As soon as I started following more than a dozen people on Twitter I realized that I needed more help than the Twitter.com site could offer (at the time). I saw recommendations for several Twitter desktop clients and after some experimentation, settled on Tweetdeck. Thank goodness, since my “follow” list just keeps growing. Tweetdeck helps me manage my Twitter stream (and my own updates from several accounts) with ease.
When Twitter_Tips mentioned this site with 10 very useful videos on how to get more out of Tweetdeck, I learned just how little of the power of Tweetdeck I was using. These brief, well done tutorials are definitely worth your time if you are a Tweetdeck user. If you aren’t, and feel that Twitter is overwhelming you, you might want to give Tweetdeck a try.
This screencast by Tom Kulmann explains nicely how to manage multiple email accounts through Gmail.
I had been thinking about setting up another gmail account and was wondering just how to handle more than one. I knew it could be done, but Tom’s Screenr video arrived in my Twitter account (retweeted by @elearning) at just the right time. Thanks, Tom!
Howcast Media, Inc. says that “from How to Write a Resume to How to Jump-Start Your Car, Howcast provides the answer to any how-to question.” They do this by engaging consumers to watch and share free, useful how-to videos and guides produced in-house or by their media partners, trusted brands, and individual contributors.
A friend called my attention to Howcast so I watched a couple of the “how to” videos on their site, including one on how to use Twitter. I thought they were fairly well done. The small ads at the bottom of the videos were a bit annoying but I found tbey could be removed by clicking on “x.”
The video content is distributed across a network of web, mobile, and cable partners, including YouTube, MySpace, Hulu, AOL, Yahoo!, Comcast, Apple, TiVo and Verizon.
“In addition to the Howcast Studios, the Emerging Filmmakers Program offers up-and-coming filmmakers the chance to gain experience, exposure, and extra income by creating short how-to videos.” The filmmakers program has partnered with film and television programs at Boston University, Flashpoint Academy, and Charles Sturt University to expose students to web video production.
Howcast was named a top web site of 2008 by both TIME and PC Magazine, profiled in the New York Times Sunday Business Section, nominated for two Webby Awards and has had its iPhone app featured in an Apple iPhone commercial.
I used to do quite a bit of screencasting and was happy to have Camtasia Studio to allow me to do a number of functions. But these days, I’m only likely to need a simple (and preferably easy) app.
Screenr just launched yesterday. It is a free app that runs inside your browser (nothing to download!), with the twist that when you are finished recording you can send your video directly to your Twitter followers. Before you send your screencast to Twitter, you can review your recording and add a description, says ReadWriteWeb.
You don’t have to send your video to Twitter, but for a lot of users, this will be the main reason to use Screenr. “The integration with Twitter also goes one step further, as you can re-tweet a screencast right from within the application and when you leave a comment, you can also choose to send it to Twitter as an @reply to the author.”
You can also embed your video in a blog post, upload it directly to YouTube, or download it to your desktop for more editing. Check out the Screenr home page for a short video tour and a number of examples of screencasts that users have created.
Screenr has a lot of competition. We have mentioned Jing here before. All screencasters have a similar range of features, but with Screenr it is extremely easy to record a video and share it with your Twitter friends. If you don’t already have a free Twitter account, this is a good time to get with it.
Top 10 tools for a free online education
These reminders from Lifehacker that the Internet “started out as a place for academics and researchers to trade data and knowledge,” point to a number of sources for free online learning.
Included are places to teach yourself programming, Ubuntu, a new language,, photography, and of course, recognized college online courses.
Academic Earth — the Hulu for education
One of the free online sites mentioned by Lifehacker (above) is Academic Earth, “a user-friendly platform for educational video that allows anyone to freely access instruction from the scholars and guest lecturers at the leading academic universities,” says TechCrunch.
There are 60 full courses and 2,395 total lectures (almost 1300 hours of video) from Yale, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Princeton available and browseable by subject, university, or instructor. The site also features famous guest lecturers on entrepreneurship and technology including Larry Page, Carol Bartz, Tim Draper, Elon Musk, and Guy Kawasaki.
TechCrunch notes that this “isn’t a radically new idea.” Academic Earth isn’t creating original content, it’s just repurposing existing academic content, but Academic Earth has the right plan around providing free course lectures. You can watch an entire semester’s worth of lectures in a few days if you wish. At the moment it doesn’t have forums, comments, social networking features, or ads, but all of those features and applications are expected in the future.
I was interested in this “absolutely free” app I saw at WebWorker Daily, called CamStudio .
With it you can record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create “industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs).”
According to their website, with CamStudio you can:
Create demonstration videos for any software program
Create a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions
Create video tutorials for school or college class
Record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people
Create video-based information products you can sell
Record new tricks and techniques you discover on your favourite software program, before you forget them
CamStudio can also add screen captions to your recordings in seconds and with the “Video Annotation feature you can even personalise your videos by including a webcam movie of yourself “picture-in-picture” over your desktop.”
It has its own Lossless Codec that “produces crystal clear results with a much smaller filesize compared with other more popular codecs, like Microsoft Video 1.”
With CamStudio, you have control over the output of your video: you can choose to use custom cursors, to record the whole screen or just a section of it and can reduce or increase the quality of the recording depending on if you want smaller videos, or you can have “best quality” ones for burning onto CD/DVD.
I haven’t tried CamStudio yet, but its makers also claim it is easy to use and comes with a comprehensive helpfile. As a user of TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio, which is definitely not free, I’ll be interested to find out — and hear from any of you — how well this free application actually works.
Video uploads for all Flickr users Flickr now lets all users, whether they ride for free or pay $25/year (Pro accounts), upload brief video clips. Those with Pro accounts can upload high-definition videos, but video length is capped at 90 seconds for everyone. Flickr videos can be geo-tagged to indicate location.
Approximately 3 million pictures and videos are uploaded daily to the site which is visited monthly by 73 million people worldwide.
New iPhone app for Amazon’s Kindle
iPhone has introduced the Amazon Kindle iPhone application which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. If you are out and about with some time on your hands and want to keep your book — or book collection — with you on a small device, this app will make you happy.
If you don’t own a Kindle, you will need to buy ebooks from Amazon through a web browser on your computer or iPhone, says Mathew Miller at ZDnet. Check out the post for his video showing ebooks on both Kindle and iPhone.
FCC Chief nominee is Net neutrality backer
President Obama has nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.
Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules. [via Slashdot]
SlideShare has responded to users requests to include embedded videos with their PowerPoint presentations. Instead of having to link to a YouTube video, you can now embed it into your Flash-based presentation, creating a more cohesive feeling, reports TechCrunch.
SlideShare has allowed users to embed audio with their slideshows since 2007. The more fully featured app will now let you include video introductions, product demonstrations, or any other video content that will enhance the overall presentation. See how it works here.
Here’s SlideShare’s list of some of the other things you can do:
Embed slideshows into your own blog or website
Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
Sync audio to your slides
Market your own event on slideshare
Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests
Many elected officials in the Senate or House of Representatives are posting videos on YouTube reports Google Public Policy blog.
Video clips include floor speeches, committee hearings, behind-the-scene shots, and communications directly from Congressional offices.
YouTube has launched two new platforms to help you access your own politicians’ videos through either the Senate Hub or House Hub. Select your state from the map and see which of your congressional reps has a video channel.
Places, tools for online learning
Robin Good’s site says, “In this collection you will find the best resources and hundreds of tools relevant to your personal growth, learning and educational resources, as well as to social media, video and business that Dr. Siemens has picked, collected and reviewed for you.”
You’ll find online tutorials and how-to sites, free places to learn online, places for educators, top tools, social media starter kits, tools for video creators, and more.
Winners of Crunchies announced
Readers nominated and voted for their “best of” choices in several categories.
Check out the whole list, including the runners-up, here.
Best games to look for in 2009
Wired Blog Network names eleven top games that players can anticipate in 2009.
Games for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation3, Windows, and Mac are included.
As soon as I started following more than a dozen people on Twitter I realized that I needed more help than the Twitter.com site could offer (at the time). I saw recommendations for several Twitter desktop clients and after some experimentation, settled on Tweetdeck. Thank goodness, since my “follow” list just keeps growing. Tweetdeck helps me manage my Twitter stream (and my own updates from several accounts) with ease.
Top 10 tools for a free online education
According to their website, with CamStudio you can:
Video uploads for all Flickr users
Places, tools for online learning