium is great) imo. See also Feedly - but they've gone off the boil for me.
Rowboat CSV Explorer
Drop a CSV or Excel file on this app and your data becomes interestingly presented.
Book Creator
Aimed at educators, Book Creator has a REALLY GOOD comic creator. Easy to use, and has nice speech bubbles and POW! things. AND you can export to ebooks. This really is nice.
Bop Spotter
Lumen Prize Finalists 2024
Some really interesing digital art projects, but you have to ignore the embarrassingly awful art speak. Sheesh. Still, worth a look.
Calculating Empires
A quite amazing diagram, that is "A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500"
Should this be a map or 500 maps?
Quite amazing story, sort of a Doomsday Book prototype where it all went wrong. Or right.
Python scripting in Inkscape
If you know a little Python you could start making art with PyProcessing or script Inkscape.
SimplyScripts
Just a lot of scripts and screenplays in various formats (PDF, txt, even comic .cbz etc)
Collection of Equirectangular Images
A Flickr collection of equirectangular images, many of which are Creative Commons licenced for use in your own VR creations.
Lots more here.
Collection of Posters
Fabulous collection of posters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1930s
A REVIEW OF NINE INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE SYSTEMS
An academic paper about interactive narrative systems.