About Donna Gunter

    Donna Gunter has been a member since April 9th 2011, and has created 54 posts from scratch.

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    GOM Player

    published Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 6:01 am by

    Recently I had a video created, but when I went to play it on my computer, it did not play properly. I had just viewed the video on YouTube, so I was pretty certain the problem wasn’t the video but in the player I was using to view it. So, I began my search for a free video player that would play videos of all formats on my computer.

    That’s when I stumbled upon GOM Player. This player offers quite a number of features that, quite frankly, I don’t understand as a video newbie. Supported formats include DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF, AVI, and MOV, as are common codecs like FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, and H263, which is exactly what I was seeking in a video player.

    One nice feature is the ability to customize the settings on the control panel. Here you can adjust a video’s image brightness, hue, and
    saturation. Because changes occur as the video runs, you need to tweak the settings after clicking “play.” There’s also a built-in screen-capture feature that includes zooming and panning, customizable themes, hot keys, and a host of preset and adjustable audio controls.

    GOM is weakest when you’re looking for help documentation and trying to tweak the settings. And, it’s PC-compatible only.

    Start watching videos on your computer here.

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    Color Detector

    published Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 5:58 am by

    As I create web sites or images, I often have to match the color of something that already exists. I’m the world’s worst at being able to accurately match colors, so I began seeking an option that would tell me the RGB (red, green blue) code of an image or a color or the hex code of a color.

    Color Detector is a free program that lets you detect the color of any pixel on the screen. Simply run the program, point the mouse cursor anywhere on the screen, and the color detector window will display the RGB values, HTML hex code, and the color name of the color of the pixel pointed to by the mouse cursor.  You can use the F6 or F7 keys to copy the RGB or hex codes to the clipboard, where you can copy them into whatever image program you’re using to try and match the colors.  Unfortunately for Mac users, it’s a Windows-only application.

    Start matching your web colors here.

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    Artisteer

    published Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 5:57 am by

    I’ve tried out a number of themes as I’ve gotten to know WordPress better as a blogsite platform.  Some have worked out better than others.  However, I recently discovered a piece of software that makes creating WordPress blogsites a breeze.

    Artisteer is the only software program I’ve discovered that instantly creates web site templates, WordPress templates, as well as Blogger, Joomla, and Drupal templates.  There’s no need to learn Photoshop, CSS, or HTML.  You can design your entire site in Artisteer and export it to the type of site you desire.

    What I really love about Artisteer is the flexibility of the program.  You can easily change your site’s colors or customize the colors and change one aspect (what the navigation buttons look like, for example) with one click of the mouse.  I’ve found it truly revolutionary and easy to use.

    The downsides? I haven’t found the header design portion of the program very robust.  I actually use a separate header design program and then import my header into the Artisteer theme.  And, if you want to make any structural or color changes to your theme, you need to save your original theme as an Artisteer file, go back into the program and make your changes, export a second copy of your theme using a slightly different name, and then import the new theme into WordPress.  I suppose you could also create these kinds of changes by changing the CSS files, but that’s beyond my technical abilities.

    There are two versions of the program.  The least expensive version, the Home and Academic Edition, limits your file exports to HTML, Blogger and WordPress templates, while the more expensive Standard Edition offers other export options and more graphic options from which to choose.

    Start designing your blogsite today.

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    TubeMogul

    published Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 5:55 am by

    Video is the hottest and newest way to promote your business. This strategy has now gone mainstream because it’s really inexpensive to shoot a video (you can do so with a $150 Flip video camera), and the expansion of broadband technology has made viewing video so much easier and readily available than it was just 5 years ago. I’ve just begun to have videos created for my business and was looking for a way to inexpensively get those submitted to the video submission sites.

    Then I found TubeMogul. TubeMogul is a free service that lets you upload a video once and easily deploy it to one or all of the top video and social networking sites. They currently submit to 26 different sites. You can track real-time viewership, performance and engagement analytics with InPlay.

    You must create a TubeMogul account and then create accounts at the sites where you want TubeMogul to submit your video. Please go to each video site and read the kinds of videos that they accept. You may discover that your target market doesn’t hang out there (high percentage of male viewers and low percentage of female viewers wouldn’t be a good match for you if your business targets women as customers) or that it’s primarily a children or family video site (not really appropriate for business how-to-videos).

    If you want to access more features, you can inquire about their paid services. And, to help you refine your video distribution and promotion, they offer free weekly classes at TubeMogul University.

    Let the world know about your video here.

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    Hamster Video Converter

    published Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 5:53 am by

    If you’re not very familiar with video, you may get stuck with the wrong format of video for what you need to do.  With most video converters, you have to know the video lingo in order to properly adjust the settings. Now, those days are over with this free and easy-to-use video converter software.

    Hamster Video Converter is different from most video converters due to its simplicity and lack of complicated settings. After you install the software, you see an attractive interface that presents the basic three steps you have to go through in order to complete converting your videos: load files, edit settings and convert. It offers a drag and drop interface, and has a Wizard for beginners. It couldn’t get much simpler than that, could it?

    The software converts any video to run on iPod, iPad, iPhone, PS3, PSP, Blackberry, xBox, Zune, Apple TV, iRiver, etc.  It converts to 3GP, MP3, MP4, AVI, MPG, WMV, MPEG, FLV, HD, DVD, M2TS and others, and has an integrated video player as well.

    Hamster differs from most software in that it is not ad-supported.  However, in the download process, you’ll want to choose the Custom download to prevent Bing toolbars and information being downloaded to your computer.

    Start to convert your videos here.

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