Installation instructions from those who received a webcam

To install the webcam:



After restarting your computer, click Start> Programs> Philips> - then click on, hold and drag the icon for the Funcam to your desktop to make a short cut. Double click the icon and your program opens.

Click file> capture to choose capture video or record audio. Clcik record and the program asks you to choose a place to save the file and what name to give it; choose a place that is easy to find like your desktop.

To use the camera to speak to your Australian partner, you must install Skype on your computer; Download it from http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=skype&platformSelect=Windows&tag=srch&searchtype=downloads&filterName=platform%3DWindows&filter=platform%3DWindows and follow the instructions. The installation will have you create an account for Sype. If you decide to use another computer later, you will have to install Skype on that computer, but you will use the same Skype account.

Because Skype is not like a telephone which has a ringer to tell you that someone is calling, you will need to set a time to meet with your partner on skype. Just exchange Skype usernames with them. When you log on to Skype, you can find them by their username. The only plausible time to do this is after you get out of school, they will be coming to school. Find out what time they are in Mr. Williams' class and can speak to you.

Are you having problem's uploading your videos?

There is a limit to the size of the video that you can upload. I just made a 23 minute video that I cut in half and uploaded. You have to download Windows Movie Maker. From Movie Maker, click file> import and browse to your recording. This puts your video up in the workspace; you just need to drag your video on to the timeline. Save the file as “full video”. Listen to the video and find a good place to cut it; just pause the video and hit the cut button (on the right). Delete the second part of the video. Save the file as “video project part 1”, then click file> publish move> on my computer. Then go back to the “full video” and delete the first half. Save the second part in both the project format and the published movie. Watch where you save the movie file. Its file extension is .wmv – these are the files that you upload to your blog. You can put both parts in your one post, but each video has to be small.

Video taken directly from the camera is in .avi format which is not condensed like Movie Maker files, so only a very very short video from the camera can be posted directly to a blog.

Below is the link to download Movie Maker for Windows XP
http://download.cnet.com/Windows-Movie-Maker-Windows-XP/3000-13631_4-10165075.html?tag=mncol;1

The link for Windows Vista is http://download.cnet.com/Windows-Movie-Maker-Windows-Vista/3000-13631_4-10729231.html?tag=mncol;2

I was having problems with some of my videos even when I cut them down to 12 minutes, so I changed one setting in Movie Maker. When you are in the Publish movie file wizard in the Choose the settings for your Movie screen choose to compress the file to 99 MB.