Tools help the world go round! Dan Zen's philosophy is that if you are going to make a creation... then also make the tools for the creation available to everyone else. Some of the tools have unusual interfaces, but Zen promises they are easy to use once you get used to them. Have fun producing if you dare!Altura
(2011) ▲ is a mobile storytelling app for a pseudo interactive experience. The design is based on Retort - a Dan Zen tool that allows mobile app creators a way to respond to reviews. VISIT ALTURASnipisode (2010) ▲ is a Facebook app that lets you automatically snip up stories and post the snips daily on your feed. Please see the Storytelling Exhibit for more on storytelling. VISIT SNIPISODE
Swoodle (2011) ▲ for mobile and desktop lets you draw with your fingers (touch screens) or mouse. You press the logo to toggle the menu for different colors and blend modes. The app delays the drawing for smoother drawing and to allow you to see what is under your finger. Dynamic drawing done in Flash - there is an issue with the latest iOS that will be resolved soon. VISIT SWOODLE
Opartica ▲ is an online op art making tool. Version one from 2001 was coded in Flash (Zen's first Flash App) and lets you overlay rotating patterns and adjust color and centers. Version 2 in 2010 lets you make shapes and fly through layers in 3D. Zen used the tool to make the design on his pleasure card - along with hundreds of op art pictures as presents. The tools feature experimental interfaces quite reduced in instruction for exploration rather than explanation. As such, it is hard to say if they have been used successfully - certainly Zen knows how to use them. VISIT OPARTICA
Tada! (2010) ▲ a mobile to quickly and easily rank options. Enter items to rank like sites, apps, people, food and rate them on factors such as usability, fun, nose, taste, etc. When you are done rating press to reveal the results! Save multiple files, do secret rankings, and get tips if you are stuck. Helps solve dilemmas in a real way as opposed to a random way. A few presses and Tada! Built in Adobe Flex. Features numbers that increase or decrease as you roll your finger on them, draggable and scrollable rows and columns and more! TADA ANDROIDPace (2011) ▲ a mobile app for timing talks. You add the subtopics of your talk and how long each should take and then as you give your presentation the app keeps a pie chart of the time gone by and what slide you should be on. Built in Adobe Flex. PACE ANDROIDPACE APPLE
Kitty Tartan (2012) ▲ Drop a picture of your cat on this Desktop app and it makes tartans based on the cat color! Dan Zen really went all out on this app with payments, share pass, publications of tartans, etc. Will only take one grandmother with a big social circle to make it huge! Created with Adobe AIR for Desktop. TRY KITTY TARTANDoggy Tartan (2012) ▲ Drop a picture of your dog on this Desktop app and it makes tartans based on the dog color! Dan Zen really went all out on this app with payments, share pass, publications of tartans, etc. Will only take one grandmother with a big social circle to make it huge! Created with Adobe AIR for Desktop. TRY DOGGY TARTAN
▲ OrbitZoom (2007) an amazing desktop image viewer that Dan Zen has used as his default for almost ten years. The OrbitZoom picture viewer provides easy multiple zoom and pan functionality. Simply click the picture and move your cursor radially in any direction to zoom to where you clicked. Click again when you are finished zooming. You can zoom again using the same technique or you can pan by clicking down and dragging. Double click to return to the full view. Once you get used to this - it is like Blade Runner - enhance quadrant 7. OrbitZoom Scores High on Knox Picture Viewer Zoom Speed and Range Tests It also does slide shows with variable times and you can get the name of an image with the N key, go actual size with the A key, go fullscreen with CTRL F and full fit with F, R to rotate and more! GET ORBITZOOMTapoll (2005) ▲ predict polls as you take them! See the Poll Exhibit for tapoll and other tools Zen created and used that were poll based. VISIT TAPOLL
YaSeeSay (2008) ▲ Just before YouTube added annotation, Zen launched YaSeeSay. You could point to any Web mp3 or video and type what it said or whatever you wanted. Then you would click on the line of text when the audio gets there. This could be played back so the lines would highlight as the audio or video played. And you could click on any line and the audio or video would jump to that place. This was based on his 1995 tool used in the award winning CD ROM, Understanding McLuhan. The technique is now used by Lynda.com. Needless to say, once YouTube launched annotation, Zen gave up on the project - the introduction to the tool is currently broken due to BlipTV closing down various accounts including Zen's. Most likely, the tool will work if you press the create link. VISIT YASEESAYChanging Mail (2004) ▲ This Web app let you change an e-mail message even after it was sent. It also offered features like being able to see the current weather any time you open up a single e-mail as well as fun things like fortunes, etc. It has a tricky interface. CHANGING MAILZen Pass (2004) ▲ This was a technique to give content creators a way to sell their Web content by using a code and URL that would then be placed on a card that they would sell in a physical store. The code would then be a key to handle the transaction and content creators would get paid. This was at a time when nobody paid for anything on the Web (hey... it is still that time) yet would pay for anything in a box - even if it was just a disk of data. Talk to Dan Zen if interested in the tool.Zen Alarm (2005) ▲ At the dawn of widgets, Dan Zen made Zen Alarm. You could use any Web mp3 as the alarm sound or choose a gong or it is time to leave the computer message. This became quite popular on Google and Zen still uses it as an alarm at his desktop. ZEN ALARMZen Dots (2005) ▲ A timeline tool made in Flash that let you present content as you slid the timeline dots past the date marker. Used for the Dan Zen Ten Year Timeline which has really since been replaced by the Explore section of the Museum. Users can contract and expand the timeline. ZEN DOTS
Zen Picture (2005) ▲ lets you show pictures in a square frame with the pictures sliding left and right for horizontal and up and down for vertical. You hover over the sides to go in that direction or in the middle to pause. It also let you play sound, and write text for each picture. It featured an iconimizer menu that Zen built for Zen Deck where you can scroll up and down the icons. And it introduced the Zen Pan Zoom technique used later in OrbitZoom. The tool was followed by Zen Pan - a motion graphics tool which was used by Zen but never released due to large file sizes. It was more efficient to use a video editing tool like AfterEffects. ZEN PICTUREZen Mix (2006) ▲ Take any Web video and picture and mix them with blend modes. The first online tool to help make vlogs more interesting. Featured an experimental linear interface programmed in Flash. YouTube came along and everyone went there for video - not to Zen Mix - but still there have been hundreds of thousands of Zen Mix views and Zen made excellent series including Psychedelic Dancing as Exercise and the Meta Mysteries: ZEN VLOGZEN MIX
Productivity Tools (2002) ▲ Dan Zen made some early digital tools when he started teaching at Sheridan College. He did the grades system where comments could be added for each mark breakdown per assignment. The grades e-mailed out to students and provided a portal yet the input was done easily through excel sheets. He created Pigeon for e-mail send outs. He created Slate for surveys, the Alumnizer to keep in touch with alumni and various apps like ExamLock to help administer early online exams and study tools like Commentizer to help students take any code and try and recreate comments. See the E-learning Exhibit.Dan Zen Tools (1996) ▲ A set of admin tools for the Dan Zen site to send news letters, check stats and link clicks, administer Hip Cats, Spy-mail, and various other activities.Southam Tools (1997) ▲ Various tools for Southam / CanWest / Canada.com / National Post properties based on Dan Zen tools. There are also countless other tools like mystery builders for the Moustache Mystery series, and many scripts that publish content, etc. As we can see, a fair number of digital tools for one man. Time for a break!
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