Unit of Learning #13

Task #1

Animoto- allowed me to add the flash animation as a widget on my wordpress blog(actually just posts a link on my blog) , also it can be found here It imported onto my facebook page as a note. I think the Gigya widget would be a better option.

http://animoto.com/play/l004EBVUyclOLSq5JSk8EA

This program had the least control and the fewest options, also the flash was limited to 30 seconds.

Toufee- more control than Animoto, but the buttons didn’t work very well. There was some trouble with getting it to export to Facebook as well. It’s loaded on my profile, but it won’t play properly. It also fails to embed in WordPress. I’ll link the flash here. I also added this to my Ning page.

http://www.toufee.com/36970/movies/Colorado_in_Flash

Sprout- I really liked the layout and amount of control Sprout gave. It seems very professionally done, and fully formed. You can add sounds and music to it, but there’s no way that I could find to remove the large play bar from the animation. It didn’t want to embed in WordPress, but it had no problems with Gigya. It’s the only one that was put into Facebook well. You can watch it at the bottom of my Facebook profile here.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=49106236

Task #2

I chose to use Jing after a brief view of the two products. I’ll admit that I have some bias for the product because it’s colorful and it looks really polished. I also like how it just hides at the top of my screen till I need to use it, and that it has a lot of options. It’s also nice that you can see what you’ve done and have a choice on where you want to upload a file. I chose to give a quick demo of Arena, a simulation program that has just recently been installed in the grad computer lab. WordPress doesn’t let many programs embed themselves, so here’s the URL to my screencast.

http://screencast.com/t/Yygr3tUy7JX

Task #3

I am “jaguidosh” on seesmic, I have commented on your Learning Unit #12 vid post.

http://seesmic.com/v/1zSskecZWe

Task #4

I am “jaguidosh” on Voicethread

Our group thread is at this site.

http://voicethread.com/#home.b124794.i649088

Apologies to my group members for my static filled post, I’ve since fixed the problem and will continue to comment on the thread when appropriate in a static free manner.

I have also commented on your Learning Unit #12 thread in a mostly static free manner. I think the hum/whine sound might be feedback from my mic.

http://voicethread.com/#q.b124591.i647636

Animoto.com

Animoto.com

Learning Unit # 12

Task#1

Viewed in 1080p

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/1/b/41b10a4f-f4f4-4692-aa44-a458d0047e91/Robotica_1080.exe

Viewed in 720p

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/9/d/09d051c4-decc-4d39-9c57-f520187213a1/Amazing_Caves_720.exe

Viewed from Apple’s site

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/blue_man.html

Task #2

I attempted to upload to youtube via my ustream account, I thought it would be an interesting bit of synergy between tasks 2 and 3. It’s nothing really important in itself, just me explaining what I just mentioned in the previous sentance. If it uploads properly and works, great. I’ll modify this task as YouTube updates me.

For creating the video through Ustream, all I did was open up a broadcast from their website and save it like a normally recorded broadcast. After that I used the option to upload the content to YouTube, easy. I also used the program that came with my webcam to try and upload something, but the file size was going to take over an hour to upload on YouTube. The process there was fairly simple as well: hook up the webcam hit the record button and start talking. Go to YouTube and use their upload option finished the process in that instance… assuming the upload time isn’t ridiculous.

Update: about five or ten minutes after I started the upload from Ustream I was able to hit YouTube and get the URL for the video. (suggestion is to skip it, the upload doesn’t seem to work perfectly. The sound it nothing but static and the image appears to move faster than it should)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K01xUf86Kl8

Another attempt at uploading something to Youtube offered this, after a long, long wait for conversion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2WQj8IPDsg

After watching this version I notice that there are still some problems with the upload. The sound is much better, but the speed the video progresses at is too fast and doesn’t match the audio track. I’m unsure what the problem is with the conversion process that is changing the video, but I imagine that it must have something to do with the near 100MB file size that the webcam produced.

Task#3
I put up a few video’s on Ustream, the “best” version is here:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/382027

The other version is below, the difference was I tried a few times in between to increase the quality of the sound. I’m honestly very disappointed in the sound quality, though I suppose that’s the reason why they offer the chat feature for their broadcasts.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/381998

I attempted to make the sound better by increasing the sound setting available and by using a better headset in the “best” version. I don’t think the difference is really that spectacular. I really can’t say how disappointed I am in that aspect, though I imagine that it is possible that I missed something about their sound options.

In the video’s I explain my reason for choosing the site, but due the the sound quality I’ll outline them here as well.

1. Stickam is big, but Ustream seems to listen to its customer base and has a lot of options that I didn’t find on Stickam. An example is the YouTube upload.
2. Ustream is very clean and professional looking
3. Ustream has a very nice interface that I was able to quickly learn and it allows for a lot of customization on your home page.
4. Livevideo looks a little unfinished, it also looks like it is battling pornography. I looked around the site briefly and turned it down when I noticed the top channels and groups all seemed to be linked to adult material, or at least showed images of women in skimpy atire. Needless to say I don’t care to have my professional reputation associated with that, it’s right out.

Task#5

I am signed up on Seesmic as “jaguidosh”

Learning Unit #11

#1

I’d like to direct you to http://www.virtualparks.org/scenes/ZnOaPnlC4pGqw36AWK5FTaw.html, this is a great panoramic view of one of the cultural sites in Mesa Verde. The last time I was in the park most of it had been torched by fire, there was nothing green when I saw it. I think I like it this way much better.

#2

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2581029/Social-Bookmarking

Update: Slideshare finished processing my ppt, You can still go to scribd to see it sans audio.

#3

Creating the slide show itself was not hard. Recording a short speech on social bookmarking and saving into a mp3 format was not hard. Finding out that I Scribd needed ppt 2003, and that the Slideshare site was not up to snuff was somewhat more difficult. After a few hours of playing around with formats and driver upgrades I finally succumbed and used two sites for my slide presentation. I stored my power point on social bookmarking at Scribd and my audio file is saved on the Internet archive. The link in #2 leads to my power point, saved at Scribd, and the link below leads to the spoken portion of the task. I had hoped to figure out how to use html to code a way for the file to be streamed directly from my blog, but the task is beyond my knowledge of the language.

http://www.archive.org/details/SocialBookmarkingMp3_989

You can either download the file, or use their player on the top right corner of their site to play the audio.

Update: Slideshare has finished converting my ppt file, so I went ahead and tried their service for slidecasting. Their method is very easy and fairly intuitive, I think it could be pretty successful if they can get around how long the conversion time seems to be. You can find my slidecast either here http://www.slideshare.net/jaguidosh/social-bookmarking-363878 or you can enjoy the easy embed option that slideshare provides for wordpress bloggers. I’m fairly certain that’s my favorite part of their service, I don’t have to mess around with code to get a slidecast saved on another site to show up on my blog.

Another Update: For a while I was getting desperate because Authorstream didn’t seem to want to convert my files either. It looks like both Authorstream and Slideshare just suffer from long conversion times. Here’s a link to my powerpoint on Authorstream, it’s a little different because I had to redo the audio to split it up for PPT.

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jaguidosh-63444-social-bookmarking-audio-education-ppt-powerpoint/

Learning Unit 10

1 I’ll return and edit this post with the correct link once everyone has finished their final edits on the google document. I’d hate to upload a half finished copy to scribd. I’ll check the document at 12 and see if there are any people still editing, if not I’ll upload the document then.

(UPDATE) It’s nearly 2AM, so here’s what’s been written on the social networking platforms.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2533599/socialnetworkingsoftware

2 http://wordprocessor.wetpaint.com/

3 All of my links for audio/visual editing, video storage, flash animation tools, and real time communication can be viewed at my del.icio.us account RIGHT HERE

4 Managing so information A copy of my post is below:

Before I started this semester I was using Gmail for professional correspondence, and my yahoo account for friends, family and websites. I would check my email two or three times a day, each account individually. I also had an account on Facebook to keep track of friends from school, which at the time I would check once a day for messages and other social information. I also used the internet to keep track of certain publications and even a few web comics. I would usually check these after my mail in the mornings.

Since I’ve started this class I’ve consolidated everything into Google’s home page using several helpful widgets. I’ve connected all of the random web pages that I check for updates into an RSS feed which is linked to a Google widget, along with two other widgets to connect to my e-mail accounts. Now when I log into my Google account I have immediate access to all of my new mail and the option to view any new articles or posts among the blogs, comics and articles of which I am a fan. I’ve even gone so far as to add a Facebook widget to Firefox so I don’t even have to log into the site to check messages.

A nice little bonus that I hadn’t considered when I started consolidating all of my interests was the ability to access all of these sites anywhere. I didn’t need to keep track of all the sites through my bookmarks, and could check everything from any computer.

A Copy of a Conversation with Dr. Alam Was an additional section that I added to the management group as the bequest of Dr. Alam.

Learning Unit 9

TASK # 1

Google Calendar is a pretty good tool, it has a lot of potential in assisting with schedulgin meetings and such. Sharing such information between group members is very important, and with Google it’s pretty intuitive to get everything set up. Adding people to view the calendar is also pretty easy, though I wish they would have added some command or option to add permission for a grouped set of people to view the calendar. That way I would have just been able to add the class group I created instead of adding each person individually.

MyOffice on Facebook seems to be a very limited attempt at project management, really it strikes me as a way to organize group based school work. As an application to facebook it has its place, being used by people that are there connected on FB and don’t need much project management power. The word processing capability seems to be pretty basic and the calendar ability also seems to be a bit weak. As an afterthought to FB it can be useful, but I can’t see it competing with any of the other services I tried.

ZOHO Project seemed to be pretty powerful, especially when it’s compared to MyOffice. It has pretty good tools and the ability to set up a detailed calendar for work scheduling. Really Zoho is an impressive tool in this arena, it leaves the other options in the dust. It allows file sharing, scheduling, forums, time sheets, and other useful tools that can help keep a team focused an on task. I can’t really find anything bad to say about the program, I even think the fee they charge for more file space and project managing power is reasonable. Honestly I’m quite pleased with ZOHO’s services.

Yugma is actually a lot of fun to play around with, especially some of the premium features such as desktop control. You can let another person run your computer from a distance, and even record sessions for later use. The ability to show everyone what’s going on with your desktop is another great conferencing tool, never having to leave your computer and being able to watch everything that’s going on at a meeting is a wonderful idea. The ability to draw on the screen is also useful to point things out or jot down suggestions, just be careful no to erase everything before you take those suggestions down in a more permanent fashion.

TASK # 2

PARTS 2&3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8769865@N07/sets/72157600825643435/ An album in Flickr that is largely based off of things I saw in Colorado.

http://picasaweb.google.com/JAGuidosh/WildWestAdventure An album in Picassa that is also based off things from Colorado… mostly the same things.

PARTS 1 &4

http://www.freewebs.com/jaguidosh/ Here’s my Freeweb page, I placed both my svg image file (which is linked on the page, below the bear)  and my editied bear picture there. I also felt the need to critique the services I used after posting those. Keeping the initial impressions nice and fresh.

Zoho, Google Docs, MS Word and Wiki

http://writer.zoho.com/public/jaguidosh/Untitled

http://dhazimihalis.wetpaint.com/?mail=1148

To get things started, here’s a paper that my group wrote up using both Zoho and Wiki. They discuss the use of Wiki, Zoho, Google docs and MS Word in word processing and group collaboration. I have to say again that I really do like the ability to IM people through the word processor I’m using at the moment, it’s great when you’re tweaking things together. On to other matters…

Facebook , Ning, Linkedin, Pownce, Friendfeed

Each of the sites mentioned in the sub title of this post is very useful in their own way, for example Friendfeed is similar to an RSS feed that encompasses all of your friends’ multiple web activities and interests. Facebook is a great social networking tool that can be used to a limited degree to find a job, while Linkedin really focuses on that aspect of social networking. Ning has the ability to focus on any specific interest and become a flagship for the topic. The way that Pownce is built makes it seem like a cross between Facebook and Friendfeed, it can link to all of your social profiles across the net and tie them all together. Pownce also allows messaging and some file sharing to take place, letting you talk and share things with friends any time you feel like it. Each of these websites has their own niche area that they occupy and each does a great job fulfilling some need that the denizens of the web have. I imagine that of these sites I’m more likely to hold onto Facebook and Linkedin, the two sites compliment each other very nicely. Facebook is great for keeping in touch with friends, while Linkedin is much better for networking to gain business contacts. Because of how intrinsically different these services are, it’s very easy to spot their differences just by using the site and seeing how other people are using them in turn. Finding out what niche they rule is really as simple as going and trying out the sites for a few minutes apiece.

Web Pages

Learning unit #7 goes into greater depth on the way information is addressed and located on the internet. It explains how web browsers work by requesting hypertext documents from local or remote machines, the client and server speak to one another through Hypertext Transfer Protocol. HTTP is a burst of information that lasts just long enough for the file requested through the web address. A separate HTTP connection is needed for ever unique image on a site, this is why graphical rich sites take so long to load. A web browser can speed this process up somewhat by requesting multiple HTTP connections at once.

Hypertext markup language, or HTML, is the language of the internet. It is the basic form used to create web pages, and it can format text, insert graphics, videos and animation or even hyperlink to another document. Firebug is a utility that allows the observation of HTML code on internet sites, useful for finding problems or learning new methods of coding certain things.

Collaboration tools are a great idea, and Google is doing a great job getting them created. Many of them are still in their beta forms, but when they are completely finished I anticipate that they will see a great deal of use. The use of these online applications should result in a much greater fluidity, the ability for people to access their files and work anywhere with internet access. Since the applications only require extremely modest computers with internet connections I imagine that this will also be quite a boon for developing countries.

Social networking services such as Myspace or Facebook are increasing our connectivity with friends and family, and opening up new ways to work as well. It’s becoming increasingly common to find businesses trolling these sites when they are hiring prospective employees. These services allow people to share nearly any form of media, and convey ideas at a rapid pace. The ever increasing utilization of these services is testament to their ease of use and how well they facilitate their users’ desire to connect with others, share their experiences and to just find something new.

Personal Web Page

Professional Web Page

Facebook Page

GROUP PAGE IN PROCESS

What is a blog?

A blog is a forum to say what you want to whoever you want. It’s a soap box that allows you to shout across the internet and make your opinions heard. A blog can offer advice or be an outlet for frustration against some establishment. Whatever you use your blog for, it’s a means of communication. Blogs are tools for the rapid dissemination of ideas and opinions. Blogs are an important part of Web 2.0, user generated content that proliferates the web with new content daily. As the media has matured it has changed and inspired new versions of essentially the same idea, things like video and audio blogs.  The variation of the blog has continued as new blog forms such as art blogs and sketch blogs continue to appear in greater number solidifying their position on the web. Using the internet to transmit not only the written work, but sound and sight as well, was the next logical step.  Web logs have evolved to support thousands of users linked together by search tools such as technorati and even google, if you find yourself keeping track of several blogs then a great way to keep track of blogs is by subscribing to their RSS feed, this way you’ll be notified when they update.  Blogs are a permanent and growing part of the internet, as such they are tools that must be learned and used by those that would keep themselves current with the rapid pace of today’s advancing technology.