WOW News – 16 July
July 16th, 2009 | 
Author: Hello, and welcome this week to our WOW News.
After missing last week’s newsletter, I have realised that as much as I love creating our newsletters, I need to change it to a fortnightly cycle. I’m still expecting to mail something to you at least each week, but the newsletter takes an awful lot of time to prepare, so I will now be able to devote that time to developing our member programs.
In this edition we’ll look at:
- Playing Online Videos;
- Choosing your specs; and
- Humour – For the Over 50s
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A quick word about the content of this message.
If this message doesn’t display properly, please click here to read the message online: http://tinyurl.com/l73gh9
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Until next time, please take good care of yourself.
Viv
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute.THAT’S relativity.”
Albert Einstein
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This week’s problem and solution
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Watching videos online
Every day, online video is being used more and more. Online video is simply a video that is on somebody’s website (for example YouTube), rather than say, a video being played by your DVD player on your computer.
A lot of content is delivered this way. We are starting to use it, and it’s planned for a larger portion of our content in the upcoming months.
But, one of the downfalls is that the video format can’t be everything to everybody. A particular video might need a program to be installed on your computer to actually play, other’s play from the Internet. And everybody’s computer is different, with different settings, different programs, and different ways of connecting to the Internet.
One thing that often happens when watching – or trying to watch – videos on the Internet, is that sometimes the video is all jumpy, or the audio is distorted. Most often it can be easily resolved.
You just need to let the computer ‘catch up’.
When you find a video on the internet that you’d like to watch, you click on the Play button. The video information is sent out to your computer, over the Internet in little ‘packets’. (sometimes known as progressive download, or buffering). A bit of the video is sent, (packet) then the next bit is sent, and ‘joins’ on the last bit, then the next bit and so on. A video that’s say 10 minutes long, could take two minutes to load onto your computer, depending on your download speed. The download speed generally is determined by the plan you’re on with your ISP. (the people who provide you with the internet access).
Obviously if you’re on a slow speed – such as if you’re on dial-up, then it will take a lot longer to download than if you’re on a really fast plan.
Sometimes what happens is, the video player at your end starts playing once it’s received the first packet – and it’s often playing the video at your end, faster than it’s receiving the next bit. So it waits, gets the next couple of bits, and plays that, then waits for the next bits. Starting the video playing, is determined by whichever option was chosen to send the video over the internet. It could have been made with the instruction to wait until the video is fully loaded (buffered), before playing or it has permission to start playing as soon as it starts to load – that’s the one that can cause you viewing problems – and that’s the problem that we’ll look at today.
To fix this problem, let the video ‘load’ before you start playing.
When you’ve chosen the video to watch – I’ll use the example on our website that I know caused a problem for one of our members. To see this video, click on either this short link: http://tinyurl.com/naj9ds or this full link: http://members.thewebonwheels.com.au/members/thewebonwheels/videos/VIEW/00000012/Rufus-first-birthday.html
Click ‘Play‘ – (either: the arrow in the bottom, left corner, or the centre of the picture frame), that activates the sending function on the website.
Now click on ‘Pause‘ (the same button in the bottom, left corner). It pauses the playing of the video, but not the sending (or receiving).
This allows your computer to gather up the complete video. When it’s all loaded – or even about 50% loaded, you can press Play again and your video should work properly.
If you want to look at the last part of a long video – such as this example, which is a speech by Martin Luther King that is 17 minutes long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk&feature=fvst , you need to wait until the whole video is loaded. Once it’s loaded, you can move the Control Bar along to the part of the video you want to watch and start viewing from that point.
How will you know when it’s fully loaded? Well, sometimes it’s just an educated guess, but other times it’s easy to know.
On our Web on Wheels videos, you’ll notice that there’s a percentage indicator to let you know how much of the video has loaded (or buffered).
On others, such as YouTube, you will see the bar that shows how much of the video has been played and how much is still to be loaded. The bar will move to the end, once it’s fully loaded.
COMPARING WHEN FULLY ‘LOADED’
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Pausing the playback of the video works for most of the online videos. Some programs as mentioned, are great in that they won’t actually play until the video is all loaded. Once it’s ready, it Auto-Plays. Other videos are fine to play if you’ve got really fast broadband.
So, a good rule of thumb: if you press play and the video plays fine – fantastic, leave it play.
But if you start watching a video, and it starts playing all wrong – press ‘Pause’, wait a few minutes, (maybe say hello to the dog, make a cuppa) then when you come back, press ‘Play’ and all should be well.
Happy viewing.
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How are you?
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Nice to see you! 
Many of our group, I’m sure wear glasses. And from time to time, we need to update our frames.
Here’s a chance for you to practice some computer skills, while having a bit of fun.
The optical retailer Specsavers has a website, (of course!) and they say, a feature of the site is the ability to try 1,000 different styles of glasses.
The idea is you choose the style you’re interested in, then choose the shape of face you have from their selection – or even better, if you can do it – use your own photo! Then try on the glasses to see how they look. And then you can print off any you like.
They even have the option to buy online. No way would I do that – I would definitely want to try on the actual frame. But having a general idea beforehand of a couple of styles that suit – or at least eliminate styles you know look wrong, can save time and confusion in the store. There are over 1,350 stores worldwide, so there’s sure to be a local website, but I’ll just use their head office site as the example. (it’s got the DOT UK bit in the website address – your country might be .ie for Ireland or .dk for Denmark, or just .com for the US).
Here is the main website address:
http://www.specsavers.co.uk/try/
| To start: Click on any of the four fields under GET STARTED to make your selection. (e.g. Mens or Womens) |
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For our example we’ll click on Womens.
You will go to the first page of their women’s selection.
Browse through the several pages they have. At the top and the bottom of the page of photos, click on Next to go to the next page, or click on a number to go to that page number. 
Click on ‘Try’
Click on either Sample Photos, or Add your photo. (under the model’s face) Instructions for both are below.
IF YOU’D LIKE TO USE THEIR PHOTOS:
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IF YOU’D LIKE TO USE YOUR OWN FACE, HERE ARE THE BASIC STEPS.
(Of course Gold members you might like to use your half hour one-on-one time for help with this).
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| mmmmm, maybe these are not for me.
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The system is a bit tricky because your photo doesn’t stay on the screen if you go to a different page, so if you find a pair that looks okay, you might want to print it out, whilst it’s onscreen or make a note of the style name.
END ARTICLE.
And now all we over-fifties in our fancy new glasses might appreciate this week’s joke.
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Humour me!
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Over 50s funnies!!!
This comes from an email I received:
Someone had to remind me, so I’m reminding you too. Don’t laugh …. it is all true ….. For anyone that is older than 50.
01. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
02. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
03. No one expects you to run – anywhere.
04. People call at 9 pm and ask, did I wake you?
05. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac..
06. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
07. Things you buy now won’t wear out.
08. You can eat supper at 4 pm.
09. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.
13.. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won’t get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
19. You can’t remember who sent you this list.
See what I mean – I can’t remember who sent it – but thanks!!!
Smiles and best wishes,
Viv
The Web on Wheels
Phone: 61 3 9787 7500
Fax: 61 3 9787 5476
email: info@thewebonwheels.com.au
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