Monday, July 14, 2008

I have no Photo Editing Software on my computer

All windows computers in New Zealand schools come with Microsoft Office and part of that package (if it has been installed in its entirety) you will find Microsoft Picture Manager or on older versions Microsoft Photo Editor. This is perfect for most basic photo editing you need to do; such as cropping, brightening, rotating, remove red eye and most useful of all compressing photos
But sometimes for whatever reason there is no Picture Manager. But there are plenty of free programmes available. One particularly good downloadable one is Photofiltre which has loads of features that you can use, plus you can use it offline. There are also many free online programmes that have all the basic features plus some exciting extras. These are my recommendations.
  1. Fotoflexer - comprehensive editing tools and great filters
  2. Photoshop Express - cutdown version of Photoshop
  3. Lunapic - filters, effects and animations
  4. Phixer - photos can be saved to computer and Flickr
  5. Picnik - comprehensive photo editing

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Downloading Youtube movies and inserting into PowerPoint

  1. Firstly you need to download 'youtube downloader'. This is the software that you will use to download youtube movies.
  2. Second you will need to download a converting software called Pazera.
  3. Next you find the youtube movie you want to download, download it in youtube downloader
  4. Finally convert the movie from flv to avi
  5. Now you can insert the movie into a PowerPoint
1. Download a youtube downloader
Go to youtube downloader . Click on Download Now
Click Download


Click Run
, click Run on the next message





The 'youtube downloader wizard will start, click Next, click
I Agree, click Install, click Finish


The 'youtube downloader' will now be on your desktop.


2. Download Converting software Pazera

Go to Pazera and click Download nowClick Save. Choose where to save it.


You will need to extract the file so click on flvtoavi.exe, click Extract and choose where to extract it to. Double click on flvtoavi
The Pazera window will appear.

3. Open a youtube movie and download

Go to youtube, find a movie, click on the Internet address, press Ctrl C to copy the address. Doubleclick the youtube downloader on the desktop to open the downloader. Press Ctrl V in the 'Enter video URL' if it is not already there. Check that it in the Convert to box that it says MPEG4 Codec (AVI), if it doesn't say that then click on Convert video (previously downloaded)from file and select MPEG4 Codec from the dropdown menu. Click back on the Download video from YouTube, click OK. In the next dialogue box choose where you want to save this file, click Save. The movie will download. Click Close

4. Convert the FLV file to Avi

Click on . Find the movie you downloaded, and click Open. Click on the Convert button . The file will now be converted to an AVI

5. Insert into PowerPoint

In PowerPoint go to Insert - Movie and Sounds - Movie from file. Click on the movie file and click OK. Click Automatically or When clicked. To play the movie you will need to view it in slideshow view.