Mobile Technology in TAFE

How to Blog from Flickr, originally uploaded by Sue Waters.

Adding images to posts can be time consuming. A quick option is to blog directly from Flickr. Not only can you quickly write the post but it also adds a image attribution

To blog directly from Flickr you first need to configure your external blog with your Flickr account (which you do here. Alternatively click on the drop drown arrow on You and choose your Account , Click on the Extending Flickr link and the edit alongside Your blogs. Follow the instructions to link your blog with your account (for edublogs users you select the Wordpress blog).

For Edublogs users your blog URL address needs to look like this:

http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/xmlrpc.php  i.e.  Add xmlrpc.php to the end of your blog URL.

Now that your blog is configured whenever you see a photo on Flickr you would like to blog about just click on the Blog This link above the photo and write your post.

This post was written as a demonstration of what a post looks like when blogged from Flickr. Hope you like my quick demonstration

Oh dear, who forgot the simple rule that we leave digital footprints when we work online? Oops me!

Who is Really To Blame?

But in all fairness, the blame should be shifted equally to:

• Kevin Jarrett who told me If ya got’r, FlauntR! and
• Alan Levine who is currently doing his annual tradition of taking a week off from blog posting so he can take his writing from his blog to the comment spaces of other sites.

You see Kevin was nice enough to tell us about FlauntR — a new photo editing site which he feels is special. Now Alan is really into his photos so normally he would let us know his thoughts — but in his self imposed absence I decided to do a road test! Photo by Paul Watson.

What Happened…..

1. Didn’t want to spend too much time road testing FlauntR (after all Alan should be doing it ) — so just choose any old photo to upload from my computer!
2. Next saw pretty Valentine’s Day borders which looked quick and easy– so added one!
3. Fantastic — great editing options plus you can link automatically to your sites like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Bebo. So naturally saved my quick photo creation into my Flickr account.
4. A couple hours later to discover that one of my Flickr friend does what I do and actually looks at his contacts latest photos.

Here is his comment:

Well maybe - does it mean I get all this stuff? Or do I have to give it to you?

You will understand his question when you check out my beautiful Valentine’s Day photo I created using FlauntR. Well spotted Michael Coghlan!

It’s Fun Having Friends

To be honest I laughed so much when Michael noticed my photo on Flickr.

I really love checking out my friends photos as they are delivered to my Google Reader account via the RSS feed from Flickr (here is my post that explains how I add and manage my FlickR friends). You get such a feel of what is happening in their part of the World, or in the case of my photo — what the? is Sue doing? going? with this photo?

Thoughts on FauntR

• Definitely lots of great photo editing options
• Wouldn’t work at all in Firefox, so am only able to use it in Internet Explorer– but I’m thinking that it is having an issue with the cocomment Firefox addon that I installed (another long story!!!)
• Need to do a more detailed road test

FINAL THOUGHT

Hoping Michael Coghlan buys me all that stuff on the Valentine Day’s photo!

Have you tried FauntR? What are your thoughts?

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This is a joint post between Chris Betcher and myself on Flickr and Picasa, and has been cross posted on each of our blogs. Please note that we had written different sections and apologies but “I” may mean Chris or me (Sue).

Let’s start with Chris’s section and background on the post’s origin

After spending some time yesterday migrating Linda’s (Chris’s girlfriend) entire photo collection (well, most of it… did I mention that regular backup is very important?) into Google’s Picasa photo management application and then giving her a bit of a tutorial in how to use it tonight, she asked the next obvious question… how do I put some of these photos onto Flickr? A good question. After all, Flickr is without a doubt the best online photo sharing website around. With amazing tools and options, an incredible online community for sharing and learning from each other, and a huge array of APIs that enable Flickr to work with a range of different online and offline services, the decision to use Flickr as your online photo storage tool of choice is a bit of a no-brainer.

However, on the desktop it’s a different story. Flickr is purely a Web2.0 service, and there is no local desktop component offered with it. This means that while Flickr is wonderful at managing your photos online, when it comes to dealing with the photos stored on your hard drive the only real options you have is whatever tools are already on your computer. If you have a Mac, iPhoto does a great job of photo management. It’s free and comes with every Mac. If you are more serious you can always look at Adobe’s Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture, but these are quite expensive applications. On the Windows side, there are probably dozens of “photo management” applications but most of them are pretty awful, and some are also expensive. Most people just settle for managing their photos directly in Windows Explorer which is an average solution at best.

Using Picasa for your offline photo management

Enter Picasa from Google. Picasa is a wonderful free piece of photo management software and lets you sort, arrange, adjust, crop, rename and generally manage your photos on your computer. It really is an incredibly sophisticated yet simple tool for photographers and the price tag can’t be beaten…. you can’t do much better than free. It is available for Windows only, which makes perfect sense since it essentially does most of what iPhoto already does on the Mac. As well as the desktop app, there is also a “Flickr-like” online photo service from Google called Picasaweb. I say “Flickr-like”, because although it lets you store your photos online it lacks the same community and API sharing that makes Flickr so compelling. If you’re serious about photos online Picasaweb could be a little disappointing. However, being from the Google stable of products, there is some common functionality for exporting photos directly from Picasa on your computer to Picasaweb on the net, which is a nice touch.

The trouble is that while Picasa may be an obvious best choice for local photo management, Flickr is the obvious best choice for online photo management. It would be nice to have the option to manage your photos locally with Picasa and then send your best shots up to Flickr to share with the world. Nice, except that Picasa is owned by Google and Flickr is owned by Yahoo!, and when companies are in direct head to head battle like Yahoo! and Google are, the last thing you want to do is anything that promotes your competition. This is unfortunate, since the losers in that battle are you and I, the consumers. We just want to manage our photos using the two tools we like, but it’s not as quite as straightforward as that.

Connecting via Twitter

Talk about synchronicity. As I was pondering this question tonight, the exact same question floated through my Twitter feed. Mrs_Banjer , sujokat and Sue (dswaters) were discussing the very same issue - how to manage your photos on and offline, what service to use, how to integrate them, and essentially they were tweeting on the very same things I was thinking about. One thing led to another, so via Twitter we discussed, chatted, talked and shared links. We pontificated on the pros and cons of Flickr versus Picasa. This is just one example of the power of an always-on personal learning network. Eventually though, I felt I needed to clarify a point in the discussion so rather than overTweet to the world, I Skyped Sue Waters in Perth and chatted about it directly. While we were talking a tweet came through from sujokat asking “someone do a blog on this please this is fabulous but all too quick for me to take it all in”. Sue and I decided that we’d do that… write a post about the pros and cons of Picasa and Flickr, but we’d do it as a joint post. So this is being written in Google Docs and is a collaborative effort between Sue and I… over to you Sue.

Now for My (Sue’s) Thoughts On Picasa vs Flickr

One of the best aspects of Twitter connectivity is the challenging of your thoughts, beliefs and making you really think; often about issues you had not considered. This was definitely the case with Picasa vs Flickr. I have rarely used Picasa as Window Explorer and Picture Manager have been adequate for my needs but really into Flickr. In all fairness to Picasa more likely that I have not spent enough time exploring the virtues of Picasa — it did take me 12 months to realise the benefits of Flickr. So my homework for the next few days is to throughly road test Picasa and report back to ensure I have done my usual through research.

It is definitely beneficial to import photos from your camera directly into Picasa because it means you don’t import multiple copies of the same photo.

Uploading to Flickr

For Mac users, there are several options for getting photos to Flickr. As iPhoto is a standard application found on every Mac it is a much simpler proposition for developers to create APIs that hook directly between iPhoto and Flickr, so there tends to be a number of uploading tools available, the best known of which is Flickr Uploadr. As well as the Flickr Uploader, there are free tools like FFXporter that plug directly into iPhotos Export option to offer direct Flickr integration. Another option is to use Flock as your web broswer… Flock has Flickr uploading tools built right in.

For Windows users who like Picasa as their photo management tool, uploading images to Flickr from Picasa is also a relatively simple process, even if not quite as obvious or integrated as that enjoyed by Mac users. Just download and install Flickr Uploadr on your desktop, open the Flickr Uploader and Picasa windows alongside each other, then drag and drop the images from Picasa library onto the Flickr Uploader. Simple!

Final Thoughts

Also worth checking out David Jake’s thorough information on Flickr (thanks sukojat for the link) and Philip Nichols’s guide to Picasa.

Besides learning a lot more about Picasa it has been amazing collaborating writing a post; using Google Documents, Twitter and Skype — and Chris has a great writing style (jealous!!!).

Chris and I would love to learn more about how you manage your photos.

What are your thoughts? Do you use an offline photo management software? What features do you like about the software you use? Do you share your photos online at Flickr or do you use another photosharing website? And if so, which one and why?

Please take this opportunity to drop past Chris’s post and leave some tips for him as well.

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Flickr was a Web 2.0 tool that initially did not grab me because I didn’t get the idea of sharing photos online. Now I can’t live without Flickr, and it offers so much, that it is definitely worth taking the time to learn how to use more effectively.

If you are new to Flickr I strongly recommend that you check out Josh Lowensohn’s Newbie’s Guide to Flickr and Alan Levine’s What we can do with Flickr (especially the links below the photo).

Copyright Free Images

Most of the photos I use on my websites are sourced from Flickr Creative Commons images using FlickrCC. Remember when using photos from Flickr:

• To check their license and only use in a manner stated in their license
• “All rights reserved” means you can not use the photo without permission from the author
• There are a range of different Creative commons licenses; each impose different restrictions on how you use the images. I strongly recommend that you read Skellie’s A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Flickr Images for an excellent overview of creative commons licenses.
• All images licensed under Creative commons means that you are required to credit the author with a link back to their profile. You do this by inserting below the photo the link e.g. Photo by Sue Waters.

Making Friends

The benefit of making Friends on Flickr (Flickr calls them contacts) is you learn about the cool stuff your friends are getting up to e.g. snowman, playing with Santa in Second Life, the “must have” computer mouse (Darren - I think you need some friends).

Best way of seeing the latest photos from your friends is to subscribe to the RSS feed from photos from your friends using your Feed Reader.

Remember the Conversation

We should also remember that Flickr is not just about photos, like blogs, the conversations are important. Take the time to write comment below photos that interest you because it is important to participate in other people’s spaces. But to be effective at this with Flickr I suggest you:

1. Subscribe to recent activities on your photos using your Feed Reader- this lets you know when people write comments on your photos so you can respond back to comments quickly.
2. Subscribe to updates on photos you’ve commented on using your Feed Reader - so you are advised when people make further comments so you can choose whether you want to respond back.

Organising Photos

If you use Flickr a lot it is definitely worth paying for a Pro Account because it only costs US$24.95 per year for lots of extra benefits e.g. unlimited Sets and Collections for organising photos.

The difference between a set and a collection is a set contains photos whereas collection contains sets e.g. I may have my photos arranged into sets called Snowman, Christmas trees, Christmas Decorations and then have all these sets organised in a Collection called Christmas.

Editing Photos

Flickr has lots of great options for editing your photos by:

• Adding notes to your photos - check out Alan Levine’s example
• Editing them within Flickr using Picnik
• Creating new images from Flickr photos using tools like Dumpr, fd’s Flickr toys and FotoTrix

FINAL THOUGHT

Flickr has so many features that it is impossible to cover them all in a blog post. Please let us know your tips for getting more out of Flickr or if you use another photosharing website, what do you like about the site you use.

I believe it may be called “Snow Envy”? But I have never felt a strong feeling or need for a White Christmas until my twitter network twittered about snow days, snow is falling or my first snowman for the year. You see many West Australians never get to see snow unless we travel a very, very loooooong way to NSW Snowy Mountains, Victorian High Country, Tasmania or another country.

I can but dream of a White Christmas but at least I can cheer myself up by adding some Christmas bling to my blog.

So I tried starting with the Snowflake Generator recommended by Jennifer Wagner but I discovered one serious problem! Neither myself or my kids had ever learnt at school how to make paper snowflakes so we had no idea of the design concept (What the?).

Notice that Master 9 is considerably better at snowflakes than me!

Okay snowflakes not working for me…. so must be time for the image generators (with image generators they supply the image and you add your desired text). The trouble is there are so many image generators that you can use to create images it can be a lengthy process to find the right ones to use.

Fortunately Rollyo came to the rescue because it is a search engine that you can use to searches image generators. So all I needed to do was insert my search terms e.g. Christmas, Snowman, Santa.

But before I started creating my Christmas bling I had to make my own book cover for image generators thanks to Sign Generators making the task easier for me to find the right image faster.

Time to get to work. Grabbed myself a Christmas Garden Flowers sign.

and a winter snowman garden sign…

and off course I can’t forget my Christmas list….

Still felt that I was missing out so fortunately I found Build your Own Snowman and that is exactly what I did! And at least I did not fail that like I did snowflakes.

FINAL THOUGHT

Feeling happier now that I have added some Christmas bling. There is lots more to choose from if you want to create some of your own — give Rollyo a try for locating suitable image generators faster. You can read more about image generators in this post.

Seriously worried for my twitter network, in snow areas; they may need to be concerned — if they are not careful they could end up with crazy Aussies visiting them for Christmas. PS perhaps you may want to give me instructions for creating snowflakes as my education is seriously lacking!

Michele Martin (The Bamboo Project) did her first screencast using Camtasia to create a video that shows new bloggers the evolution of a blog post from her reading an article in her feed reader, through posting her response to the article and the interactions that took place in comments on her blog and at the original post. But she was a little disappointed in the quality of the screencapture so I thought I would share some quick tips that will help.

Software options for Creating Screencasts

I should however start by saying there are a lot of options for creating screencasts (i.e. digital recording of a computer screen). Here are a few of the free software you can use:

• Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 - TechSmith are offering the full version of Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 for free download. Download a free copy of Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 here and request the free software key here (this will register your copy as a fully licensed version).
• CamStudio - Download a free copy of CamSudio here and check out my “how-to-use” CamStudio here.
• Jing - Download a free copy of Jing here (Camtasia Studio and Jing are both products of TechSmith) and here is an example of a screencast I created using Jing.

I normally use CamStudio because we don’t have licensed copies of Camtasia Studio at work — which means if I want to edit the screencast I have to use MovieMaker. Camtasia Studio means you can record and edit the screencast without having to use another program plus Camtasia Studio does more than just screencasts (e.g. create videos from PowerPoints and create digital stories).

Improving the readability of a Screencast

1. Use Fixed Recording Region

My first for creating a better screencast is the recording region. Recording the entire desktop is not an issue if you are creating a video from a PowerPoint because text is usually large (here is an example of a video podcast created by Richard Meagher from a PowerPoint and this is how he creates his video podcasts using Camtasia Studio).

Ideally, for most situations, when creating a screencast it is best to use a fixed region (640 wide by 480 high) and set the screen recording to autopan. Autopan means the region you are recording moves as you move the mouse. This means the text on the screen will be considerably easier to read as opposed to if you had recorded the entire desktop.

2. Video Format

Video format you use to produce your screencast can have a big impact on final quality of the online video.

The trouble is the most frustrating aspect of video is there is too many video formats. Some applications only provide limited options for saving your movie however Camtasia Studio gives you lots of options i.e. AVI video , MOV (QuickTime Movie), WMV (Windows Media video) and Flash (SLV/FLV format) so that you can choose the best option depending on how or what device you will be viewing it.

Below is my quick screencast that shows how to use fixed regions for creating a screencast which was produced as a .mov video compare this to the poorer quality of the same screencast produced as a .wmv video.

With video is it always worth having a play with video format, remembering that you may not notice the difference between the formats until you upload to the video sharing website. For Camtasia Studio — I suggest probably best to stick to .mov format, using medium setting, when uploading to video sharing websites.

FINAL THOUGHT

Getting it right with video can be really frustrating! Format and options can drive you insane. I only had time to share a few tips, and I am not an expert with Camtasia Studio. Please add your tips for creating screencasts.

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Sarah Stewart (Sarah’s Musings) commented on my These Are My Favourite Tools! What Are Yours? post that as a result of my posts on presentation skills she has discovered FlickR and have started using the images on blog and in presentations but she is finding it time consuming finding images. What she would like is advice on quick and easy ways of finding images that you are allowed to use.

So here are some of my suggestions:

Search for images using FlickrCC

FlickrCC is the best online tool I have found for quickly searching creative common Flickr photos. It is considerably faster than using FlickrStorm, Creative Commons Image Search or the creative commons advanced search at Flickr. Unlike the other search options FlickrCC also provides facilities to edit the image using their online editing tool - click on this link to view their image editing options.

Thanks to Judy O’Connell (Hey Jude) for telling me about FlickrCC! Check out Judy’s post on Find Free Images Online - My List for options other than using Flickr creative commons photos. I personally prefer using Flickr creative commons photos because there are more photos at Flickr so I am more likely to find photos faster.

Remember that when you use Creative Commons images you are allowed to use these provided you follow the terms specified by their Creative Commons license. In simple terms you are allowed to use these images provided you credit the original source by linking back to that source - you need to refer to Flickr Creative Commons information for a more detailed explanation as there are a range of different licenses with different restrictions.

Creating your own images

There are several ways you can create your own images:

1. Start building up your own collection of photos
I now tend to carry my camera wherever I go and like to share my photos online at Flickr.

2. Use an editing tool to create your own images
I use SnagIT to take screen shots of web pages, software applications or add check information to photos (my screen shot of FlickrCC above was created using SnagIT)

3. Use an image creating tool to create images
I love using fd’s Flickr Toys to remix photos into lots of different images like Mosaics etc.

However today I decided to check out Alan Levine (CogDog) Web 2.0 Gem Starter List because I knew Alan was bound to have some cool tools for editing photos (he loves photos). As a result I came across Dumpr which is a lot better than fd’s Flickr Toys. Here is a same of the different photos I created using Dumpr (can use photos from your computer, Flickr, a Web 2.0 mashup or URL)

The other tool that Alan suggested that I liked was spell with Flickr.

FINAL THOUGHT

Hopefully you find these tools save you time. Please let me know if you have any similar photo editing, image creation or photo searching tools that I should check out.

After reading the latest blogs I thought it was time to read some articles from my technology news feeds; one of which is PCWorld.com “Most popular downloads of the week”. Dare I say it; Google Picasa is one of the top ten downloads for the week. While I had read an article posted by Phillip Nichols on “How to do simple graphics editing with Picasa” back in February I had not got around to giving it a go. So when I saw the PC World article it reminded me that Phillip said it was a great program and I decided to give it a try.

Unlike a lot of Google applications this one you actually download and use on your computer. It is definitely cool. Goes through and scans your hard drive then places all the images and videos from all your different folders (not just My Pictures) into folders that are easy to access from its library. Their library is so easy and nice to scroll through.

There are lots of photo editing options as well.

Definitely an excellent option for fast editing of photos. The only feature I would like to see improved is picture resizing. Here is a collage I made quickly using it. Refer to their information on “How do I create a collage” to see how I did this.

My final thoughts:

1. Google Picasa is definitely fantastic free software that organises all the photos and videos on your computer into one library and lets you locate and edit them much easier than any other program I use. Much easier than using Windows Explorer and trying to remember which folders pictures are in. Definitely give it a try!
2. SnagIT - while it is not free - is great for screen capture, editing and adding call outs. Thanks to Sue Hickton for putting me onto this program
3. Picture Manager is great for resizing photos