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This is the personal blog of John F. Morton. It's where I talk about the stuff that interests me. Primarily technology, marketing and pop culture. If you are looking for my portfolio of work, visit johnfmorton.com. Thanks for stopping by!

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Filtered by Category: How To

How To Download Youtube Videos, Part 2: Super Easy

How to Get YouTube Videos on your iPod and iPhone from john morton on Vimeo.

If you don’t have time to watch the movie above, just visit Tooble.tv, download the free Tooble software, cut and paste the URL of your favorite YouTube video and presto, your video is in iTunes. That’s super easy.

If you’re on a PC, or just want more flexibility, also check out the earlier post How to Download Flash Video and Play It Back on Your Mac. (And More.). Contrary to the title, you even get some PC how to instructions there as well.

TrueCrypt - How To Protect Your Private Files From Prying Eyes

I thought I’d try something new today. I sometimes talk about software I use, but now I’m going to try showing it as well. I’ll start with TrueCrypt, a free, cross-platform piece of software that obscures your files securely but still leaves you with the ability to retrieve them regardless what type of computer you have.

Taking Cleaner Screenshots with Camouflage

I’m one of those people who has too many icons on my desktop, but you wouldn’t know if from the screenshot above. It would be fair to suggest that I just organize my icons in my documents folder, but that’s just not the way my brain works. Having all my icons on my desktop is how I work. My desktop servers as an inbox for my live projects.

This week I discovered a free little program, Camouflage, by briksoftware. It lets you easily hide a cluttered desktop screen when you’ve got to take a screenshot. I also use it when I hook my laptop up to a projector for a presentation.

Now I’m just a click away from a pristine desktop. And, luckily, I have just one more click back to my organized chaos.

How to make a video go “viral.”

A friend who is a director recently asked me about how to get his viral video he’s made “seen” by people. That’s sort of the $6 million question, right? I don’t have the answer unfortunately, but I’ve got some clues, thanks to 6 really good blog posts. Here they are.

Seven Deadly Sins of Advertising Via Viral Video
More Viral Video Lessons: An Interview with the My-Box-In-A-Box Geniuses
The Rules Of Viral Web Success, according to AdWeek.
And the rebuttal, The Rules Of Viral Web Success (My Foot)
6 Things Not To Do With Your Viral Video
I also like the LEGS rule from this post on the Video Insider blog: Viral Videos Ads: No Marketing Panacea

Here’s an excerpt from Viral Videos Ads: No Marketing Panacea:

[Viral] ads need LEGS, a convenient acronym that means viral ads have to have a Laugh out loud quality, Edgy content, must Grip your attention and most often have some Sexual content. Given that few campaigns (viral or otherwise) have LEGS, few will be able to create a successful viral campaign as Dove did with Evolution, and in most cases the reach is low. It comes back to the bottom line — a question of opportunity, cost, and return on investment.

Lastly,The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos has some interesting pointers in it.

There's more to read. Click here for the rest. >>

Making Your Own Kindle Book Files

It’s hard for me to believe I’ve missed an entire month on my blog. December is usually a very busy month with my juggling 3 jobs, traveling to see my family and the usual seasonal holiday parties. I’ve also been giving my new Kindle from Amazon a thorough workout all month long as well. The abbreviated review is that I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s not perfect, but it’s got so many things right that I feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who loves reading.

There have been many good reviews of the device. Here are a couple I found really fair to the device: Steve Gibson’s review, ArsTechnica and Gizmodo. (In case you’re wondering, that is the same Steve Gibson from the wonderful podcast Security Now.) There’s not much more I’d add in terms of a review so check those out if you’re still on the fence about getting one.

First, some hidden features of your Kindle.

There are quite a few things your Kindle can do that aren’t so obvious. The most useful is the clock. Sure, it’s just a clock, but pressing ALT-T while you’re reading a good book will briefly display the current time in the lower left hand corner of your Kindle’s display. Since it’s a reading device, it writes out the time as in Eight till six instead of 5:53pm.

The Kindle most definitely is not a game machine, but that hasn’t prevented Minesweeper from finding it’s way. Just press ALT-SHIFT-M when you are on the Home screen. It doesn’t seem to work when you’re actually reading a book.

There's more to read. Click here for the rest. >>