Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category
Jotform: Collect data on your blog or website
I have been using this Jotform.com site for setting up basic data entry forms. Just sign up and you can get started in minutes. Once you have signed up you get a default form that you can modify. Most of the things are clickable. I just clicked on the title and typed over the new name for my form. I want to collect data from people who are coming to my party.
Podcasting with Odeo
Updated on 14Nov, 2006
Odeo is a free and easy to use web site where you can create audio recording of your voice. You can email these audio clips to your friends. If you want to publish audio on a topic on a regular basis then you can publish your recording as podcasts too. Maybe you are traveling in Thailand and you want your friends to follow your trip by listening to your audio clips every couple of days, you can hop into a cybercafe, log on to Odeo and record your audio. Maybe you are a Chinese language teacher and you want your students to listen to audio clips of your lessons every week for practice. I am sure once you start using Odeo, you will discover several uses for it.
Step1: Signing up
a) Sign up to Odeo at www.odeo.com. The sign up is pretty simple, all you need to input is your name, email and password.
Once you are signed on you will see this page.
Step2: Creating a Podcast
a) The first thing we will do is to create a podcast. Think of podcasts as a radio show. You can have a podcast called “My Travels” that might have episodes on your travel stories. You might have another podcast called “Lunch with Me” where in each episode you might talk about a new lunch place you discovered. Later on we will create individual episodes and add them to our podcast. Right now I am just creating a podcast. Look at the My Podcasts tab on the right hand side of your page and click on “Create one!”
b) Odeo will ask you for some details about your podcast. Try to be as descriptive as possible. Enter the description
c) Once you have submitted you podcast details, you will see the following screen.
We are done with podcast creation. I am calling my podcast “Thailand Travel Podcast” . Next we will add some audio or individual episodes into our podcast.
Step 3: Recording and adding audio to your podcast
a) From the My Audio tab on the left, click on Record Audio
You get this new screen - Odeo Studio. Odeo is now loading a recording utility. This might take a little bit of time so be patient here.
b) You will get this window that asks permission to access your camera and microphone. Make sure you have connected a mic to your computer (or your computer has a built in mic). Click on Allow.
c) The recorder is now ready for you to start recording. Click on the Record button and start speaking.
d) When you are done speaking, click on the Stop button. You can click on the Play button to review your audio. If you are not happy, you can click on Clear Audio button to cancel the recording and then record again. But if you are happy then you can click on the Save Recording button.
It takes a little while to save the audio depending on how long your audio is.
e) On the next page you get this screen.
Type in a Title. Make sure that your titles are descriptive enough. You can type in a longer description too. If you have a blog post of some other pages relating to the topic you recording, you could put the address of that page in the Link area. You might also want to add in an image of the things you are talking about.
You can make this audio a part of your podcast by selecting your podcast from the “Place in:” option right at the bottom.
Step 4: Letting your friends know about your podcast
a) Go the My Podcasts tab and click on the name of your podcast.
b) The next page shows you the subscription link for you podcast. You can copy this link and email to your friends or display it on your website.
Step 5: Listening to your podcasts on iTunes
a) If you or your friends are new to podcasts, you can refer them to this section of the tutorial. Your friends may need to download, install and run iTunes (from www.itunes.com) in order to subscribe and listen to podcasts. Once iTunes is running, they will need to go to the Advanced menu item and choose Subscribe to Podcast．
b) A small window will open up asking for the address of the podcast. They will have to copy the address of your podcast feed (from the email you sent them or from your website) and paste it over here.
Click on ok after pasting the address.
c) iTunes will start downloading the individual episodes.
From now on whenever you have a new episode, the iTunes on your friend’s computer will automatically download the new episode.
Technorati Tags: odeo, podcasting
Working with Google Page Creator
I often run Dreamweaver workshop for people interested in making web pages. Most of the time they just want to make a small website and Dreamweaver ends up being too feature rich plus the hassles of finding a hosting site etc. Also, Dreamweaver is not cheap - a big obstacle when you are trying to use it with organisations on a budget. I used to show people how to use blog engines like Wordpress.com or blogspot.com and make them look like webpages (some people just don’t want to hear the word blog).
Anyway, today I got entry to Google’s Page Creator service and I have been playing with it last 20 minutes. Similar to a blog tool, this service offers template that let you change the layout and the look of the site. You can create several web pages and link them to each other.
Highlight a word and click on the link tab on the left and a window opens allowing you to specify the page or website to be linked to.
Click on another tab and a window pops up asking you to upload your image or specify the web address of the image.
The other nice thing is that web page renders well on a mobile browser.
The same page seen on Opera’s mobile browser.
Technorati Tags: googlepagecreator, googlepages, webdesign, dreamweaver
Blogs in PR Workshop
Welcome to the Blogs and PR workshop. Links to some of the topics/tools we will be covering today.
Blog Engines
wordpress.com
wpblogs.com
blogsome.com
Blog Engines ($)
Typepad
Hosting on own server in Singapore www.poznet.com (other hosts - ask them if they have Cpanel with Fantastico installed)
Blog Stats
Statcounter
Mapstats
Blogpatrol
Photoblogging Flickr
RSS
Intro to Bloglines
Yout corporate site does not have RSS feeds, you can create feeds with FeedXs and allow others to subscribe to your feeds.
Searching/Tracking blog conversations
Pubsub
Feedster
Technorati
Blogpulse
Icerocket
Podcast Directories
Podcastalley
iTunes
PRBlogs, Examples of Corporate Blogs, Links to CEO blogs, Samples of corporate blogging policies and many more resources.
The NewPR.com
Corporate Blogs in Singapore
Other Links
How to suck up to a Blogger
Books
Naked Conversations (both print and digital download editions available). Also check out the author’s blog.
Online teaching with Nuvvo
I am trying this web service called Nuvvo by a company called Savvica that helps one set up an online space to support your course. This might be an useful for private tutors, smaller educational institutes etc. as the service is free. If you feel you are an expert in some area you can setup your own course. Savicca would let you advertise your course on their web, enroll students, put up your course materials and media files, set up quiz and marking schemes etc.
You can create multiple courses. There is an “Advertise on portal” that allows you to seek students online.