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Zamzar

February 2nd, 2008

Librarians – Have you ever had a file that you could not convert? Someone sends you a .wps or .cwk in an Office dominated world. Students can’t access an important essay and they’re freaking out. A teacher wants to show a .wmv but didn’t realize we don’t have Windows Media Player current on our Macs.

The site Zamzar.com is a librarian’s dream. Any file can be switched and converted for easy access. You can choose to upload a file or send a URL. Zamzar converts it and then links to the new file on their server where you can download it.

The best thing? There’s no program to download and no files, just links, get sent to your inbox.

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Posted in Tech How To

Mario-type Platform Continued

January 8th, 2008

Continuing on with what we talked about the past couple of meetings with Flash, here is a platform game where the person turns around and a villain that is beatable.Provided by Magnetos from gotoAndPlay.it: Platform – saltas

  1.  Figure out your own artwork and boundary box (how big is too big of a character?)
  2. Find where the enemy vs. hero collision is.
  3. Notice that hero_walk is different from sidewalk. Figure out which one you need to edit.

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Platform Game Creation

December 12th, 2007

Check out the tutorial at gotoandplay.it about platform game creation by tonypa. The source file for Flash can be downloaded here – platform.fla

  1. Try adding platforms in different areas. Different frames of your project can be different levels.
  2. Change the square to a different character.
  3. Add an obstacle/villain that moves on its own.

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Another Reason Not to Fully Trust Wikipedia

December 7th, 2007

Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about book 3 in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance series:

From a press release made on 30th October 2007 on alagaesia.com, it is stated that the publication date of the as yet untitled third book will be September 23, 2008. A fourth book has been announced. Some of the previously mentioned known details may appear in the fourth book instead of the third, since the two volumes used to be one and the same. Paolini has also stated that the book will end with the death of another major character, but gave no hints as to who it might be.[8]
[edit]Excerpt

An excerpt from Book 3, “Light and Shadow”, was included in the Eldest deluxe edition and later released on the Fricaya network.[9] The chapter follows Roran, Eragon and Saphira as they approach Helgrind. Saphira finds the mountain’s impregnability to be an illusion created by Galbatorix, and enters it to find a large cavern. The chapter closes with Saphira being attacked by a Lethrblaka (a parent of the Ra’zac), which knocks Eragon unconscious.and arya dies in this book if any of you have quistions about it email me at jaqkquin@yahoo.com

Find the bad edit.

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Posted in Tech How To, Wikipedia

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Flash Game Sample

November 21st, 2007

Today at Future Professionals I could see that some were almost ready to start programming in Flash, but were intimidated by the time that it takes to get used to ActionScript.

It, literally, is another language. Just like Spanish or French, it takes some getting used to. One of the ways that I became familiar with programming was by taking apart other people’s programs.

So I give to you a game that I made for my friend Brian. (In my high school group of friends was Tommy, Tommy, Brian, Brian, and Mike.)

Click on the .fla file to download the source. (Depending on where you are, you may need to right click/control click.)

Brianland Source File

Test the movie in Flash to see what it does (spacebar fires and arrows move) and then experiment.

As you experiment, try to:

  1. Increase the amount of money the character gets
  2. Increase the number of hook gnomes
  3. Change the amazing artwork

Once you are comfortable with editing the parts of the program, try editing other people’s files and finding tutorials.

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Writing Process Comics

November 19th, 2007

In an effort that would make Stan the Man proud, we will be creating comic books about the different steps of the writing process. Each comic needs to have:

  1. A hero that has the step of the writing process in his/her name
  2. A power/ability/device that demonstrates the specific 6 Trait of Writing that goes with that step of the writing process
  3. Three examples of dialogue that demonstrate a knowledge of the details of that part of the writing process
  4. Use two of the three templates for pages:
    Page 1
    Page 2
    Page 3

We will use the following sites for inspiration:

Hero Generator

Chip Designer

Rock Star

Soldier Generator

  1. To save the background layout image, Control + Click on the image to save it.
  2. In Word, select Insert->Watermark. When your options come up, select  ‘Picture’ and then make your options look like this:
    Photobucket
    Now you’ll have more than just your usual Word layout!
  3. Design your hero using the links above. You’ll now need a screenshot.
  4. Press Apple + Control + Shift + 4 to get the screenshot cursor. Draw your box and then paste what you copied into Word.
  5. Click on the picture. In your formatting palette (View->Formatting Palette), select Wrapping (the picture needs to be selected for wrapping to show up). Change ‘Wrap To’ to ‘None’ and change ‘Style’ to ‘In Front of Text’. For each picture you’ll need to change the wrapping.
  6. Move and resize your pictures using the squares (handlebars).
    Photobucket
    You can even flip images by resizing to the opposite side.
  7. To add dialogue, in your formatting palette select Add Objects. Click on the tab with the green square and the yellow circle (the AutoShapes).
  8. Click and drag whatever object you want onto the page.
  9. You can also add WordArt (the shiny ‘W’ in Add Objects) to give your comic that extra BAM/KAPOW!

Witness the awesome power of The Editor, wielding the Ring of Conventions.

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Excelsior!

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Posted in Assignments, Tech How To

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Uploading iMovies

November 19th, 2007

General instructions for the Virtual Classroom.

  1. To share the movie, click on Share->QuickTime->Webstreaming
  2. Go to the Virtual Classroom.
  3. Log in using your school computer login. (Enter the enrollment key and update your profile if you haven’t before.)
  4. Find section 2: Technology/Research Skills
  5. Click on your class name.
  6. Click on ‘Add entry’.
  7. Click on ‘Choose file’. Browse for where your movie (not your iMovie file, but the new .mov file) is saved. Click on the file and then click ‘Choose’.
  8. Click ‘Save and view’ to finish uploading your file.

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Posted in Apple, Tech How To

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Uploading Hofmann Portfolios

November 14th, 2007

To share the movie, click on Share->QuickTime->Webstreaming

1. Go to the Virtual Classroom.

2. Log in using your school computer login.

3. Find section 2: Technology/Research Skills

4. Click on ‘Hofmann Poetry Portfolios’.

5. Click on ‘Add entry’.

6. Click on ‘Choose file’. Browse for where your movie is saved. Click on the file and then click ‘Choose’.

7. Click ‘Save and view’ to finish uploading your file.

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Posted in Apple, Tech How To

Legal and free music

November 9th, 2007

The musician Moby has just released free music to use in independent and student films (like, oh, an iMovie). At the site http://www.mobygratis.com/film-music.html
you have a chance to log in to access the music. If you ever start to make money from your film projects, there’s an easy royalty plan where you donate some money to the Humane Society. Kinda cool!

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Uploading Podcasts

November 8th, 2007
  1. In your GarageBand project, click on Share (in your top menu) and then Export podcast to disk. Remember where you save it, because you’ll need to browse for the file later. It should be saved as a .m4a file.
  2. Go to the podcasting virtual classroom by clicking here. (You may need to open a new window (File->New Window to be able to view the instructions here and work in the classroom.)
  3. Log in with the same user name and password that you use to get onto the computers at school.
  4. Fill in the required profile information. This site is closed to only people in our district, so share what you are comfortable with.
  5. Type in the enrollment key that you got from your teacher and click on the Enroll Me button.
  6. On the virtual classroom’s main page, click on the link for your specific hour.
    Photobucket
  7. This represents a student-made database of podcast files.
  8. Click on Add Entry.
    Photobucket
  9. Type in your podcast description title and a short description.
  10. At the bottom of the screen is a place to upload the actual podcast file. Browse for the file and then make sure to Save and view.
    Photobucket
  11. Now you can view other groups’ podcasts.

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Posted in Apple, Podcast, Tech How To

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