MindBites FAQ

Built on the philosophy that everyone has something valuable and unique to share, MindBites is a place where anyone can design, create and post instructional content for sale. We offer real people, individuals like you, a self-publishing platform to share their knowledge, skills and passions with others through audio and video lessons. These lessons can be promoted and previewed across the web, where others can purchase and download them using credits costing as low as $1.69. The result is an inspiring community of discovery that hopes to revolutionize the way the world shares knowledge.

Built on the philosophy that we all have something valuable to share, MindBites is a community of discovery and a self-publishing platform where anyone can share their knowledge with the world. Specifically, you can:

• Explore and purchase unique instructional content
• Learn directly from others
• Participate in an inspiring new community
• Publish your own lessons for a world-wide audience

As a user, you gain access to a unique community of discovery with content found no where else. As an author, you have the opportunity to self-publish your own material to share your passion while earning money for yourself or a charitable cause.

MindBites is a self-publishing platform that allows anyone to share what they know by means of audio and video lessons. Aided by our Author Enablement toolset, authors can create content utilizing basic consumer tools and upload them to our site via their home internet connection. With customized titles, descriptions, and preview images, your lessons are promoted with ease and professionalism to a worldwide audience. Additionally, authors can upload auxialliary materials to compliment their lesson, such as text documents, pictures, and graphs.

Users are then able to browse, preview and purchase the author's lessons using credits purchased at MindBites for as low as $1.69. Once purchased, the media files are available to be viewed in the user's browser or downloaded for future use. Documentation of these purchases can be found under your MyMindBites page.

The result is a new type of learning community where individuals can share their passions with an audience hungry for unique information.

Nada. It's free to register with MindBites. This will allow you to participate in community forums, request specific topics in the Wanted listings, as well as gain access to free lessons and promotional offers. Additionally, you'll be free to explore our extensive instructional catalog and watch lesson previews at your leisure. Once you're ready to buy, you'll need to obtain credits purchased at MindBites (buy credits). These start as low as $1.69 per credit.

For authors, posting on MindBites is completely free of charge AND for each lesson sold, you'll earn $1. We know, you don't have to thank us.

Angel Falls in Venezuela.

Beats us! That's up to you, the authors. You see, unlike other video "how to" sites, the creation of content is not centralized on the MindBites team. Anyone, from anywhere, can add to our catalog (or catalogue for you educated types). The result is some pretty interesting and unique material, to say the least! However, we do stress that MindBites is focused on instructional content, i.e. lessons that inform the viewer on how to do something.

What you will certainly NOT find on MindBites is content solely for entertainment or pornography (we feel the internet is saturated enough with the above that users interested in such will hardly be left wanting). In any case, if you think you've come across something inappropriate, please flag it as such.

To inspire people to learn, grow, and share.

The home page is usually a good place to start to see what's happening. You can also browse lessons under the Explore tab, check out the Community page, or peruse the Wanted section. Finally, you can always use the search box located in the upper righthand corner of every page.

To see the lessons on the site you need to have a recent version of the Flash plugin installed. We recommend Flash 9, although you should be able to get by with Flash 8 if you already have it installed (some features may not be visible, so upgrade if you can).

Well, you don't for sure. MindBites lessons are made by everyday people. Some are going to be brilliant and exactly what you wanted, others not so much. We do our part to ensure your satisfaction by giving you the ability to preview the lesson and look through the ratings and reviews of others who have already purchased it. If your lucky enough to find a lemon, our apologies. But be sure to leave feedback warning others not to make the same mistake. You know, the world's a risky place, wear a helmet.

Anyone. We firmly believe that everyone has something valuable to contribute, and as the world becomes more connected and technology proliferates, sharing your knowledge has never been easier. Authors can range from professional instructors, life-long hobbyists, businesses, and yes, even you (please poke yourself in the chest for us).

Although we did technically receive an "education", we'd maintain that we learned everything from a combination of Gilligan's Island, South Park, clumbsy error, and falling down a lot.

If you click on the Contact Us link at the bottom of any page (or here), you can send a message to our team.

Man you new age types are a lot of work aren't you? Ok, here goes:

People teach people
Passions are spread like the wind
Nirvana online

You pay us, we give you credits that you, in turn, use to buy lessons. Pretty simple really. You can buy just one credit, or purchase multiple and get a discount.

Sure. You'll just effectively buy a single credit for $1.99 and then be on your merry way.

Who are you, the Unabomber? How do you function in normal society? Sadly you are SOL, buddy. No bites for you! We just take Visa and Mastercard right now. Like to see us accept other forms of payment? .

Since the credit card companies charge an arm and a leg to process transactions (we love you guys!), often we won't charge your card immediately so that we can bundle it later with any future purchases you might make. This is similar to what iTunes and other micro-transaction sites do.

Once purchased, you can download the lesson to to your computer for viewing on most common media players. We've standardized the lesson formats on MindBites to allow for maximum compatibility with portable media devices, such as iPods, so that you can copy your purchase from your computer and watch it on the go.

To get technical, the media formats you'll find on MindBites are MP3s for Audio lessons and M4Vs or MPEG-4s for videos, these being selected due to their widespread use. Screencast lessons, however, are allowed in a variety of formats. If Windows is telling you that it cannot recognize the file format, you most likely just need to download the free Quicktime player from Apple. If you have any questions about how to use these formats, please let us know and we'll be happy to help.

In addition, purchased lessons may be viewed as Flash videos in one's browser, although this method is subject to certain limitations. Currently, you are allowed only three full browser plays before the lesson must be downloaded.

Butters/Professor Chaos, of course.

Well, that depends on the device. As iPods have become the most common in this market, MindBites has standardized all its video instructionals for ease of use with iTunes and iPod transfers. In fact, once downloaded, you merely need to open the video in iTunes and you're ready to rock and roll.

Though MindBites lessons are generally asked to be compressed into iPod ready formats, this does not mean they are incompatible with other portable media devices. Actually, most will accept the formats as readily as an iPod and with as much simplicity. If this is not the case, however, there are a myriad of free programs out there that should be able to convert the media for your device with minimal hassle and complications.

Well how the heck should we know? It's your computer. OK, we're just kidding. We download stuff and lose it all the time. Since we don't make you download and install yet another piece of software to compete with iTunes, Windows Media Player, Real player, etc. etc., the media files are downloaded to your machine just like any other file you download from the Internet. We suggest creating a MindBites folder either on your desktop or some other easily locatable place and keep all your lessons together and organized. You should be able to search your machine to find ones you've already downloaded. Another way is to launch your media player once you've watched your lesson, and look under recent items to pull it up.

30 days. Sorry for the restriction, but we have our reasons. To be safe, we recommend downloading it immediately after purchasing.

Well, if you must know, it's a matter of business. You see, every time a video is viewed in a user's browser, MindBites is charged. If it were up to us, you could watch the lesson in your browser till the cows come home, but we've got mouths to feed, mainly our own. So, as a favor to us, weather the few minutes it will take to download the lesson.

And remember, every time a MindBite is downloaded, an angel gets its wings.

While we at MindBites hope and strive to encourage a community of proper and quality content, we cannot offer any assurance as to the caliber of the lessons or the accuracy of the instructions they contain. Please use your own judgment and any available information when both selecting a video for purchase, and when utilizing any techniques demonstrated. And for goodness sake, be careful!

If you feel that there has been a technical error with your purchase . If you believe that the original file the author uploaded was faulty, again, please contact us and we will contact the author and try to resolve the issue. If you can play the file, but you think the content is poor, we understand and sympathize with your feelings so please rate the material and write a review that your opinion can be shared with others. Due to the small nature of the purchase, MindBites cannot offer refunds on any purchase. If you're unhappy though, let us know and maybe we can figure something out.

We respect people’s ability to protect and control the product of their hard work through copyright and other protections. Please don’t steal. MindBites authors are just like you and they’ve worked very hard to prepare their lessons.

Unless otherwise noted, all lessons previewed or purchased on this site are the copyrighted material of their respective owners, and may be used only for your personal and non-commercial use. In certain instances, authors may specify materials as having Creative Commons Licenses, which may allow the creation of derivative works for non-commercial or commercial use. Please see individual lessons for details on any non-standard copyrights and refer to the Creative Commons site at www.creativecommons.org for more details.

If you suspect there is someone on the MindBites site who is violating another’s copyrights, please either flag the material as inappropriate or email us at info (at) mindbites dot com. Seriously, we joke about a lot of stuff around here, but we're serious about copyrights. We're completely serial.

The MindBites community is built on trust, connecting real people who want to learn with those who want to share what they know. The lesson files that you download will not have any technical restrictions that will prevent you from copying and moving the file to different devices for your personal use. We believe this is important since you may need your files on your iPod, your TV, your laptop or all of the above. Please do not abuse this ability by sharing files with people who have not paid for it. Our authors have worked hard to create these lessons, and it is only $1.99 after all! Please don’t steal!

As with most sites, we need to collect some personal information to register you as a user and allow you to purchase materials. We are serious about privacy protection and will not share your information. For more details, please see our .

MindBites gives you the opportunity to share your specific passion, hobby or skill with virtually anyone. It’s fun, you’ll learn a lot, and you can earn up to 60% of your lessons’ proceeds for yourself or charity.

• Share what you have to teach
• Earn money for yourself or charity
• Promote your business or cause
• Enjoy trying something new!

Well, that's entirely up to you. We put no restrictions on subject matter, barring of course content of a pornographic nature. Still, if you're fishing for some inspiration, check out the for a list of user-requested topics and material.

Believe it or not, producing a MindBite is a fairly simple process. Start by selecting something you are passionate about and want to share with others. You can choose to instruct by means of video or audio format. Not sure how to get started? Visit the for more information and resources.

MindBites allows you to upload any sort of instructional audio or video material, assuming you are the owner, which is subject to the following general guidelines:

• It should be instructional – please no entertainment-only videos, there are plenty of other places on the web for you to post these.
• It cannot be anything illegal, obscene or simply objectionable, including content that contains hate speech, infringes copyright, and/or violates personal privacy or obscenity laws and/or which we deem inappropriately offensive. MindBites does not allow pornography. For more details, please see our .
• It should be 100MB or less in size and in an acceptable format - MP3 format for audio lessons, iPod-compatible formats for video lessons, and most major non-flash formats for screen capture videos. If you upload a file in an incorrect format, it may be blocked from being sold or earning money off sales due to potential customer diffculties. For more details on our accepted formats, please click here.

You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. You represent and warrant that you own and/or have the necessary rights and permissions to use and authorize the use of these materials and that the submissions meet the requirements for submissions under the Terms of Use. We reserve the right to refuse to post any content for sale and/or remove it from the site for any violation of these rules or guidelines or for simply violating the spirit of the MindBites community as judged by our sole discretion.

Currently, there is no cost for authors to post lessons on MindBites. We do retain the right to remove content that does not reach a minimum amount of sales after a certain period of time. In the future, there may be a charge for posting content.

MindBites accepts media files for upload up to 100MB in size in the following formats: audio MP3 and iPod compatible formats (.mp4, .mov or .m4v). We also support most major screencast formats (.MOV, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV…) with the exception of Flash formats (SWF, FLV, etc.).

Outside of producing the Flash preview for your lesson page, MindBites does not currently do any reformatting or recompression of the media files you upload. In the rapidly evolving world of digital media formats, we believe that the author community is in a much better position to leverage the proliferation of free and cheap tools out there to both produce a good, easy to use lesson, and maintain control over the final product. So, as an author, please do your best to export to a decent quality, user-friendly format as outlined above. For helpful information on media formats, tools and tips, please consult the MindBites forums.

Most video editing and compression applications provide “iPod compatible format” as an exporting option, making it very simple. But, if you want the gory details, at the time of this writing according to Apple, acceptable ipod formats are:

• H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
• H.264 video, up to 768 kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
• MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

If your editing application does not offer any iPod compatible formats as an export option, there are serveral, fairly inexpensive tools that will convert the media to the desired configuration. Please see for more information.

Simple. A lot of people own iPods and as a result, there are a lot of free and simple ways to get media into formats compatible with these devices. Our goal at MindBites is to balance the ease of use for users with maximum control for authors. Currently, the prevalence of the iPod and iTunes for both PC and Mac users provides a useful focal point for both uploading authors and purchasing learners. As the world of digital media evolves, so will we. If you think a different policy would be more efficient and economical, feel free to raise the idea within the .

While iPod compatible formats offer a good uniform focal point for video in general, screencasts are a whole other pickle all together. First off, there is less demand that they be compatible with smaller mobile media devices than typical video lessons. And secondly, authors will generally wish to utilize a larger resolution size than most mobile devices will accept. Computer screen clarity is paramount here.

Additionally, many of the current, inexpensive screencast capturing programs only offer a limited variety of formats for export. So basically, we're just trying to make life easier on everyone, so there.

We’re serious about respecting copyrights and won’t tolerate those who violate them. Please do not post any materials that defy any copyrights. Upon notification of such, we will remove any such violations and will take any appropriate actions and cooperate with officials for especially gross infractions. For more information, please see our .

Nope. It's your artistry and it's your content. You retain all ownership rights to your work and can remove it at any time. By posting a lesson on our site, you are simply giving us the right to sell, promote, and distribute your work.

In general, authors have several common copyright/licensing options:

• Standard Copyright: A standard copyright affirms your rights over your original content as defined by United States law.
• Creative Commons Licenses: We give publishers the ability to select a variety of Creative commons licenses. These licenses are ideal for content publishers who wish to grant additional rights to content purchasers. For example, a musician might license a drum beat sample that other musicians can use in their work. You can learn more by visiting the Creative Commons website.

If you do with to use something other than standard copyrights, please indicate in your lesson description and ideally in the lesson itself as well.

Currently there is no fee for posting lessons. Once online, your lessons will be available for purchase at the cost of one credit each. These credits go for a price of $1.69 to $1.99 depending upon the volume purchased. For each copy of your lesson sold through MindBites, you will receive $1 for yourself or a charity of your choice. That's 50% to 60% of the total proceeds. Your earnings are paid through a PayPal account with the minimum payment being $25.

If you are signed in to the site, under the Teach tab, you will find your Author Dashboard. This will tell you how times your lesson has been viewed, the amount of total purchases, and will denote your various ratings, among other things.

We're pleased to hear you're enjoying it. By all means share your lesson as much as you can. We have tools built into the player and site that make it easy to email a link to your lesson or add it to another site. Additionally, you can embed a player on your own webpage, blog or other site that will exhibit your lesson previews.

Obviously the first step is making the best lesson you can. If it's a good lesson, people will buy it and rate it highly. That being said, make sure you utilize all of your tools to market your lesson to the fullest. These include the lesson title, description, 60-second preview, and your screen image (you have the ability to upload an image to replace the one automatically generated for you).

To receive payment, you must have a current PayPal account. After your royalties have become eligible for use or withdrawal as denoted above, you can utilize them to either purchase MindBites materials, or request that payments be made to your PayPal account. Payment requests are set at a minimum of $25 and typically take from 7 to 14 days.

From the author dashboard, you should be able to view your earnings from the account summary section.

• Total Earnings: this is the total amount you've earned through all your lessons, including all amounts already paid out.
• Pending Earnings: this is the amount you are owed since your last payout. This does not include portions you've designated for charity, only what is owed to you. Once the Available amount reaches the minimum payout threshold (currently $25), you will see a "Request Payment" button, which is how you notify us to pay you.

We at MindBites strongly believe in supporting good causes and strive to make it easy for authors to donate part or all of the proceeds of a lesson to the charity of their choice. If it has been advertised that a particular lesson's proceeds are going to charity, we hold the author fundamentally responsible for ensuring that such a donation take place. If for some reason the situation changes, or you wish to redirect the funds, please denote such within the lesson and/or its description.

Hard to say. We do occasionally remove content from the site if it's been flagged as inappropriate or someone raises a valid copyright concern. Check under the Teach tab and you should find a status for all the lessons you've uploaded. If a good amount of time has elapsed since you last visited the site, the lesson may have been removed due to inactivity. Again, such information should be listed in your account. If you still can't figure it out, feel free to .

The MindBites community is built on trust, connecting real people who want to learn with those who wish to share what they know. The lesson files that you upload will not have any technical restrictions that will prevent users from copying and moving the file to different devices for their personal use. We believe this is important since they may need your lesson on their iPod, TV, laptop or all of the above. While we do not condone the sharing of materials with others who have not paid for them, and we hope that it will not happen in our community, it is important to recognize that it can and most probably will occur in certain instances. If you discover such a circumstance, please let us know and we will assist in any way possible to help you protect your rights to your materials.

Hey, MindBites isn't for everybody, we won't hold it against you. While we always hate to lose authors, you of course have the right to terminate our relationship at any time if you so choose. To do so please email us at support (at) mindbites dot com. We will remove your lessons for sale as soon as we can. The files will be maintained on our servers and available for those who have purchased but not yet downloaded them for a period of at least 30 days. Additionally, we reserve the right to terminate our agreement at any time for a perceived or real violation of the policies and rules, or of the spirit of the MindBite community at our sole discretion.