Blog Topic #3 : What is RSS?

To fully understand RSS, it's important to first understand syndication, or at least web syndication. Essentially, web syndication means that one site will make certain information available to a user, usually using a web feed, which is used to serve users frequently updated content. This content can include forums, news, etc. Confused?

RSS is a web feed format, which is often used for blog and podcast updates. RSS Stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. A RSS document is called a "feed", "web feed" or "channel". The main function of RSS, as briefly explained above, is for people to be able to view content that is updated often, and that may be of personal interest to them, without having to manually access the page the information originated from. Automation is the key word with RSS.

An aggregator is generally a web application, which brings all of the information together that you want in your RSS feed. This way you can have info from many different sites all on your own personal site. Aggregators "pull" content instead of "push", Email pushes content. Also, once your RSS feed is written, the aggregators act automatically, meaning you don't have to do anything to receive your info.

RSS can be used to track other students blogs because anytime a student posts a new blog, and aggregator will notice and bring you the new information. (The Dashboard options are pretty limited for this, so I think you need to install a aggregator program to do it for you.) This information will be posted on your site in whichever format you have set up. Karl has his personal website set up for this. I think this is the code:






I haven't gotten around to going to bloglines.com yet to create my own feed, but I'll be doing that soon.

Blog Topic #2 : tutvid.com

O.K. I absolutely love this site. Tutvid.com is a website dedicated to creating narrated video tutorials for many Adobe products including; Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Golive, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, and Bridge. The way it's set up is that you select the program you want to view a tutorial from, select the specific tutorial, and then a link will take you to youtube.com where you can watch the video for free and with quick load times.

Unfortunately, the site is lacking in the Dreamweaver section with only four tutorials. Although tutorials such as, 'make basic rollover buttons' and 'basic page creation' are very helpful and thorough. Other programs such as Flash, and Photoshop, have a wide selection of tutorials ranging in difficulty from beginner to intermediate.

The narrator of the videos is very clear and concise in his explanations, and doesn't overwhelm the viewer with information. With that being said, the videos are still substantial, occasionally lasting nearly 30 minutes.

For me the best way to learn is visually. Actually seeing someone demonstrate how to do something, hands on, is by far the most effective way to learn. When watching these tutorials, I tend to follow along, pressing pause now and then to catch up with the narrator.

The only downside I can think of is that the videos do not have great resolution, and users who are not somewhat familiar with the programs interface may get lost since the icons are all nearly impossible to read. This hasn't been a huge issue for me, only a minor annoyance.

I urge you to check out tutvid.com. It's a truly great resource that I'm sure will start to cost money as soon as more people find out about it.

Here is an example of one of the tutorials. This one is, 'basic page creation' using Dreamweaver. Enjoy!