US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses students at Delhi University. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence in New Delhi. (AP Photo)

Tips for Producing Better Video Slideshows with Animoto

If you are already using Animoto to create video slideshows of your photos, here are some tips for producing even better video. Animoto is an easy tool for creating impressive videos out of your boring digital photos in minutes. Just upload your pictures to the Animoto website (or pull them directly from Flickr or Picasa), select a background music to play with your video slideshow, add some text (optional) and you're done. Check these pages on YouTube and Twitter to see some more video clips that have been created using Animoto.com. The basic version of Animoto is free but it limits you to 30 second video clips that aren't downloadable though you can upload them to YouTube. You can however sign-up for Animoto using this special link and it will give you the option to create one full length video on Animoto for free. A full length video can be as long as the duration of the song and you can download the video as well though it's not in HD format. Animoto Tips for Better Video While Animoto makes is super easy for your to create professional looking videos without any preparation, a little bit of planning can make your slideshows look even better. Here are some tips from Animoto: 1. When uploading photos to Animoto, always pick photos that have a landscape orientation as portrait photos can sometimes format oddly during the video render process. 2. Animoto will automatically determine the duration of each picture in the video slideshow but if there're pictures that you really want to emphasize in the video, select the images in the video editor and use the spotlight button. 3. When adding text to your video, always make sure that their pictures on either side of the text slide else your text will lack any moving video in the background. 4. Your choice of music determines the transition speed. If you select a slow classical song, your music video will have slow transitions whereas if you select rock, the transitions will happen fast - go for the latter if you are looking to create MTV style video clips. 5. Animoto consumes around 15-20 images for their 30 second shorts. If you upload more images, they are likely to be discarded in the final video so pick the best shots before starting the render process. For full-length videos, you an upload upto 300 shots but the number of pictures used would really depend on the choice of your music - slow music means less pictures. 6. While most people use Animoto for creating fast slideshows, you can adjust the video speed to 1/2x for a more traditional slideshow. 7. If you want to brand your Animoto slideshows, make sure that the last image in the slideshow is not a photograph but an image of your logo. Source:labnol

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Airtel Net PC is a Low Cost Computer for Working in the Cloud

Do you have an old computer monitor that's gathering dust someone in
the corner of your house? Or do you have plans to buy a new PC for
performing only basic computing tasks like writing documents, email,
chatting, browsing websites, etc.

If you said yes to any of the above questions, read this.

Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator here, has just launched a
new device called Net PC, which as the name suggests, is a low cost
computer designed specifically for cloud computing. The device is
powered by Windows XP (not Linux as you would expect) and costs INR
5,000 (or $100) in India.

To get started, you just have to plug in the USB modem or the
broadband Ethernet cable into the Net PC and you're ready to go. The
device weighs a mere 500 grams and is small enough (11.5cm x 11.5cm x
3.5cm) to fit in one of your trouser pockets.

When you think cloud computing, the first thing that strikes your mind
is Google Docs but surprisingly, Airtel's cloud computer comes
pre-loaded with a rental copy of Microsoft Office so you can work on
those documents and presentations even while you are not connected to
the Internet.

Airtel Net PC is a subscription based device so you also need to pay a
monthly rent for using the software in addition to your broadband
bill.

To give you an example, the minimum plan costs somewhere around Rs 700
per month where Rs 200 is the software rent while you pay the rest for
DSL broadband. This plan will get you 3GB of data transfer (at 256
KB/s), 10 GB of online storage space and a copy of Microsoft Office
Standard that also includes Microsoft Outlook for your email needs.
You can also transfer data out the Net PC box using any of the
available USB ports.

The downside is that you can don't have the privilege to install new
software on the device so can't use[*] Firefox or Google Chrome for
browsing as XP only comes with IE. And I am not too sure if the Net PC
is locked to Airtel or will it work with broadband services from other
providers like Reliance or BSNL.

To know more about Net PC or you can walk into any of the Airtel or
NEXT stores in NCR Region (Gurgaon, Delhi or Noida) for a demo.

[*] Though you can't install new software, I guess it should still be
possible to run software that don't require installation like the
portable Google Browser.

Source:Labnol

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