Wednesday, March 9, 2011

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.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

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.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

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).




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.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

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