Paul’s IT Documentation

Beginning Connect – Resources for the October 20 and 21 Connect meetings

Agenda:

Meeting basics

• Connect Pro Meeting Overview
• Create a Meeting
• Meeting Roles and User Interface Overview

Meeting management

• Manage Meeting Access
• Manage Meeting Attendees
• Managing Pods
• Managing Layouts

Meeting audio

• Setting Up Your Computer for Voice over IP (VoIP)
• Using Voice over IP (VoIP) Audio

Using the Share Pod to share documents, applications,

• Sharing PowerPoint Presentations
• Screen Sharing and Application Sharing
• Understanding the Full Screen Option
• Sharing Images, Audio, and Custom Flash Applications

Using other meeting pods

• Using the Note Pod
• Using the Chat Pod

Meeting recordings

• Recording a Meeting

Documents included in the meeting:

Connect QuickStartGuide (pdf)

connect-quickstart-pods (word doc file)

connect-quickstart-formats (word doc file)

troubleshooting-meetings-connect (pdf)

evaluating-webinars (pdf)

Linking a thumbnail to a full sized image in a Wordpress post

Short pdf on creating a link to a thumbnail in a Wordpress post. Includes new and existing images.

Link thumbnailto full size (pdf)

Media Conversion – Some tools I use.

Just finished a short document on converting media. Basically the tools I use, with links to site to download them from. Nothing fancy but thought I’d add it here in case anyone was interested:

Converting Media (pdf)

Downloading a Copy of Your Recorded Connect Meeting

The recent upgrade of Connect includes a feature that allows you to download an flv or your recorded meetings. This document illustrates the process and includes a section on embedding the flv file in a web page using dreamweaver.

Click to save downloading-a-copy-of-your-recorded-connect-meeting (pdf)

Removing links from images in Wordpress

A short (3 screenshots) document illustrating how to remove links from images in Wordpress posts and pages.

Removing links from images in Wordpress (pdf)

Google Calendar for CCE Worpdress Blogs

What you need to know about Google calendar and how to make it work with your CCE blog.

Downlaod pdf: google-calendar-for-cce-blogs

Converting video for use in a Connect Meeting

Yesterday I was asked about how to add a video to a connect meeting space. The easy answer is convert it to an flv (flash video file format) and upload it to the meeting space. The more complete answer is – it might be easy, it might be a bit more challenging.

In this case the video that the meeting hosts want to use is on a dvd, which adds a nice bit of complication into the mix. If you’ve ever browsed a dvd you know there is not a video file you can grab onto and convert. There is a Video_TS folder with some files in it, which generally don’t correspond to anything you’ve ever had the pleasure of working with before. But, it’s ok – ripping video from a dvd is a time honored procedure and there are tools to help.

The first thing I did was download the lates version of HandBrake – an open source video transcoder. I used HandBrake a couple of times in the past, but that was on a Mac. I downloaded the pc installer, installed it and fired it up.

Using Handbrake is pretty intuitive and easy. I selected the “Source” – in this case a DVD/VIDEO_TS folder, set my output format to AV. Ripping a 32 minute video took about an hour, on my machine. Once it was finished I had an avi file which I still cannot upload to a Connect meeting room, so on to step 2.

Step 2 – Converting the AVI to FLV

For my flv conversion needs, I generally use Riva FLV Encoder. I’ve been using Riva for about 2 years now and – given that it is free and works well – I recommend it for your conversion needs, as well.

I selected my input video – the file I had just created using HandBrake – by browsing to it’s location. I kept the default presets, set the “Destination video file name” and location and then clicked the big “Encode” button. Then I walked away for a while. This process can be somewhat lengthy and processor intensive, so I find it best just to walk away for a while and let it churn.

Once it was  done encoding, I had a nice, tidy, flv file. I promptly opened a Connect meeting room, uploaded the flv and played it to make sure the quality was ok. Lo, and behold – it worked. I do enjoy it when software works like you expect it to. Granted, it was not a simple “Open meeting, upload file” procedure but it is not a complicated process either. And it can all be done with free and/or open source tools.

As a closing note – both of these pieces of software have a lot of flexibility in shaping the output. In this instance I used the default settings, which worked just fine, but you can fine tune things til the cows come home – adjusting framerates, etc…I leave that exploration up to you.

Building a Lobby for Your Connect Meeting

New pdf document that steps through the process of building a lobby for your Adobe Connect Meeting.

buildingalobby(pdf file)

Adding images to a Wordpress MU post

Adding images to a post(pdf)

Short document illustrating the process of adding images to a wrodpress post.

How to use Google Calendar-Bernadette Logazars experience

How to use Google Calendar
Bernadette Logazars experience in creating and using Google Calendar on their web site
Content
Hello,

A couple of weeks ago I had submitted a ticket regarding the use of Google Calendar on our CCE Franklin Website. Paul had encouraged me to explore this and to share success/failure with the IT team.

I am happy to say that it was success! I had thought we would have to go the Google Aps route, but I wasn’t sure how to do this but I emailed the Google Team and this is the response I received:

Since you are just looking for the functionality to embed a calendar on a
website I am not sure you would need to set up Google Apps for that. You
can simply use the publicly available Calendar and embed that on your
website. You will not have to worry about using another domain either. I
would recommend contacting the Google Calendar team directly. I did manage
to look up a help center entry for you that sheds more light on the
solution you are looking for:
http://www.google.com/support/a/users/bin/answer.py?answer=41207

If this does not answer your question please contact the Google Calendar
team directly.

If you interested in Google Apps I would highly recommend that you attend
one of our Webinars to learn more:

You can see the list of upcoming presentations and register to attend at:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/seminars.html.
—

Today, I proceeded forward with the above advice and created a public CCE Franklin Events Calendar, that I also gave access to 4 other people in our office. I was able to easily update and input information, even dates that ran for multiple days. We haven’t explored the email reminder feature (I simply ran out of time today but will try that in the future for sure). After embedding the calendar in our website we were able to update events easily and these appeared immediately on our website. Several of us were able to work on adding items to the website, I was working on the calendar with another 2 staff people, I could see what they were putting on the calendar on my screen and vice versa.

So it does work. And it didn’t take any time to learn how to do it. For those with questions there are web seminars and tutorials available through Google (I included those links above).

I hope this helps.
Bernadette
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