Marshall has a great post about a technorati tag bookmarklet that can save you a lot of grunt work.
Technorati tags can help you attract more readers for your blog and also facilitate contributing to the collective community wisdom surrounding a particular tag. Surfing a tag stream (another word for a collection of content found in one screen using a tag) can also help you discover other people, s, and ideas. (Although sometimes you have to sift through a lot of crap).
Bookmarklets are simple tools that extend the bookmarking and search capabilities of web browser software. They are created by geeky programmer types who hate extra keystrokes, are freely distributed on the web and (most of the time) can be easily installed and used in your browser. There are lots and lots of bookmarkets around, some good, some bad, and some designed to work specifically with Web2.0 apps. Take for example, the collection of bookmarklets that have been created for delicious.
About six months ago, I discovered a technorati tag bookmarklet here, created by a guy named Ted.
But it required some editing to make it link the tag to Technorati. Now, thanks to Marshall, you don't have edit so it is even less work.
I thought this might be a good experiment for my screencasting sandbox. So, here's my first incredibly sloppy and choppy screencast of how to use this neat little bookmarklet. <grin>
I hope you get a good laugh. The timing errors make it more of a comedy than an instructional video, but you have to start somewhere . . . understanding screencasting software and creative process, like vlogging, is a time sink.
Here's the script ....
What you're going to do now hoover your mouse with your left finger down and the cursor will turn into a finger over the BlogTags link. Then drag it to your tool bar and release your finger. It is a little bit tricky, but can be done.
To Use The Bookmarklet To Add Tags To Your Post
1. Click on the bookmarklet
2. Type in the tags you want to use. If using more than one tag, leave a space between tags
3. Click OK
4. Use control-x to capture into clipboard
5. Paste the HTML snippet into your blog post
Some immediate reflections on screencasting while it is fresh in my head ...
I've been researching screencasting software and needed a small project.
Screencasting (and the software) has three functions: storyboarding, production, editing. I resorted to pen and paper for part 1 for this experiment. (will scan later) Also, I haven't fully mastered the editing features yet as I was just trying to get it from script to filming ...
I am using a free trial of Captivate from Macromedia. Unfortunately, the software was a little too much of a pig for my middle-aged computer, so there are some places where the over hiccups (if I'm not saying um) and it goes out of synch with the movie (more an editing problem on my part as you can edit the storyboard with the audio and there places where I deleted the audio and re-recorded it and it didn't synch right.) Next I'm going to try the free trial of Camtasia (Udell uses that one) and go back to fooling with Camstudio (the free open source tool). So look out for more formal reflections about process, particularly on the art of screencasting, along with reviews for some of the tools, both free and expensive.
And, maybe some more screen polished screencasts.
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