Posterous – Blogging through email and text messages…

If you were looking for in these simple and quick method of creating posts on the fly, Posterous could be a great program for you to use.  You have the ability to connect multiple accounts to this site so that your posts or automatically shared with other online sources.  In this test, I have linked twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and my BobsTechTalk Blog. Will these sites get updated automatically as on a post new entries into the Posterous blog site.  Now here is the interesting part.  You are able to easily add entries by either emailing your message to the site, Texting to this site, or making a web entry to the site itself.

The site is very simplistic, so don't expect a lot of extra capabilities.  I have not tried live writer as of yet to see whether it could post directly to this site, so that will be something that I will try as time permits.  If you send a video or attach photos to your e-mail when sending it to the site, it will be posted with the pictures, and will update the picture galleries and the sites that can accept pictures from you.  You have the ability to add connections too many different sites and I am sure they will be continuing to add more as time goes on.  So if you want a quick way to post a single entry two multiple sites in one fell swoop, this might be one quick and easy method of doing so.

But me know what you think of this program.  I'd be interested in how many if you are using it or if you find it useful.

Test Message from iPhone

This was written from my iPhone .


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In Office Support Tools

Are you  in charge of creating your organization’s employee manuals and other support tools? You may want to consider adding Video support to your portfolio. There are so many tools out there that will allow you to accomplish this, it is very hard to make the choice of the right ones to use. Let me make a few suggestions for you to look at.

TechSmith is a company that has been producing software to help educators and support personnel to provide simple, professional looking video for quite a few years. I use several of their products to help me produce my   How To  Videos as well as short videos I use to respond to my clients at the office.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but what is a video worth? I said I used several of TechSmith’s tools and this first one I am going to talk about is free. The Jing Project is a program that is offered by TechSmith that will integrate back into  their other products. Jing has two components that will help you with your presentations. The first is a static screen capture. In Windows 7 you have that component as part of the operating system but you if you are not running Windows 7 you are missing it. There are many times when I am working with an article or proposal that I need to be able to capture part of screen display like I did with all of the images on this page. It is so much easier to be able to call on Jing to capture a little bit of the screen real-estate that I want to include without having to come back and work with my cropping tools to get it just right.

The second component of Jing is it’s video capture. While this may sound like the same thing, it most assuredly is not. With Jing I can capture all of my screen changes and narrate the subject matter at the same time and produce a quick, up to 5 minute presentation on the fly. The only negative, you have to do it in one take or begin again from scratch.

Camtasia Studio is the paid version of Jing on steroids. This product lets you take the next step  forward and create content with much better focus and give you the ability to tie multiple videos and stills together and to overlap them all with a narrative that you can add after the video collection is complete. The big difference here is that ability to edit your video.  Camtasia Studio will allow you to take video that you capture with Jing, Camtasia Studio or from some other static image or video sources and work with the content to achieve your creative result.

This leads me to the last component of the TechSmith Family that I use called Screen Cast. If you sign up with Screen Cast you will be able to easily store and serve up you video creations to the inhabitants of the Wild and Wooly Web (WWW).

So if you are interested in seeing these programs in action, don’t hesitate making an appointment with me to see them. I will be more than happy to show them off and help you decide if they are the right fit for your business.

About new things and other thoughts…

I am sitting here are going my emails this evening, and it occurred to me that we have really gotten lazy or I have extremely high expectations of my fellow human beings. When I see comments come across the internet about why companies are upgrading products and making them better, faster and more usable (my definition), I wonder just how lazy and complacent we have become. Don’t you want to progress, learn and become better at what you do? Don’t you want you tools that you use day in and day out help you to make your job easier and more productive? I can’t understand the attitude of people that look at every possible step forward as something to disdain and fight with all their might. All that energy wasted on trying to stop normal progression when just a small amount of effort will get them to the next level. Hey! Don’t become the Neanderthal in your work group. Embrace, learn and become the better person.  Such a simple thing and so hard for some of us to do. Sorry about the Rant. but if it hits home it sure is worth it!

I look at the skill sets that we all need to have in our jobs and wonder when it was in my youth that I learned that I was going to be a student for the rest of my life. This is something that we all need to realize. In all honestly I can’t wait until the day that I retire and can begin the next part of my life. Because, you see, work sometimes gets in the way of the learning. It is funny how this can happen. There can be so much fun, amazement and improvisation with all these tools that so many magnificent minds provide us. When you begin to allow learning to become fun, then you have finally allowed all of life’s amazing wonders to fill your soul. Let it. You will be amazed at the outcome.

Windows 7 Delivery for Netbooks

There is a lot of worry about how Microsoft is going to deliver Windows 7 to Netbooks that don’t have built-in optical drives. I personally question why this is such a problem. If the operating system is delivered on an optical drive, just take the DVD to  a machine that has a DVD player on it and copy the contents of the disk to a USB Flash Drive. I have made complete article available on how to make a USB drive bootable and to install Windows 7 from a Flash Drive. My experience so far with our customers is that the NetBook is usually not their only computer and that they have another computer available to them. If not try going to your local library. They have computers and they will probably let you do the transfer from the optical disk to a USB Drive if you explain what you need to do.

I know this is an extra step that you probably wish you didn’t have to take, but let’s be reasonable. If you own a NetBook you are either computer savvy already, or, who ever set it up for you is, and will be able to accomplish this for you. This is not the end of the world as some people would have you believe or a very big deal at that… Come on people get real…

$59,000 Coffee Table?

I get to see a lot of new technology on a daily basis and this is one that causes us gadget hounds to salivate. Touchtable makes a product that allows a user to network different sites together using a large screen table top designed touch screen system. Touchtable, Inc. CEO Rocky Roccanova showed Wired Science TV’s Ziya Tong different uses for this interesting device. Mr. Roccanova stated that this device was originally designed for children to learn geography, but it really shines with applications for the oil and gas industry, military and public service areas. Take a look at the video above and I am sure you will be wowed.

Microsoft sets Windows 7 pricing, upgrade programs | Beyond Binary - CNET News

Microsoft has released information on the pricing for Windows 7 this past Wednesday.  As reported by CNET, the pricing is comparably to Windows Vista pricing.  If you preorder your copy between now and July 11 you will get a substantial discount for the operating system off your choice.  These upgrades will be available at many of the major retailers like OfficeMax Costco and Staples. Be sure to read the full story at the link listed below.

Microsoft sets Windows 7 pricing, upgrade programs | Beyond Binary - CNET News