Don't worry! help is at hand...
General
What is capsool, usage limits, profile, accounts and much more ...
Capsooling
Creating a capsool, editing, viewing and capsool types.
Your Capsool
Homepage, capsools, timeline, tags, world, sooleys
Media Centre
Uploading, deleting and editing, 3rd party content. Also capturing your own content.
Discovery
The public timeline, tag cloud, map and beacon.
Event Capsools
What are they? How do I contribute?
Mega Sools
Why are mega sools special!? how do I get one?
General
What is capsool?
Capsool is a site that enables you to manipulate time and communication across the Internet. Send rich media messages to your friends, family and future in capsools that are designed to be opened when you want them to be.
Send a message, now, to your husband to be opened on your anniversary in 6 months time. Send a message, now, to your child for their eighteenth birthday in 6 years time.
You get the picture.
Logging in and out
Enter your user name and password in the fields to log in. Logging out is equally simple, just click on the sign out link!
Forgotten Password?
Click on the "forgotten password" link on the homepage. You'll be prompted to enter your username or your email address.
After that, your secret question will be displayed - answer it and click on "Reset Password". You will be emailed a new password to the email address you have registered.
Don't forget to change your password once you have signed in!
Your Account
Use the "your account" link to edit the basic details of your capsool account.
You can change your password and secret question/answer combination on this page. When you change your password you will receive a confirmation email.
PLEASE DO NOT USE!! Also, this page tells you how many capsool invitations you have left and who you have sent them to. Simply add an email address and click invite - your friend will be emailed a unique code allowing them to join capsool.
Your Profile
If you click on your avatar in the top right hand corner of the page you will be taken to the "Your Profile" page.
From here you can change the following details:
Avatar -
You can add a photo or image to represent yourself by clicking on sooley in
the top right (nb. Right) of your profile page.
Address -
your postcode is used to provide a starting point on the capsool map.
Date Of Birth -
this ensures that you have access to appropriate content on capsool. If you
are under 18 you will not be able to see restricted content.
Email address -
used to provide notifications when your receive capsools and comments.
Timezone -
The timezone is used to ensure that capsools open at the appropriate time
where you are.
Flickr ID -
if you have a Flickr account you can authenticate to it and bring in your
Flickr content for use in Capsools. (TO BE IMPLEMENTED)
Other Settings -
You can determine whether you receive emails when a comment is received on one
of your capsools, whether your profile is publicly visible and whether your
capsools should beacon.
Account Types
You can have either a free or paid account. This means little at the moment...so don't worry about it.
Usage Limits
Sool Year purchasers have a media centre of 3Gb & can upload 1Gb per month. Free use is restricted to 1Gb media centre and 100Mb per month.
Sooley
Sooley is the world's greatest time-traveller. Sooley carries emotions into the future. Use Sooley to tag your content with an emotion. Or don't use sooley: it is up to you.
Capsooling
Creating a capsool
It is a simple three step process. In the first step, you do the basics i.e. set dates, recipients and other details. In the second step, you bring all your content together. In the third step you review and confirm.
In more detail
Create 01 (Do the basics): Here you get to set up the capsool addresses
and description.
- You need to give it a title
- You need to give it a description
- You can choose to give it an email address and say who it is for.
- You need to give it an opening date. The capsool will be kept locked until the date you specify.
Create 02 (Compose Your Content).
- You can choose content from your hard-drive, from the web (Yahoo, Flickr or Photobucket) or, if you have a web-cam, you can create it there and then.
- You need to choose one item and set it as your capsool preview. This will be viewable from the public timeline by everyone who clicks on it.
- Each item of content can be described separately and given its own date and sool tag. If you do this, the details will enhance the presentation seen by your recipient.
- You have the option of giving it a sooley tag i.e. an emotion label depicted by sooley.
- You have the option of giving it other tags i.e. labels that you choose that describe its contents.
- You have some notification options that you can alter if you want. You can choose when to notify recipients of the existence of a capsool.
- Geolocation. Is there a place in the world that is most associated with your capsool? You can mark it here.
- You can also set up access for the public at large if you want. This can allow people to see the contents of your capsool before it is closed, if you want them to. You can also allow them to see the contents after it is opened (i.e. in the future), if you want them to.
- Finally, if you want, you can set capsool to conceal its contents even from yourself. Choosing 'hide content' means that you won't see the content in your media centre.
- You can set a soundtrack.
Create 03 (Review)
- This is your chance to check and change any details that you set up before you send to the future.
Editing an existing capsool
All the capsools that you create are kept in your "created" folder. You can retrieve them there and add or amend content. Once they have been closed, and dispatched, they are moved to your 'sent' folder. They cannot now be edited unless you recover them first.
Viewing a capsool
A capsool can be viewed as a presentation. Just click play when the presentation has loaded. You can also view a capsool as a mosaic. This gives you individual access to each item of content in it. You can also view a capsool as a timeline. This uses the dates attached to each media item to build the timeline display.
Types of Capsool
Standard capsools and remote capsools.
Your Capsool
Your Homepage
Whenever you are logged into capsool you can always return to your personal homepage. Just click the capsool logo in the top left corner, or the capsool link in the menu to get back to it.
Your homepage shows you all the details about your activity in capsool and you can also quickly create new content or capsools.
Search
Use the search box to search the entire capsool system or a filtered set of it.
Created
This area shows you the capsools that have been created by you, but not yet sent or placed into the system
You can still edit any capsool that is shown here. Click on Edit Details to change the basic details of the capsool (title, description, date etc) or Add more content to continue building the capsool.
If you want to delete this capsool just click the delete link. Any content you had in it will be released but not deleted.
The page will only show you the latest 5 capsools that are in the build process. If you want to see all the capsools that you are currently building, click on View All.
Sent
Sent shows you the last 5 capsools you sent. From here you can view the capsools or recover them.
Recovering a capsool will bring it back from the timeline and into the build process. This means that whoever you sent it to will no longer be able to open it. Capsools that have already been opened cannot be recovered.
Click view all to see all of the capsools you've sent.
Received
This area shows you the latest 5 capsools that have been sent to you. Click on view to see the capsool.
Click view all to see all the capsools you have received
Favourites
When you are viewing other capsools, you can select to add them to your favourite capsools. This page lists the 5 most recent additions to your favourites list. Click view all to see all of the capsools you've favourited.
Media Centre
The media centre is where you store all your content to be used in the capsools that you create.
You can add video, audio, photographs and text into your media centre ready to be added into capsools.
There are a few ways that you can bring content in - from your machine, other websites or directly into capsool via your webcam.
The media centre is accessed from the "media" option on the menu.
Moving around your media centre
You can filter all the content that you have in your media centre using the filter fields located above your content. You can filter by:
Date, the media type, sooley and general keyword search.
You'll be shown 30 items at a time. Use the arrows to move through the pages.
Uploading content from your computer
You can upload content from your machine into your media centre. Click on the capture item in the menu and then select "from computer" to access the file uploader.
You can then upload content as you wish. Click browse to find the files on your computer and select the ones that you want.
You can upload many files at the same time. You can also use the buttons on the uploader to remove an individual file or clear the entire list.
Click on upload to send the files to your media centre.
File Types Allowed
You can upload almost all standard audio, video and photo file types.
Photos: JPG
Videos: AVI, MOV, WMV, MPG, SWG, MP4, ASF
Audio: MP3
Bringing in content from other websites
Capsool allows you to bring in content from other popular websites and search engines, such as YouTube, Flickr, Photobucket and Yahoo!
Select the external website that you want to search and then enter the search term into the dialog box. The results will be shown on the page.
Click on one of the results returned from your search. You'll be given the chance to add detail to the item that you want to bring in - any detail that we can bring in from the other website will be added automatically.
You can set the date of the content, the emotion that the content evokes, a description and title.
Once you've added the detail, click save to add to your media centre.
You can only add one item at a time into your media centre.
Direct capture
You can record content straight into your media centre through the site. You need a webcam and/or microphone to record audio, video or a photos.
Once you have captured an image or video or recorded some audio you will have the option to add the detail once it is in your media centre.
Video
Select the video option. You may be prompted to select the type of camera that you have on your computer.
Use the controls to start the recording, play it back and save it to your account. If you want to re-record, just click start recording again.
You can also flip the image orientation if you wish.
Audio
Select the audio option and if prompted set the type of recording device you have.
Use the controls to start recording, re-record or save the recording to your account.
Photo
Select the photo option and use the capture button to take a photograph.
Click save to save it to your account.
Text
Select the text option to write a text message and store it in your media centre.
You can use the toolbar in the text entry window to add styling to the text.
Don't forget to add a sooley to the entry!
Adding detail to your content
Clicking on an object in the media centre will take you to the detailed information screen. Click on edit to change the details.
The details that you add will be used when the media object is added to a capsool.
The date you add will determine it's location on the capsool timeline.
The emotion will determine the colour of the block used to represent the item on the timeline, whereas the title and description will be shown when other people look at the object in a capsool.
Finally, the tags should be used to add words that describe the media object.
Removing content
You can remove an item from the detail screen or by selecting it in the media centre and clicking "remove from media centre". Also, each item has a "remove" link underneath it.
Note that you cannot remove an item from your media centre if it is being used in a capsool. Don't worry though, you have plenty of space in your media centre.
Discovery
Discover is where you can search the capsool ecosystem for capsools that have been created and placed by other capsoolers.
You don't need to be logged in to see what other users have been doing, but interacting with the capsools, like adding comments, requires that you are a registered user.
We give you a number of ways to find other capsools and see what people have been up to.
Tags
Just click on a tag in the cloud to go to a list of all the capsools in the system that have been tagged with that word.
What are tags?
Tags are just descriptive words that you use to label your content or capsools. So, you might tag an image "paul birthday april 36" to tell the system that it is something to do with pauls birthday in april when he'll be 36.
In the same way you can tag capsools. Just use the words that sum up the capsool for you.
The capsool tagcloud shows you all the tags that have been used by all the capsool users. If you just want to see the tags that you have used, go to the "Your Tags" option in the menu.
The Capsool Map
When you build a capsool, you have the option of placing it on the map. Perhaps the capsool reminds you of a place, or it's where you proposed to your wife. A bit like if you buried a physical time capsule...but in cyberspace.
When you look at the map, you'll be able to see where all the capsool users have places their capsools. You might be interested in where other people are dropping their capsools and what's in them.
Did someone go to the same gig as you? How many people who went to your high school have dropped a capsool on it?
If you want to see where you have dropped your capsools, jump over to the your Map option in the menu.
The Beacon
Whenever you complete a capsool, whether you send it directly to someone, or place a public capsool out there for discovery you activate the capsools beacon.
The beacon is straightforward and you don't have to do anything to activate it. When a capsool is getting close to opening it will start to send out a message to the world, but don't worry it won't reveal the contents of your capsool.
Really, it's there to let other people know that there are capsools ready to open. Maybe you just want to put something out there for someone to discover by chance. The beacon will do that for you.
The closer a capsool is to getting to being opened, the more frequently it will beacon.
Just click on any of the beacon messages to go to that capsool.
The Public Timeline
All capsools go in the universe. Click top right to find it.
Filtering
There are lots of ways you can filter the capsools on the timeline. It'll reduce the number of capsools displayed and only show you the ones that you are interested in.
Opened/Created. Use this filter to change the date that is used to show the capsools on the timeline.
Sooley
Just pick a sooley type and click show to filter the timeline. If you just want to see love capsools, use the love filter.
Type
Using the type filter will filter the capsools by either standard or remote. Click show after you have chosen from the fields. See the capsool types section for more details.
Tag
Enter a tag and click show to filter the capsools to show only those that have been tagged with that word.
Clearing the filter
Just click Show All to return the timeline to showing all the capsools.
Event Capsools
Event capsools are a special type of capsool which are created by us. Although you can't create them, any registered user can contribute to them.
These special capsools allow us all to offer content towards celebrating a world event, commemorating an historic happening or just making a statement about something that we think could be interesting.
They'll become archives of capsool users thoughts and emotions about whatever the event capsool relates to.
You may see event capsools popping up to commemorate something big like the Olympics or a festival. Equally it could be something a bit more abstract like the current one, Backyard Planet.
Viewing
To view the what other people have put in the event capsool, click on View from the event capsool page.
Contributing
Contributing to an event capsool is easy. Just click on the events menu item, or the event capsool image or link and then click contribute. You can either bring in content from your media centre or upload a new image, video, audio or text file. The choice is yours.
Commenting
You can add a comment to the event capsool itself or to an individual item within it. Just click on the "Add Comment" link, type your comment et voila!
Suggest
Give us your ideas for event capsools. We want to hear them!
Why are 'Mega Sool' capsools special?
'Mega Sool' capsools are long duration, long distance and very long term! If you want to send a message a long way into the future, these are what you use. They are a little smaller than normal capsools (limited to 10Mb), but otherwise are set up in precisely the same way.
Use them to send a message to the future from 100 years hence up to the year 20,000.
Why are they called Mega Sool?
Well, Capsool is in the business of asynchronous communication. That got us talking a lot about communication that happens soon (e.g. tomorrow, next week, next birthday), and communication that happens over a much longer duration, when things have changed a lot more. When we talked about some of the scenarios that this evoked, like sending a greeting to your future grandkids, or a greeting of peace to future citizens of the world, one of our team said "Wow, that's a major tomorrow!"
Mega Sool was born.
