Tag Archives: microsoft

Great tutorials for the newbie web designer

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Quackit teaches beginners how to create websites. They start off slowly, teaching you the basics such as HTML and CSS. Then they introduce you to more advanced topics so that you can add more features to your website.

It is similar to my own site, but has many more tutorials on css coding, xml, and

  • JavaScript Tutorial
    Learn how to add functionality and interactivity to your web pages.
  • ColdFusion Tutorial
    ColdFusion is a server-side programming/scripting environment used to build dynamic websites.
  • PHP Tutorial
    This PHP Tutorial demonstrates just how easy it is to create dynamic websites using PHP.
  • VBScript Tutorial
    This tutorial teaches you VBScript from the ground up – starting with the basics.

Database

  • Database Tutorial
    Learn the fundamentals of databases and database management systems.
  • SQL Tutorial
    Covers everything you need to know to get started in database programming using SQL.
  • SQL Server Tutorial
    Provides an overview of SQL Server – Microsoft’s enterprise database management system.
  • Microsoft Access Tutorial
    Use Microsoft Access to perform many typical database tasks such as creating databases, tables, queries, and more.
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Prezi – a visual web based presentation tool

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Prezi is a web-based presentation tool with so much more to offer than Microsoft Power Point.
It has built-in design tools allowing the effects of time, space and movement.
It is free if you only use 100 megabytes of storage space. These become public and have a watermark on them.

You can pay to have the watermark removed and the presentations will be private and you get 500 megabytes of storage space.
The next level of payment allows you to download to your desktop and have 2 megabytes of storage space.

What are they useful for?
Continue reading →

Phone scam

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You are probably aware already that there is a phone scam going around in Australia and  don’t know what other countries. I have heard it on the radio and several have been taken in by it.

What happens is that someone rings and says they are a technical support person who is a representative on Microsoft or Windows and they say you have a problem on your computer which is ‘pinging’ back to them. They ask you to go into Command on your computer and give you a command to run and up pops various reds and blues. Or they ask you to go to your Event Viewer. The event viewer is accessed by going to your Control Panel > Administrative Tools and then Event Viewer. Then they offer to fix this (non-existent) problem for  a price. These calls appear to be coming from India but if people ask for a phone number they get an Australian phone with an Australian name.

If you accept you will lose money for nothing AND have more malicious code put onto your computer.

Microsoft will never ring you. Nor will any other software technical support.  If you ask them to give you your computer’s IP address (those numbers you often see), they don’t seem to know them.

DO NOT give these scammers your credit card details or access to your computer remotely.

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Storing your data on the web, not your PC

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There is a trend to store your data on the web, rather than your PC, so that if your computer crashes and you haven’t backed up (and how many of us do this regularly enough), you will still have access to your data.

1. All data related to your own web sites and blogs are generally on your host’s servers.

2. If you use web mail, like gmail, your emails are on the web. I advise forwarding many of your important emails to gmail. There’s certainly enough space for them.

3. Google has begun the process of allowing free storage of spreadsheets, word processing, maps and videos.

4. Images, videos and podcasts can be stored on web pages.

5. I have heard of places where you can store data for a fee.

Now Microsoft, in its eternal competition with google, is using a beta form of this, called Live Mesh, but it will cost. It is currently offering 5GB of online storage to 10,000 people in this beta form.

Facebook and My Space are joining the race also. They allow third party developers to write applications for them.

Google is rumoured to be developing a web based operating system that ties all of it’s online applications together. It already has Google Gears which allows access to Google applications while offline.

Amazon too allows huge storage on its servers.

To see the video which Microsoft has developed for it’s Live Mesh you can visit it at Live Mesh

Who would use these storage spaces for a fee though, when so much is free on Google? We’ll have to wait and see. I’d certainly spend time moving most of my stuff over to a storage space on-line. This seems to be the trend, so get going folks! No more worrying about PCs crashing.

Microsoft's free image viewer

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Photosynth is Microsoft’s new image viewer which is still in beta stage and can’t be used for your own photos yet, but it’s quality and facilities look very exciting. You need to download it and install it. Then you will see images already there. You can zoom in and out retaining great clarity, move along, create a 3D image of it, pick anywhere to view what has been taken.

Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

I personally can’t wait to be able to use it myself, although it means taking a lot of photos in the same area.

How to make a screen capture tutorial video

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CamStudio
Image via Wikipedia

What do you need

1. A video device. In this case I used a video screen capture program called CamStudio. This is free.

2. A microphone of good quality, if not broadcast quality. I now use a headset with microphone and listen back over the headset.

3. A computer which runs at least XP and has at least 80gbs of memory. Movies are big files.

4. A movie maker program. In my case I used Windows Movie Maker which comes with XP service pack 2.

( I heard on the news that Microsoft has lost its court appeal in the EU over abusing competition rules concerning the fact that Windows Media Player comes with XP. It no longer comes with Windows Vista. I’m wondering about the future of Windows Movie Maker because this also comes with XP)

I decided on my topic and practiced a lot. CamStudio for tutorials on the computer is best set to a small region, rather than the whole screen. The final video makes everything look smaller so the more detail you can capture with the region of screen setting, the better.

You need to speak very clearly, loudly and without spitting too much into the microphone. I fall down here.

It’s okay to make a few jokes or to have the viewer hear how you react as you demonstrate the tutorial. Swear words are not a good idea however.

I have much to learn about using a microphone and about feedback too. Turn off your speakers when using a microphone. Speak into it in as soundproofed a room as possible. Speak clearly. I have an Australian accent and I have been to America twice. They often DO NOT understand you and your audience will be mostly American. We have an ugly accent at times too. After 6 weeks of hearing only American accents, when you arrive at the airport to come home and hear those Australian voices, you feel both at home but also embarrassed by our tones and accents. Not that the American accent couldn’t do with some improving.

Speak more slowly than usual but not too slow.

It helps having been a teacher in the instruction stakes. Assume your audience knows nothing and make sure you do not miss essential steps in your tutorial.

Practice and good luck. If you want to buy a video recording program I recommend Camtasia.

Here is my first attempt. I have bought a microphone since and will be making another tutorial soon.

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