Posts Tagged ‘video’

Data overload?

I’ve been spending some time on ESPN.com the past couple weeks (more than usual) checking out commentary about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the NBA Finals, and MLB phenom Stephen Strasburg. I’m not sure it’s a great experience anymore and it makes me wonder: how much content is too much content? There is written, graphical, and video content on the average ESPN.com page. Each competes for attention and, invariably, only one can win out — at least in my brain.

Sometimes, depending on the article, I’m stopped dead by the auto-start video and then don’t read the article. Other times, as in the page at the top of this post, I jump to the article and start reading, realizing part way down that there is also a video feed — the audio of which I can hear, but for some reason, some way, completely missed the visual part. I became aware of this when something in the audio caught my ear and I switched from reading to listening, but my eyes continued to scan the words and I missed both what was said, and what I’d read. It was jarring because there was a distinct switch in my brain from reading to listening of which I was very aware.

I wonder if I should be able to both read and listen at the same time (I can’t and never have been able to — I did my homework in silence as a high-schooler). I either need to read or look/listen but I can’t do both, and I wonder if others find the same thing. One other thing that I’ve noticed on ESPN.com during this playoff season is that much of their content is strictly video, and I find that somewhat off-putting. I like to read, and consider myself a reader, and ingest much of my knowledge through words, more so than watching video.

I understand that ESPN is a broadcast outlet, and it has a wealth of ready-made, rights-controlled, content at its disposal. There is certainly something for every type of user on the site but at some point it gets too overwhelming and you’re left not quite sure what you just encountered because too much has been thrown at you at once. ESPN.com seems to me to be skirting the boundaries of what’s really possible for the human brain to process, or at least the human brain of a guy in his late-30s, who sits pretty squarely in the middle (well, OK, upper end) of ESPN’s demographic.

Am I just an aging anachronism, out of step with the evolution of the web, or are some sites over-stuffed and approaching some sort of content saturation point?

A quick video about updating a plugin. There’s not much to say about it, it’s quite easy, but I wanted to cover the spectrum of plugins from installing, to updating. This is the last in the plugins series for a bit.

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The second part of the install video is actually more about Google and getting API codes, but there are some plugins that require the use of an API key so that you hook into third party sites and use their functionality, such as Google Maps (the example in this video) as well as Flickr etc. So, the example of getting the Google Maps API Key can serve as a model should you need to get one for a plugin that you are using, or want to use.

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I’m taking a little break from the videos about  posts etc. and putting out a video about installing plugins. This is the first in a two part series about installing plugins (the second involves acquiring an API Key to enable the plugin to work — something that’s fairly common, and not difficult to do). Later, I’ll post a video about updating plugins.

I demonstrate the install from within the WordPress admin interface because this is a video series for the novice and I’m not sure that novices want to get involved with FTP. It’s not hard to install via FTP, but, by and large, most people’s installs of WordPress will permit them to install via the admin tool. It’s quite simple, as the video will, hopefully, demonstrate. As always, please send me your feedback.

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When I hand off a WordPress site I always have a tutorial on how to use the platform and walk the new owners through some of the basics — sort of like I’m doing with this video series. This video covers how to add a link to a WordPress post (it’s the same for a page) when using the WYSIWYG editor. I cover adding a link to text, and to an image. Additionally, I talk briefly about opening  a link in the same window, and opening a link in a new window, or tab. It is meant for the WordPress novice.

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In this WordPress video tutorial I show users how to paste content from a text document. Some folks feel more comfortable writing content outside of the WordPress editor, and that’s fine. If using a word processing document like Word, I recommend saving the file as a straight text document with no formatting. This will make it easier to format and control styles in your posts. Working in word processing programs, and copying data from them, in their native format, often leads to messy transitions, and weird styles that then take time to sort out and clean up. This video will help save users much time and frustration if they do work in an editor outside of WordPress.

This video is intended for the WordPress novice.

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Please, as always, send me your comments, so that I can make future videos, better.

Another video in the how-to-use-WordPress series in which I cover some of the basics of editing, and changing content in a post. I’m focusing on posts right now because they are the most basic content in the WordPress universe, and all of the things I show in these post videos also applies to creating pages — the interface and the tools are almost identical. I’ll cover the differences between posts and pages — which have to do with tags, categories and page order — in a subsequent video.

This video is intended for the WordPress novice.

Thanks for watching, and as always, send me your comments so I can try and improve these videos.

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Here’s the second installment in our WordPress tutorial series. This video covers creating a post with a brief overview of the editing tool bar. Another topic covered in this video is the Publish/Preview/Save a Draft module as well as permalinks (slugs) and how to edit them. This is intended as a primer for the WordPress newcomer.

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Just to reiterate, these videos are being created in conjunction with a project in which the end users will have varying levels of knowledge and comfort with WordPress. As always, I welcome your feedback.

Today marks the launch of a new series of videos (well, our first series, actually) on how to use WordPress.

These videos come out of a WordPress site build that we’re in the process of completing for a K-8 school. The user-base is quite diverse and with differing levels of comfort with technology. Part of my bid for this job included the creation of how-to screen casts. The one below, “Introduction to WordPress Dashboard” is the first in the series. I’ve got some more in the can, so to speak, and am learning as I do each one, and hopefully getting better as a screencaster.

This video is basic, and intended for a user with no knowledge of WordPress. Subsequent videos will show more complicated scenarios. I hope to cover as many use cases inside of the WordPress admin as I can. I’ll be categorizing these as WordPress How-to, and also by what they cover like, WordPress Posts, etc. Thanks for watching, please send me your feedback so I can continue to hone my screencasting skills.

View the video at YouTube.

Personal Critique: I should probably zoom in more on this one than I do, but I am a fan of the steady camera position. In other videos, where it might be/is more important to do so, I’ll move in for close-ups.