service-is-documenting | Thomas' Work Space

How to search/replace a color in an image – for free using Paint.net

2012/01/05 plagwitz Leave a comment

I changed your mind about the style some documentation I produced, but did not want to redo it from scratch.
Enter the jchunn effects plugin for Paint.net: Download jchunn and expand the dll into the Effects folder of your Paint.net installation).
Restart paint.net and access the plug-in dialogue from the menu:effects.
Here are a few example screenshots:

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-infrastructure, service-is-documenting Tags: colors, paint.net

LRC computer and other hardware inventory

2011/11/24 plagwitz Leave a comment

These lists document hardware owned by the LRC:
1. Symantec-Ghost generated.
2. A handmade overview (partially based on the previous) can be (permissions provided) viewed or edited here.

Categories: Area-is-any, audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, documentation, e-infrastructure, hardware, Metrics, service-is-documenting, Spreadsheets Tags: asset-management

Using geolocation information in photos for documentation?

2011/10/26 plagwitz Leave a comment

During documentation writing today, I noticed that my WlGallery suddenly (?) started displaying the geotags in pictures taken with my Palm Pixi which I set a long time ago to store (and share) location information. I t looks like this has started working earlier, but gone unnoticed. I also looks like it uses cell tower triangulation, not GPS data (when the latter is not available?): At such a granularity, this feature can not be useful for generating documentation. But maybe for excursions?
But seems still a bit iffy, on the Pixi side of things: I am pretty sure that previously, I could not see geotags in my photos, even though I tried several image metadata viewers. Also, the Pixi does not always add geotags: is this limited to pictures taken when there are network connectivity issues?
Also seems like editing operations in wlgallery, including create panorama, “eat” the geotags in the output image….

Categories: e-infrastructure, GIS, mobile-phones, Notes, service-is-documenting Tags: geotagging, gps, photos, pixi

How to link screencasts from MS-SkyDrive

2011/10/19 plagwitz Leave a comment

I am trying to replace – in the routine cases that do not need post-editing, but where speed is of the essence – my practice to post-process my screencasts in MS-Expression Encoder (installed on one machine only) and upload the result with a page to load a Silverlight Control – all hosted on my MS-Windows Azure portfolio.
Much easier and quicker would it be to store screencasts in MS-SkyDrive (mapping to drives in MS-Windows enables a more robust drag and drop than the still browser-specific web version on live.com), and top take advantage the embed links provided.
Unfortunately, WordPress.com, my blogging platform, does not support iframes with videos from MS-SkyDrive.
However, by linking to the URL in the embed code, to open in a new window (with the inelegant instruction to “click on the thumbnail that opens”; if it loads slow, the thumbnail ALT displays essentially the same),:
I can get the user to an MS- Silverlight control which loads:
and plays the video:
more user-friendly and robustly (This has been tested to work on MS-Windows 7 with IE9 and Firefox 3.6) than distributing the bare WMVs of my screencasts directly.

Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, documentation, e-infrastructure, Media, service-is-documenting Tags: blogging, MS-OneDrive, screencast-making, video

How to efficiently find help on this blog

2011/06/10 plagwitz Leave a comment

Searching
1. Full-text search: quick, even though dumb (“Computers are only machines…”). It may not return the most relevant results.
2. Human-curated search: The author adds metadata to his posts as he sees fit. The metadata vocabulary is somewhat stable from past experience, but may change (”The author is only a human.” ). You effectively execute a humanly-curated search when clicking in the right column on either
  1. a tag link, e.g. https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/moodle/
  2. a category link, e.g.
3. Humanly-curated and Boolean AND search combined: This can be powerful in drilling down to an answer to a specific problem – provided there is one on the blog.
  1. Even though there is no easily clickable interface for this, by building URLs in the web browser address bar , combining tags or categories with the plus-sign, you can execute an AND-search against multiple tags(or categories) on WordPress.com
  2. Example: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/moodle+erepository/ finds posts that the author related to both Moodle and eRepository. This can be especially useful for searching the FAQs: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/faq+[add your problem-technology-tag here, e.g. Audacity]/
Notifications: Subscribe to RSS-feeds to receive timely updates on the topics that matter most to you. Both
1. WordPress.com, providing RSS-feeds for all categories and tags (click on a tag or category link and find the icon, it will link to the RSS feed – Example: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/moodle/feed/) – watch either the webpage or your browser GUI for orange RSS icons you can click on to initiate a subscription -and also for multiple categories/tags (even though this feature is even better hidden, you need to construct a URL in your browser address bar. Example: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/moodle+erepository/feed/). If you want to go beyond our own metadata, WordPress allows also for subscribing to your own searches via RSS: “To keep up with your favorite search results we offer an RSS feed for all search results. Simply click the Follow this search via RSS link in the side bar of any search results page to subscribe to updates in the search result”, consult the WordPress search documentation.
2. and MS-Outlook, making RSS-subscriptions look familiar like email (of importance in certain environments), greatly facilitate this.
Text-messaging: Get synchronous human help through the Moodle-Wimba Room link.

Categories: blog, e-infrastructure, service-is-documenting Tags: categories, FAQs, meta, metadata, rss, searching, tags, text-messaging, wimba-classroom, wordpress

How to make screencasts in animated GIFs for free

2010/10/15 plagwitz 2 comments

If you want a persuasive web (blog) documentation solution for the most casual, time-pressed users and which is supported on the widest possible range of platforms;

and if you are lucky enough to work in environments where it is not the base infrastructure that forms the bottleneck (as this solution is not bandwidth optimized):

then even in the day of Flash 10, Silverlight 4 and HTML5, you might give some consideration the age-old animated GIF.

What you can visualize with animated GIFS will remain basic. But if the basics are what needs fixing, this approach can have remarkable benefits (think low-end, high-gain of the graph for “law of diminishing returns”).

I have been looking for a while for a “soup to nuts” write-up how to do this easily and for free, and experienced am unusually high noise to signal ratio. This is why I want to point to the following article that seems to fit the bill nicely:

http://omaralzabir.com/how-to-make-screencasts-in-optimized-animated-gif-for-free/

The author persuasively combines CamSoft, ImageMagick and the Microsoft GIF Animator.

An example to follow here.

del.icio.us Tags: documenting,blogging,animated-gif

Categories: e-infrastructure, service-is-documenting Tags: animated-gifs, blogging, documenting