If you like to blog and would like to make a few simple changes to your site but don’t know HTML, I’d like to pass on a few simple codes I’ve learned that might make a significant difference.  Most blogware (like WordPress) will have buttons you can click to bold, italicize and change the size [...]]]>

If you like to blog and would like to make a few simple changes to your site but don’t know HTML, I’d like to pass on a few simple codes I’ve learned that might make a significant difference.  Most blogware (like WordPress) will have buttons you can click to bold, italicize and change the size of your fonts, however, there is the possibility that your post can become corrupt and you’ll either need to start over or rely on HTML codes.  MySpace is one of many sites that give you fields (like About Me, Movies, Music, etc.) where you can add information but there are no buttons provided to highlight your text and then make a change.  In this case, the following options can easily be used:

To insert a line break:

Place your cursor where you want the line break and type <br /> .  You can use this several times to create extra space between lines or paragaphs.

To make text bold:

Type <b>.  Type the text you want bolded, then type </b>.

To make text italic:

Type <i>.  Type the text you want italicized, then type </i>.

To change the size of your text:

Type <big> or <small>.  Type the text that should bigger or smaller, then type </big> or </small>.

To create a block-level quote:

Type <blockquote>, which will start a block-level quote.  Type the text you would like set off from the preceding and following text, then type </blockquote>.

To center text on a page:

Type <center>. Create the element (text, picture, link, etc.) that you want centered, then type </center>.

You may detect a pattern here with the codes.  The code used at the end of the text is the same as the code used before the text but with a / typed between the < and the code.

To create a link to another website:

Type <a href=”page.html”> where page.html is the URL of the web page you are linking to.  The URL, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, is the address for a file (or website) on the Internet.  It holds information about where the file is and what your browser should do with said file.

For example, the URL for my journal is http://indya42.livejournal.com.  To use this code and link to my journal, I would type <a href=”http://indya42.livejournal.com”>.

If you’d like the name of the other website to appear (and not just the URL), you would type the initial code, the name of the website, and then </a>. 

For example, using my journal again, you would type:

 <a href=”http://indya42.livejournal.com”>Dreaming in Digital</a> 

It would appear on your page as Dreaming in Digital.

If you have questions about any of my instructions, please drop me a line or comment on this post.  It can be fun to take a standard post or page and spruce it up a bit.  Please let me know if you’ve given it a try.  I’d love to see the results! 

NOTE:  I’ll be posting more codes in a future post.

~ Pamela

Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about book trailers; specifically, how to make them. They’re great promotional tools, fun to create, and relatively simple. I’ll take you through my process step by step. I know there are different ways of creating them and different programs to us, but I’ll stick with what I [...]]]>

Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about book trailers; specifically, how to make them. They’re great promotional tools, fun to create, and relatively simple. I’ll take you through my process step by step. I know there are different ways of creating them and different programs to us, but I’ll stick with what I know and what is working for me. If you have any questions afterward, just ask!

Step One: First, you must find the graphics you want to use in your trailer. There are different ways of doing this; you can google PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTOS, FREE IMAGES, STOCK IMAGES. Try istockphoto.com, freestockimages.net, stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/), jupiterimages.com, dreamstime.com. Google is your friend. Just remember that if you’re not paying for it, the photo has to be royalty free, or you have to have permission. I have found some really fantastic photos at DeviantArt. Of course, I get permission from each artist before using anything and credit them at the end of the video.

Step Two: Find your music. Again, you must find royalty free music. I use Kevin MacLeod. I love him.

Step Three: Put royalty free images and music into an easily accessible folder on your computer.

Step Four: On your computer, go to START, ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, then click WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER.

Step Five: Under CAPTURE VIDEO in the sidebar, Click on IMPORT PICTURES, find the folder in which you stored the downloaded images, and select the pictures you want. To select more than one picture, hold CTRL while selecting pictures.

IMPORTANT: Go to FILE, and click on SAVE PROJECT AS and name your video. After you’ve done that, click on SAVE often.

Step Six: if STORYBOARD is already selected at the bottom, click and drag your photos, one by one, into the large white slots at the bottom. You can rearrange the order of the pictures later if you need to. If STORYBOARD view is not selected, simply click on SHOW TIMELINE and it will switch to STORYBOARD. Later, you will need to change to SHOW TIMELINE.

Step Seven: Under EDIT MOVIE in the sidebar, select VIEW VIDEO EFFECTS. Choose the effect you want, such as EASE OUT, and drag it down into the little square with the faded out star on your photo on the STORYBOARD. Choose an effect for each photo, and repeat process. If you want to combine effects on a photo, such as EASE OUT and FILM AGE, OLD, simply drag in the EASE OUT first, then the FILM AGE, OLD. You can do this with as many as you’d like. Also, if you select EASE IN and drag this effect to the same photo several times, the EASE IN will be faster and deeper. I particularly like and use EASE IN or OUT in combination with FILM AGE, OLD, because it makes the pictures come alive.

Step Eight: Under CAPTURE VIDEO, click on IMPORT AUDIO OR MUSIC. Select your music.

Step Nine: Click on SHOW TIMELINE at the bottom. Drag your music to the third line under the filmstrip, where it says DRAG AN AUDIO CLIP HERE TO ADD TO YOUR MOVIE when you mouse over. Grab the music once it’s on your timeline and drag it to the beginning image, if it’s not already there. Then you can grasp the end of the music and drag it to where it stretches longer than your last picture. You’ll have to add ending credits; once that’s finished, you can stretch the music to be a little longer than the ending credits. Actually, we’ll go ahead and do that next.

Step Ten: Click on SHOW STORYBOARD. Click on MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS in the sidebar. Select ADD TITLE AT BEGINNING OF MOVIE. Type in whatever you want; on mine, for instance, this is where I wrote One Night With You in the top field, and By Jane E. Jones in the bottom field. Now, for every place you want words, to tell the ‘story’ for your movie, do the following: On the STORYBOARD, click on your image, to select it. In the sidebar, select MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS, the select ADD TITLE AFTER SELECTED CLIP or BEFORE SELECTED CLIP, wherever you want to place the words. You can also select your effects, text, and text color here. You can EDIT TITLES at any time. You can easily do this by right clicking on the text in your storyboard, as well.

Step Eleven: When you’ve finished with that, Select MAKE TITLES OR CREDITS, then CREDITS AT THE END OF THE MOVIE. Add your credits. To get more blanks, simply hit ENTER on your keyboard a couple of times.

Step Twelve: Add your VIDEO EFFECTS as we did in step seven. Now we’ll add VIDEO TRANSITIONS. Under EDIT MOVIE, click on VIEW VIDEO TRANSITIONS.

Step Thirteen: Click and drag desired effect to the blank BETWEEN your images on the STORYBOARD. FADE is my favorite but there are many cool ones.

Step Fourteen: Click on SHOW TIMELINE and scroll to the end of the music. Click on the end and drag the red arrow to the left, to the end of your video. Go a little too long, so you can fade out the music instead of ending it abruptly. RIGHT CLICK on the music line, and select FADE OUT. Play back the move to see if you’ve dragged the music long enough. You may have to make the music a little longer to get the correct fade out.

Step Fifteen: Play back your video and enjoy what you’ve created!

Step Sixteen: Save. Do some last minute tweaking. When everything is EXACTLY as you want it, go to FILE, SAVE MOVIE FILE, MY COMPUTER. Once that is done, you have your video. Go to MYSPACE, YOUTUBE, etc, and you can then upload your video.

Have fun with it! By the time you’re finished with your first video, the second one will be much easier and you’ll be an old hand at it. Enjoy! Let me know when you’ve made your video, I’d love to see it!

~Jane

Wild Design Wednesday!!

Hi there, here is my first small tutorial, and I promise you another later this evening. Part 1 is a Starfields tutorial, a quick and simple way of creating fantastic starscapes… play around with it, and see what you can come up with. The link to the site that taught me my [...]]]>

Wild Design Wednesday!!

Hi there, here is my first small tutorial, and I promise you another later this evening. Part 1 is a Starfields tutorial, a quick and simple way of creating fantastic starscapes… play around with it, and see what you can come up with. The link to the site that taught me my first steps is here: Solar Voyager check for their tutorials.
Part 2 will be my tutorial on how I create planets…so stick around for that.
To download, just please click on the link! It will will link you to my DeviantArt account, and you can download the file from there. It’s a little big
Have fun!
Xoxo
~Kayko May

Link

As promised: here Part 2 of today’s tutorial…on Planets.
Part 1
Part 2
Have fun!
xoxo
~ Kayko