looking forward

Jury Service day.

No jury, but all day in a highly air conditioned room, reading my book.  Not the worst work day I’ve ever had.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

7:35 am, 33.2 deg C.

It’s going to be a hot one.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

With the temp reaching 40 C and the week tipped to be the hottest in 100 years, it was clear skies above Melbourne today.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

A part of the Chinese New Year display in the Crown atrium.

kung hei fat choy (happy new year)

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

Pump for mineral spring water at Leitches Creek,  Daylsford Vic.  My children are the fifth generation of my family to come to this particular spring.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

View to the back of Sovereign Hill – a Gold Rush recreation tourist park in Ballarat, Vic.

Our campground for the weekend was at the bottom of the hill on which this park sits.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

So begins the photo a day attempt:

For the long weekend, we took the kids on their first camping trip: this is the remnants of their first breakfast.

Image: Lance Treloar (CC)

Going to try something new; something that requires a little discipline on my part. 

I find myself asking “Why?” but pushing that little voice away, I’ll continue.

Anyway, I’m going to try and get into Flickr.  I’ve had a Flickr account for quite a while now, and like my photobucket site, it has been used primarily as a place to store photos and images that I have wanted to post on messgae boards and such like.  A couple of times, I have gone a little more social with it, posting a range of photos from various events that others wanted photos from, but for the most part it has been nothing more than a repository.

This is something that I have been toying with for some time now (even when I wasn’t writing here, this was what I had thought about using as my re-entry).   Sue Waters (Mobile Technology in TAFE) got me thinking about it when she was running the infamous lolly jar series (I’ve looked for the link in Sue’s archives, but cannot find it – sorry.  Thinking now, was it even a blog post – may have existed on Twitter.  Anyway…).   Sue used her Flickr account to illustrate an ongoing story and her Flickr photostream was as important to the story as the text was.

Added to Sue’s example, was Alan Levine’s (cogdogblog) project to take a photo every day of the year. To me this was a mammoth task – I don’t have that sort of discipline.  What I am going to try and do is start a little smaller: let’s try for a month and see where we go from there. 

I’m going to see if I can stay focused enogh to diarise a month in my life through pictures – starting today. 

Having said that, I wont be posting anything until Monday at the earliest – I don’t have access to my Flickr account at work (can view images, but cannot upload) and tonight we are going away for the long weekend, so I will start taking the pictures today, but wont have access until Monday night.

It looks like I’ve got the approval to go ahead and buy my process capture software.

Love an organisation that works on the theory that as long as you are not breaking the bank and the purchase will help productivity, then its a smart buy.  My former employers would say things like this, but follow them up with “Dance monkey, Dance!!”

Paperwork that entitled you to fill in paperwork that allowed you think about purchasing something.  By the time it had gone through the process, the product was available for free download.

*sigh*  There some things that you just can’t miss, no matter how hard you try.

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Flickr image: Munky dances on the globe.  Treehouse1977.

Harkening back to an old post (old?  All of my posts are old – that’s what happens when you don’t do anything for a year).

In my new role, I have been required to do some screen captures.  Late in 2007, this topic seemed to be the big issue – everyone seemed to be talking about screen captures, and enjoying a good ride, I jumped on that band-wagon.  In Nov ’07 I talked about Camtasia Studio (v3 from memory). 

I now find myself revisiting this topic with some fondness as the program that I am currently using inspires only rage and frustration.  I am constantly amazed at what business will pay for a product because it looks nice and shiny.   It must have been one hell of a salesman who could sell this laborious cumbersome piece of flotsam and/or jetsam.

*Breathe*

*softly chant: “I am focused, I am centered.  I am focused, I am centered”*

OK, back again and calm again.  I know intellectually I am probably being unfair to this programme; I’m sure that it works nicely if you know how to use it, I’m sure its mother loves it, but I am not in the least bit a fan.   The time taken to complete a simple 1 minute demonstration is exponentially greater than the time taken to do the same in a program like Camtasia (I created my first demonstration in Camtasia in about 30 minutes.  A similar project in Epiplex (the package I am using) took nearly 4 hours).

The problem is that I am looking for a simple process capture package that is easy to use with a quality output.  Epiplex would appear to be a high end program that is apparently designed to do a lot more than I need it to do.  It’s like comparing Irfan View to Photoshop.  (If you don’t know, Irfan View is a very simple to use, basic graphic editor – if you haven’t tried it, I strongly suggest you check it out.  To my mind, for basic editing, there is no better product out there).

Looking into what is available today; I have found that Camtasia is still a strong contender, along with Captivate.  I am making a request to the powers that be for a new process capture package and have put these two up as the options. 

Let’s hope that my request is approved – if it’s not, beware of computers falling from high windows.

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