Aside: Most of the images in this post link to larger versions that are easier to read.

Zemanta (Windows and Mac Users)
Have you ever wanted a personal blogging assistant? Now you can have one. After bumping into Zemanta online, I've realized that several education bloggers are using it.

Zemanta is a plug-in you can install in your FireFox browser or directly into your MovableType 4 or WordPress blog installation. Zemanta "reads" what you are typing and recommends content: links to the text you have typed, tags for your post, and photos. It also suggests links that are related to your content that will appear at the bottom of your post if selected. To add any of this to your blog post, simply click on the links, tags, photos, or related posts.

But here's the feature I especially like. You can export the OPML file from your RSS feed reader and import those resources into Zemanta. Now you can choose links, tags, photos, and related links restricted to your trusted sources.

Simply export an OPML file from your RSS feed reader. (Different readers do this in different ways, but it's easy to do.) Then click on the Zemanta preferences icon indicated in the screenshot below (MovableType 4 or WordPress—they look the same). Scroll to the bottom of the window that appears, and click on the the icon shown in the second image in this post. Now, simply navigate to the OPML file you downloaded from your RSS feed reader to your desktop.

You will see this near the very bottom of the Zemanta Preferences window.

ScreenFlow (Mac Users)
I'm a huge ScreenFlow fan. (Don't get me wrong, I like Camtasia, too!) Have you ever wanted to hide the ScreenFlow icon(s) while you make a screencast? (At least it doesn't draw attention to itself by blinking at you during the recording like some of the other screen capture programs do.)

Today I learned that you can hide (or not) one (or both) of the application icons while recording, if you wish. It's really easy to do. Here's how: In the ScreenFlow preferences window, under General...

When you check #1 (Settings) the menu bar icon pictured below shows. Uncheck it to hide the menu bar icon.

Next to Startup, when you choose to Launch ScreenFlow Helper at user login (#2), after you log back in, the ScreenFlow icon will not appear in the Dock when recording. (Of course, I always hide my dock anyway.)

Preview (Mac Users)
The Mac PDF reader, Preview, does more than just let you read PDF files. It also allows you to annotate and bookmark PDFs for collaboration. But Wes Fryer, caught me be surprise when he recently pointed out that you can scan from many popular scanners directly into Preview! I had no idea. I then found that it will also do screen captures of a selected area, a window, or even the entire screen.

It pays to explore your software menus, especially from those programs you've had for a long time.

Happy day after Valentine's Day!

Desktop picture (shown in a screenshot above) is from vladstudio.