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Information from Software Update.

This update addresses issues with wire-bound books and cards.

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Displaying a list of your recent Viddler videos in your WordPress blog.

If you start using Viddler regularly — either to create video blog entries as discussed in the previous article of this series or to simply get video content online — you might want to make those videos accessible from within your WordPress blog. Fortunately, there’s a WordPress plugin that makes this very easy: viddlerRSS.

The ViddlerRSS plugin works like most other WordPress plugins. Drop it in your plugins folder and activate it. (You can learn more about how to do that in our WordPress book, so don’t expect to find details here.) Then open your WordPress dashboard and choose Options > viddlerRSS. Enter your Username in the appropriate box, select the number of videos to display and, if desired, enter the HTML code you want before and after each video thumbnail. Then click Update viddlerRSS.

Now roll up your sleeves and open the template file where you want to insert the Viddler video thumbnails. (Need help modifying theme files? You can learn about that to do that in our WordPress book, too.) In most cases, this will be your sidebar.php template. Insert the following code into the file where you want the thumbnails to appear: <?php get_viddlerrss(); ?>

Or you can get fancy like I did and put some intelligence into it, in case you ever need to disable the viddlerRSS plugin. Here’s the code I use, which includes a heading and other formatting settings:

<?php if (function_exists('get_viddlerrss')) { ?>
<li>
<h2>My Latest Viddler Videos</h2>
<?php get_viddlerrss(); ?>
</li>
<?php } ?>

Save the changes to your template file.

Now check your blog to see the results of your efforts. As shown here, I’ve got viddlerRSS set up to display thumbnails for my most recent three videos in my blog’s sidebar. Pointing to a video’s thumbnail displays the title of the video, which can help people decide whether they want to view it. Clicking a thumbnail image opens the video on the Viddler site.

Easy enough, right?

The next (and last) article in this series will explain how you can include a video commenting feature in your WordPress blog. Stay tuned!

New article on Peachpit.com.

Just a quick note to let you know that my most recent article for Peachpit’s Web site, “How to Embed a QuickTime Movie in a Web Page or Blog Post” is now online. The article is free and illustrated. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Information from Software Update.

Rent and download your favorite movies with iTunes on your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up to 720p HD with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on your computer. Transfer your rented movies from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone and enjoy them on the go.

Also, purchase and download your favorite TV shows, music, and more directly on your Apple TV. Effortlessly transfer purchases made on Apple TV back to your computer with iTunes.

iTunes 7.6.1 includes several bug fixes and improves compatibility with Apple TV software version 2.0.

Recording and posting a video.

If you have a camera — like a built-in iSight, WebCam, or DV camera connected via a cable — you can record video using tools on the Viddler site. This is probably the fastest and easiest way to get a video blog entry recorded and online.

Recording a Video

Here are the steps to record a video:

1. Log into your Viddler account at http://www.viddler.com/.
2. Click the Record button in the green navigation bar (or elsewhere, wherever you see it).
3. The Record from WebCam screen appears with an Adobe Flash Player Settings dialog atop it. Click the Allow button so Flash can access your audio and video input devices.
   
4. In the Select Quality dialog, choose an option suited to your connection speed. I usually choose Medium because I have a relatively slow (512 Kbps) Internet connection. Then click Okay.The screen should show an image of whatever your connected camera is looking at. In my case, I’m using a built-in iSight Camera on my 24-inch iMac, so it’s looking at me:
   
5. Check the Audio, Video, and Quality settings. In the illustration above, it’s using my externally connected iSight for audio, which is wrong. I want it to use the Built-in Microphone, so I select it from the pop-up menu. My built-in iSight camera is identified as a USB Video Class Video — it works, so I won’t argue. I believe the external iSight connected to my computer does not appear in the menu because it’s being used by other software (Evocam, which produces my WebCam).
6. When you’re ready to record, click the red Record button. The status bar animates with a diagonal red stripe as you record. When you’re finished, click the Red button again.
7. Wait while Viddler saves your video. It’ll display a status arrow thingie as it works. When it’s finished, it shows the poster frame of the video. If you wait long enough, it’ll play back to you:
   
8. If you like what you see, click the Save button. If you don’t, hit that red Record button again to discard the video and record a new one.

Please remember that I simply cannot provide details about every single camera that you might be using with your computer and I can’t offer troubleshooting assistance if you can’t get this to work. If you have problems, consult Viddler’s online support options. Although you can post a question in this post’s Comments, be aware that I won’t reply if I don’t have an answer. Someone else, however, may have the information you seek.

Setting Video Options

When you save a video, it appears in a Recorded video window:

There are a few things you should set for it:

• Click the Edit link beside the name of the video (”Recorded video”) and enter a more appropriate name for the video. Don’t forget to click the Save link beneath the new name to save it.
• If desired, enter tags in the Tags field on the right side of the video. You’ll need to enter each tag separately and click the Add Tag button after each one. (I’m not big on tagging, so I don’t usually do this.)
• Under Sharing Options, choose Everyone. After all, if you’re going to put this on your blog, you want everyone to be able to see it, right? If a Save Changes button appears there, be sure to click it.

Posting the Video on Your Blog

This is where the setup covered in Part II of this series pays off.

1. Click the Blog This button under the video.
2. In the list of blogs that appears beneath the video, click the link for the blog you want to add it to.
3. Fill in the blog post form that appears:
   
   The title will be the title of the blog post. The Post is the text that will appear in the post with the video. (I got fancy with some HTML to link to the first blog post in this series.) You can select a radio button at the bottom of the form to determine whether the video should appear above or below the post text. (I usually choose below.)
4. Click the Send button. A message should confirm that the video has been successfully posted to your blog. Here’s what mine looks like:
   

Now wasn’t that easy?

I should note here that you can use the Blog This button under any public video you see on the Viddler site. So if another Viddler user creates a cool video you want to share with your blog’s readers, you can add it to your blog, along with some comments, as discussed here.

Next up: Displaying an archive of your recent Viddler videos in your WordPress blog.