18 February 2011

zFlick - installation and use

This week, the Zentangle blog (in this article) wrote about a neat, free utility designed for searching through all the many images and photographs on Flickr.  This is an absolutely wonderful tool for browsing Zentangle and ZIA* on Flickr.  You can search for specific tangle examples, tangly themes, ZIA done with different methods and materials, and more.

I installed zFlick straight away on my laptop, and have been having lots of fun with it ever since.  So I decided to put together a couple of very short videos to show people how easy it is to install and to use. 

Note: if you have a slow connection, or the video keeps stopping instead of playing smoothly all the way through – just press the pause button and wait until the faint red progress bar§ has filled all the way to the right hand side before watching the video.  This is a useful tip whenever you are watching YouTube (or other online video content).  If the video quality is fuzzy on the blog page - click on the video screen where the YouTube logo appears to watch the video on YouTube, where it may be a little clearer.

First, a brief video showing the installation of zFlick   



And now, a video demonstrating it in use


Here are some fun searches to try, once you have zFlick up and running
  • zentangle watercolor (and 'zentangle watercolour' – since it can be spelled both ways!)
  • zentangle alphabet
  • zentangle bookmark
  • zentangle ixorus
  • zentangle artoo
  • zentangle calligraphy
  • zentangle christmas
  • zentangle quilt
  • zentangle mandala
  • zentangle ensemble
  • zentangle kit (of course!)
Go, install, search, and find all that tangly deliciousness, just waiting for you on Flickr.
Have fun everyone — I certainly have!

Notes
Wallpaper photograph in the video, © Kit Murdoch, 2010.
Videos show installation and use on a PC, using Windows 7. [A desktop-how-to video by Kit.]

* ZIA = Zentangle inspired art (pron. rhymes with 'mia' in Abba's Mamma Mia). 
§ the red progress bar's position is indicated with a yellow arrow in the image below (if you wait until it has filled all the way to the right, the video will play all the way through smoothly)

5 comments:

  1. Great, Kit. I'll be checking this out as soon as I can make the time. Thanks!

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  2. Thanks Kit, I got it to work this time. Sure is a cool tool!

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  3. Thank you for the heads up. You've done a wonderful job of explaining how to use zFlick.

    I wish I knew more about creating videos and slideshows and embedding them in blogs. My problem is that I want to know, but I don’t want to spend the time or energy to learn, lol. Funny how that stops you from figuring out how to do things!

    I’ve been debating whether to download zFlick or not. The last two times I downloaded something I ended up with vicious malware that took me days to clean up. But your demo is a powerful persuader. It would certainly help me in my quest to find new tangles!

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  4. Thanks for sharing. Going to try it out now!

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