I’m baaack!!! Hey, I know it’s been a while, but DemoGirl has been really busy. That’s a good thing for business, but not so great for our blog. Let me see if I can remove some of the dust with this post.
A little while back YouTube announced that it is giving users the chance to make some simple edits to ABU (Already Been Uploaded) videos. No, you can’t make major edits, but you can trim time off the front or back end of your video. You can also rotate, stabalize, play with color and add effects or audio. My kids dig the effects they can quickly add to their Lego and zombie movies.
To check out some of the simple things you can do to your YouTube videos, watch the
screencast below:
If you’re a screencaster, especially if you’re a screencaster who uses Camtasia Studio, then you should check out ‘The Visual Lounge‘ blog over the next 12 days for tips from different screencasters. Betsy Weber will be sharing tips from expert screencasters each day…and it just so happens that the first day is a tip from yours truly! I’m so thrilled to be in the category of “expert screencaster”! Just to be clear, I have no affiliation with Techsmith – I’m just a big fan.
If you’d like to see other screencasts I’ve been working on then check out Butterscotch.com where I’ve been busy creating tutorials every month. And of course, check out our portfolio to see what we’ve been doing here at DemoGirl.
October is just about gone and my kids are already dressed in Halloween costumes and holding a vigil in anticipation of the beggars’ celebration.
Molly and I have hardly had time to look up from our computers since she wrote her September recap — actually, Molly did find a bit of time to escape on her honeymoon and left me holding the bag. I was happy to hold it for her, but there was a lot of work in that bag.
We are so grateful for the recent surge in requests for custom screencast and quickcast services. Below are a couple of recent projects that we’ve been given permission to share. I’m really going to try to squeeze in at least one “for fun” screencast on our blog in November.
I can hardly believe that it’s already October. I meant to get this post up last week so that it would technically be posted in September but, well, we’ve been really busy!
As you may have noticed, our blog posts have dropped off considerably in the past month. Probably the biggest reason for this is that I went through a HUGE life-changing event. In case you didn’t hear me posting about it over and over again on Twitter: I GOT MARRIED!! Yes, I finally did it and I’m thrilled to be the wife of such a huge Web celebrity So there ya have it – feel free to keep calling me Molly McDonald but I’ll also respond to Molly Sargent. Some of our friends have decided that we should just be “The McSargent’s” which I think is peachy.
Since DemoGirl is almost exclusively run by family, we were all extremely busy planning, traveling and drinking much more than usual. My wonderful partner on DemoGirl, Mo, was my Matron of Honor and she did a kick-ass job running the show. My brother Tom, also known as “The Boss” was generous enough to let us all take 5 days off to travel to Mammoth Lakes, where the wedding took place. Of course, we still had work to do for our clients. Lots of it.
It seems that our $99 quickcast special has become quite popular and we’re still creating lots of completely custom screencasts too. Here are few of our more recent projects that we’ve been given permission to share with you. Please take a look and check out their services (you can tell them DemoGirl sent you) and let us know what you think!
Dooid.com
Giftee.me
Xpences.com
Also, if you’re looking for tutorials to share with your not-so-web-savvy friends and family members, check out my work on Butterscotch.com. I make how-to screencasts there every month giving you tips and tricks on how to do everything from protecting your privacy on Facebook to how to navigate the brand new Twitter interface. They have a lot of great shows for people with every level of technical expertise.
Facebook Places gives you a way to virtually check-in to real life locations and see if any of your other Facebook friends are nearby. The catch? You need to have an iPhone or your mobile browser must support HTML 5 and geolocation. The other catch? By default “Places” is enabled in your Facebook privacy settings so even if you are just testing it out you need to check who you’ll be sharing this data with first – unless you don’t care.
It’s a simple fix but something I felt should be addressed. What better way than with a screencast! To learn about Facebook Places and see how to update your privacy settings, watch the screencast below:
When I’m searching for the best airline tickets I usually head to multiple search engines and travel sites where I spend hours comparing flight times, connections, prices, dates and alternative airports. I do all of this because I want to not only get the lowest price, but I also want to get to my destination at a certain time without dealing with long layovers and multiple connections. Yesterday, when I found Hipmunk, I was pleasantly surprised to find one site that filters all of my concerns into one search to help me find the very best flight for my money.
Just enter in your flight details and hit “search”. Hipmunk will find the best overall flights for you based on price, duration, and number of connections. The results are placed on a visually pleasing graph making it easy to remove certain flying times and allowing you to further filter your results by price only, duration, and departure or arrival time.
My favorite feature of Hipmunk is tabbed searching. You can keep multiple tabs open within Hipmunk so you can easily compare different airports or dates, which is what normally kills me when looking for the best airline tickets.
To learn more about Hipmunk, watch the screencast below:
On most days I find myself using at least 3 different Google accounts, and with that comes the hassle of logging in and out of each one separately. Normally what I end up doing is logging into one account on Chrome and one on Firefox but somehow, and this really annoys me (or it used to annoy me), I would begin editing a Google Document, forgetting that I was signed into a different account in Gmail, and then I would suddenly get the little pop-up “you are not signed into this account. No changes have been saved. Please log out and log into this account”… or something like that.
Thanks to newly released Multiple Account Sign-in, I think those days are over.
It’s pretty simple to set up – and you can learn how by watching the 2 minute screencast below:
Rapportive is an extremely useful plug-in for Gmail (Chrome, Firefox and Safari) that pushes the online Web activity of your contacts, right into your Gmail sidebar.
Every time you click on an email Rapport will replace the Google Ads in the right sidebar with your contacts photo, occupation and links to various social networks. Anything that has been made public on the Web can be added to the Rapport. You can also add notes about the person that are visible only to you.
After I first installed Rapport I figured I was going to have to wait and see how many of my contacts signed up for it before I would begin seeing their info in my sidebar – but that’s not the case. If it’s public on the Web then it’s fair game for Rapport. When I looked up my profile on Rapport I found my photo, occupation, a link to my Twitter account, my Google profile and my LinkedIn profile. If someone is using Rapport and I send them an email then they’re going to automatically have links to places on the Web that I want them to see. If I was trying to hide something then it wouldn’t be public in the first place. Of course, once you install Rapport you have the option of going in and updating your public Rapport profile where you can choose to add or remove anything you want. All in all I think it’s a great tool that I will continue to use.
To see Rapport in action, watch the screencast below:
There’s still no Firefox browser for the iPhone but the folks at Mozilla have made a handy app that allows you to sync your bookmarks, recent browsing history and open tabs from your desktop, right to your iPhone. It’s called Firefox Home and it’s a free download.
After you install it on your iPhone you’ll need to create a Firefox Sync account by installing the add-on for Firefox on your desktop. Once the sync is complete you’ll have quick access to tabs that you have open on your desktop, on your iPhone. You’ll also be able to view your recent browsing history and all of your bookmarks.
To see Firefox Home in action, watch the screencast below:
ShareMyMap is a fun tool that allows you to create maps of customized neighborhoods. It’s free to use and you can have your first map up and running in just minutes.
To create your first map you’ll just need to enter in a general location, like San Francisco, and then you can zoom in as needed to get the default zoom point set. You can then add a title for your map, like ‘Dive Bars’, add a photo, a description, and you can add custom fields that you can fill in for each point of interest.
Once your map is created you can begin adding points to the map with an address, description, tags, and Flickr photos and YouTube videos. Other members can add media too and comment on your points. People can choose to follow your map so they can keep up with new content. You can also choose to sign in with your Facebook or Twitter account and share across those sites as well.
I really like ShareMyMap for the most part but I found myself wanting a little bit more. Here’s my wishlist:
I’d like a way to share my map with anyone with a link or embed code and/or via email
The ability to search for a locations address from within a map – as of now you need to know its exact location
Suggested images from Flickr based on the points name would help eliminate the step of me having to leave the site to do a Flickr search for photos
Collaboration with a private group of people to create a group map for things like reunions and weddings
Revision history so I can find places I may have removed from a map. This would also be helpful when used with my comment above (collaboration).
To see ShareMyMap in action, watch the screencast below:
So there ya have it – feel free to keep calling me Molly McDonald but I’ll also respond to Molly Sargent. Some of our friends have decided that we should just be “The McSargent’s” which I think is peachy.
