Apture Made Easy
Apture Made Easy – Part 1: How to Install
Today is the 140th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. So he would have been 140 today had he not been assassinated in 1948.
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Gandhi may not be around anymore but his legacy and his message of non-violencethe light the world needs today. lives on and he is indeed
He has always been one of my heroes from a young age and I remember crying after watching Richard Attenborough’s famous film Gandhi.
We had made a special trip to London and watched the film in Leicester Square just a few days after its release – watching it was a defining moment in my life.
I have watched this remarkable movie about a remarkable man many times since then.
“Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.” – Einstein
I have read a lot about Gandhi since then and also been influenced by my late father who collected a huge library of Gandhi’s teachings.
It is now up to all of us to apply Gandhi’s teachings in our daily life – after all his message about peace and non-violence is more pertinent than ever before today.
On this 140th anniversary of his birth, here are 6 keys lessons for all of us to apply in our life from today
golmerstari have a tattoo wit the text...be the change you want to see in the world....on left arm..ist soo coooool=)
literarytattoos.livejournal.com
Gandhi Tattoo So this is the first time I am getting a tatto. I was thinking about getting the quote "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandih. I was also thinking about getting the word "Faith"..or "Love"...or "Peace". I know I want it located on my right hip!
This is possibly Gandhi’s most famous phrase and tells us that before we can go and change the world, we have to change ourselves.
“Let your life be your message” – Gandhi
Is your life the message you want to give the world?
When will you be the change you want the world to be?
2. Reduce, reuse and recycle
3. Live a simple, minimalist life.
Minimalism is something I am. To get you started, please check out this excellency mentor and friend Leotard of Zenith.
Believe in your cause, follow your truth and stick to your journey even if you have to walk the path on your own.
Gandhi at the end of his life was said to be heart broken with the partition of India as millions were killed and displaced. Even then, he still had a message for the world – it takes just one man to make a difference.
If no one responds to your call, go forward alone.
If no one talks to you, oh luckless one,
If everyone turns away from you in fear,
Reveal your thoughts and express your ideas to yourself.
If everyone leaves you while you are travelling a dangerous road,
If no one wants to look after you,Andrew Bidochko. http://www.mapbuilder.netdancewithshadows.comSome of the most dangerous roads on the planet, mapped. Thanks to Mapbuilder , Wikipedia , Assn. of Safe International Road Travel whose data we have based this on.
Walk on alone, on the road strewn with thorns, trampling on them with bleeding feet.
If no one shows a light, if in the dark stormy night everyone shuts their doors,
Use your rib as a torch, lit from the fire of thunder. – Rabindranath Tagore
So anything and everything you do counts and will make a difference.
5. Get your power through humility
Because the people are crazy Applesauce shortchange the worldview do.” – Steve Jobs,
So just how crazy are you?
And how will YOU change the world?
To get you started right away, please check out this related post at once:-
3. How to use the Apture Link Widget.
- Link to Wikipedia or other information sources. Scroll bars in the popups allow the readers to read a complete Wikipedia article. You can also choose Wikipedia articles different languages. You can also link to a particular section in Wikipedia.
- Link to other websites. The links function like plain links,i.e. the blog you link to with Apture gets link juice – without the reader having to leave your site. You can also find links you previously made with Apture.
- Internal links Apture links are a great way to entice readers deep into your blog. I use the Embed Widget in order to link to previous posts. Each Apture popups contain a post image and a snippet of text and looks very attractive. Here’s how to link to a previous post: click on the Embed Widget, and then choose ‘Enter a Specific URL’ . The Preview will show you what the link will look like. If you have more than one image in your post, you can select which one – if any – should appear with your post.
- External links: You can choose to use Apture for plain external links that open in a separate window.
- Customizing your sources: you add additional sources from Apture to pull from.
- How to add links: check out the short article from the Apture team that explains how to add multiple links.
- Twitter links: The Apture team has come up with some great options for embedding Twitter. You can link to a single Tweet, or show Twitter search trends. You can even embed your Friendfeed in your blog. Check out a YouTube video that shows some of the cool Apture tricks for Twitter. I think that Twitter fans will be all aflutter over these options.
4. How to use the Apture Embed Widget
Sourcing and embedding media is a snap with Apture. You can find step-by-step intructions in Episode 4 of my Apture Made Easy video series. Here is what you can do with the Embed Widget:
- Embed images: Using Apture saves me a lot of time. For example when I use an image from Flickr, the shortest time it takes me to source, resize, embed, and credit an image is 06:48 minutes. The same process with Apture takes me just 44 seconds. Check out how to use Creative Commons images in Apture. If you use stock images, you can upload the images from your computer quickly resize them with Apture, using the ‘Upload File’ function. Check out how to resize images.
- Embed audio: Apture embeds an elegant audio player. At present, music can only be sourced from Imeem and NPR. It would be good to see greater range audio sources, including radio stations outside of the US, such as BBC, etc. In order to upload audio podcasts, I suggest you upload the audio to Amazon S3, and then link to the file using the Apture Embed Widget.
- Embed video: At present Apture supports videos by YouTube, Reuters, Truveo, Dailymotion, Imeem Video. If you want to embed your own flash videos, you may run into problems. Apture works with a fixed size of 320px wide and 250px high. In other words, Apture only supports videos that have the Standard Definition aspect ratio of 4:3 , and not ones with the High Definition aspect ratio of 10:9. (I have been assured by the Apture team that this flaw will be fixed very soon.)
- Embed YouTube. With Apture you can control start and stop times of YouTube videos. This means that you can choose a clip from a YouTube video to support your post.
- Use captions: You can use captions on all your embeds.
- Add Additional content: You can add up to 6 pieces of additional contentWhy Include 1 Piece of Content When You Can Include 7 to your main link. The additional content is visible in thumbnails beneath the main embedded item. Watch this excellent video by the Apture team on the effect of adding additional content to one link:
8. Apture secrets revealedApture hides many of its top features. (Note to the Apture team: how about installing a search function on your site?). Here are some features even die-hard users may not know about:
Apture uses Amazon S3 to store all media it provides links for, without passing the storage cost on to users.
Google Street View is supported by Apture. Watch this fascinating demo on what this could do for your blog.
Apture provides support for Linkedin profiles
Bing web and image search is integrated into Apture.
Apture supports super-search engine Lijit.
Apture integrates into URL shortener Kiw.is.
Apture supports Wikinvest. You can insert stock charts within their apturized embeds and links.
Apture has partnered with SlideShare, a community for sharing presentations where individuals or organizations can upload and share PowerPoint, PDF, or OpenOffice presentations. Check out how Apture integrates with Slideshare.
Apture trial on BBC News Website a great success
The BBC News Website has been trialing Apture for a few a weeks now – it’s been great to see one of my new projects find its way onto on of my old but significant projects.
The Beeb’s has been trialing Apture to provide background context for concepts and themes mentioned in it’s stories. If you want to see a great example of this, check out “Driving primates to the edge“. Tristan Harris, Apture’s co-founder and CEO, writes more about the trial on the company’s blog and the BBC also have a post about the trial on their Editor’s Blog too.
BTW, if you’re not seeing the Apture links on that primate story it may be because you need to switch to the UK version of the BBC News site (the BBC is only trialing Apture on the UK view of it’s site) . Click “UK version” in the BBC page’s left sidebar. If you return to the BBC story page, you should see a box called “BBC trial – in page links”. Click the “Turn on in-page links” button, and Apture’s iconic links should appear on the page.
Emerging results of the trial
Whilst I can’t reveal the exact numbers, the response to the trial has been fantastic – with the vast majority of feedback being overwhelmingly positive.
People like the ease of use and the way they can find out more about a given topic without the need to leave the story they are reading – and that’s exactly the use case Apture was designed to provide. Of course, if you do wish to view the content on it’s original page there is always the opportunity to click through from the Apture window.
However, as to be expected with any trial there has also been a number of people who have raised some concerns, mainly around the fact that the BBC isn’t directly linking to the sourcesthe way in which JavaScript is used to create the hyperlinks. and also
I thought it might be useful to provide my own perspective on these two points – given my unique position of having worked on both projects. Of course, these are my views and not those of Apture nor the BBC.
#1: Not linking directly to other site
Jack Pickard’s comment about the BBC not linking directly to the sources is an interesting one, especially in the light of the BBC Trust’s mandate to the BBC that it must link to external sources more often.
For me, this comes down to appropriate use of the tools available to you. The purpose to Apture is to bring bite size chunks of pertinent content immediately to you, with the specific goal of providing explanation about the theme or concept of whatever you are reading. This helps readability and increases the user’s ability to engage in the story – especially where they may be unfamiliar with the subject matter.
The primate example above is a good one. As you read about the Bonobo chimp Apture gives you the opportunity to find out exactly what it is without the need to break your flow and move off site. To me, that’s a benefit and a good use of Apture.
However, where the journalist has made reference to Conservation of Nature’s 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, you can see they have linked directly to the website of the study. It’s not a few lines of background content but a whole new direction to take in one’s reading and so merit’s its own link. To me this seems like an example of best practice and, frankly, a great example what people are complaining the BBC are not doing.
It’s worth considering whether the BBC would have linked to the as many ‘background’ sources (such as the Bonobo monkey) without the Apture functionality. I don’t believe they would, and therefore the net outcome is little loss in outbound linking from stories to sites.
#2: The use of javascript to power Apture
On the BBC’s Editor’s blog, “pigsonthewing” complained:
I don’t see any in-line links – oh, wait, I have to allow javascript on your site.There have been a number of comments about this issue – but it has to be said mainly from ‘tech’ quarters rather than mainstream users.
I still don’t see any in-line links – oh, wait, I now have to turn on in-line links.
I still don’t see any in-line links. Oh wait, I now have to allow javascript *for an external site*
I have to ask why ‘pigsonthewing’, and others, are surfing the internet without JavaScript turned on – and what kind of experience they are having on the 99.9% of sites that utilize JavaScript as part of their core functionality? (remember, most would consider Apture a secondary tier functionality – your use of the site degrades gracefully if you do not have JS switched on).
This is 2008. Back in the day there was a time when many of us geeks would turn JavaScript off due to concerns about security – however most would agree those days are gone and with browser security models what they are it is pretty safe to leave Javascript enabled – yes even for *external sites*! Gosh!
And perhaps more importantly, using the internet without JavaScript turned on is not something I think anyone would expect most ‘normal users’ to be doing.
Perhaps the only caveat to this is mobile phone browsers, however I would argue that from a usability perspective, rich functionality like Apture may not be appropriate on a small screen anyway – to this point when I created the BBC News PDA site, I stripped out the fact boxes and inline images for this reason.
This is not 2001 anymore, where we had to code for the fact that 20% of people had Javascript turned off or unavailable in their browser. According to the same source today 95% of people have JavaScript turned on. And that still includes all of the Javascript-less mobile and smartphone browsers that didn’t exist back in 2001 – the true %age for desktop browsers is going to be even higher.
It’s your right if you want to turn JavaScript off on your browser but I don’t think you can complain when sites no longer work for you. Your experience of the internet must be pretty broken and poor when every AJAX site breaks and you can not even expect basic site functionality to necessarily work.
The one other caveat for this is people who have a visual impairment, who sometimes use the Internet with JavaScript turned off. I speak from experience as I used to represent the BBC News website on the BBC Accessibility guidelines committee. However I understand that even today most screen readers and other assistive technologies have no problem with JavaScript enabled sites – and can easily interpret sites such as GMail for their user.
Conclusion and final thoughts
I take on board all of the points people have raised about Apture (as do the Apture team, I’m sure) – and there is definitely ways in which the service can and will be improved. But having worked for so many years on the BBC News Website, I’m delighted that the majority of people who gave feedback enjoyed the service and found it useful.
I believe the BBC will remove Apture at the end of the trial so that they can decide their next steps with the product. Of course I hope that the BBC will continue to work with Apture and roll out the service across the site.
In the meantime the product will of course continue to be iterated further, using as much of the feedback gained from the trial as possible (yes, even the points about JavaScript!).
If you would like to put Apture on your blog or site you can visit the Apture site for details of the free plugin. Apture is an angel-funded company and is currently seeking Series A investment.
(Disclosure: I am on the advisory board for Apture, and hold a small interest in the company. I worked for the BBC for six years, the majority of which was on the BBC News Website)
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