I've been real busy over the past week. All of the videos and handbooks have been full recompiled and are now compatible with Vista - plus I've had several bugs to fix since I first recompiled them a week ago.
One of the things I did with the new recompile (since I had to update all of the videos anyway) was to make the Amicron Video Player a separate piece of software with some cool features - instead of just a fancy package for Windows Media Player.
Now, when you're watching a class in the Video Player, a sidebar will pop up with a little web browser in it, taking you to a "students-only" page on the web site dedicated to just that class and lesson (if you're online, of course - if not, you won't see anything).
Why did I do this? Well, right now, there's not a whole lot there... but in the coming weeks, I plan to add some additional functionality such as custom help pages for each lesson, a discussion page where you (the students) can post questions about the lesson you're viewing - and read answers from me. A lot of students ask me questions like, "in Access 201, lesson 4, you said this... what did you mean?" Well now I can post it right there on a web page that other students will see while they're watching that lesson! This is the true meaning of interactive learning.
Plus, I can put links to sample files, help pages, additional information, other videos, and all kinds of stuff right in those student pages. If you haven't yet downloaded the Amicron Video Player, do it. It's really cool. From now on, whenever you go to download any new courses, you'll see the Video Player as the first download on the list. Install that first and then continue to install your courses.
What's funny is that I only started tinkering with the Video Player because I had to sit around and wait for hours while the videos recompiled (it's impossible to record tutorials while that's going on - slows the machine down too much, and my other PCs aren't good enough to do either on). See how side projects can actually turn out to be revolutionary!
19 years ago
