Author: Debra Dalgleish

RSS and Blog Backups

Today I was backing up my RSS feeds in Google Reader, and was shocked to see that I’m subscribed to 386 feeds. Wow, that’s about double what I would have guessed.

There are only a few blogs that I read every day, and those are in a Google Reader Favourites folder. For most of the rest, I just read the titles, and skim through the articles that sound interesting. Occasionally, I’ll star an article to go back to it later, for a careful read, or to follow the article’s links.

Trim the List

In the feeds list, you can click on a blog name, then click Show Details, to see a chart of recent posts, and which ones you’ve read. If a blog hasn’t posted in a long time, or I never read the articles, I usually unsubscribe.

I wish there was a quick way to review all the Google Reader feeds, to see which feeds I use, and which ones I don’t. It’s a tedious process to go through the list individually, especially since the Show Details doesn’t stay open.

If you know of a better way to manage the list, please let me know.

Now I’ll go and do the backups for my blogs too.

___________

Excel Quick Tips Videos

I use TweetDeck to monitor Twitter, and to post to my Twitter account, most of the time. TweetDeck used to have a link to 12seconds.tv but that link seems to have disappeared in recent versions.

This week I posted a few 12 second videos, showing quick Excel tips, and also posted the videos to my Contextures YouTube channel.

It’s interesting to see what you can record in such a short video. There’s certainly no time for idle chit chat, so you have to get right to the point, and do a quick demo of a useful technique.

Already a couple of the short videos have received 4 or 5 star ratings on YouTube, so I guess someone likes them. I’ll do a few more, after the holidays.

_______

Interactive Video Experiment

Last month, I asked which type of online learning you preferred. As expected, the majority selected written instructions, but the second highest vote was for interactive learning.

I’m still not sure exactly what types of interactive learning people are using. This weekend I experimented with Camtasia Studio, testing its hotspots feature. Users can click on the video, in a specific location, and you can take them to a different spot in the video.

On the Contextures Blog today, I posted a short article on Removing Duplicates in Excel 2007, with a short video.

My goal was to publish an interactive version of the tutorial, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with the result. I need to refine the jumping around process, and probably the audio should be deleted from that section.

Anyway, if you have a strong stomach or good sense of humour, here’s my first attempt at video with interaction. Skip to the 1:40 mark to see the interactive section.

____________

Online Collaboration

Recently, I tested WiZiQ for an online meeting with a client, and wrote about the experience. In the comments, Pierre suggested edufire and andy recommended showdocument.

I took a quick look at both sites. Edufire looks like it would be great for running training sessions and small classes. ShowDocument lets you upload and work on files, so that could be a good way to work with a client, without having to install anything.

Bob Ryan commented that he plans to use DimDim for his business. I set up an account there, and ran a trial meeting, which worked well, but my screen settings seem slightly different, after using their screen sharing option.

For yesterday’s meeting with my client, I tried Office Live Meeting (OLM). Before the meeting, I set up a practice session, the tested the controls and settings. You can upload files, and share the screen, or a portion of the screen. Also, you can share a specific program, so that’s the option I used most of the time.

OLM was my favourite online meeting tool so far. I could pass the controls to my client, so we could both test the Access database that we were discussing.

I had to use Internet Explorer, instead of Firefox, and there are some components to download and install. But, most people have a computer that’s full of Microsoft products anyway, so that might not be too big a hurdle.

Dick had volunteered to be a guinea pig, if I tested WiZiQ again (thanks, Dick!). I’ll be trying OLM again, to see how some of the fancier tools work, so may he’ll agree to join that test session, if I set something up for later this week.

____________

More Online Meeting Tests

Last week I tried WiZiQ for an online meeting with a client. There were a few snags, that I mentioned in the class evaluation form that popped up when I finished my session.

The next day, someone in the WiZiQ customer support department emailed me, with a few suggestions for improving the audio. He also asked for details on the problems that I had with my uploaded Excel files.

In a followup email, he said that only a one-page portion of an Excel sheet will be visible onscreen. Most of the sheets that I create for clients are considerably bigger than that, so uploaded files won’t be too useful.

I did another test later, with my desktop running a session, and the laptop attending as a guest. That went better than the session with my client (due to better settings, not better guests!), so I’ll try WiZiQ again later.

For a free service, it seems pretty good. It will be a good place to practise this type of interaction, before moving to a paid service.

____________

FTC Disclosure Icons

New FTC Disclosure regulations for bloggers took effect on December 1st. I’ve added disclosure information to my blogs and website, and hope that’s sufficient.

On Louis Gray’s site today, there’s a set of FTC Disclosure icons that you can download, and use on your blog. There’s one for every level of disclosure, from a free book,

ftc_book 

to shared jail time.

ftc_jail

I won’t need too many of them, but they’ll come in handy if Microsoft decides to send me some stock options!

_____________

Online Training For Clients

Do you do any online, real-time teaching or learning?

A client wanted to learn a bit more about Excel VBA, so we arranged a phone call for today. He sent me a couple of workbooks to use during the session.

The Free Session

I thought it might help if we could both see the same screen, so I set up my first training session on WiZiQ, where I have a free account. I had attended a training session there in 2008, and it went reasonably well. There’s a whiteboard for interaction, and you can upload files to use during the session. You can also record the session, for attendees to download later.

The session was set up as private, and I sent an invitation to my client. He had to register and log in, but said the process was quick and easy. If I upgraded to an Organization account, attendees would not have to register.

A Few Problems

It took us a couple of minutes to sort out the optional settings for audio and video. I enabled my audio and video, and could allow attendees to share theirs.

The uploaded Excel files didn’t work too well. Instead of sheet names, I could select “Page 1, Page 2, etc.” from a drop down list. Only a portion of the sheet showed, which was a problem. There was no way to see the VBE, as far as I could tell.

We gave up, and used the phone instead, with each of us having the same workbooks open on our desktops. That worked fine, as it has in the past.

Try Again

Later, I went back to WiZiQ, and found a Share Screen setting. I’ll set up a test for myself later, and see if that’s a better option. Then I can round up a guinea pig or two, and try an online session.

_________

I Have a Question

If you have an Excel blog, or have written an Excel book, or ever answered a question in an Excel newsgroup, you probably get questions in your email inbox.

Most of the emails can be answered by pointing the person to Google, or to the Microsoft newsgroups. A few questions are asked politely and clearly, and a short answer will suffice, so I answer those.

If people contact me about one of my pivot table books, I try to help them. They’ve invested in me, and I want to help them get the most from that investment.

Today, a reader asked about the Report Filters in one of the examples in my Beginning Pivot Tables book. He told me which book he had, mentioned the chapter and page number, and asked the question very clearly. Oh, and he spelled both my first and last names correctly!

Now that’s how you get help, as soon as possible. I’ll have to remember to do those things myself, if I ever run into problems with someone else’s material.

____________