Add Video to your Blog

Blogger and Google Photos

We use Blogger to make our Blog, and adding video is quite easy. If you took the video with your smartphone or tablet, and you use Google Photos to upload that video to your Google account, it’s as simple as 1-2-3:

1. clicking the Insert Video button on the toolbar:
2. Choose “From Your Phone” (this doesn’t mean directly from your phone! It assumes you have your phone’s photos and videos backed up to your Google Photos)
3. Click the video you want and click Select

Blogger and Youtube

Every method of displaying video is subject to some quirks and problems. Since Youtube is the biggest provider of video worldwide, we find it has the least problems. Therefore we recommend uploading your videos to your Youtube account and using that for your blog. What’s that? You say you don’t have a Youtube account? If you have a Google account (a __@gmail.com address), then you have a Youtube account! If you really don’t, then it’s easy and free to get a Google account. Just go to Accounts.Google.com and click “Create Account.”

Upload to Youtube: go to YouTube.com and make sure you are logged in with the account you want to use for your videos (it should be the same as you use for your photos.) Click the Upload button in the upper right corner of the screen. Now you’ll have two choices

1. Upload from your Computer
   
2. Import from Google Photos
   

Insert into Blog: Here also you have two choices, the super simple way is to use the Import from “My Youtube Videos.” The other way is to view the video in Youtube, click the Share button and then Embed – here you have some options if you click on “Show More” right below the video preview.

This shows you some HTML code, copy that code and paste it into the HTML view of your Blog. That’s it! When you publish your Blog, you will see your video.

This article is by Chris Guld, of GeeksOnTour.com. To learn more about this and many other programs of use to travelers, visit her website and consider becoming a member in order to view all the tutorial videos. Here are some tutorial videos that go into more detail. You must be a Geeks on Tour premium member to view them.

• blog32.Uploading Video to Youtube #262
• blog33.Insert Video in Blog #264

Preserving your Travels with Blogs and Photo Albums in the Cloud.

If you love traveling like we do, you want some easy way to hold on to the memories.  Years ago I kept large binders of photo albums and other books of journals.  They can get lost or destroyed, and they take up too much space.

Even before we bought an RV and adopted the vagabond lifestyle, we started a Blog.  I’ve always been a journal writer, this is just the easiest way to keep a journal in today’s digital world.

I would keep this blog even if no one else ever read it.  It is my journal.  I love going back to previous entries and remembering some part of our journey.  In the beginning I even set the security so that no one could see the blog except me and a couple other family and friends.  Now I have it set to public so anyone can see it.  We’ve made new friends along our way because it is so easy for them to get to know us, and keep track of us with the blog,  One of the features of a blog is the ability for a reader to leave a comment, making it a two way communication.  And, if I ever did want a book, that is easily accomplished with web services like Blog2Print.com.

In each blog post I write some narrative about where we are and what we’re doing.  I also include pictures, maps, and links to other websites such as the RV park where we’re staying.  This becomes an invaluable resource for us when we find ourselves returning to some area where we’ve been before.

Blogging is very popular among RVers.  You can see a list of hundreds of RVing blogs at HitchItch.com.

Web-Based Photo Albums

But what if you don’t like to write?  You just want a photo album.  Well, we keep a photo album also.  We’ve been using Picasa Web Albums since we started RVing in 2004.  It is now transitioning into Google+ Photos, but all of my albums are still there. 

Edit your Pictures First. The main reason we use Picasa Web Albums is because we use the Picasa desktop software to manage all the pictures on our computer.  For example, so far this month (May, 2013), as we’ve traveled from Florida to Colorado, we’ve accumulated 629 pictures in this month’s folder on my computer.  I use Picasa to work with them there. I spend a few minutes every day going thru my pictures with Picasa and making them look better with a little bit of cropping and some color correction, maybe a frame, and definitely a caption.

Upload your Best. The pictures I like the most, I upload to Google+ Photos (what used to be Picasa Web Albums.)  Picasa makes this drop-dead simple. just click on the pictures you want to upload and then click the button “Share on Google+.”  Of the 629 pictures in the May folder on my computer, I’ve uploaded 181 of them.   Then, I use the pictures on Google+ Photos to include in my blog posts.  I don’t have to upload them separately to the blog, I just use the “Insert Photo from the Web” command.  I count roughly 79 pictures used in the blog during May so far.  The web space for your pictures is provided for free by Google.

So, if you had no interest in reading or writing blog posts, you can just skip the blogging part altogether and just use the Web Album.  You can see our May 2013 web album, click on the first picture to see it full screen, and even click “Slideshow” to watch all 181 of them play automatically.  You should notice the captions to the right of every picture, and even a space where you can leave a comment as well.

Print a Photo Book: There are lots of services which will take your digital photo albums and turn them into 4-color books.  In fact, using Picasa on your computer, there is a command on the File menu called Order Prints that will take all the pictures you’ve selected and send them to a service that will print your book.  All you have to do is pay for it!

Pictures and Blogs are two of the main topics we (Geeks On Tour) teach.  We make tutorial videos in 5 minute segments and have produced several hours worth of training on how to make a Blog using Blogger.com, and how to manage your pictures using Picasa. You can go to our Learning Library right now.  Just pick your topic and learning by watching videos.  After the first 3, you will need a username and password. 

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

If You Travel and Don’t Blog About it, Did it Ever Really Happen?

I Love travel blogs!  Want to know what it’s really like to RV in Alaska?  Check out Gundyville’s Blog or Dennis and Carol’s Blog.   How about staying in an RV in Mexico for months, even years?  Just take a look at George and Tioga’s Blog.  Do you keep a blog (an online journal) as you travel?  If so, you might be listed in HitchItch.com along with nearly 200 others.  If you want to learn all about life as a non-retired fulltime RVer, and get a laugh in the process, then follow the daily blog of Nick Russell and the Gypsy Journal.

Our Blog is Our Memory

We’ve been fulltime RVers since 2003, and I simply cannot imagine being without our blog!  So many times we have a question like “Where did we spend our anniversary in 2004?” or “I want to see the pictures from our day on Mackinac Island”  or “How many Presidential Libraries have we visited?”   All these questions can be so easily answered by our blog.

• Where did we spend our anniversary in 2004?  This is the easiest question to answer with a blog because every entry is automatically archived by date, so as long as I know that our anniversary is in July, I can view the Blog Archive (see the image at right), expand 2004 then expand July and I can see the entry I wrote about our anniversary.
• I want to see the pictures from our day on Mackinac Island.  To handle that, I use the Search feature and typed in “Mackinac.” It searches every word of all 1,500 posts and, in a fraction of a second, it comes up with a link to the post I wrote on that day.  Blogger is Google after all – search is their thing!
  
• How many Presidential Libraries have we visited?  Presidential Libraries are on our List!  We wanted to visit them all and I believe we have.  How can I prove it?  With the Blog of course.  Each time we visit a Presidential Library I write a post about it and attach a Label for Presidential Library.  So now, I can view the list of all my Labels, click on Presidential Library and instantly see all the blog posts over the years where we’ve visited Presidential Libraries.
  

Holes in the Blog

We are now in our 10th year of Fulltime RVing and I’m getting a bit lazy with the Blog.  I never have been one to write every day, but we’ve been so busy this summer that whole weeks have gone by without a post!  Facebook is another culprit – because it’s so quick and easy to post a picture, or a few words – I do that, and neglect adding anything to the Blog.  I like Facebook a lot, but the Blog is our foundation.  If it’s not in the Blog, I’m likely to forget it ever happened! 

Do you Have a Blog?

We give seminars at RV Rallies entitled “Every RVer Needs a Blog.”  We really believe that!  So many people would love to live the RV Lifestyle, we think it’s downright stingy not to share it.  But,even if you don’t  share it, having a blog is the easiest way to keep your own journal with text and pictures that you can reference anytime.  You can even make it into a coffee table book to enjoy without a computer!  If you want to learn how to make a blog, you will find tutorial videos at GeeksOnTour.tv

What about you?  Do you have a Blog?  Or do you just use Facebook, or photo albums?  If you have a blog you’d like to share, leave the address in a comment here.

 

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as using smartphones, managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.