#34587
How to Avoid Extinction as a Technical Communicator
Although there will always be a need for people to explain technical material non-technical people, Ellis Pratt said, others may be doing it instead, through the formats users prefer. To survive, technical writers may need to morph into content strategists, managing the information in a systematic way rather than merely creating it.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>User Centered Design
#34621
How to Convert to High-Quality MP4 and Display in Flash on Your Site
This basic guide will show you the steps how to convert any video to high quality flash video, MP4 with H264 and AAC audio, and put it on your website with a Flash video player using free software only.
VideoHelp (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Flash
#34631
Video has the potential for enhancing documentation. But is video the be all, end all? Is it really the next stage in the evolution of documentation? Will it supplant text and static images? This post looks at the pros and cons.
Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video
#34671
Working with Audio Tracks in Macromedia Captivate
The inclusion of audio in online learning courses not only greatly enhances learners' experiences, it also ensures that your courses are accessible to a wide audience. In this article I explore the various ways you can add audio to your Captivate projects. I also provide a number of tips on adding a narration to product demonstrations and presentations.
Fletcher, Mark. Adobe (2004). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Screen Captures
#34673
The 'video' element is brand new in HTML 5 and allows you to, get this, play a movie in your website! The data of this element is supposed to be video but it might also have audio or images associated with it. Of course, this will only work in a few browsers: Safari 3.1+, Firefox 3.5+, and latest builds of Opera (oh, and potentially the next release of Chrome).
HTML 5 Doctor (2009). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>HTML5
#34681
Last week Google released Google Voice, a service that allows you to integrate all your phones into one number and includes a host of features, including voice mail, recording, conference calling, and other services. To help users get started, Google Voice has a list of 20 short videos. Only the overview video contains animation. It’s certainly the video they’ve put the most work into, and it also functions as marketing collateral.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Case Studies
#34794
TechSmith asked me to create a video on using Audacity to edit narrations. Since the use of Audacity will be useful to many I've uploaded it here too. The screencast covers removing background noise, breathing and lip smacks, dynamic range compression, volume normalisation, fades and de-essing using the volume control.
Ozsvald, Ian. ShowMeDo (2009). Presentations>Multimedia>Audio>Screencasts
#34795
Advice on how to get started giving screencasts, why you might want to do it and how to establish your recording studio. Then we move into planning the capture of your screencast and a few tips on using some presentation tools.
Rush, Jeff. ShowMeDo (2009). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Screencasting
#34796
Covers how to begin and conclude your cast and a bit about postprocessing. Then we cover your behavior during your talk and how to get your screencast distributed to others.
Rush, Jeff. ShowMeDo (2009). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Screencasting
#34798
In this series of videos we'll demonstrate some of the basics of making screencasts in Linux. In addition, we'll show how to encode your original video file into another video type and illustrate some basic editing techniques.
ShowMeDo (2009). Presentations>Multimedia>Presentations>Screencasting
#34839
Challenges of Multimedia Self-Presentation: Taking, and Mistaking, the Show on the Road 
One privilege enjoyed by new-media authors is the opportunity to realize representations of Self that are rich textual worlds in themselves and also to engage the wider world, with a voice, a smile, imagery, and sound. Still, closer investigation of multimedia composition practices reveals levels of complexity with which the verbal virtuoso is unconcerned. This article argues that while technology-afforded multimedia tools make it comparatively easy to author a vivid text, it is a multiplicatively more complicated matter to vividly realize and publicize an authorial intention. Based on analysis of the digital story creation process of a youth named 'Steven,' the authors attempt to demonstrate the operation of two forces upon which the successful multimodal realization of the author's intention may hinge: 'fixity' and 'fluidity.' The authors show how, within the process of digital self-representation, these forces can intersect to influence multimodal meaning making, and an author's life, in consequential ways.
Nelson, Mark Evan, Glynda A. Hull and Jeeva Roche-Smith. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Presentations>Education>Multimedia
#34878
The Spiritual—Functional Loop: Animation Redefined in the Digital Age
Can animation bring life to the computer? Can the computer take animation to a new horizon extending from cinema and visual art? This article starts with a scrutiny of the conventional definition of animation and its connection to the continuum of liveliness, followed by an examination of the two furthest points on that scale: lively movement, which is spiritual; and inorganic movement, which is functional. The author shows that, in the digital age, movement of various degrees of liveliness can be significant and meaningful through a wide array of motor—sensory functions. This brings about a new notion of materiality, which constructs an innovative meaning of animation. The author then argues that, when combined with the unique functions of the computer, animation can find a shortcut between the two extremes of liveliness: spirituality and functionality. Therefore, the field of animation could benefit from an expansion of its digital attributes. Finally, the author discusses a corpus of artefacts created in different historical periods and different media that exemplify the spiritual—functional loop.
Chow Ka-nin, Kenny. Animation (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video
#34879
Animated Expressions: Expressive Style in 3D Computer Graphic Narrative Animation
The development of 3D animation systems has been driven primarily by a hyper-realist ethos, and 3D computer graphic (CG) features have broadly complied with this agenda. As a counterpoint to this trend, some researchers, technologists and animation artists have explored the possibility of creating more expressive narrative output from 3D animation environments. This article explores 3D animation aesthetics, technology and culture in this context.
Power, Pat. Animation (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Human Computer Interaction>Video
#35084
Twitter for the Social Media Fledgling
New media should be accessible to everyone, not just marketing, public relations and web professionals. Here, I aim to help all people navigate the new media landscape.
Devlin, Emma L. New Media For Everyone (2009). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>Social Networking
#35259
Convergence Calls: Multimedia Storytelling at British News Websites
This article uses qualitative interviews with senior editors and managers from a selection of the UK’s national online news providers to describe and analyse their current experimentation with multimedia and video storytelling. The results show that, in a period of declining newspaper readership and TV news viewing, editors are keen to embrace new technologies, which are seen as being part of the future of news. At the same time, text is still reported to be the cornerstone for news websites, leading to changes in the grammar and function of news video when used online. The economic rationale for convergence is examined and the article investigates the partnerships sites have entered into in order to be able to serve their audience with video content. In-house video is complementing syndicated content, and the authors examine the resulting developments in newsroom training and recruitment practices. The article provides journalism and interactive media scholars with case studies on the changes taking place in newsrooms as a result of the shift towards multimedia, multiplatform news consumption.
Thurman, Neil and Ben Lupton. Convergence (2008). Articles>Publishing>Multimedia
#35262
New Media, Networking and Phatic Culture
This article will demonstrate how the notion of ‘phatic communion’ has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices. Through a consideration of the new media objects of blogs, social networking profiles and microblogs, along with their associated practices, I will argue, that the social contexts of ‘individualization’ and ‘network sociality’, alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and ‘connected presence’ has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications. That is, communications which have purely social (networking) and not informational or dialogic intents. I conclude with a discussion of the potential nihilistic consequences of such a culture.
Miller, Vincent. Convergence (2009). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>Social Networking
#35263
Rigorous Interdisciplinary Pedagogy: Five Years of ACE
The emergence of media-arts and digital cultural practices has provided a highly charged context for the development of interdisciplinary pedagogy, combining as it does, practices and traditions from historically, culturally and theoretically wildly divergent disciplines. This article addresses aspects of effective interdisciplinary educational process, attending to questions of pedagogy, theory and institutional pragmatics. In my analysis, the key components of such a project are: deep technical training and understanding; deep training in artmaking and cultural practice; deep theoretical and historical contextualization, and an open and rigorous interdisciplinary context which maximally facilitates the negotiation of these often divergent ways of thinking and making. In building such interdisciplinary practice in the context of a campus, one abruptly confronts the discontinuity between the rapidly changing fluidity of the contemporary moment and the relative stasis of institutionalized disciplines which have an investment in maintaining their identity in the face of such change. Implicit in the project then, is not simply the development of a context for deep interdisciplinary invention, but the formation of practitioners who are neither artists nor engineers, or who are equal parts both. In either case, this formation confounds the disciplines and creates a vacuum of institutional context, which has resounding implications for the survival and flourishing of such initiatives and their practitioners.
Penny, Simon. Convergence (2009). Articles>Education>Multimedia
#35264
Using content analysis and survey, this study examines how the teaching of thinking skills and that of technological skills have been balanced in US new media programs to produce both employable graduates and life-long learners. Findings show that most programs have balanced the two skill sets but that more effort should be made to integrate the teaching of both skill sets in individual courses to give students an expedited, holistic learning experience.
Huang, Edgar. Convergence (2009). Articles>Education>Multimedia>United States
#35268
Adobe Captivate 4: Backup, Backup, Backup
As simple as the concept of backing up your work might be, I am constantly surprised when I hear from even veteran Captivate developers that a project has become corrupt (the project, which was fine yesterday, won't open today). The fix? If the project won't open, there's a good chance that the only thing anyone can do is copy a backup project to the local disk and then open the backup. Oh, you don't have a backup? Ouch!
Siegel, Kevin A. Blogs.com (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Adobe Captivate
#35334
Move Over Text: Video Documentation Meets DITA
In the US today, there are 82.5 Million Content Creators 13.9% create content in virtual worlds 18.1% create video content 23.9% create blog content 79.7% create content on a social network. All we need is a standard that will support the topic- based nature of “how to” video content XML, and by extension, DITA, seemed to be a perfect fit.
Abel, Scott and Sean Healy. SlideShare (2009). Presentations>Documentation>Multimedia>Video
#35350
Before looking at tools, please look at the DMCP Captioning Key to get familiar with captioning standards.
Creswell, Bill. WordPress (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Accessibility>Software
#35511
Screencasting for Dummies (and Smarties)
With so much training being done on computers (along with other tasks being done while training is taking place on that same computer), it’s important to know some best practices for developing training and other modules with screencasts. Amy Tehan demonstrates tips and tricks for making an effective screencast that will hold the viewer’s attention and get the message across.
Tehan, Amy. EServer (2009). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Screencasting
#35568
Ten Common Mistakes When Building AIR Applications
Adobe AIR has grown immensely popular over the past months. With its popularity, many new applications have been released. During this period, the following 10 issues have been the mistakes I have seen most often among developers. Hopefully, this list can help you avoid the same mistakes when building your next AIR application.
Tucker, David. Adobe Captivate Blog (2009). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash
#35569
Best Practices: Six AIR Features that May Annoy Your Users
I get to see and play with a lot of really cool AIR applications (even when they’re still being developed). Every now and then I come across an app that totally ignores any best practices or usability rules. AIR provides developers with a lot of features that could potentially annoy users if not used wisely. I thought it was a good idea to write this article. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these features, I just want you to think about them before you add them to your application.
Jespers, Serge. Web Kitchen (2008). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash
#35580
Captivate: Change the Autotext for Captions
One small thing that’s annoyed me about Captivate ever since I started using it to create software demos is the default text. It starts off being a proper sentence, but doesn’t have closing punctuation (e.g. Select the [blah] menu). I’ve never bothered to investigate if I could change it--as I said, it’s a small annoyance.
CyberText Newsletter (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Screen Captures>Adobe Captivate
