Vitamin CH

PlurkCast

2008-07-02T11:52:13-07:00:00

Have I got a great resource for all you Plurkers! Plurkable.com has started a weekly Plurkcast to show off the people and events of the Plurkiverse.

I am going to be joining the Plurkable team and Mike Templeton on this afternoon's show. I know it is short notice, but come join us anyway.

Details:

July 2nd PlurkCAST @ 4:00 PM US Central Time

Live Chat Room visit the official TalkSHOE PlurkCAST page
Call In
Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 21651

Hosts:
Eric Odom of Plurkable.com and KDFrawg of Plurkiverse.com

Thanks To Eric and KD for having me!

(if you missed last week's cast or see this post too late to do this week's, check out the link anyway - it will be recorded and the recording will be available soon after we finish talking)

Happy Birthday, Betsy!

2008-06-29T20:58:31-07:00:00

How do you thank someone who's friendship and support has changed your life? I'm going to try to do it by letting you all know how wonderful this specific person is…

Betsy Weber and I met in person at the first PowerPoint Live. It was like a spark that just kept growing. If you don't know Betsy, she is the Chief Evangelist for TechSmith corporation. They make SnagIt, Camtasia, Jing, Morea, and ScreenCast.com.

I used SnagIt long before I knew Betsy. Sharing tips about SnagIt and PowerPoint started us off. From there, the friendship grew. We would see each other once a year or so at an event. Before too long, we were chatting on-line with this and that… not very frequently at first, but more and more often.

Within a couple of years, the friendship went from aquaintances to online friends to one of my best real-life friends. The change wasn't obvious to me, but it was to my husband. I have a sister Betsy. For the first couple of years, if I talked about "Betsy" it meant my sister, where as "Betsy as in Weber" meant Betsy Weber. I don't know when that changed, but now "Betsy" means Ms. Weber, and "Betsy as in sister" means my sister.

Betsy introduced me to the world of social media. At times, she seemed to know more about myself and where I was headed in life than I did. She would email me: "Have you tried out XYZ site?" and I would respond, "Not yet… Let me look." I learned about Twitter, Facebook, and so much more that way. I learned that you could make a living talking and listening to people about products you loved. I learned that the community work I did as a volunteer could become a career.

When she fell in love with OneNote, I was one of the first to know. Yea, I was a OneNote MVP - that was part of it. But it was also, a chance for me to share things with her that she just didn't imagine it could do. I had showed her tips in PowerPoint, but nothing life changing. OneNote was life changing.

At some point, it became a given that if we were in the same state, we would do a video blog entry or two for The Visual Lounge. Some were silly, some were serious. All were fun to put together.. All were also fraught with problems out of control. (Hey Betsy - Remember the cold room at APCUG?)

She has been my mentor as I decide to redirect my life. She encouraged me to start my blog. She was the one who told me about PodCamp AZ and said to see if they needed help.

Now, I send her as many links as she sends me. If my email doesn't go bing with something from her, or my IM doesn't tell me Betsy wants to talk, it is an unusual thing. We share so many common interests... gadgets, technology, OneNote, TechSmith products, speaking, community, etc. I have had the pleasure of speaking with her at a conference. We know each other's loves and lives. We could be sisters in some ways.

But our relationship is better than sisterhood. We choose to become friends. And now, I get the joy of telling all of you how much she has meant to me.

It's her birthday. It just seemed the perfect time to tell her: Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for supporting me through good times and bad. Thank you for listening and laughing. Thank you for being there.

I can only hope the friendship grows and grows as time goes on. Betsy, you make a difference in my life all the time. Thank you.

More Plurk Lessons

2008-06-26T21:41:57-07:00:00

My good friend Connie Bensen joined us on Plurk tonight. She already knew so many people over there, that it was only a matter of time. It just so happened that a mutual friend (you Mack Collier) had done a blog post she needed to see and that we were all talking about on Plurk.

Now, Connie is a genius at community management. But she had never tried Plurk and didn't quite know what to do with it. I made sure that she got the basics (or so I thought) and then announced to the world that she was on Plurk.

Moments later, Connie IMs me. She has a whole bunch of questions about things like how to find people, how to respond to plurks, etc. Oh, and she needed to know how 65 people had already found her. THAT is the beauty of social networking. I announced she was there and everyone spread the word. People she knew from other places found her immediately and started conversations. People she didn't know, found her because she was recommended. Connie's next IM to me? "Don't bug me while I'm plurking :) "

To help Connie, I started with a screen shot. But, by the time I got her the link, she had figured most of it out. By the time I realized that there were holes in my previous Plurk post, I also realized I had much more than 5 minutes of stuff to tell you. Three Jings later... we have a post!

Part 1: Replying to Plurks

As I said, the first thing was one of the basics of Plurk. Unlike some micro-blogging sites, Plurk is all about the conversation. Yeah, I know, Twitter is too. But here, the conversation includes the whole community and you don't have to figure out who was responding when to what. The basics of responding to a plurk? Open it and reply. The details?

Part 2: Plurk Alerts

As you get into Plurk, you will find that your Alerts link in the upper left corner of the timeline becomes important. Clicking the alerts link brings up a dialog that shows you who wants to connect with you and how they want to connect. Some people will want to be just fans others; will want to be friends. What's the difference? Watch the video and see...

And, Amix, if you are reading this... I want another alert! I want an alert that goes off when I get a private plurk!

Part 3: Searching Plurk

If all of this weren't enough, today Plurk added a new feature. You can now search for plurks on a topic or about a person. It also lets you search for people on Plurk by user name or by real name. This means that it is now simple to find out if the people you want to talk to are on Plurk.

So... That's today's Plurk lessons. Want more? Let me know! Or even better: Plurk me and get into the conversation!

Back to the drawing board with the OneNote book

2008-06-26T14:01:40-07:00:00

I have been trying for the last year to write a OneNote book. (Old news, I know) After a flash of inspiration caused by a friendly comment, I have realized why this book hasn't been working.

Most books on computer applications tend to be step by step directions on how to use the software. I write that kind of book, and not too badly either. But for this book, that approach hasn't been working. What I was writing was coming out boring and unreadable. I wasn't having fun writing it and I knew it wasn't right.

After a discussion with the editor of the book, we have decided to take a new approach. I want your input. I want to know what you want in a OneNote book. I want to know what you want it called. I want to know what kind of book you are looking for. I want to know what you think!

Title ideas

The first thing I need from you, my loyal readers, is a potential title for the book. If you were looking for a book on OneNote, what would grab your attention enough to get you to buy it. The title of a book says a lot about what is inside it. Think of the series title for your favorite books, and you will see what I mean.

I want you to tell me what title a OneNote book should have. The title should be fairly brief. It should say something about what you want to learn from the book. It should also be catchy enough to earn a place in the brick and mortar stores. It should be open enough to interpretation that people will "get" the book from the title. Oh, and if it has a bit of humor in it, that would help too.

The content and the style

The problem with a OneNote book is that it doesn't seem to lend itself well to an existing series title. Step by step books are great for some programs. But OneNote doesn't need a step by step book. It needs a book that tells you what you can do with the program, how to get started with it, how to use it to organize your life, and how to keep it up. OneNote needs a book that will spark your interest and creativity. It needs to excite you about the opportunities OneNote provides and the different ways everyone can use it to save time, money, space, and so much more.

I also don't want to go to a series of essays on OneNote. That's covered by all of the great blogs that already exist. I don't think that is a book that the publishing house could sell to the book stores.

I do see this as more of a dip and dive book. I expect that people will read it to learn about how to improve their lives with OneNote and then later refer back to parts of it for more information.

I also see this book as a resource about what power toys are already out there and how people use them to make OneNote do exactly what they want. I think that there are already a set of tools that have proven themselves invaluable. Those definitely have a place in this book.

Finally, I see this book as having a wide audience. I don't see this as OneNote for the business person. I know that many users of OneNote can't live without it in classroom settings, home settings, and much more. Somehow that depth needs to come across too.

What do you think?

This is what I think. I want to know what you think. What do you want to see in a OneNote book? Are there things that need to be covered in a step by step manner? Would a series of case studies and implementation ideas be better? Would an electronic book be better than a printed one?

Comment here or email me. Let me know what you want to see. I am going to try to start over from scratch. Your opinions would help with that process greatly.

PS:

I know that there is a segment of the OneNote community that really wants a book on the API. I am not the person to write that book. Sorry.

Claiming my blog on Technorati

2008-06-24T13:27:14-07:00:00

When browsing around the net today, I realized that I had never claimed this blog as my own on Technorati. I claimed the old Vitamin CH, but never this one. When I went to do it, I saw that the process has changed somewhat. Instead of just posting the usual "ignore this post, I am just claiming my blog" type thing, I thought I would post how to do it. (Warning: The process didn't work as planned for me. I would love to hear from those for whom it did work about how to make it work!)

The first step to claiming your blog on Technorati is to create an account over there. There is always debate as to whether Technorati means anything in today's blogging environment. My take? It can't hurt to claim your blog and it does help you get some extra PR when you post.

Once you have your account claimed, navigate to your favorites page in your account and scroll down until you see this:

(This should show near or at the bottom of the right hand column of the page. )

Clicking this link will take you to the first page of the blog claim process. Here, you will be asked for you blog URL. Put it in the box and click "Begin Claim", which will take you to the page that caused me to write this post. If your blog post ends in a slash, you may have problems claiming your blog. In my case, the first two tries didn't work because I only put in the main part of my URL. I skipped the "/default.aspx" part. Adding that should have corrected the problem, but does not seem to have done so.

This page says "Choose your claim process". Choose (to me) implies that there is more than one option. I only got one: Post Claim. Using Post Claim requires you to create a new blog post with the Technorati code in it.

The post claim process is described on the next page (sample shown below):

The basic idea? Create a post and put a link to your Technorati profile in it as an active link, like so:

Technorati Profile

Activate your post as usual, then go back to your Technorati page and click the "Release the Spiders!" button.

For me, this process didn't work. The first problem was that I put in just the beginning of my URL as I noted above. Fixing that still didn't work. A quick visit to the FAQ for claiming your blog suggested I ping Technorati to make sure it could be found. Once I had done the ping, I had to update the claim code above and try the claim again.

Now, I understand that the above process should work. In my case, it still isn't. Which brings me to the second reason for this post: Is it worth it?

I know that Technorati used to be one of the main gauges of a blogs popularity. But if a blogger has to go through a process that is this complex and which still doesn't work for some blogs, is it worth it?

I do know that the old Vitamin CH did get some traffic from Technorati (and still does). I just don't know if the amount of traffic justifies trying to fight through a process that has this many problems.

On the other hand, I also know that my friend Connie Bensen just discovered that her blog is much more popular than she thought because of Technorati. You can read all about what she found on her post: Measurement of my Blogging

I think that Technorati can be a useful tool. What I am not sure about is if the use outweighs the difficulty for non-computer experts to claim their blogs. After all, if I can't get it to work, how can I train someone else to do it?

Update: At least now Technorati knows about the problem. They say there is a claim in progress, but that there is a problem with the claim. Meanwhile, this blog is now at least showing up there. It is a bit behind, but it is there.

To help myself see how things are going, I am going to attempt to put the Technorati authority widget in this post. To see the authority info, click View blog authority

The winners are...

2008-06-17T20:25:45-07:00:00

Now that a week has passed, I have choosen the winners of the SnagIt 9.0 keys. The choice was hard to make. I have notified the three winners of keys:

Leah Wright
Eric Anderson
Glenda Watson Hyatt

This was a much tougher decision than I expected it to be. You all came up with great pieces on why you love and need SnagIt.

Now, just because you haven't won this contest doesn't mean all is lost. I might be running another one at sometime in the future... Watch for it.

Meanwhile: If you want to know what the newest SnagIt t-shirts are going to look at, check this out:

(This photo is care of Betsy Weber of TechSmith and can be found on her Flickr Page. Enjoy!)

SnagIt 9!

2008-06-10T18:47:02-07:00:00

In case you hadn't heard, TechSmith released the newest version of SnagIt June 10, 2008. I have been playing with it for a while, and thought I would share my thoughts and loves with you.

Many of you know I love SnagIt. This version makes me love it even more!

Let me count the ways:

New interface - They have ribbonized the SnagIt Editor. Now, many of you are thinking, "No, please, don't". Try it before you hate it. The new interface for the editor is really slick looking:
Multiple image edit - You can have multiple images open for edit at the same time. Makes for a much better work flow when you need to merge images together.
New process - You no longer have to close the editor when you are taking multiple shots or working with multiple images. Leave it open along with the main interface and you can pretty much have instant access to any part of the tool set you need.
OneClick Capture - Turn it on and click where you want to take your shot. Almost as cool as timed captures. Integrated library - a task pane leads you directly to the shots you have taken, whether they are currently open or closed. Don't want something in the library? Show the library, select the image, and delete it with the delete button from your keyboard
Flags - You can now flag your images to make it easier to find them. There are 10 flags you can apply, plus you can attach your own keywords to the images.
Fancier effects - You are going to have to play with this yourself to believe it, but the shapes, arrows, text, and everything else look even better than ever!
Convert images from the editor - Instead of creating an image, saving it, then using the batch tools to convert it, you can now convert from the editor any image or images you want. No leaving the editor and coming back in to check your work.
Instant access to Accessories and Stamps - Download a new accessory or stamp from the site and it is immediately available to you in the editor.
New editing interface and tools for videos - Yeah, it got ribbonized too. But even better, videos go in the same editor interface as images. So, you can be working with still images and video images at the same time. You can still only save them as AVIs, but they are much easier to work with!

Now, it's your turn….

Tell me what you think of the new SnagIt. Download it from the TechSmith site and play around with it. Post a comment telling us all what you find the most useful change and why. Believe me, I have only listed my top 10. There are many more changes and improvements that you will find as you play.

Why would you want to post back your additions? Because, thanks to Betsy Weber of TechSmith, I have two keys for SnagIt 9 to give away. A week from now, I will pick from the two winners from the posted comments and get them their keys. (That means that you need to be sure to put your email address in the comment form so that I can get the key to you. No one else will see your email address other than me and I will not keep it unless you tell me to.)

Bonus: If you decide to blog or otherwise web-write about the new SnagIt, this post, and the contest, let me know. I might just have an extra drawing for all of you!

Plurk much?

2008-06-06T10:55:35-07:00:00

Twitter's instability lately has made the news all over the web. While I love the cute 404 pages and the whale of tale that you get when the servers are too overloaded, I have felt increasingly disconnected from parts of my network because of the problems. On June 1st, a friend invited me to try out a new site: Plurk.com

Plurk is based on the same kind of idea as Twitter: Share your status, questions, comments, posts, etc. with friends, fans, and the public. Neither of these ideas are new. In fact, I started testing Tangler.com over a year ago. They do threaded conversations where you can add pictures, sounds, and movies directly to the conversations. (And, yes, Dek - I know it has been awhile since I stopped by!)

Plurk's difference comes in how you see the conversations. In Twitter (and most of the other conversation based sites I have ever played with, the conversation is vertical. You make your comments, they show up on the page. Refresh the screen and new comments show at the top of the page and old ones roll off to the next page.

In Plurk, you have a horizontal timeline showing who is saying what and how many comments have been made on the plurk. (In case you hadn't guessed, a plurk is a post. More on that in a moment.)

In this timeline, you can see plurks from several of my friends. Each plurk starts with the person's avatar, then provides the screen name, a verb and the plurk itself. After the plurk, there may be an ellipses if the plurk was longer than one line. If there is an ellipses, hovering your cursor over it will show the whole plurk. At the end of the plurk is a number. This is the number of replies that have been made to this plurk.

This last is one of the things I really like about Plurk. I can see exactly how many responses there have been to a plurk. Helps me know if it has been updated since I joined the conversation or if it is a plurk I might want to check into.

Notice that the plurks all have a white background? If any of them had a yellow background, that would indicate that it is a new plurk that I haven't read yet. If the number is in a red box instead of a white one, it means that there are comments I haven't read yet.

Unlike Twitter, Plurk updates all the time. If there are new comments or plurks that you haven't seen, there will be one or two comments at the bottom of the time line, like this:

(If there were new plurks to read, that would be followed by an indication of the number of new plurks as well.)

Click the View link, and your timeline changes to show just the plurks with responses you haven't seen yet. Click the view link for new plurks and you will be taken to the newest area of the timeline to see the newest plurks.

Underneath the timeline is your area for plurk information. I've annotated the shot so you get an idea of what is going on with your personal area. There's a lot of information packed in this small space, and a lot of functionality too!

Karma is a ranking of how long and how much you have done in the plurk world. Karma increase as you Make and respond to plurks Gather friends and fans Fill in your profile

As your karma goes up, more options become available to you. Higher karma gets you more emoticons to choose from, more things to fill in on your profile, and more customization options for your page.

The other neat thing about Plurk is that the posts aren't just intended to be information exchanges. Each plurk starts with a verb. By default, that verb is the word "is", but there are several others - as you can see here:

Freestyle plurking is done without verbs. I use this option most frequently when I want to say something but the verb I need isn't on the list. My most frequent one is "wonder", but there are others as well.

The one thing I have found dissatisfying about plurk is the fact that I can't search for other people or specific plurks on the system. To find friends, you need to either know what their screen name is, know someone they are already following, or have the link to their plurk page. My plurk page? Here!

If your friends aren't on Plurk, you can invite them to join. Plurk will check your email contact list from HotMail, Gmail, Yahoo, Live, or MSN. You enter your email id and password and they search your contacts for those already on Plurk. Once you decide which of those people to add, you are asked if you want to invite anyone else to join. You can also invite people directly from your Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail accounts.

Invite enough people and you get stars by your name.

The only option I haven't played around with much is Plurk's clique option. Here, you can group your friends together and send them specific messages. You can also see the timeline for just clique members. Unfortunately, you can't share cliques - so each person must create their own. That's part of why I haven't played with it yet. I haven't found a real use for it.

Final judgment? Plurk is a time eater. But since it auto-updates, I keep up to date better than on Twitter, even when not on constantly. It works more reliably than Twitter. I can communicate in a more threaded manner there. In fact, I respond much more than I post. I wish it would connect with Twitter and Facebook. Even with that missing link, I will still stay and play. Come Join me!

One frustrated GS volunteer

2008-06-03T18:28:27-07:00:00

I am a lifetime Girl Scout. My mother was a Girl Scout before me. My sisters were both Girl Scouts. Bruce is a lifetime member too.

When I was growing up, it was usual for there to be four troops attached to the household at times, one for each of us girls and my mother's troop. That means that Girl Scout Leader magazine in many of its incarnations have passed through my hands at least a time or two.

It hasn't always been the highest quality thing. It is a magazine put together by the national office to share resources and ideas with leaders and volunteers. Pay your dues as an adult, get a magazine a few times a year. That's the way it goes.

Today, the latest issue of Leader magazine landed in my mailbox. At first, I didn't realize it was a copy of Leader. The first thing I saw was the back cover: an ad for Dove soap. Thinking I had been added to someone's magazine list again, I flipped the magazine over and flipped. It was Leader Magazine. Calming myself down, I thought... OK, Dove does a big self-esteem building program with Girl Scouts. Maybe that is what is going on.

Open to the first page. Left side: Ad for Dick's Shoes and Reebok's and the Avon breast cancer walk. I think, "Maybe they are just giving some placement to some worthy causes. I can live with that." Right side: regular column from the CEO and the Chair of the National BOD. It says they are re-launching with a new "publishing partner" SPOT ON media. Hmmm... not looking good.

I flip through the magazine. Before I tell you what I found, please realize that the magazine goes to all adults registered as Girl Scouts and all girls over the age of 13 who are registered. The idea has always been that since the girls are doing leadership work with the younger girls, they should have access to the magazine.

I flipped. And I started reading. And writing this post. Because there are now ads. Lots of ads. Through out the magazine. Vacation and trip ads. A Cheetah Girls movie ad. Furniture ads. A Dell ad. A ProActive ad. But the one that really got my blood boiling?

An ad for "Work at Home - Be a Medical Billing Specialist" Yes! US Career Institute is advertising in Leader magazine. What does this tell our girls? Reach for the sky - pay a company you don't know to learn to be a medical billing specialist.

I don't have any problems with US Career Institute or the field of medical billing. I do have a BIG problem with them advertising in a magazine aimed at volunteers who are already over worked and under appreciated.

What do the ads say to the volunteers? What this volunteer heard loud and clear was "Here's your resource. Support our advertisers so we can keep sending it to you."

Was that what they meant to say? Reserving judgment on that. But, come on! Don't the volunteers in an organization the size of Girl Scouts deserve to get what they have always gotten? An ad free, somewhat balanced, resource with information they can feel safe sharing with the girls in the troop. Or is that just too much to ask. This volunteer hopes not.

OneNote Ninja Now Blogging

2008-05-20T12:38:55-07:00:00

In case you haven't seen it yet from your other OneNote sources...

Mike Tholfsen, renowned OneNote song writer and test manager is now blogging about OneNote and Education. Mike is known to several of the OneNote education folks in Seattle as the OneNote Ninja. He is going to be blogging about how OneNote can be used in education from kindergarten to adult education.

I am happy to see this whole in the blogosphere filled. OneNote is a great tool for educators and students alike. The ability to take notes in an organized way is a skill everyone should have, but that is only half the story here. By creating shared notebooks with class materials, teachers also make it easier to create repeatable lessons. This means more time to spend on teaching, less time spent on prep work. I have created many an adult class in OneNote - when I show them off to others, they are always amazed at the possibilities.

Mike's first post tells you all about what he wants to do with the blog:

Some of the types of OneNote-related entries I hope to cover in this blog include:

Teachers
Students
Faculty
Schools
Collaborative learning
Collaborative curriculum development
OneNote education samples
OneNote tips for education
Future directions for OneNote and education
Corporate eLearning, training and on-boarding
Corporate educators
A bunch of other fun stuff

Check the blog out and welcome Mike to the Blogosphere!