Thomas' Work Space

How to workaround problems embedding MS-Office web apps into WordPress.com

2013/02/14 plagwitz Leave a comment

UPDATE: this is becoming part of a series, it seems.
SkyDrive and WordPress integration used to work much better, but not anymore?
SkyDrive offers embed code with unescaped &, but you need to replace by & for WordPress.com to accept the embed.
SkyDrive offers embedding a range, but WordPress fails to display it (e.g. Item=’Sheet1′!A1%3AE10 – maybe b/o the parenthesis?); tables do still display (e.g. Item=Table1).
Wait, there is more: one or both of the following prevent display also: &ActiveCell=’Sheet1′!C3&wdHideHeaders=True

A working example for the record (to be enclosed between []):

office width="700" height="443" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" 
src="https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=4FA3329905D7E1CE&amp;resid=4FA3329905D7E1CE%2143384
&amp;authkey=AGmGlsvpKj5r0pU&amp;em=2&amp;Item=Table1&amp;wdHideGridlines=True"

Categories: e-infrastructure Tags: embedding, ms-offce, MS-OneDrive, web-apps, wordpress

Which browser and operating system we could get which Moodle Kaltura webcam assignments to work in

2013/02/14 plagwitz Leave a comment

Below please find our current (work in progress) test matrix. Use one of the combinations that worked (“YES”) to avoid problems when taking or grading webcam assignments (or come to the LRC where we set up a working combination). You can view your version of the Kaltura video player and of Adobe Flash by right-clicking on the Kaltura video window.

Categories: audience-is-students, audience-is-teachers, lms, multimedia-recording Tags: adobe-flash, apple-safari, google-chrome, kaltura, moodle, mozilla-firefox, ms-internet-explorer, ms-windows

How to batch watermark your images for free with Irfanview

2013/02/13 plagwitz Leave a comment

– just to be a bit more concise than this useful, but long post on yet another great feature of this free program (shout-out to Kai). Not shown here: after making your settings here, click button “Start batch”.

Categories: e-infrastructure, Screenshots, service-is-documenting Tags: automation, IrfanView, watermarking

Sanako Study 1200 V6.1 implements text-to-speech with language learner features

2013/02/12 plagwitz Leave a comment

Sanako continues its foray into learning materials – this time semi-automated (makes sense to me: what can be automated, will be automated) and into text-to-speech automation (makes sense to me: one of the more robust (since simpler) applications of AI to NLP) for pronunciation help (also makes sense to me: can help my language learners fight their fear of losing face).
Text-to-speech looks like a great addition in Sanako Study 1200 V.61 for the language learner:
1. especially since it
  1. includes play speed options
  2. allows for download of speech rendition for review
  3. can blend with a human expert in the face-to-face classroom
2. while saving human experts time to record audio learning materials.
3. Caveats:
4. Would like to know more about IVONA voices.
5. Pricing? Available Languages?
We are still on Sanako 5.2, but will be losing our Deskbot text-to-speech wizard with XP soon – so coincidentally I have just been wondering whether we will be able to hack together a text-to-speech on Windows 7, maybe using Google translate voices, but without the Google translate features that are commonly abused by language learners? Update: Look here for automating Google translate text-to-speech.

Categories: digital-audio-lab, e-languages Tags: google-translate, learning-materials, sanako-study-1200, text-to-speech

How to record your voice with Vocaroo.com

2013/02/07 plagwitz Leave a comment

Click the red record button:
IMPORTANT: You have to allow the web app access to your microphone (you would not want webpages be able to record you without having been asked for permission, would you?):
And/or Click “allow” on this screen:
Speak, when done, click the square stop button:
Click the triangle to listen to your recording (if you do not see the triangle, but a warning at the bottom, have you clicked “allow ” in step 3 above? If you are not sure, press “F5” now to refresh the page, that will bring up the dialogue again for you press “allow ”):
Listen:
“Save”.