I avoided paying attention to QR codes. Some of my Twitter friends were obsessed with them and I hadn’t investigate them enough to see the full value. Now I do.

QR Codes are a great way to connect mobile devices to print, signage, clothing, and much much much more.

• > Jump to the “How to Add A QR Code To Your Blog Video

Best Uses

Some of the best uses of QR codes come from online companies that are part of the mobile application ecosystem.

The Appsgeyser mobile development site for Android apps uses QR Codes to prompt developers/users to download apps.

OpenAppMarket is a mini app store for HTML5 applications. You can get to the apps from the URL, by posting via phone, or by accessing the QR code.

Best Buy’s QR code labeled price tags. How many times do you go buy something then wish you had a computer so you could look things up? Happens to me all the time. I don’t carry my laptop around while shopping but I always have my smart phone.

Photo credit: Travelin’ Librarian on Flickrlicense

QR Code Scanners

I did a little Twitter crowdsourcing a couple of weeks ago and asked tweeps what their favorite QR Code readers were. I expected to hear crickets but QR Code lovers came out of the woodwork. These are some of the apps they mentioned.

1) Qrafter - Free: Not bad but the ads are pretty obvious and it has a couple of extra steps to actually get to the URL. The app had trouble recognizing some on screen codes that my favorite ones were able to read.

2) Microsoft Tag reader – Free: Had trouble recognizing tags. I stopped testing it after it missed a couple of tags.

3) AT&T Code Scanner – Winner! Free: This app is great and it’s the one I started using on a regular basis. I also used it to test out my Create Your Own Code application.

How To Add A QR Code To Your Blog

Related reading:

Who’s Really Scanning All Those QR Codes? [INFOGRAPHIC] on Mashable

WordPress announced its new Learn WordPress.com site.

This online tutorial is ideal for beginning and intermediate WordPress.com bloggers and for folks who are migrating over from other blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad.

NOTE: For those of you who are not familiar with the WordPress platform, there are two flavors of WordPress – WordPress.com the free site and WordPress.org blogs which are custom install versions. You can get more information on the differences here.

The Learn WordPress.com tutorial breaks down the blog learning experience into 10 sections and also has an easy-to-print version (66 pages of learning fun). The site is well organized and does an admirable job addressing the gazillion ways in which people can blog.

Screenshot of Learn WordPress.com site

As you may know, I have my own Getting Started With WordPress.com online class as well (launching soon). As far as I’m concerned, the more options to learn blogging, the better. My blog class includes my direct feedback and guidance on blogging topics, for those who need a little bit more than 100% self-serve learning.

I’m honored to have one of my WordPress.com video tutorials as part of the official WordPress.com curriculum. WordPress links to my “Using slideshows on WordPress.com” tutorial on its “Get Flashy” page.

Check out the Learn WordPress.com site and let me know what you think.

Here’s the Using Slideshows on WordPress.com video to get you into the WordPress.com learning mood. Enjoy!

If you liked this blog post, you may want to sign up for the RSS feed, email, “Like” and share the post, and join us on Facebook.

Photo Credit: @tiabel on Flickr, by special permission.

When I first saw Shel Israel’s (@shelisrael) tweet and the iTunes store description off of his link, I was skeptical, as was Shel. Visual translations via an iPhone app?

Word Lens is the real thing.

I just conducted a quick test on the iPhone app.

On-screen text message:

iPhone screenshot of the Word Lens translation:

The application has a “Pause” button which takes a still of the translation. In still mode, the translated words become hyperlinks which allows the user to click through to see the translation of the specific word.

How much is this app?

The actual Word Lens application is free and it comes with a Word Reverse and Word Erase tools.

The English-to-Spanish and the Spanish-to-English translation engines are $4.99 each. To access those libraries, you click on the white oval at the top of the screen (it will read “Demo:Reverse Words”) and you are taken to a Languages screen which shows the installed items and the “Available to Download” items.

VIDEO: Word Lens in action – Santa Paula, CA

I photographed the “Smile at the camera” sign at the La Unica bakery then showed the owner how it worked. She was amazed by the translations.

Notes

* I’d rate the translation accuracy around 70-80%.

* The app doesn’t work very well with full pages of text but it will parse through and try to translate what it can.

* The app doesn’t have Spanish regional settings so it won’t know whether to translate “potatoes” to “papas” or to “patatas.” There are hundreds of such words that vary in usage from country to country.

* According to the iTunes listing, the requirements are:
– Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch (4th generation). Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Is the Word Lens application a game changer in the translation world or is this just another app?

Raul Porto is CEO of Porto’s Bakery, the largest retail bakery in the United States. Porto rarely does public speaking engagements so it was a treat to hear his presentation at the Latino Entrepreneur + Social Media Forum.

After listening to Porto, you definitely get the sense that he loves what he does. He talks about growing a business using instinct, observation, and some more “traditional” techniques.

Kevin Pollak (@kevinPollak on Twitter) made me bust up laughing at how he played the interviewee in this bit..oh, wait, it was really supposed to be an interview?

Alan Weinkrantz (@alanweinkrantz on Twitter) plays the “straight man” in this interview snippet at the 140 Conference in Hollywood. The 140 Conference is a unique collection of Twitter related presenters (“characters”) who present on an eclectic set of topics – everything from online psychics to personal online stories to global social media campaigns by major networks.

You can catch Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show here.

I had a great time, met tons of online friends, and enjoyed this interview.

Do you have any favorite 140 Conference moments?

This is a video response to Cathy Larkin (@WhyDoWeBlog on Twitter) who asked about Trackbacks during a #blogchat conversation.

What are trackbacks and when they would be used in relation to WordPress.org blogs? Watch the video and find out.

Trackbacks in WordPress Blogs – Click here to View FULL SCREEN

If you like this post, comment, share, and set it free!

Photo Credit: Seryo via Flickr Creative Commons

Is social media a way to capitalize on our ability to connect and empathize with all humans or does it feed narcissism, materialism, violence, and aggression?

After being extremely connected to social networking sites for over two years, I’ve seen both.

My mother taught me a saying, (in Spanish called a “dicho”) that goes “Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.” This literally translates to “Tell me who you’re with, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

If our brain fires every time we see someone else go through a specific set of emotions, then it would matter who we’re around and how they respond to things. If we are around nasty and brutish people, then that is what we’ll experience.

I’ve had the honor of being connected to some amazingly positive people on sites like Twitter and that has helped keep me sane over the past two years.

This British Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) video examines the concept of an empathic society.

What do you think, is the video overly optimistic or is narcissism more powerful then the need for connection and empathy?

Thanks to Neil Kramer (@Neilochka) for posting a link to this video on Twitter.

The new Tweetdeck experimental version uses the “User Streams API” from Twitter and it is turbo charged. It’s so fast that my All Friends stream of 7,724 people is almost a blur.

This version is in limited release but you can request access by going to the Tweetdeck site, logging into your Tweetdeck account, and submitting the request. I received an email back from Tweetdeck a few hours later.

If the video demo below scares you, don’t request the new version yet.

This tweet from @Gorillamonk made me want to download the new version and see just how fast it was.

Here’s a view of my Tweetdeck stream. It hauls booty.

Are you likely to download the new version after watching this video? Or does this look out of control fast?

—

If you like these types of tech videos, you should follow this blog via the RSS feed and/or by signing up for FREE blog updates via email (see the form at the top right hand side of the page). I only send blog post in the updates.

YouTube announced a new HTML5 video player that works on the Apple iPad device. The player is smart enough to know whether it can display Flash or if it has to switch to HTML5 mode for a non-Flash enabled device.

I tested the new player against the regular YouTube player on an iPad and the new player still needs some work. The new player takes a longer to load, has some funky behavior (a duplicate window appears below the player), and the screen is bouncy when the player isn’t set to fullscreen.

I can see why the new player isn’t available from the regular video page yet.

Furthermore, in order to get the HTML5 version to load, site visitors must have gone to the YouTube HTML5 page and opted in as an HTML5 Beta tester.

This player is basically in development mode. I wouldn’t rush out and start changing all your embed codes but it is worth testing out, especially if it can help you with an existing issue.

This is sample code to embed the new player:

<iframe type=”text/html” width=”640″ height=”385″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID” frameborder=”0″>

“VIDEO_ID” is the ID of the video which looks like an encrypted string. For the videos below, the ID is “FmWNwJRVK_g.”

I embedded a video using the new HTML5 player and also using the standard YouTube player to test on the iPad. I did this for my test but feel free to do the same and test it via your desktop/laptop and via your mobile device or iPad. Remember to opt in to the YouTube HTML5 Beta if you want the player to show up…or you’ll only get a black box in its place.

The New HTML 5 player

The standard YouTube embed method

What do you think? Is the new player useful yet? Will this solve any browser or platform issues for your videos?

This video shows you how to better visualize the key aspects of job by focusing on important keywords.

When is this technique useful?

There are two main circumstances when this tip is useful:

1. Let’s say you’ve identified ten good job opportunities and you have the full job descriptions, but only want to focus on one or two of the jobs. This method of highlighting keywords, using Wordle.net as a visualization tool, will help you see the keywords better. Once the main keywords are more apparent, you can use them to select the top two jobs and create your cover letters and shape your resume to focus on what’s important.

   Remember, the hiring manager created the job description so it is likely she will be looking for those keywords in cover letters to help her filter her stack of applications.

2. Yay! You received an interview and now you need to prepare for it. By using this technique, you can zoom in on the most important job aspects and skills. I used this technique before an interview and it highlighted a key technical skill. I reviewed the technical skill before the interview (I wish I had prepared more) and was asked about it and was tested on it.
   
   
   I hope the video is useful. Good luck on the job search!

Related Posts

• Using Keywords in Your Job Search – CareerBuilder.com
• Online Job Searching – Job Search Words – About.com:JobSearching

[Previously posted on www.jesseluna.posterous.com]