Apps Archives - Ahimsa Media

posted on June 19, 2017 by Erica

Vidme – How to Get Started and Verified

As storytellers and storyworld strategists, we keep our eyes and ears open for newer storytelling tools, platforms, and social networks on the rise. A recent one that has got us quite excited is Vidme.

Basically Vidme is a social networking platform for hosting your video content, as well as watching and engaging with the content of others – much like YouTube and Vimeo. It’s defining characteristics are that it also includes elements of Reddit and Twitch in it’s design. By sharing user engagement history, as well upvotes on both user videos and comments, it encourages users to engage with one another. Unlike Reddit, however, there is no down voting of content, and as such it is fostering a positive and supportive community of content creators.

Currently, Vidme is getting the attention of many newer video content creators, as a great platform to grow on and share their video content. After spending the last couple of weeks experimenting on the platform and getting to know the community, we’d have to agree. This is a social networking and video hosting platform with a lot of potential. Also as a newer video content creator on Vidme there is a lot of opportunity to get noticed. Case in point, if you look at the photo below, that is one of our videos trending on Vidme in just our second week on the platform.

Guide to Getting Started and Verified on Vidme

For those of you interested in learning more about Vidme and how to be successful with your Vidme channel, here is our Guide to Getting Started and Verified on Vidme:

To review my 3 main tips were to:

Engage, Engage, Engage!!!

Engagement is what we should be doing on all our social media platforms as that is after all what ‘social’ media was designed for, but all too often we neglect to do this and just use our social media feeds to broadcast. Vidme has been designed to remind people of the importance of engagement and as such many users (ourselves included) are discovering the magic that happens on social media when you become a part of an engaged, supportive community.

Wait to Apply for Verification Until You Check-Off Everything on the Verification Checklist.

Image care of DonkeyHotey.

On Vidme the golden goose for many Vidme content creators is getting their channel verified. Why? As it gives their channel additional privileges, including the possibility of showing up under the trending videos, being able to monetize their channel, and adding their channel to different categories.

To get verified you need to: gain 50 followers, add an avatar and cover image to your channel, upload one video of your own, and adhere to the community rules. The process to doing this, helps to get you exploring, engaging and building a community on Vidme, which is a very good thing.

However, as is too often the case, we carry ego with us, thinking that rules don’t apply to us, so many people try to apply for verification early, before they have met the rules. This usually results in two things: 1) you are turned down and feel resentful, or 2) you get verified (usually as you have really great quality video content or have a big audience on YouTube) and the community resents you for jumping the cue. In other words: wait to apply for verification, until you have checked off everything on the verification checklist. If you do what I have suggested in the video above, it won’t take you that long and you will be better off for it.

To help you get started, review the Verification Page and visit the Vidme FAQs.

Participate in the Vidme Subreddits – both official and unofficial.

Whether you have had good or bad experiences with Reddit in the past, the Vidme official and unofficial subreddits are positive spaces to engage with other Vidme content creators and share content on Vidme. A few subreddits I recommend checking out are the official Vidme subreddit, Vidmeos for sharing your Vidme videos, and Vidmelove for connecting with positive Vidme creators and content.

Just remember: read and follow the rules of the respective subreddits, and follow the Reddit 10% Rule. For those unaware, the Reddit 10% Rule is that for every 1 thing of your own that you share, you comment and engage with 10 other people’s posts on Reddit.

Advice from other Vidme content creators:

Having discovered the #vidmelove community, thanks to taking the time to explore Vidme and to engaging with other Vidme content creators on both Vidme and Reddit, I asked the #Vidmelove community for their advice on getting started on Vidme.

Here is some excellent advice from @MutantPixel, @SpeedyGaming and @LinktheInformer in the #vidmelove community:

Use #Hashtags.

Hashtags work and are used on Vidme as a way of cataloging and searching for content on Vidme. To catalogue your content with hashtags on Vidme, simply add the appropriate hashtags to the description below your video.

Steer Clear of the Drama.

Vidme is a newer platform that is gaining a fair bit of attention at the moment. As such, Vidme is working on defining itself and the direction it wishes to take, as is the community using Vidme. This attracts a certain amount of unnecessary drama. My advice? Avoid this and don’t fuel it. Life has enough real problems, without creating manufactured drama.

Share Your Vidmeos (aka Vidme Videos) on Other Social Networking Platforms.

While engaging on other social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+ … etc share links to your vidmeos in a engaging and meaningful manner, so that you aren’t simply broadcasting and spamming your audience. If unsure if you are sharing in a meaningful and engaging manner, look at your social media feed and answer these questions:

Do you provide an interesting / engaging teaser to the vidmeo, before sharing the vidmeo link? Your answer should be ‘yes’ here. If it’s not, then it is time you start doing this.
Are all your posts on your feed sharing vidmeos and other posts that lead people to content you have created? Hopefully your answer is ‘no’ here. If it is ‘yes’, then you are likely spamming your audience and might be looking a little self involved.

Be sure to checkout Trinding.com, as a new social networking site, designed specifically to share links to your online video content.

Another great tip, shared with me by @Hoshi-Hana is to create content that you are passionate about. Don’t create something just because others are doing it or you think it might be popular. To have staying power and be invested in creating new video content long term, you need to like what you are doing.

Photo care of Dinuraj K.

Other Vidme Tips?

If you have other tips to being successful on Vidme, we’d love to hear them in the comments below.

Are You On Vidme?

If you are on Vidme, we’d love to come check out your channel. Please add a link to it in the comments below.

Houseparty App ~ Video Chat With up to 8 People!

I have been disappointed over the recent years with how little my teens communicate with their friends in a manner that does not involve texting. Nobody actually calls each other any more. Just as our mothers and grandmothers before us, I began to accept the changing times. The tide has turned though with the entrance of a video chat App. Its name is Houseparty, and it’s more than welcome on our devices!

The appeal of Houseparty is that you can video chat with up to 8 people at a time. Now my teens are having ‘face to face’ conversations. Sometimes they have a bunch of friends on there just doing homework together, other times they are all chatting to make a decision on a weekend outing, and quite frankly most of the time they are just checking in on each other with short quick hangouts. Of course, they added the App to my phone and created my own account, because they are always trying to keep their mama hip. The problem that arose for me though, is that when adding friends for me to ‘party’ with, absolutely no one in my contacts has this App. That, my friends, is why I am sharing this with you. We once again have an App taking the teenage world by storm that adults don’t know about!

I love the subtle red solo cup.

I see this App being incredibly fun and useful for my various groups of friends from near and far, as well as for family visits with international relatives. With its ability to include up to 8 people at a time though, Houseparty is actually a strong business tool as well.

Lori in the House!

As soon as you open the App you will be shown your previous activity and you are then greeted with an added bonus…a fun fact! Also, upon entering the App your friends will get a pop-up notification on their phone letting them know that you are there. “Lori’s in the house!” They can then choose to go join you.

A Party of Three (blurry action screen shot!)

As friends or co-workers join you in the house, the screen will continue to split. This gives me a chuckle every time as it reminds me of the Brady Bunch opening! If you notice the red banner at the bottom, it says that the room has been locked. This function closes the chat and no one else will be notified or allowed to enter. You activate the locking feature by clicking on the 3 dots you see in the bottom left corner of the photo above. This is needed, as everyone in your Houseparty contacts will get notified every time you enter the App. I would suggest you create a separate account for business and personal contacts. It is possible to turn off notifications though in your settings.

If you ever have any trouble or would like to give feedback simply shake your phone and select a prompt.

That’s the main tour of the house! It’s very user friendly and simple to navigate. I hope it brings you some great ‘face to face’ interactions.

Filed Under: Apps, Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go, Apps My Kids Use, News, Tips

posted on September 12, 2016 by Emme Rogers

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Prisma: Turning Photos Into Works of Art

Prisma-ing a photo of Alouette Lake.

If you have found yourself looking at all the artistic images that your friends have been sharing on social media the past few months and find yourself wishing you had such artistic talents too, I will let you in on a little secret … most of the beautiful artistic images circulating social media have been created with the aid of a mobile app, Prisma. Translation: you too can create some of these incredible works of art without attending art school.

Basically Prisma is a mobile app that provides filters to transform your photographs into works of art using the styles of famous artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Levitan, as well as world famous ornaments and patterns.

To use Prisma on your photos, once you’ve downloaded the app to your smartphone, simply open the app and select a photo from your camera roll or take a new photo, and then tap the different filters and watch each one transform your photo into a different work of art.

Take for example the preceding image that Lori took at Alouette Lake, by playing with it in Prisma, I transformed it into the following works of art …

Dream Filter

Waves Filter

Paper Art Filter

Coloured Sky Filter

Prisma Tips and Tricks

Prisma also allows you to manipulate the intensity of the filters by running your finger left (to increase the filter’s intensity) or right (to decrease the filter’s intensity).

If you want to see your original photo next to your new Prisma artwork, swipe downward with your finger on the image. Swiping back upwards with your finger on the image will restore just the Prisma artwork.

By clicking on the cog icon in the top corner, you can enable or disable Prisma to ‘save your original photos’ (those you take while using the app), ‘save your Prisma artwork automatically’, and ‘turn on/off the Prisma watermarks’ on your Prisma artwork.

You can also save your Prisma artwork right after creating it, by clicking on the downward arrow icon underneath the artwork after you create it, and/or share it directly to Instagram and/or Facebook by clicking on the Instagram and/or Facebook icons underneath your Prisma artwork.

Finally, if you wish to share the image elsewhere – to dropbox, via email, to Google+ or Twitter … etc – simply click on the upward arrow icon underneath your Prisma artwork.

Have fun creating … err … Prisma-ing!

Filed Under: Apps, Apps My Kids Use, News, Tips

posted on July 11, 2016 by Lori

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Nike Training: A Workout App to Keep You Active on the Road

Busy professionals and traveling storytellers are often on the road, which can disrupt attempts to remain loyal to a workout regime. This has happened to me too many times! I will get into a good groove of working out and then leave to travel, abandoning my trips to the gym only to have to start all over when I return. Being active is extremely important, especially when you spend a lot of time sitting behind a computer. I recently discovered the Nike+ Training Club App (NTC), and have resolved my workout commitment issues!

There are always at least 30 minutes in each day of your travel schedule that you could squeeze in one of the workouts right in your hotel room, or at a nearby park you might find. There are workouts as short as 15 minutes though, so there really are no excuses for not getting one in! I actually really like the style of the workouts as well. Most of them will have you do a particular exercise for about a minute straight and then move on, rather than a series of reps. You can sync your iTunes music to the workout as well, which makes it so much more fun!

Personalizing Your Experience

When you first use the App it will ask you a series of questions to help get you started. You can input how often you would like to workout and what you have access to. This includes whether or not you have any weights, or a yoga mat for example.

Deciding on Your Focus

You have the option to set up a plan for yourself where you would be using the Nike+ Training App at home, as well as on your travels for a period of 4-6 weeks. I have actually done this and found it really useful because as a working mom, getting to the gym is often a challenge. Working out around the house also allows your kids to see you being active and sets a good example. (In my case, it provides entertainment as they love to laugh at my struggles to keep up!)

Individual Themed Workouts

You also have the option to just select a single workout to do. You can peruse hundreds of them and pick one that fits into the amount of time you have and an area of your body you would like to focus on, even if you would just like to stretch. No excuses remember?!

A Glimpse Into the Breakdown of a Workout

In addition to the workouts, Nike offers community interaction, both digitally and in person. There is a feed within the App displaying current informative fitness blogs by Nike and another with featured hashtags to participate with. If you’d like to get out and meet new people, you can search up live classes led by Nike trainers taking place wherever you may be with the option to register for the class through the App.

NO EXCUSES!

Filed Under: Apps, Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go, News

posted on May 8, 2016 by Lori

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Quizlet ~ A Handy Study Tool

I’m past the point in parenting where I need to search and find tools to help my kids with their studying. They find innovative ways to help themselves! When I saw my daughter on her phone, I’m pretty sure I said something to the effect of, “Hey Missy! Shouldn’t you be studying?!” To which she gave me the stink eye and replied, “I am!” She has been preparing for her tests using an App called Quizlet.

Within Quizlet, you can create your own flashcards and then use them in a variety of ways to practice. I think this could be a great tool for any of us taking professional development courses.

You can create your own flashcards by entering the terms and definitions you are trying to study.

Once your flashcards are made you can study them in a variety of ways, but another great feature of this App is being able to search general topics and study off of flashcards and study sets other users have made.

If, for example, you search ‘Computers’, you will find a list of already made study cards to choose from.

Once you select a set of terms to learn you have the option to read through them all and learn the concepts. You can then practice in the variety of ways shown on the top tabs. These same methods are available to you within your own study sets that you create.

This is an example of one of the study games where you need to click on matching squares.

You can use the test mode as many times as you like until you feel confident. I regularly see my daughter running through terms on her phone in the backseat of the car on the way to school. You have the option to join the App as a teacher where you could create your own study sets for students of yours to use. They have even launched an interactive feature called Quizlet Live! This has been a great study tool in our house so I wanted to pass it along to you. No intentions of putting the cue card people out of business! If you have other go-to tools we’d love to hear about them as well.

Filed Under: Apps, Apps My Kids Use, News, Tips

posted on August 18, 2015 by Lori

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Nuzzle: A Social News Reader

Most of the time when we are using social media to engage with family, friends and followers, we don’t really want news stories or articles in general mixed in there. There are other times however, that we would just like to see those stories without other interactions intermingled. We have discovered an App for that! Meet Nuzzle, the social news reader.

Nuzzle provides a clean layout of news from your friends and people you follow on Facebook and Twitter. What you see then are blog posts and articles only, without any status updates. An ‘options’ tab provides you with the following viewing options :

News From Your Friends
News From Friends of Friends
News You May Have Missed
Recently Read Stories
Your Custom Feeds (lists you have made within Twitter)
Featured Feeds

You are also able to build a network within Nuzzle by finding and following friends within the App. If you select to receive it, Nuzzle will send you a daily digest to your email highlighting top stories! To make your own social sharing easier, Buffer, Pocket and Instapaper can be signed into on the App so you can share right from a story as you read it, or save it to be read later allowing you to enjoy the read without an internet connection.

This is a free App that offers a de-cluttered experience, which is always appreciated!

Filed Under: Apps, Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go, News, Tips

posted on March 9, 2015 by Lori

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Genius Scan: Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go

As someone who has a mobile office, I was initially unprepared for the amount of times I would receive ‘urgent’ requests for documents to be printed, signed and scanned back. There have also been times when paper sources of mine have had to be sent to someone immediately. Of course, as a working mom, and busy professional on the go, this most often happens when I am nowhere near a computer, printer or scanner! I have come across a couple Apps that have solved this dilemma for me: SignEasy; a Digital Signature App which I discussed in a previous post, and Genius Scan.

Genius Scan is exactly what its name suggests, a brilliant scanning tool! If you have a printed document that needs to be sent, but no scanner, this App give you the ability to take a photo of each page, make general enhancements and send it off! It will save each page into the same document so you don’t need to send each page off separately.

Cropping Your Document

After you take a photo of your document, a grid overlay comes up for you to crop and determine exactly which parts of your page to include. This is handy if you have smaller receipts where a lot of your table shows up in the photo.

Finishing Touches

Once you are finished cropping the page, the App enhances it for you. You have the option to select No Enhancement, Black and White, or Colour. Once you save the page and add any other pages to the same document file you can choose your format to send it in. I usually choose PDF and it gets sent off as a proper printable document, not like a photo you took and emailed off.

I have been using this App for a long time now and I believe there have been a few upgrades along the way providing an enhanced user experience with even more options than I have described above, and this App is free. As someone who is always juggling work and family, I have been extremely grateful for the time and headaches I’ve been able to avoid!

Filed Under: Apps, Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go, News, Tips

posted on February 13, 2015 by Lori

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Creating a Digital Signature with SignEasy

There have been countless times when I have received an email with a document that needs to be printed and signed then sent back ASAP. On numerous occasions this has been when I am nowhere near a computer, printer or scanner! I have come across a couple Apps that have solved this dilemma for me: SignEasy; a digital signature App, and Genius Scan (which I will discuss in my next post in ‘Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go’).

Within SignEasy, you enter and save your signature by writing it with your finger. You are then able to open a document directly from an email and insert your signature onto the appropriate page. You simply pinch the signature to shrink it to the right size and drag it to place it right on the line. The App also has the function to enter dates, addresses and other text formalities. There is an easy to follow tutorial which shows you how to digitally sign a document.

This is a sample document from within the App which shows the simplicity of the design and instruction.

When you enter your signature, you have a nice open screen to write it with your finger. You can see how you are able to select the ink colour you need.

Adjusting and Placing Your Signature

When your signature appears on your document you will need to shrink the size and move it to the appropriate spot. You can see from the choices at the bottom that you are also able to enter the date and any text that might be necessary for you to add within the document. After you select ‘Done’ you will have the option to share and send the document to the intended recipient.

I have been using this App for a long time now and I believe there have been a few upgrades along the way providing an enhanced user experience with even more options than I have described above, and this App is free. As a very busy working mom I have been extremely grateful for the time and headaches it has helped me to avoid!

Filed Under: Apps, Apps for the Busy Professional on the Go, News, Tips

posted on January 19, 2015 by Lori

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Flipagram: How To Make A Flipagram?

Thanks to The Cloud, new Apps show up on my phone all the time from the kids downloading them on their phones!

Flipagram: How To Make A Flipagram? This question has come up, as I have been watching and observing my teenagers’ online antics and I have learned an important lesson from them! It’s more important to come across as having fun and even looking goofy than it is to look good when posting to social sites. One avenue they have been using to express this is Flipagram. Flipagram is an App in which you create stories using pictures. It is an ideal vehicle for creating Vine posts, or saving to your camera roll to use on other sites, or even just to send to one or two particular people. Flipagram is a social sharing site within itself as well.

I have been enjoying giving my kids’ App choices a try and so thought I would make a little video introducing the idea that I will be sharing more throughout the year. Within this video you can see the Flipagram mini story I made myself with quite the silly intent, plus a tutorial on how to make Flipagram videos!

My apologies about the sound and video quality in this first video bite from Apps My Kids Use, I am new to creating these videos and still experimenting with how to best set them up.

Taking the photos to use was half the fun! We encourage you to give in to your creative side as well and make some photo storytelling magic.

Filed Under: Apps My Kids Use, News

posted on November 12, 2014 by Lori

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Instacollage : Apps My Kids Use

Instead of sharing a whole album of photos, I’ve noticed that my kids compile their favourite shots from an event and share them as just one photo collage. It’s something they’re always excited to do when we get home. They sit on the couch and go through all the pics we took, then go about creating their work of art. I actually like this process because, rather than mindlessly uploading everything all at once to an album, they spend a long time reminiscing about the day and then enjoy a period of creativity. The App they have come to love for this is Instacollage.

This is a free App, which actually provides a lot of options within it. You start by selecting the layout you want to use. This works best if you’ve already decided on how many photos you will be using. There are standard straight line options, as well as many other interesting shape combinations.

This is only a small sampling of options. If you swipe to the right while on this screen (which you can do several times), you will have even more to choose from.

Once you’ve chosen the layout the fun begins! You upload your chosen photos either one at a time or all at once. You can resize them and move them around. You can play around with background colours and add text or special effects! You pretty much have the option to change the colour of everything.

This is the beginning of a collage I’m thinking about making to showcase all the meals I’ve cooked with pumpkin so far this year!

Adding the finishing touches is the best part. There are multiple frames to outline your collage and the kids love the ‘stick’ feature which allows you to place fun and quirky stickers anywhere you like. Decision making has never really been my thing, so I spent quite a long time creating my first Instacollage!