Category: Technology Tips

If you are the Toastmaster, one of your jobs is to email everyone with a role to not only remind them of their role, but also to confirm their attendance. Turbobase allows you to do this with just a few steps. Sign in to Turbobase.Click on Meetings.Select List Meetings.Choose Email for the specific meeting. At … Continue reading Send Email About a Role

Setup a WordPress.com account.Let Tom Terrific know so he can set you up as an Editor.Sign into the SouthCountyToastmasters.WordPress.com site, click on the Write icon. 4. Type in the title. 5. Add a picture if desired as the first item. 6. Type in text 7. Under Post - click and choose the Category. 8. Preview … Continue reading Writing for the Club Website

Pinning a speaker, selects that person for you personally. It does not have any effect for other people in the meeting. Pinning is probably the preferred way to select a person since it only shows up on your computer. In person meeting leaders at Sunset Hills can PIN the current on location speaker so that … Continue reading Zoom – Pin Options

If you are a Zoom participant, most times when you SHARE a PowerPoint File, it takes over the entire screen and the speaker is relegated to a tiny box up near the top. Here's a tip on how to show your program, but also allow your audience to get a clear view of your face. … Continue reading Zoom – PowerPoint as Virtual Background

Since our club is doing a combination of In-Person and Zoom meetings every Wednesday, below is a great video from District 8 on room setup. The equipment they use is a bit different than ours, but the basic concepts are the same. The Owl pro which we are buying will replace two webcams, a microphone … Continue reading Hybrid Meetings

As we tread into new territory of participating in online meetings, we don't have to stop giving our speakers feedback.  You can leave feedback for any member, any time in Base Camp.  Following is a short video to walk you through the process:  Post Feedback for a Member in Pathways

The Zoom.us basic account is free, but is limited to 40 minutes when you have a crowd. Apparently, what some groups do is have a 40 minute meeting and then after that meeting is done, they have a second meeting. I installed it on my Chromebook from the Google Play store. It should also work on other … Continue reading Zoom Video Conference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt6jPaYn7dw Also please checkout my list of tips - https://southcountytoastmasters.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/how-to-use-a-microphone/

If you want good audio in your video, the rule is the closer the better. If you double the distance between the speaker and the recorder, then the audio will only be 1/4 the volume. What brought this to mind is that we have visited this same problem many years ago in the same room. … Continue reading Audio for Your Video

Be Prepared - Always Bring Adapters  A recent speaker could not get his Power Point video to play on the provided speaker's laptop. He was using a recent version of Power Point and the laptop had an older version. Note - video is always tricky and not guaranteed to work on other computers. He had … Continue reading Always Bring Adapters

If you use your own computer to create a Power Point file, just move your Power Point file onto a thumb drive and we'll copy it over to the clubs computer. It's usually easier to run the file directly from the laptop. Make sure the file has a .pptx format. If it's just pictures, then … Continue reading Using a Power Point File on the Club’s Projector

When talking in front of your own local Toastmaster group, you probably won't have any questions about A/V setup, but when you go to an outside group it will pay to get your questions answered before you step up to speak. Here are a few items to check ahead of time.   Audio Can you play … Continue reading Audio-Video Etc. Checklist

The 21 Commandments of Mr. Mike Row Phone I'd like to introduce a friend of mine to you, Mr. Mike Row Phone. Mr. Mike can be your best friend or he can be your worst nightmare. To illustrate that point, I once attended a presentation at a local hospital with my wife. It was held in … Continue reading How to Use a Microphone

Here are a few tips on re-sizing graphics for Power Point. Many new cameras can take pictures that are 8 mb or more. That's equal to 8192 kb. It's not a good idea to directly import those gigantic files into Power Point. If you do the math, a 100 slides with those large files quickly … Continue reading Graphic Sizes in Power Point

Listed are the User Guides for our new sound system. Behringer Speaker Amplifier, Brochure Behringer Speaker Amplifier, Quick Start Guide Shure Microphone VP64

I was literally the last chair in the back of the room at our last Toastmaster meeting and one of the things I noticed was that presenters didn't use the whole screen for their Power Point pictures. In some cases they even put three smaller pictures together on one screen.  This made it very hard … Continue reading Graphics in Power Point – Make them BIG!

One of the questions asked me last night was, "Can I use my SD card again to record a speech if it already has a speech one it?" The answer is this. You can continue using the SD card at the club to record your videos until it fills up.  An 8gb SD card that … Continue reading SD Cards for Video

  These days, even inexpensive cameras can take great pictures, but I frequently see pictures on a blog or power point which could really use some help. Here are my top ten tips to taking the best picture possible and then making it the best for your blog or power point presentation. 1. Camera Settings … Continue reading Top Ten Basic Photo Tips for Blogs and Power Point

I was at a recent presentation where just after the speaker was introduced, his laptop went into "sleep" mode. It took the presenter a couple of minutes to get the laptop going again and it certainly interrupted the beginning of his presentation. Caffeine from ZhornSoftware.co.uk is one program that simulates a keystroke every 59 seconds. … Continue reading How to Keep Your Laptop from Going to Sleep

If you are the camcorder operator, it's good to check the audio volume just in case someone has been playing with the buttons and changed the settings. Here is how to do that. The first thing to do after you turn on the camera is to click on the HOME button on the camcorder. This … Continue reading How to Adjust the Audio Level

Thanks to Steve W. for the great job taking this video. If your club has a video camera to record speeches here are some tips to make your video as good as possible. Arrive early. Setup the camera and practice ahead of time. Look at the instructions before you come to the meeting. Get the … Continue reading Video Tips for Toastmasters

Recently a club member brought her Power Point show to a meeting and while the show played fine, the audio which was part of the show did not play. I also had a show that needed video as part of the show and I had to do some research on how to make it work. … Continue reading Putting Power Point on a USB Thumb Drive

Here is the new video camera the club purchased. You will need an SD card with a speed class of 4, 6, or 10. The red arrow points to where you will see the speed class. A 4gb card will last 55 minutes at high quality. Information from Canon While the instruction manual is 223 … Continue reading New Video Camera – Canon VIXIA HF R30

If you're looking for a wireless remote, consider the Logitech Wireless Presenter R400. Bill C uses this and it's simplicity and small size appealed to me and at $40 it's inexpensive. There is a R800 model which sells for twice the price, but it also has twice the range. The R400 has a range of … Continue reading Remote Mouse for Power Point

I was practicing a speech and noticed that the projector screen picture looked fuzzy and I couldn't get a clear picture. What I discovered was that I needed to set the laptop resolution to the resolution of the projector. The resolution of my laptop is 1200x800 while the resolution of the projector is 1024x768. When … Continue reading Screen Resolution with a Projector

Under Adam's leadership, the club has purchased a netbook computer and projector for use at club meetings. The computer has Power Point installed. All you need to do is bring your own personal presentation to the club on a thumb drive or SD card. The system does come with a remote you can use to … Continue reading New Computer and Projector

I've come to realize that not everyone has Power Point on their computer. Here's an easy solution - Google Docs. Just setup an account and you can create Power Point programs and save download them to your computer. Here is a slide show I made using Google Docs.  GoogleDocs-PowerPoint

A feature which our club video camera has is the ability to take photos. Ideally, the VP of Membership and/or PR would bring a camera to take pictures of our new members and awards, but if they forget, anyone can use the video camera to take pictures. Here are the directions:

When your using the camera in the Toastmaster setting, here are a few basic tips to produce a better video. Turn on all the lights. You want as much light as possible. There is a control in the back of the room to do this. Many times we have a meeting with less than optimal … Continue reading Video Tips for Speeches

Lynda. com has a great Power Point course called "Graphic Secrets for Business Professionals." In actuality, it should be used by everyone planning on giving a Power Point presentation.  For the cost of one book, $25.00 per month, Lynda.com has not only this tutorial, but hundreds more. It's well worth the money.