Make Your PDFs Web Friendly

Make your PDFs web friendly in just three easy steps using Youblisher.

The 3 easy steps involve:
1. Uploading the PDF
2. Letting Youblisher work their magic
3. Adding the link to your website

The PDF document becomes flippable and quick loading. It feels just like working with a real document. As an improvement, I would like to see 'zoom in' retained when you flip from one page to another - rather than zooming out each time. Apart from that, you and your website visitors "will love it!"

Already have it in action on our College Website :-)

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Easily Update Static Websites

Does your school/college still use a static website?

Well, if you haven't yet converted to a new dynamic content management system such as wordpress, then you will be pleased to know that CushyCMS provides you with a really easy way to update the content on that old static site.

Your prospective editors don't even have to know any HTML or how to use 'complicated' web design software.
* Great for getting the non-techie teachers involved.
* Great news for the hard pressed resident techie expert!!

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With CushyCMS the process is very simple:
* Create your account
* Add your website ftp details.
* Add class="cushycms" to the webpage elements that will be editable.
* Add the individual webpages.
* Create one, or more, editors and allocate pages.
NB: I just added a <div class="cushycms"> at the start of the content and a </div> at the end.

Pages are edited using a familiar text editor or word processor layout. So, with a little bit of direction even the 'least-techie' teacher will be able to have a go. CushyCMS even provides a 'Revision History' so if someone, accidentally, makes a complete mess then a previous version can be accessed.

No more handwritten notes, photocopied pages or emails with copy/pasted text. It's a win win situation and great for increased productivity all round!!!

Thanks CushyCMS. What a great Christmas present :-)

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Drag and Drop Websites with Weebly

As with Roxer, which I reviewed earlier, Weebly lets you create multimedia-rich websites by just clicking and dragging. No downloads or HTML coding required.

With Weebly, you can select from over 40 templates to get you started.

You can then add all sorts of multimedia content including videos, pictures, maps, audio, contact forms, feed readers and text by simply dragging them from the Weebly bar to your web page.

Also, Weebly lets you add your own custom HTML content, unlike Roxer, so you can add as many widgets as you please. In fact, you can also set up a blog using Weebly.

Looking forward to trying Weebly with my 'Introduction to Web Design' class next term to see how they get on!

The added advantage of Weebly, is that the students can publish their web pages immediately - no need for any FTP or signing up for separate hosting. This just might just provide some extra motivation!!

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Technorati Tags: roxer, web design, weebly

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Create Stunning Websites with Roxer

Roxer provides a very easy way to create web pages simply by "clicking and dragging, layering content, adding text, and placing things exactly where you want them". Amazingly, this is all done right inside your web browser.

With Roxer you can start with a blank page or use one of the five inbuilt templates. It is extremely easy to customise both individual objects and whole pages.

Compare this Roxer created 'ICFE About' page with the real 'ICFE About' page. Not a bad likeness, I think, and it only took a couple of minutes. Admittedly, I have not tried to add all the functionality of the 'real' page with drop down menus etc - which Roxer might struggle to deliver.

However, depending on type of site you wish to create, Roxer is a great tool especially for beginners. My thanks to Bob Harding for finding this little gem!

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Technorati Tags: roxer, web design

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Make your Webpages Come Alive

Apture provides "the first rich communication platform allowing publishers and bloggers to easily turn flat pages of text into multimedia experiences".

With Apture, it is really easy to add images, videos, audio files and wikipedia articles to your page.

Allow your readers/students to engage with all this multimedia without having to leave your webpage.

Apture does indeed "turn flat pages of text into a compelling multimedia experience". Just have a look at the next section, about Dublin, which contains links to all four types of media mentioned. First found reference to Apture on Kathy's blog.

Dublin or Baile Átha Cliath is the capital of Ireland and is situated on the East coast.

The city has a world-famous literary history, having produced many prominent literary figures, including Nobel laureates William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett plus Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift all come from Dublin. The city is also home to the creator of Dracula, Bram Stoker.

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Technorati Tags: apture, audio, multimedia, video, wikipedia

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Online Course Authoring with Udutu

Udutu is a sophisticated online course authoring system that enables you to create highly interactive eLearning courses.

By using the mydutu tool, you can "design and implement online training and courses without any knowledge of technology". Being able to import existing PowerPoint presentations into your new course is an added bonus.

You can carry out quite extensive authoring as explained by Udutu: "In addition to conventional animation based interactivity templates it has a unique conditional branching capability that allows you to create complex scenarios, simulations, and remedial learning situations. It is a robust multimedia platform for a corporate training and development program. It supports all major types of graphic, sound, and video formats, and will automatically optimize any multimedia for the web without third party applications".

Interestingly, Udutu recommend a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768, although they do provide templates for 800 x 600 resolution.

Once completed, you can download the course as a zip file, which you can then easily install on your own server or copy to a CD. The course runs in a web browser.

Have a look at the 'Build Effective Online Courses' created by Udutu, which shows you just how a finished course works and also provides a great lesson about building effective online courses.

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 Technorati Tags: course authoring, elearning, udutu

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Web Authoring with NVU

NVU is a complete web authoring package including WYSIWYG page editing and CSS capabilities. NVU is a great software package for both beginners and experts alike. Direct access to the HTML coding is enabled for the more experienced web designer.

For the beginner there is a built in help menu and a useful online user guide. An online tutorial on how to design and publish your website using NVU is also available.

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Technorati Tags: css, html, nvu, web authoring, web design

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Create your own Online Presence

If you want to create a traditional website presence on the Internet, then look no further than Edublogs. Although designed as a blogging platform, this site also allows you to create a 'static' first page, which gives the look and feel of a traditional website.  You can then add as many other pages as you wish.

Netvibes, Protopage and Pageflakes all allow you to create your own personalised website by using widgets. All of these sites let you to create multiple 'tabs' so you can build up a whole set of web pages.

You can choose to make your pages either private (for your eyes only) or public (for anyone to see). The public feature is currently not available in Netvibes but will become available shortly.

Before deciding which one to use it is advisable to try them all out and see which one suits you best. For more information, Graham Wegner gives a personal review of Netvibes, Protopage, Pageflakes and Webwag.

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Technorati Tags: edublogs, netvibes, pageflakes, protopage, startpage, website, webwag, widget

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