Torley Lives

… and I'm not just saying that because I have a personal interest (I make them). So many places I've visited on the web are finding it insufficient to have text + still pictures alone, so they include video tutorials — also known as "vidtuts" for short, or "screencasts", alternatively. These aren't just for existing users, but to introduce new users at-a-glance to the features and benefits of a product. Video tutorials are continuing to grow in popularity, and these are some good examples:

• Sprout Builder - Heard of this from Vint Falken (thx!). They're quite multimedia-apt, and turns out in their site has a How It Works section showing how fun it is to get started.
   
• WordPress 2.5 - Even with 5 teeth missing, blogging rockstar Matt Mullenweg takes some time to show off what's up with the new WP release.
   
• ScreenFlow - Suitably, this "professional screencasting studio" not only helps you make video tutorials, it shows you how to make them with video. Ah, recursion at its finest.
   
• Best of Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials - Smashing Magazine has a… smashing compilation highlighting what a community (in a loose, abstract sense) has built up around making vidtuts for Photoshop. One of my role models is the great Russell Brown (who's been involved with PS since version 1), and I'm pleased to see him lead the way on xTrain. Next, I'd like to see him and iJustine collaborate on a session!

At Smashing Magazine, Dirk Metzmacher explains why vidtuts are so valuable:

The best thing about Photoshop video-tutorials is that they allow you to observe professionals just as if you were standing nearby and looking over their shoulders. You can see step-by-step how buttons, collages or even paintings are created. Instead of reading through books describing what needs to be selected, activated and clicked, you can simply imitate mouse clicks knowing exactly that you are actually doing the right thing.

The learning curve is easier to climb and the result is easier to compare. More than that: you can observe how it is done from the very beginning to the very end and (sometimes) you can get explained why it is done in exactly this way.

From many personal experiences where I was trying to help someone in Second Life but was frustrated explaining it via words and static imagery didn't communicate the motion, the animation and the kinetics involved in daily inworld activities, this rings all too true. If you're new to what I do, have a look and see what you think:

It's clear to me that if you've got a product you want to leverage and demonstrate to thousands, even millions of people who're physically distant but looking right at your content through the Internet, a winning way to do it is with a well-made video.

I'm a grounded pragmatist who's well-aware of the caveats though, and I'll be covering them — and related philosophy — for the benefit of aspiring video tutorial makers and watchers alike in a future post.

Meanwhile, I gotta keep practicing what I preach.

Ever signed up for some online service and it asks you to fill in not just profile text, but a picture too? If you've signed up for a lot of social networking sites, forums, etc. as I have (200+), then you can relate.

I deal with this in a couple easy ways:

1. I automate text. For example, when I upload a video tutorial to YouTube, instead of manually writing out a common description, or even copying-and-pasting it in from a text file (which still requires too many steps), I type in a shortcut — "[desc]" — and it expands to a few lines of text, thanks to PhraseExpress. This can be used for "About", "Interests", and other fields like that. When it comes to many standard fields at once, I use Autofill Forms for Firefox, which works with a single click — and make manual corrections afterwards. This is a big timesaver if you do a lot of online shopping and have to write the save things over and over… DON'T! Do this instead.
    
2. I have quick access to a profile picture. I use Direct Folders, one of my fave utilities, to rapidly choose a pic I have stored on disk. Namely, it's the "Watermelon Eye" which you've already seen by virtue of visiting my site. Some sites allow uploading an image from an URL, in which case I have the corresponding Flickr page bookmarked for fast access. Flickr is great too because it automatically offers images in different sizes — many sites have restrictions like "your profile picture/image must be 80×80 pixels or smaller".

If you're not doing this yet, think about how worthwhile it could be to you, and let me know how it goes after you start!

I'm still having the tough issue of Windows Live Writer's "Web Layout" mode not working on this blog, which is darn weird because it was functioning fine in weeks before. What's even more wack is it's not working for the official Second Life blog either (!), and that's hosted by WordPress.com. In any case, I'm mid-email-correspondence with the awesome Joe Cheng (WLW dev), so let's see what happens.

My appreciation thus far for the responses to the quick-'n'-dirty poll I put up, it's 18 to 12 right now with 60% in favor of changing my blog theme. Since it's not an overwhelming lead, I'm still taking action — cleaning up some theme inconsistencies (gr, does Internet Explorer 7 and even 8 render like crap… layouts that appear fine in Firefox, Opera, and Safari look wrong in IE).

I took a long hard look at my blog widgets, and reorganized them for simplicity. In a funny twist of minimalism, I notice a lot of blogs show 5-10 recent comments, but I'm just showing the 1 newest one for now. Let's see how that goes. These are experiments and if they fail, I can keep adapting. I also merged my various creative activities into a single "Stuff you enjoy" widget on the left.

Last night, I must've looked at 100s of WordPress themes. Not a single clear winner stands out to me above Tiga, so I'm somewhat surprised. But I do like Sandbox's possibilities — if only I had more time & desire to customize. I've been getting design inspiration from some of my fave places like Zen Habits (which uses a custom theme, apparently… wonder who the designer is? I'm gonna ask).

I encountered problems post WP-2.5 upgrade with Popularity Contest and aLinks plugins: "fatal error". Thanks to Blogvaria, the former is solved. The latter is not and alinks.org is down, so this is a loose end.

I removed the video tutorials "sticky post" for now; it may be back at the top if things go well, as it was getting a fair amount of traffic and making it easy for people to watch my latest vidtuts. (There's also the question of whether I should only have vidtuts on my YouTube channel from now on or if the playlist I have on the main channel page is focus enough, then I can keep posting random fun…)

I just want to keep making awesome stuff for you to enjoy!

Let me know of any specific requests & recommendations. My wife found a pic of what my blog looked like in 2006, and we've come a long way. Today, a snapshot for posterity, as things will keep changing.

Change is in the air, as they say — I'm currently encountering a frustrating problem with Windows Live Writer not parsing my blog's style correctly, and as a result, WYSIWYG-ish editing isn't working right. Yet I've found it to work when I switch my blog theme to something else, oddly enough. Ugh. I've asked for help.

Nevertheless, never one to stay still, I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 today, and I've been thinking of changing my blog's theme. Tiga (the current one which you see, which I've modded) has served me well, but feels a little crufty… maybe it's just sheer age, maybe it's because I think things could look 'n' feel better for you.

So, whaddaya think? It's important I ask you without suddenly switching things over. Take the poll!

And let me know any further details in the comments — specific recommendations for WordPress blog themes are appreciated. Or even if you don't think I should change the whole theme, suggestions for better readability + usability (while keeping my watermelonishness in mind) are appreciated. THANXIES!