Resource of the Week: Butterscotch.com
By Adrian Janes, DocuTicker UK Contributing Editor
It has become increasingly acknowledged that not everyone has the same learning style. Butterscotch is a website which, through many free video tutorials, instructs in the use of all kinds of hardware and software. Its visual emphasis also allows for a quick comparison between your computer or device and the tutorial. And of course the video can be replayed as many times as necessary.
The Tutorials section is tailored to accomplishing specific tasks or examining the possibilities of certain software. The presenters/narrators have a common style, concise and using everyday language. Topics that need to be covered in more depth are usually broken down into a series of short videos rather than one long one. The Tutorials section also shares with the Shows section (see below) the quality of there being something for everyone, no matter their level of technical knowledge. So at one end of the spectrum there is an Introduction to Flickr, and at the other, Syncing notes in the cloud with Evernote. And for the latest devices and software, there is a special channel of Breaking news tutorials.
The website is in part conceived as a TV channel as well. Thus alongside the Tutorials category, one of the main areas is Shows: there are currently 17 listed, each exploring a particular niche. Examples include:
60-Second App - Quick reviews of applications for mobile devices.
@ - Reviews of new products, many of which appear to be reports from trade shows (and thus some of their earliest public unveilings).
The Noob - A show with particular emphasis on explaining the essentials of the technology everyone supposedly knows about, in a lucid, friendly fashion. The episode What is Bluetooth? is a good example of the approach.
Although there is a Mobile tab on the Butterscotch home page, this in fact takes you to a related site, with no apparent link back to Butterscotch. Apart from this small problem, mobile.butterscotch is a further indication of how up-to-the-minute the contributors are. Unlike on the Butterscotch home page, here the breakdown is by specific device. This will doubtless expand in the future, but for now includes iPhone; iPad; Android; Blackberry; Palm OS; Windows Mobile; and Pocket PC. Within each category of device, there are these sub-categories :
Staff Picks
New
Popular
Free
Video
Be aware that the first three are essentially just brief descriptions with a commercial download link included. It is the Video tab which leads to related free instructional films for particular devices.
Butterscotch is part of the Tucows stable (or shed), so there is a link from the home page to the Tucows site, which specialises in downloads (whether commercial, shareware or free), but Butterscotch itself also conveniently provides a Freeware tab in any case.
The site is not only continually added to, ensuring its currency, but each part of it is archived as well. This adds up to a lot of information. Fortunately there is a straightforward search function which breaks down search results by various categories -- Shows; Tutorials; Shows & Tutorials; Articles; or Downloads. The latter two categories draw their content from the Tucows site.
All in all, great site for locating new developments, primers or refreshers in many aspects of using the Internet and computer-related technology in general.
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