The app that I would like to demo for you today is called Chirp. Chirp Audiobooks is a great service that offers you the chance to get discounted audiobooks with no strings attached, no commitments, no subscription. It's really cool. One of my students told me about Chirp, and I found some books there that I couldn't find anywhere else. And I'd like to take you on a little tour of this app. And I'm actually going to show Android a little love today because I'm going to start with that version of the app first and then show you the differences between the Android version and the iOS version. So first, a little bit about the Chirp audiobooks platform. You can find them@chirpbooks.com that's C Dash R Dash P dashbooks.com. and this service is available in the US and Canada. So sorry, UK. I hope they come to you. It sounds like something you would enjoy. And as I mentioned earlier, there are no subscriptions or commitments, and you can find books up to 95% discount, which is really cool. And one of the questions on the website was, how do you, you know, how can they justify that? Or how can they make that work? Well, publishers really want to get their books out there, and they'll find different ways to promote these books for a short length of time. And you can get an email update with the new books that are being released and the ones that are being featured. There are also a lot of free public domain books up there as well. And I also found a John Grisham book up there for free. Now, I'm sure that's not public domain. I'm not sure how that one wound up there, but it's there. So you purchase books from the website and they're added to your account, and then ways you can read the books include, as I mentioned earlier, an Android and an iOS version of the app that's completely accessible. And also, apparently, the A lady has a skill to play the books as well. And I was excited to find some books that I could not find on bookshare. So I would like to walk you through the app a little bit and show you how it works. What the differences are between the two versions of the app. Tell you about one unfortunate glitch with the Android app that there is a workaround for, but that you, you know, you can write the developer and ask them to fix things, which I'm going to do. And so anyway, we're going to start with the Android app. And so I have the library screen pulled up here.
Search library button.
Okay, so there is a way to.
Search your library filter library button.
Lots of ways to filter. And so we'll just explore or tab.
Selected, one of four in list, four in red tab two of four.
So so far we've all, and in.
Red in progress tab three or four. Finished tab four of four.
And also you can sort your books. You can sort them a to z. You can sort like the newest ones and such. And so there are ways to, to sort your books as well.
A confederate girls diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson. And read enlist.
Okay, so I have these sorted alphabetically. So the one that starts with a a confederate girls diary. And so what happens with this screen is that if you drag your finger down on the right hand side, you're.
Going to open book actions button.
Come to this open book actions menu, and that is going to give us some results. If you swipe right with one finger and you don't drag down the right hand side, you might miss something or get your focus disturbed, you know, out of focus. So it's better to drag your finger down the right hand side.
Finished tab four of four. Enlist for open book actions button. A Confederate Girls diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson and open book actions button. Character by Marjorie Garber. An open book actions character by Marjorie. Open book actions button. History myths exploded by Jeff Webb and Christopher R. Fee. Open book actions button. His progress bar. History of the Supreme Court by Timothy S. Hubner. 1% complete.
Okay, so the open book actions button is before the title, and then there is the title. So if I were to open book.
Actions settings, tap two of two in list, two items.
Okay, the focus is at the bottom of the screen now instead of at the top. So we're going to touch the top of the screen.
More info about history of the Supreme Court by Timothy S. Hubner. Out of list.
Okay, so there's my more info.
Chapters, chapters, bookmarks, more info. Add a review share audiobook download Markus in red markus finished archive having audio issues. Check out these troubleshooting tips.
Okay, so you have everything from more info about the book to sharing it to if you're having audio issues and that sort of thing, there is the option to get some troubleshooting tips. So those are the types of things that are involved on that screen. And below that is the title of the book. And there are some controls as well. So if I touch near the bottom of the screen.
Now playing history of the Supreme Court, lecture one, origins in early history of the court.
Okay, so there we have our title. If I were to swipe left just so you can see what's here.
Progress bar 2% okay, so that's how far I've been check out these troubleshooting tips.
So the troubleshooting tips. And then we have the progress.
Check out these troubleshooting the progress bar. Now playing history of this jump back 15 seconds button.
Okay, so even on your library screen and on this book actions menu, you've got the little mini player at the.
Bottom toggle playback button.
The toggle playback is going to be your play pause option. And so that we can be on the up and up and not play an audiobook that's not in the public domain, we won't start playing the book.
But just so you know, my library tab one of two in the there.
Are two tabs at the bottom, my.
Library and settings tab, two of two settings.
Okay, so those are the things that are involved with this. And so if I were to go to the playing screen, you are going to find more ways to jump with around in the book. So there is so much that we can find here. On the main playing screen, we've got.
The more info about history of the Supreme Court by Timothy S. Hudner okay.
And then if I move to the.
Right chapters, bookmarks more info add a review share audiobook download markus in red Markus finished.
Okay.
Archive there's more. Having audio issues.
Here's our troubleshooting section.
Check out these troubleshooting tips.
Okay, and that should be the last item on this screen.
Progress bar 3% so now we have.
That little mini player at the bottom. Just telling me how far that I've gotten, which we've seen before.
Now playing history of the Supreme Court lecture one origins in early history of the court jump back 15 seconds button toggle playback button there's our toggle playback.
That acts as a pause play button.
My library tab one of two and.
Here'S the bottom of the screen that.
Contains the library settings tab, two of.
Two and the settings. So there are quite a number of things that you can do on the main playing screen. Let's go ahead and go to the settings screen.
My library settings settings selected and here.
Are a few things we can have here.
Archive dark mode control when the app enters dark mode let me make sure.
I'm at the top here.
Notification downloads settings okay downloads control automatic downloads and archiving control what notifications you receive. Dark mode control when the app enters dark mode archived audiobooks, faqs and support contact us delete my account terms of service Privacy Policy acknowledgements sender logs sign out version five 9.0 and progress bar 3%.
Okay, so as you notice, there are quite a number of settings and things that you can customize in terms of how the app looks visually about the downloads and also some support options. And of course at the bottom of the screen there is the little mini player.
My now playing history of the Supreme Court lecture one, Origins jumpback 15, 2nd toggle playback button and so forth.
So there are quite a number of options above regarding the settings, but you still have your little player screen. So at any time, whatever part of the app you're in, you can play your book. So the only other thing to say about the Android version is that there is a little glitch that's pretty annoying that I really do hope that they fix what happens when you start to play a book. Unfortunately, there might be a little type of animation on the screen perhaps, and what you hear is talk back saying chirp chirp chirp chirp. Not what you want to hear along with your audiobook. You know, it's fine that the little animation is probably the little yellow bird that they have as part of their logo, but we don't need to hear it chirping every second. So I'm planning on emailing the developer and letting them know that really we need to fix that. The iOS version does not do that by the way, and that's what we're going to explore next. So here I am on the library.
Screen, my library sort and filter library button image a blue logo on a white background.
Okay, so we have complete with description.
Of the logo search my library button image a blue selected tap and here.
Are the tabs that we heard before.
Unread tap in progress tap finished tap.
All right, and so then I should hear my library coming up pretty soon.
Open secondary menu for history of the Supreme Court button image a group of gray circles against a white background more.
Okay so here is the menu button. So what this is going to be is it's going to be the same as the open book actions button and but we're going to hear about a menu button. So when we do that open secondary.
Menu for go back button image now we're going to go on a white background history of the Supreme Court by Timothy as select a chapter so this.
A little bit different verbiage view your.
Bookmarks learn more about this audiobook add review for this audiobook share audiobook download.
This audiobook so you're listening to them, you know, online basically, and so you could download it to listen offline or if you were on a plane or something and you wouldn't have to depend on Internet service.
Mark audiobook is finished. Marc audiobook is unread. Archive this audiobook having audio issues. Check out these troubleshooting tips. So there are troubleshooting tips selected navigate.
To library button okay, and so here's the bottom of the screen that we had before, which was library and settings.
Navigate to settings button.
So basically the app is similar. It does not have the glitch chirp repetition while the book is playing. A few things are tagged differently in terms of their labels, but basically both apps have the little mini player at the bottom of the screen no matter where you are, and both apps have the great big player screen that has all the options, so you will find it highly accessible. So there you have it. Chirp audiobooks so chirpbooks.com is where you want to go. If you want to check these out, either free ones or highly discounted books, you'll find things that you probably won't find many other places. And so let us know what you think of this and feel free to keep in touch.
Since windows ten, there's been a powerful multitasking feature that I've been super happy with, and hopefully by the end of this tip you'll get value out of it as well and explore it for your needs. When you first log into Windows and you use the keystroke Windows key D or Windows key M if that's the way you prefer to go, you typically are told if you're using a screen reader that you're on the desktop and it's called desktop one. Now at first I'm like, I don't understand what this is until someone blew my mind with virtual desktops. So from your desktop, if you press control Windows D, you'll create a second desktop and the title of that will be desktop two. We'll talk about renaming those and organizing them in a minute. This allows you the ability to control the alt tab order that your applications show up in. So for example, when I'm working for at guys, I might want a Google Drive folder open and edge and Outlook and slack. I don't need slack or the Google Drive folder open when I'm working on payone media items. So in my payone media desktop I may have Outlook open, Firefox Open, and Reaper. When pressing alt tab, I don't want to have to jump past Firefox and Reaper while working with at guys because that's just extra alt tabs that need to be pressed in order to get to where I need to be. So I've set up an at guys desktop and a payone media desktop, and I control the applications that appear in my Alt tab order. If you open up your desktop one and you open the applications you want to show on that desktop, for example, edge Slack, Google Drive folder, and Outlook, and then you switch to desktop two. Then you can open Reaper and Firefox from your desktop. Pressing control Windows D will activate a new desktop and pressing Ctrl windows left and right arrow keys will let you navigate between those desktops again from the desktop. When you're on a specific desktop that has certain applications open, pressing Alt tab will cycle only between those applications and not between all of your running applications. Now let's say you forget, is desktop one at guys, or payone media? You can actually rename your desktops with a keystroke Windows key tab. Pressing Windows key tab will put you in a list of your desktops, and you can hit f two on the desktop, and that'll put you in an edit field. And then you can give your desktops a name. For example, desktop one is named Payone Media. So I pressed Windows key tab, found desktop one, tapped f two. This put me in edit field, typed in payone media, and hit enter. Locate a desktop two, tapped f two, put in at guys, and hit enter, and then pressing Windows key d would instead of saying desktop one, say payone media, and then pressing control windows right arrow instead of saying desktop two, would say at dies. Now let's say there's an application, outlook, for example, that you want to show up on all of your desktops. If you press Windows key tab and then locate the Outlook application, pressing shift f ten will bring a context menu up that allows you to mark that application to be persistent across all virtual desktops. That way, when you press control windows left arrow and now you're back on payone media, pressing alt tab will include Firefox, Reaper, and Outlook, and pressing control windows right arrow from the desktop will take you back to at guys, and pressing alt Tab will include edge, slack, Google Drive folder, and Outlook. If you need to close a desktop and you no longer want that desktop open, press Windows key d and this will take you to the desktop. Locate the desktop you'd like to close with either control windows left and right arrow key or by pressing Windows key tab. And if you use the Windows key tab, press shift f ten and then choose close desktop. Or what I find to be a lot faster is to use Windows key d. Locate the desktop, press Windows key control f four, and that will close the desktop. One caveat to this amazing tip is that the Windows desktops do not, at least not that I've found, appear to be persistent. So therefore, when you restart your computer, you'll likely have to reset up your desktops, but the virtual desktops stay there. So what that means is you'll have to set up the applications that you want open on each desktop. But whenever I start up my windows computer, I have payone media in desktop one space and at guys in desktop two space, and I don't have to recreate those virtual desktops. There's a way to keep your desktops a little more organized when using your alt tab keystrokes on Windows ten and eleven. Enjoy.
Hey y'all. Marty here. Today I'm going to talk with you about the tech pouch from peak designs. I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person that runs around trying to remember this cable, remember that cable, remember this adapter, remember that adapter? On and on. So it gets pretty disorganized and typically it happens at the last minute. So this peak designs tech pouch solves that problem for me. I put everything I need in it. It's got a spot for extra microphones, it's got a spot for cables, it's got zip up pouches, it's got big pouches, small pockets. It's got everything you can imagine, and it's in a pretty small form factor as well. Once I make sure that I get everything in there, I can move it around from bag to bag real easily. I can just take that if I want to. I can keep it close by if I need to reach in and grab a cable or something else for that matter, extra of earbuds, anything like that. This thing is super versatile. And the fact that it's got pockets of all sizes, it's even got a pocket on the outside with a zipper. If you want to put something in there that's important that you want to access right away without having to actually unzip the main pocket and go into the main pouch. Like if you're traveling and you want to just stick your airpods in there or any kind of earbuds or maybe just a quick cable to pull out really fast. So it's really awesome that it has this outside zip pocket on the inside. You've got small pockets, you've got big pockets, you've got zip up, you've got all kinds of everything. So it's got plenty of space, way more than it actually even looks like you can put in it. You can put a ton of stuff in it. And it comes in multicolors, so there's a multitude of colors you can choose from if you want to get it in a specific color. And this thing is just super awesome to keep you organized, to keep in your go bag and have all the necessities you would need to have with you on the go. So I highly recommend this. It's from peak designs. It's called the tech pouch. It's at about $50, so it's premium. It's really good quality zippers, really good quality materials, and awesome for your daily carry and or even if you're traveling for long periods of time. You can just fit a ton of stuff in this thing, and it's super versatile. And there you go. So check it out and enjoy.