Here’s the first quick test video I made… I obviously need to wait another second before I start talking, and plan what I am talking about too! And here’s a second version Jing Test 2 (MP4, rather than SWF format), after upgrading to Pro, which was £11! Means can now upload to YouTube and make longer videos, but the free version looks like it would be enough for a lot of people, where you can also upload to Screencast! I’m thinking about using it to allow students to follow how to set up a WordPress blog – it has to be better than a PowerPoint presentation right?! Thanks to @russell1955 for the tip-off about this software! Visit the Jing website and sign up for a free account.
Experimenting with Jing
February 5, 2010 5 Comments
Doing @Documentally a Favour
February 4, 2010 Leave a Comment
Actually written 28th February 2010: So much for the instant nature of blogging 
!
“Today” I had one of the most interesting experiences of my life, courtesy of Twitter! I was expecting to attend an Enterprise event, specifically a talk on Twitter by Lisa Harris. Sitting in my PJs, checking into my Twitter account, I saw that @documentally was en route to the University of Winchester (well, after a fashion, clearly stuck in traffic!). I sent a Tweet, assuming that he was coming to the same event! Soon after I received the following Direct Message “Am uber late. Are you free to take the class should I teach remotely?” Seemed like a small favour to do, so shortly afterwards I’m dressed and en route to work to take a class I haven’t prepared for, but essentially prepared to talk about my own experience with Twitter – to a group from Winchester City Council as I soon discover, not the Enterprise group!
The following message appears on Twitter from @documentally: “Thankfully @digitalfprint is on the way to stand in for me for half an hour. #wincc“! Through a combination of Twitter/mobiles, I find out where I am, and discover that the group have watched an audiocast created by @documentally en route. So, we start on the basics… to find that Twitter isn’t creating new accounts right now.. always a fun moment! A handful of people have got in, or already use Twitter in a limited way, so I boot up my Twitter accounts and talk about why I’ve set it up, what I’ve learnt in the year that I’ve been using Twitter (and that it took me 3 months to “get it” in any way), why I have different accounts, some of the etiquette of Twitter, including Retweets, etc. as we followed the progress of his car (which has its own Twitter feed @bongomentally) which was geo-tagged towards Winchester! Interestingly, other members of the family are @minimentally and @granumentally!
The group were very surprised to find that I had never met documentally, and that this was a real example of Twitter-ness in action! Great example, we thought! About an hour after I’d arrived (and been chatting to a few of Winchester’s museums who are on Twitter… that could be helpful for my module ‘Creating and Consuming History’ in which I will be giving a lecture on digitisation and some of its effects on the museum!), @documentally arrived, a hectic bundle of energy, with great stories (especially the one about how he rolled his Landrover, and gained all the help he needed from a couple of Tweets) and great examples of how social media has grown his profile (really, that’s its strongest purpose, building profiles and relationships)! I would have stayed all day, but I had another meeting to get to! NOW, where’s my notes from that day? Much of it is in this article.
Feedback
@mazzawinch: “Bex you saved the day! once signed up things got moving & it was fun! @MDRNelles and @kw1lson seem to have fallen apart since then tho 
”
@SherKent: “RT @kw1lson: Hearing tales of how @drbexl and social media saved the day this morning.”
@documentally: “Once again.. big thank You to @drbexl who is also @digitalfprint for taking my class for the first hour. #wincc”
@WinchesterCity: “Back from Winch Uni where @Documentally is giving a talk to #wincc. Got to meet @drbexl too who is a lovely lady! Lots of work to do now!”
Hoping Twitter doesn’t Endure
February 2, 2010 3 Comments
“The truth is, I feel like yelling Stop quite a bit these days. Every time I hear about Twitter I want to yell Stop. The notion of sending and getting brief updates to and from dozens or thousands of people every few minutes is an image from information hell. I’m told that Twitter is a river into which I can dip my cup whenever I want. But that supposes we’re all kneeling on the banks. In fact, if you’re at all like me, you’re trying to keep your footing out in midstream, with the water level always dangerously close to your nostrils. Twitter sounds less like sipping than drowning.”
Read full entry, and add your comments as to whether you agree or not!
Vacancy for a Web Project Manager at Rechord, Harrow
February 1, 2010 1 Comment
Do you like organising things and people? If so, this might just get your heart racing.
We have the sort of vacancy that doesn’t come up very often. You’ll know you’re THE ONE for this job when you read these points and get a spooky feeling that they were written about you:
- You like collecting lists of things to do (even though they might be given in an irritatingly haphazard manner) and organising them into do-able form, then making sure they get done on time. You might even be a fan of David Allen…
- You relish the thought of playing around with Facebook and calling it work
- Technical terms like SOAP, MySQL, XML and AJAX don’t phase you in the slightest. You might even have tinkered with some code
- You’re a contemplative sort, but you’re still passionate about getting to know people and figuring out what makes them tick
- Learning things energises you – you’re like a sponge for soaking up and assimilating new information. You’re able to retrieve it quickly while in the middle of something else
- Sometimes people tell you “Oh, thank you for doing that, I hadn’t even thought about asking you”
- Tactful and charming, you could even persuade a leopard to swap clothes with a zebra
- You could spot a missing detail from 50,000 feet.
We imagine, design and build exciting web stuff for international charities and big UK names. We run seminars and get invited to speak at conferences. We win awards for things that we build and get interviewed in the national and international press. Our work has even featured the Prime Minister.
We are open-minded about who our newest team member might be. You’ll need to be available in the next 4 weeks though; preferably sooner, because you’ll be spending a week learning hundreds of strange things about your new job, like why there is a gaffer-tape donkey hovering above our studio.
If you’d like to apply, please send an email with your CV attached to contact@rechord.com listing two references by the 9th February 2010.
In your email, please explain what made you think that you’re THE ONE, and tell us what your favourite sort of biscuit is. You’re welcome to ask questions too.
BBC Click
February 1, 2010 1 Comment
BBC Click is “the BBC’s flagship technology programme’, and a really accessible watch (BBC1 Sat 06.45 & News Channel Sat 11.30, UK). Interestingly, Click’s episodes are available for 12 months, rather than the usual iPlayer 7 days, so there’s a wealth of information on there, and there is an archive of written information going back to 2004. Of course they’re on Twitter. This week’s episode included an introductory guide to Blogging.
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