Searching within a YouTube channel

I had to solve this challenge today: I wanted to send a link to a YouTube video within it's channel. This avoids all the sometimes scary video links that show while you are in the general YouTube site. This particular channel had hundreds of videos. The general YouTube search window would not open the video within the channel. How to find the link I wanted?

What is a YouTube Channel?

A YouTube channel is simply an account set up by an individual or an organization to host videos. You can subscribe to channels and they will show up when you sign in to YouTube.

How do I search within a channel?

At first glance there doesn't appear to be a way to do that. Here is a hidden trick:

Open the channel's homepage. Click on "Uploads" at the top of the window and a search option will appear at the right - just above the sidebar of videos.

To share a link, click on "Share" and the video's URL will appear.

Here's something strange - you can't get the code to embed a video while you are within a channel. You have to view the video outside the channel in the general YouTube site. Use the share link as the web address or the general search window to get there. In the general YouTube site an "Embed" button is available below the window. Click on it to get the embed code.

How the Internet Began

How the Internet started:-

A revelation with an Incredibly Big Message (IBM):

Well, you might have thought that you knew how the Internet started,
but here's the TRUE story ....

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of
Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg.
Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.

And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far
from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever
leaving thy tent?" And Abraham did look at her - as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load - but simply said, "How, dear?"

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in
between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with
the drums. The drums rang out and were an immediate success.
Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having
to move from his tent.

To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was called Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures: Hebrew To The People (HTTP)

But this success did arouse envy.

A man named Maccabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and began to siphon off some of Abraham's business. But he was soon discovered, arrested and prosecuted for insider trading.

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. And he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drum heads and drumsticks.

Lo, Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken
over by others!" And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known, he said, "We need a name that reflects what we are."
And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."
"YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated
Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside.

It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE)
And that is how it all began.




Source of this information? The internet, of course.

Showing iPhone/iPod/iPad Video through TV

If you are a teacher or trainer (or mother or grandmother), it's wonderfully handy to play the video content collected on iPhones/iPods/iPads through a TV. I carry a collection of family and teaching clips on both devices, just in case....

The Apple Store offers two different cables for this purpose: Composite Cable and Component Cable. Current cost for each: $39.99. I'll do my best to explain the difference.

Apple Composite Cable



This cable has three TV input connectors. It connects from your device's dock connector, to a TV's composite video (yellow) and two audio (red, white) ports (small round inputs). It also has a USB connector that you can plug into a power source such as a computer or power adaptor (optional to use - it can run on battery quite a while).

Apple Component Cable

This cable has five TV input connectors. It connects from your device's dock connector, to a TV's three video ports and two audio ports. The three video ports support HDTV (high definition). It also has a USB connector for optional power sources.

To see exactly which iPhones and iPads are compatible with the devices, click the titles above to view them in the Apple Store.

So which cable do you need?

That depends on what sort of TVs you will be using. Older TVs with inputs usually have the three inputs available on the composite cable. Newer HDTVs often have both types of input. Some of the newest HDTVs only have the five component inputs.

To be absolutely sure - have both. However I only have the composite cable and I've been able to use it in all situations (so far). For now, that's the one I recommend.

These cables are available from non Apple sources are well. Ask for them at an electronics store or search online.

Yes You Can!

I'm reviving Granny Tech!

We are going be totally tech savvy.

Our motto will be - Yes You Can!


Here's a few videos to get you started:

Don't ever estimate the ability of a motivated woman:

A look at the future:

Hang in there! You can do it.




And here are some (hopefully) confidence building learning statements:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
John W. Gardner
-
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Frank Herbert

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
Andy Rooney

No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar.
Donald Foster

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.
Clay P. Bedford

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
Attributed to Harry S. Truman

Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.
Vilfredo Pareto

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

You learn something every day if you pay attention.
Ray LeBlond

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
Chinese Proverb

All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.
Martin H. Fischer

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill


And a few statements on technology:

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it.
Jonas Salk

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923

If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.
Max Frisch

Keyboard shortcuts - learn them!

These are the basics that you should use all the time:

• CTRL+C: Copy
• CTRL+X: Cut
• CTRL+V: Paste
• CTRL+Z: Undo

You hold down the control key (command if you use a mac) and the letter key at the same time.

Copy - picks up whatever you highlighted and stores it on a clipboard so you can paste it in a different place or program. For example, you could copy some text from a website and paste it into a Word document (think C=copy)

Paste - of course, puts whatever is on your clipboard into the location you select (think V=points down to where you want to put stuff).

Cut - Copies AND REMOVES whatever you select and puts it on a clipboard so you can paste it (think X=scissors).

Undo - undoes the last thing you did (think Z=zzzzzz oops, I fell asleep). You can Undo multiple times to keep stepping backwards through the actions you want to remove. This even works when writing emails - helpful because there's no obvious undo command.

I can't tell you how many times I use CTRL+Z!

Of course there are many more keyboard shortcuts. Here are official lists of shortcuts for Windows and Macs.

Why don't you try learning one per month?

Blogger pictures - my way

I've had a number of people ask me how I get nice big pictures like these in my blogs.

I will show you.

In order for a picture to show up on your blog it must be hosted somewhere on the web. So that's the first step. Once it's on the web, you need to get it into your blog in the size and position that you prefer. So it's really a two step process. I will explain both.

Uploading a picture to the web

Blogger Button

Blogger has an upload button (see below) that actually takes care of both steps. It lets you upload a photo from your computer and place it right into your blog - but I don't like it. It just doesn't give me enough options.



The only picture sizes available using this method are:

small (200 px)


medium (320 px)


or large (400 px)


















Picture sizes are limited and you can see how they end up in random places making it hard to allign text with photos.

Picasa Web Albums

I like to have more control so I use a different method. I upload my photos to a Picasa Web Album and paste links from there into my blogs. It's funny because the Blogger button actually puts photos into their own special Picasa web album created just for your blog.

Creating a Picasa Web Album

In order to use create a Picasa Web Album you first need to sign up. Go to the Picasa Web Album website and sign in using your gmail address and password. If you don't have one, shame shame, it is my favorite email service. You can always sign up free for a gmail account.

Once you have signed in, you will be taken to a screen like this:



There are two ways to get photos into your online albums:

The "Launch Picasa" button will take you to the Picasa application on your computer, assuming you have it installed and are using it. It's a great program for organizing photos and you can download it for free. With that program installed, you can upload your photos directly from Picasa on your computer to Picasa Web Albums. I don't use Picasa on my computer so I'm afraid I'm not an expert on this method.

The second option is the "Upload" button. That will take you to a screen like this:



Your window may be empty but, as you can see, I have quite a few albums already created. I like to organize them by month or special collection. You have the option to upload photos to an existing album (click on the album you want to use and then 'select album') or you can create a new album by clicking on that phrase at the top of these screen.

Once your album is selected or created, you will be taken to this screen.


You can upload up to 5 photos at once by clicking on the 'browse' button and navigating to the picture on your computer (nicely organized into folders I hope). When you have selected your photos, click 'start upload' and they will appear in your album.

If you use a mac computer, there is still an easier way to upload photos that I prefer. Download the Picasa Web Album Uploader for Mac. With this application, you can upload many pictures at once by dragging them into the uploader window. It looks like this:



You can select an album or create a new one. You can designate upload size. I use the "Faster upload (1000px) option" because that is plenty big for blogging.

So those are a few options for getting pictures hosted on the web. Next we need to get them into our blogs.

Adding a Picture to Blogger

Open up your Picasa Web Album and you will see all of your photo albums



I guess I have quite a few (131!). Picasa gives you a little over 1 GB of photo storage free. If you limit your uploads to the 1000px version - that ought to last quite a while. Picasa offers an upgrade for a fee that gives 20 GB of storage.

Select the album you want and you will see your photos


Now select the photo you want and you will see this screen


Selecting the code

The important information is off to the right - click on the phrase 'link to this photo' and a few windows will open up just below that say 'link' and 'embed image'.



We are interested in embedding. Right below 'embed image' is the code that you need to paste into your blog. But first we need to make a few selections.

Select size by clicking on the little arrow to the right of the pull down window. You can choose thumbnail (144px), small (288px), medium (400px), or large (800px). You may ask why the jump from 400 to 600? I wonder that too - especially since 600px is the size I prefer to use in blogging! Standard Blogger templates are about 800 pixels wide. I use a 'stretch' template that stretches to the width of the computer window. That's nice for bigger pictures. If you use a standard blogger template, medium (400px) images will be about right. If you use a stretch template 600 px is perfect but you will need to customize the embedded code to get it. I'll show you how to do that later (don't worry - it's not too difficult!). Meanwhile - here is what the four size options look like.

thumbnail (144px)


small (288 px)


medium (400px)


large (800px)


and here's my customized 600 px size - perfect, isn't it?


You also have some choices to make about links. The choices are right below your 'embed image' code. I always click the box 'hide album link'. This just avoids extra text in the blog and makes it easier to customize photo size. The other box 'image only, no links' gives you a choice about what will happen when someone clicks on the picture in your blog. I leave it blank. Here is what my choices look like:



Now that you have everything selected, let's get the code. This is quite easy. Just click anywhere inside the box under 'embed image'. The code will all turn blue meaning it's been selected. If that doesn't work, just drag and highlight all the code. Now copy it - control 'C' or go to 'edit' at the top of the screen and then 'copy'.

The code is now on your 'clipboard' and we are ready to paste it into your blog. I'll show you how to do that step by step in a sample blog post.

Pasting the code

Here's some text


To add a photo, put your cursor where you want it and paste - Control 'V' or 'Edit' 'Paste'. Here's the code.



But wait - that doesn't look like a picture!

That's OK - you just need to toggle back and forth between the two tabs at the top of your blogger window. They say 'Edit Html' or 'Compose'. In Blogger, it doesn't matter which you use to paste the code. But to see the picture you must click on the 'Compose tab' or, if you are already in Compose, click 'Edit Html' and then back to 'Compose'.

And Ta Dah! Your picture appears


Isn't that easy?

Here's what's really nice. If you want to move your picture, you can go into 'Edit Html' mode, copy the code and paste it anywhere in your blogger window.

Customizing picture size

Now - here is the slightly tricky part - customizing the size. I almost always want to use a width of 600px. So here's what I do. I paste in the large size picture (800px) and then modify the code to make it slightly smaller. Make sure you can see the embeded code. You may need to click on the 'Edit Html' tab.

Let's take a closer look at the code


The arrow is pointing to a spot right after .jpg"

That's where you need to do a little editing. Type in width=600 (or whatever size you want) so it looks like this. I like to put a space on either side of my typing just so everything is easy to see.



Now, when you click the 'Compose' tab to see your picture - it will be the perfect size! That's not too difficult, right? I use this all the time. I like 'width=600' for horizontal pictures and 'width=400' for vertical. That keeps things nice and uniform.

That's what I just did for this blog - went into all my code and changed the widths to 600.

I hope this somewhat lengthy blog post helps. If you have questions or suggestions on this topic, please add a comment and I will address them.

Backing up photos

I am sitting at my computer trying to back up photos (1999 to 2006) off an old external hard drive.

It is a messy process.

If you want to keep memories alive, it is extremely important to back up photos.

Here is my current system (I wish I had done it all along!)


First - every time you are ready to empty a digital camera card first BURN A COPY OF THE FILES! This is just like those old packets of negatives we (meaning older folks like me who remember negatives) used to keep in drawers. It will give you a pristine copy of each photo file just in case you do something terrible to mess up the copy on your computer. DVDs are not that expensive and this is worth the effort. It is what professional photographers do. My 4 GB card works perfectly since it fits on one DVD. If I have a smaller card, I burn on a CD or stockpile the files in a carefully labeled folder on my computer until there are enough to justify burning on a DVD.

Second - I assume you transfer all of your photos and store them somewhere on your computer for editing and sharing. This can be done in various programs (Picasa, iPhoto, Adobe bridge). Since you have a nice back up copy of every photo burned on DVD, you don't need to keep all 12 shots of grandma body surfing. Just pick the best and delete the rest (remember, you have them safely backed up). This slims down the folders of photos stored on your computer.

Third - Occasionally back up the photo files stored on your computer. Hopefully they will be the best of the best nicely labeled, dated, and organized. You can burn them unto a DVD or copy to an external hard drive. Yes I know - you already burned the photos right off the memory card. But the ones on your computer are organized and edited. It is worth making this second copy. There are huge capacity affordable USB hard drives available now that are tiny and portable. I actually do both - burn to DVD and transfer to an external hard drive (I love my photos so much). After this is done, you can delete the files off your computer when it fills up.

Of course, you need to carefully label and safely store those DVDs so you can access them when needed.