Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

You may have noticed that version 6.0 of Windows Movie Maker does not have a "Save to DVD" option in the Save Movie Wizard. Since video files are typically very large and may not fit onto a CD, you might find this perplexing. Never fear! Microsoft didn’t just forget to include this option. Instead, they decided that since they were including Windows DVD Maker on machines with Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate Edition, there was no need to include a DVD burning option in WMM, too.

If you would like to learn how to use Windows DVD Maker to burn your movies to DVD, go to the following vista4beginners website:
http://www.vista4beginners.com/How-to-burn-a-video-DVD-using-Windows-DVD-Maker

Back in the day, one of the more tantalizing promises of the internet was the ability to shop favorite stores while still wearing jammies. (For those of us living in small college towns, it seems like there's no shame in wearing jammies anywhere - shopping, school, out to dinner - but I digress). We're now at the point where the internet wave has also brought the ability for many folks to work a full-time, professional job while still wearing their jammies, via telecommuting.(Seen at right is the Business Bib, a suit-falsie so that jammies-wearing telecommuters can still look professional when in a videoconference.)

Many Windows users are familiar with Remote Desktop, which allows you to access your work computer, say, from your home or elsewhere. Depending on the robustness of your internet connection, however, you may find that Remote Desktop sometimes lags or provides a slow screen refresh, so that moving your mouse results in action on-screen several seconds later.  In this post, I'll cover how to change a few settings in order to improve the performance of Remote Desktop so that you can be just as efficient in your jammies as you are when actually at school or work.

Four Steps to a Faster Remote Desktop Experience

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Today a colleague of mine emailed me with a question about using Flip camera footage in a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. He was attempting to use the raw video files from his camera in a presentation but couldn't get them to work.

PowerPoint 2007 allows users to import the following video file formats: .asf, .avi, .mpg or .mpeg, and .wmv. Since the Flip camera produces an uncompressed .avi file, we should be able to import it. Right?

Wrong. The fact is that even if your video file has the correct file extension, it may not play correctly if the correct version of the codec is not installed on your computer, or if the file is not encoded in a format that is recognized by your version of Windows.

The Flip camera captures video in MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile format and saves the video as an .avi file. So, then, perhaps we just need to download a codec and then it will work in PowerPoint?

No, wrong again. The Flip camera video uses the 3iVX codec. It can be downloaded free from a number of different sites on the Internet, and it is also included when you download and install the Flip camera software. But, even after installing the 3iVX codec, it isn't possible to insert Flip camera clips into a PowerPoint 2007 presentation.
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I love being able to work from home. Since Windows Vista contains the Remote Desktop Connection feature, it is extremely easy to remote in to my work computer. This gives me access to all of the files, applications, and network resources that I have when I am actually sitting at my desk in my office.

Every time I connect to my office computer from another computer, however, it messes up the icons on my desktop. (more...)

Remote Desktop Connection is a technology that allows you to connect to a second computer and take control of it. This makes it possible for you to connect to your work computer from computers at other locations and have access to all of your files, programs, available networks, and resources, or to connect to a friend or family member's computer to do some troubleshooting when they are having problems.

Windows Vista comes with the Remote Desktop Connection installed, so you don't have to buy or install any special software.

To make a connection, you must first enable Remote Desktop Connection on the remote computer (the one you want to connect to.) (more...)