It's a holiday! Here are 2 fun free tools to help you explore.
Happy American Independence Day to all who celebrate. Whether you live in 🇺🇸 or anywhere else, I think you'll enjoy today's free tools.
This project started in January of this year. This is the first time our every-other-Tuesday falls on a holiday.
We could have taken the day off. But instead, I’d rather share 2 fun free tools you can use while not working!
Whether or not you celebrate July 4th, I hope it’s a great day.
Now let’s explore!
National Museum of Natural History Virtual Tours
Tool type: website
It’s a holiday. But it’s also hot. And the air quality sucks.
A lot of folks are likely opting to stay inside today, cranking the AC and their air purifiers.
But instead of binging The Office… again!… maybe you feel like mixing up your digital content.
The Smithsonian has you covered!
“The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History virtual tours allow visitors to take self-guided, room-by-room tours of select exhibits and areas within the museum from their desktop or mobile device. Visitors can also access select collections and research areas at our satellite support and research stations as well as past exhibits no longer on display.”
Touring the Smithsonian has never been simpler. Pull up your computer, smartphone or tablet and head to naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour.
Pick your exhibit and start exploring.
Just choose a room and dig in.
Click the arrows and move through the exhibit, zooming in on any piece that piques your interest.
They have info for every item, you can zoom in and out to an almost comical level, and they even have a built-in camera tool to let you capture whatever you want.
Fun and learning for you, and the whole family!
Enjoy!
FREE or FREEmium: FREE
Just like all exhibits of The Smithsonian are free to enter, this free digital tool is totally free to enjoy. And now you can enjoy all they have to offer without the DC heat, large crowds and $7 bottles of water!
Extrapolate
Tool type: web app
Okay, we’ve explored the world.
Now let’s explore your own future!
This simple, free digital tool - Extrapolate - lets you upload any photo and then shows you what you’ll look like in the future.
There are plenty of apps out there that do this kind of thing (TikTok is currently awash in them!). But this one is quite cool.
Upload your photo and it creates a GIF of you aging before your eyes. There’s no way to pause the GIF, but you can easily download the file and then see (and be haunted by!) each photo separately.
I uploaded this photo.
Here’s what I got.
What do you think?
Not bad, right?!
I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing that photo in my dreams tonight. 🙃
FREE or FREEmium: FREE
This tool is totally free.
Whether today’s a holiday or just an every-other-Tuesday, I hope you’re having a great day and that you find some enjoyment from either or both of today’s tools.
See you in a fortnight!
Josh
PS - This little project is a work of passion for me — I just really love free digital tools and I’m having fun sharing them with you! But I’d really love to keep getting the word out. If you could forward this email to 2 folks you think might enjoy Free Digital Tools, I’d really appreciate it. 🙌 ❤️ 😎