Friday, May 27, 2005

Photo Story 3

Microsoft's Photo Story 3 is an interesting product. They might have done something right for a change. This is an easy to use wizard that allows you to add photos, text, narration, and music. This is then formatted for one of many uses (i.e., email, DVD, high-res .wmv, etc...).

I made one of my a visit to New Orleans in 2005, check it out (8.5MB).

Now, making a program easy usually means cutting back on the customizable functions and Photo Story is no exception. Fine manipulation of object is really not possible as well as the encoding options. However, I can easily overlook these drawbacks given that the program is free and so easy to use.

At least it's sort of free. You have to validate your Windows license to get the software. So, if you're running clean AND have your product key, life is good.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

RSS Popper

You can follow the link above to the RSS Popper site, but I would suggest downloading it from CNET.com.

With all the talk about Blogs, we can't ignore one of the best functions offered by the...RSS. Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML document that tells an RSS aggregrator that there is something new on a Blog. If I just lost you, forget all about that tech talk. Just think of RSS as a way to "subscribe" to Blogs and get new posts (whole postings or summaries) sent to a program on your computer.

This is where RSS Popper comes in. RSS Popper is free and integrates with Outlook. While there are definately better aggregators out there, RSS Popper is the most convenient for me. I live out of Outlook and love anything that gets delivered there. Anything that I don't have to go search for.

Here's how it works.
  1. Download and install the software (shut down Outlook first).
  2. Then go to your favorite Blogs (including Podcasts) and look for a syndication link. Usually it looks like a square button that says something like--Syndication, RSS, Atomz (Blogger's default), etc....
  3. Click on the link.
  4. Copy the URL in the browser address bar.
  5. Open Outlook.
  6. Click on the RSS Popper button (this will appear after installing RSS Popper).
  7. Choose "Edit Feeds".
  8. Click on the "New" button.
  9. Paste the link you copied previously into the "Link" field. The rest of the fields should fill in automatically.
  10. Click "Ok", then "Ok" again.
  11. The default settings will make a new folder for the new feed in the "RSS" folder that was created during install.

I suggest that you give it a try. This has made keeping up with my favorite Blogs (and news sites) so much easier and has really changed my view of Blogs as useful in education.

Monday, May 2, 2005

Let me explain the previous post

The last few posts have been my exploration of possible posting options through blogger. The first couple were audioblogger. These allowed me to call a central number and post an audio message from my cell phone.

The last one was entered through the browser on my cell. Blogger seems to have a decent wml pages for mobile access. The biggest problem in entering anything substancial using the keypad :)

From my cell

This message is from my cell. This is really slow :-)