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Showing posts with label Dropbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dropbox. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

How To Share Videos - Made Simple

Problem
You take a video of yourself speaking, or yourself interviewing somebody at a destination. When you try to send it to them, you get a message saying the file is too big.

Answer
A video consists of hundreds of little ictures which when shown in succession create the illusion of movement, like the paper flip books you created as a child.

When you try to email, think of it as sending all those indiciaul pieces of paper in a hug parcel and trying to fit it into an emvelope.

No luck. You have to send it to a kind of mailbox in the sky, from which the recipient can down load it.

Both of you need to create a name and password for the collection service. You can't have hundreds of people turning up saying give me the parcel. You need to know who is sending, who is collecting, and a tracking number for the parcel being handed over so the right eople get the right parcel.

As a sender you create an account with an organization such as Dropbox or Wetransfer.com.

The sender emails the recipient a copy of the tracking number and the website organization they are using.

If you are the recipient, you choose a name or nickname and password, and note it carefully somwhere so you can find it next time.  Click where you are told to click.  The Download comes down (imagine down from the delivery van). It is delivered to your Downloads file, which is usually far left of the lower right of your screeen.

Click on the downloads icon (symbolic picture). Up pops a fan of download files. The first time I did it, I was confused. I didn't know whether to click on the picture or the name. By a process of elimination, trying oen and then the other, I found the right place.

The letters at the end of each item in downloads read doc, short for document; pdf, short for picture ..... ...., mov - short for movie or video or film, however you like to think of it. If you are lucky, the item you just donwloaded is at the bottom or far left of the fan. Easier to find downloaded items if you read them straight away.

Often you can see the item you want it is a photo or movie, by the colours and shapes in the miniature picture. If the item was downloaded last week and has disappeared, the top item says something like three more or three million more in finder. Click on that little flag and up pop the other other saved items.

Now you have the 'huge' video on your system. If you have lots of videos and photos and applications, they are taking up space. Eventually you may need to compess your files, or move the older and least relevant items onto a spare disc leaving lots of free space for new items.

If you are frowning at this, wondering why I am stating the obvious, and you know it all already, you may find it useful when explaining to somebody else, such as a grandparent or grandchild, or pupil. Each step has to be explained in terms the novice can understand.

If somebody else is afraid to start, or gets stuck half way, go slowly through it, pausing at each point to not overwhelm them.

If you haven't done it for a while and need a reminder, here it is.

Author
Angela Lansubry, travel writer and photographer.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

How To Improve Club Photos And Increase PR And Goodwill (Part 2)




Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Look at this picture of Harrovian Speakers. I like it because it makes a change from the usual standing still pictures.

 I could chop the distracting chair on the right. Sometimes foreground objects and people are a distraction. At other times they help create a feeling of depth.

I could remove the blank floor in front to make people bigger. If I make the people bigger, if it's taken just on a smartphone, not with a professional camera on a tripod, I might find too few pixels (dots) and blurry faces. Removing the blank floor is what I usually do. However, in this instance, I left it because cropping made the picture look too crowded and busy. You can slide a piece of white paper or even your forefinger over the photo to see how cropping will affect the composition.

Sharing With Subjects
Sometimes a club requires you to submit all your photo to the President or video master or whoever manages the club website. They might put up all your photos unedited. Or select only the winners of competitions.

The video master might be away on holiday or busy with work. Meanwhile, club members are phoning you and asking, Where can I see my photo?

This involves you in chasing and hassling the video master. It wastes your time.

An alternative is to send each photo individually to the video master and the subject. You might do this with half a dozen excellent photos, such as the VIP of the evening (the secretary might forward this attached to the thank you to the mayor).

Sending Individual Photos
You might send the carbon copy to a member of your family who is a speaker. You might send yourself a copy, in addition to the sent file, to keep track of what has been sent if you have to send photos intermittently.

Sending Photos In Bulk
Some recipients won't want to be sent photos one by one, because this clutters up their email inbox. They will want the whole lot together, such as in Dropbox.

Audience Photos
If there's a lull in proceedings, for example, whilst a speaker is trying to set up the projector, you can fill the time, save time later, and keep the audience entertained by taking audience photos.

First picture. Too many front seat gaps. One person in front row looking down at notes



On the other side of the aisle, I have vacated the seat on the right but somebody has leaped in to fill it. But we have a gap.





I could crop the photo to cut out the empty seat in the front row - but we would lose the lady on the far left. Maybe we can crop the photo to make a picture just of her. Let's tidy up those bags on the floor. Push them back and make them parallel to the chairs. 


The left is perfect. The centre is perfect. 
We have an empty chair on the right, but lovely smile from the girl, Satya, behind the empty chair.

Now I am back in my chair and somebody else is taking the photo. 
Next time I shall make sure the entire front row is filled, or ask the person sitting on the far left to move to fill the empty seat.

I don't have a wide angle lens, so I have to take a photo first of the audience on the left, then on the right, finally the centre to catch those in the centre aisle and get a duplicate of some members of the audience.

Filling Front Rows
I have lots of audience photos which look like gappy teeth. Seats in front are empty. People at the back are too far to be seen. The members of the audience look small. Better to have people at the back come forward.

Why do people sit at the back? Those guarding the door may need to leap up to welcome latecomers. Anybody who needs to leave early might choose to sit near an exit at the back. Some people are just shy.

If there's an empty chair in the from row, such as the one you have vacated, ask somebody on stage to step down and take the chair. Or ask somebody behind to take the seat in front.

The more you communicate with the subjects of photos and the club, the more you can keep everybody happy and learn new ways to take even better photos to please more people.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Having Trouble Emailing Your Trip Videos?


Problem
I have been taking videos at Toastmasters International meetings but I've had trouble emailing the videos, although I can usually email about three or four photos through Gmail.

Answers
Dropbox. You have to join it, which is free. Then you upload your photos and somebody else down loads them. The videos are kept on the website for about 30 days. By this time you should both have a copy.

Story
Thumb Drive
Our first solution was a techie member of my family decided to copy the photos onto a thumb drive. If you don't know how to do it, ask somebody else and video them telling you what to do. If you know what to do and you are teaching somebody else who doesn't get it first time, make them a video of the instructions.

Shorter Videos
I was having rouble sending videos by email. This week I tried videoing shorter chunks, each about one minute. The very shortest one of about 45 seconds went through by email. How long is the video? How big? The message telling you that the video can't be sent will tell you.

What's WhatsApp?
Then somebody I videoed suggested that I send photos using WhatsApp. You down
load WhatsApp for free. If you are looking for the symbol on your phone later, it is green.

Tips
How big is too big? Your rejection message will tell you. I received this message:
Your message has size 116.5 MB, which exceeds 35.9 MB, the maximum allowed by the server.


Using What's Ap to send a photo when you are still in a group is much quicker than my previous method, which was copying photos from my phone onto a lap top and then emailing them from home. You can send the videos to somebody whilst you are out and about taking photos. Much quicker than trying to find photos of a particular date and person later.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Follow me and see my profiles and posts on Blogger.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. My books are on Amazon.com and Lulu.com . Please like my posts and share them.