Quickly cut out a section of an mp3

Need to take a short clip out of a longer mp3 file to use in your teaching or in a class project? This website lets you do so without downloading any software! http://mp3cut.net/

Thanks, Lifehacker, for another great tip.

Getting started with the Canon HF10

One of the camcorders available for borrowing from Media Services is the Canon HF10, an easy-to-use yet powerful high-definition camcorder. Below is a short video we made to help users get started with the HF10. To borrow an HF10, submit an Equipment and Help Request (ahead of time) on our website.

If you'd like more information about the HF10, visit our website at www.su.edu/library/media and click on "Online Help." Then, click the "Canon HF10" tab.

New Suggestions for Screencasting

I've added links to some new tools for screencasting ("screencasting" means making videos of what is happening on your computer screen) to the Media Services Online Help page. Screencasting is a great instructional tool for distance learning, especially if you find often find yourself describing over the phone how to do something on a computer. Wouldn't it be much easier to just show the person rather than trying to describe it in words? To learn more, visit www.su.edu/library/media and clicking on "Online Help." Then, click on the "FREE STUFF!" tab.

Classrooms Tab

Are you teaching (or taking a class) in a classroom in which you have not had a class in the past? Making a presentation in a conference room with which you are not familiar? Wondering what audio-visual equipment is available in a particular room at SU?

Wonder no more. The answers are now together in one place: the new "Classrooms" tab on the Media Services Online Help page. You can access our Online Help page by visiting www.su.edu/library/media and clicking on "Online Help." Then, click on the "Classrooms" tab. There you will find:

• A table listing which equipment is available in which rooms (in plain English; no complicated tech-speak)
• Links to web-viewable and printable instruction sheets for each classroom

What if the equipment you want/need is not in a particular room? No problem. Simply visit www.su.edu/library/media and click on "Equipment and Help Request" to fill out a request for AV equipment, or call the Library Circulation Desk at (540) 665-5424 if you need to reserve a laptop computer.

The "Classrooms" tab is still a work in progress, but we hope to have every classroom and meeting room listed within the next couple weeks, and more and more instruction sheets available as time goes on.

Have feedback or suggestions? Visit www.su.edu/library/media and click on Feedback.

Live Chat - a trial run

Media Services is offering a new service on a trial basis: live chat support. Have a question or a problem that you'd like to talk to a Media Services staffperson about? Visit our webapge (www.su.edu/library/media), click on "Online Help," and then click on "Live Chat." You'll see a link to take you to the chat room. Alternately, you can simply visit tinychat.com/sumedia. There may not always be a staffperson in the chat room, but we will try to have someone there as often as we can.

The password for the chat room is "media" (all lowercase). When you are asked to "sign in" after entering the room password, simply type your name (your first name or whatever you prefer to be called) and click "LOGIN." You'll also see tabs that allow you to use your Facebook or Twitter identities to login, but that is entirely optional.

Tinychat includes options for text chat (instant messaging), audio chat, video chat, and (experimental) screensharing. You can simply visit the chat room and start typing messages, or you can talk face-to-face if your computer has a webcam.

We are very interested in feedback during this trial to determine whether we will continue to offer this service. Let us know what you think! Visit www.su.edu/library/media and click on "Feedback."

Biggest multitouch table yet?

If you think SMART Boards are impressive, check this out (link below). It's a 100-inch(!) multitouch table that supports 50 simultaneous touch points! Amazing.

Who wants to buy one of these for Shenandoah University? Anonymous donors: I'm looking at you...

From Engadget: Ideum's 100-inch MT-50 multitouch table supports 50 simultaneous touch points (video)

Video too big? Try iSquint

(photo by D'Arcy Norman)


So, you've recorded a whole bunch of beautiful video clips with one of our new pocket video cameras, and you want to upload them to iTunes U or share them online in some other way... but those files are so big! What's a person to do? Obviously, you want your files to be a bit smaller for quicker uploading and downloading, but you still want the quality to be high enough that the video looks decent.

You could import each file individually into iMovie and then follow the instructions for How to prepare an iMovie or Windows Movie Maker project for upload to iTunes U under the "iTunes U Help" tab on Media Services' Online Help page. However, that would be time-consuming and would only be worth it if you needed to edit the clips or put them together into one longer movie file. Let's say, in this case, you just want to use the clips as they are but make them all a bit smaller, as a batch.

Enter iSquint. It's simple, fast, and doesn't have lots of confusing options. For most purposes, you can just make a couple easy choices like choosing "TV" or "iPod" (I also recommend checking the box for "H.264 Encoding"), and iSquint will make perfectly watchable--but much smaller--video files out of your big behemoths.

Need a similar option for the Windows platform? Try FormatFactory.

Both iSquint and FormatFactory are linked on our Online Help page, along with other helpful information. Click the "iTunes U" tab, then, under "For Everyone," click on Free software for creating and converting audio and video.