I could use your feedback on a digital video training session I am designing. The purpose is to provide an overview of different video technologies that we make available to teachers at our school, so that they may subsequently choose one and pursue it in-depth at a later date. I would like to make it hands-on without getting project-based during this one-hour time session.

I plan to provide a short conceptual overview of different video technologies and then take the group through a series of hands-on stations, rotating the individual who sits at the setup each time. This will provide a nice balance between hands-on and time constraint.

Here are my planning notes for the session. How should I improve the plan? Please submit comments below!

Why video?
- the MTV and YouTube generations
- reaching all learners
- visual literacy

Where to post video
- Catlin web site
- Moodle
- Drupal

Web video
- if you see it, how should you share it?
- "Share" links, embed code, HTML rights
- HTML editing modes: Catlin web site, Moodle, Drupal
- other formats

United Streaming
- what it contains
- how to bookmark or share

Video cameras
- capture
- Firewire and USB cables
- software (iMovie, MovieMaker, Premiere Elements)
- transfer, edit, export

Flip Mino
- capture
- USB transfer
- conversion

TV Recorders
- Cable and satellite sources
- Schedule on TiVo web site (incl. login information)
- Burn to DVD
- Finalize recording

Live TV in the classroom
- Best for momentous events (when it has to be live)
- Few live cable or satellite connections
- Over-the-air digital TV setup

tags: video, flipvideo, tivo, moodle, drupal, webvideo

I dug up this command today for a project, with the help of Doug's Applescripts for iTunes.


tell application "iTunes"
set current encoder to encoder "MP3 Encoder"
end tell

We like to set the default encoder for importing, especially on shared computers, in order to facilitate the conversion of audio files captured using Olympus audio recorders and Windows computers.

I also learned how to show all of the supported Applescript commands for an application: Script Editor -> File menu -> Open Dictionary. Now why didn't I know that two months ago?

Unfortunately, iTunes does not include support to show the Kind column in the items view, which I was hoping to script.



tags: itunes, applescript

Catlin Gabel teachers hone their iPhoto skills.

I just finished teaching a successful two-day workshop in iPhoto. Like many of our classes, I was so pleased that eight teachers and staff members chose to spend some of their summer time developing new skills that they may use this year. Photo management software inspires a lot of energy from our colleagues, so visual and personal yet also connected to their work here at school. Notable, a few attended simply because they were longtime PC users at work who were about to purchase a Mac at home. In this project-based workshop, I also learned much about the print publishing options of iPhoto, such as the ability to drop photos into individual day cells in the calendar tool. One teacher placed 160 photos into one twelve-month family calendar! I also noted how quickly I found myself teaching the students Flickr, in order to fetch Creative Commons photos to import and manipulate, when many had forgotten their digital cameras. One staff member created an entire musical slideshow about trout. Amazing.

tags: iphoto, photography, professionaldevelopment

We have started our summer tech training workshops, classes that the IT staff and our media arts instructor teach on topics that our employees select. These require a lot of time and preparation from our staff, but our employees highly value the opportunity to learn. Our offerings this year include workshops on desktop publishing, Excel, iPhoto, Picasa, Mac OSX and Windows XP Pro. I am pleased that operating systems were a popular choice this year, given how overall proficiency with basic features is pretty low. I blame the software companies for annually rolling out new eye candy that help them market the products while underemphasizing fundamentals that help people work better. I wish that more people wanted to work on web technologies in the classroom, but we will have more opportunities to work on that once the school year begins.



One challenge is the wide range of skill levels present in each class. Each teacher handles this challenge in her own way. I make the workshop highly project based and let the curriculum emerge from student interests and questions. This does leave me scampering around the room a lot answering questions and solving problems, but it keeps everyone working all the time at their level. This disappoints some students who come to the class expecting a lot of direct instruction, but most participants leave happy. I will teach the MacOS and iPhoto workshops. Do send any killer activity ideas that you have organized or encountered.



tags: training, professionaldevelopment

I am so pleased with the "new" Quick Selection tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3. At least it's new to me. Since the rise of Web 2.0, I have been content to adopt only every other version of Photoshop, having found the annual changes minor. I don't mind if Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft release new versions annually in order to generate revenue for themselves -- I just choose not to participate.

The Magic Want tool was pretty brilliant when it came out, but Quick Selection takes the tool a step further. In classic fashion, Adobe improved on the most notable weak spot of the tool -- it's performance when the subject and background are very similar.

I wanted to move my boys upward in this photo, so that you would no longer see the bottom edge of the painting. I wanted to cut them out and move them up the canvas.



In the past, some portions of this image would have required manual cutting. Note the low contrast between the edge of the shirt and the wall in the background.



I was amazed at the performance of Magic Select. It seemed to interpolate from the rest of the selection, and I no longer had to adjust the sensitivity of the wand in order to get the right area. In the rare times that it selected too much area, I just deselected and tried again, and it got the selection right the second time around. Feathering is also extremely effective, as the result shows no seams.



And the final result



Look how great the shirt area looks!



The head blends in perfectly against the green background, but note that Quick Selection actually retained some green edge around the head. If I were moving this shot to a solid color background, then it would have required more work. Then again, I would not have shot it again this painting!



The painting is from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, USA.


tags: photoshop

Use Fluid to create a standalone application from a web page. Their site declares, "Your web browser is for browsing." We alt-tab to quickly switch between desktop applications, but we option-alt-arrow (or some other combination) to switch between browser tabs. As applications increasingly move to the web, I often find myself instinctively reaching for alt-tab when my application is actually running within a browser tab. Also, it is easy to quit the browser completely, closing a web application I actually need.

For example, when I develop a web application, I typically run Cyberduck and Smultron from the desktop and phpMyAdmin and the web application I am developing in Camino, my preferred web browser. Now, I can run phpMyAdmin in its own, separate desktop application, allowing me to alt-tab to it whenever I please. Yes, I know that I could run a desktop mySQL manager, but I prefer phpMyAdmin.



You could also use Fluid to keep a Facebook, Twitter, or Yahoo! Sports window open separately from your browser.

Fluid's about page explains that other, similar projects exist, one even open-source and cross-platform.

Fluid seems awfully similar to Mozilla Prism. What gives?

Fluid was very much inspired by the excellent Mozilla Prism project, Adobe Air, and other, earlier Site Specific Browsers like Bubbles. Many people think Prism was the first product in this category, but actually, Prism itself was preceded by other SSB products. Fluid's goal is to be the best, most native-feeling SSB for Mac OS X Leopard. Prism is cross-platform, which is a huge benefit for lots of users. However, many Mac users prefer a more tightly-integrated, Mac-like SSB application. That is Fluid's niche. Fluid is a thoroughly native, Cocoa Mac OS X application. No compromises or least-common-denominator tradeoffs.

source

One day, we may exclusively use web applications. In the meantime, Fluid seems helpful.

tags: fluid, ssb, sitespecificbrowser, webdevelopment

Paul writes:

Richard,
Tivo is working flawlessly. I log in, choose what should be recorded, receive a confirmation e-mail, and wait. Then, after airing, I connect via wired network, download the show from the Tivo box using Toast, and burn a DVD. In the case of Bush's war, I needed a double-layer DVD, but then, all was well. Very cool! Thanks for making this happen.

This is great news. The next question is how to scale this to the entire faculty. Paul had to update to the latest Toast in order for this to work, and I don't think we're about to purchase a copy of Toast or ask them to copy large digital video files across the network. The current plan is to move the TiVo and DVD-R to an accessible classroom and skip the network transfer step.

tags: tivo, instructionalvideo

Working in AppleScript again for the first time in many years, I have written a series of scripts that I hope will combine into a single application to partially automate fall laptop prep. Each fall, we collect and maintain 350 teacher and laptop students, a grossly time-consuming effort. Many configuration tasks involve opening an application and changing settings -- difficult to do quickly and with consistently high accuracy. AppleScript has the ability to program changes in configuration.

As quirky as AppleScript is, it provides an ideal bridge between OS X GUI user friendliness and command-line power. Partly, this is because AppleScript can call execute shell and Perl commands, so one has the power of all three languages available. For example, the script collects the user's password from a GUI window and then calls the shell commands cp to copy a missing driver from our file server to the local system and lpadmin to add the printers. One includes the password in the shell statement using simple text concatenation. Same for the Entourage configuration -- capture the user name from AppleScript's "name of current user" and then pass it to the Entourage configuration statement. Finally, you can package the entire thing into an executable application for use in-house or distribution to users. Way cool.

The first script turns off automatic VLAN detection for Cisco Clean Access agent, a feature that causes processor utilization to spike every few seconds, reducing battery life. The second automatically adds 20 or so SMB printers to the Macintosh using lpadmin, a useful post-restore action. A third configures Microsoft Entourage for our mail server. Next, I would like to set the user's server shortcuts, check for proper antivirus operation, and check Acrobat Reader version.

Please note: these scripts are currently under development (they're not yet finished) and contain Catlin Gabel-specific settings. Please use them to inform your own script-writing. They won't work as-is on your network. Many thanks to William M. Smith for a couple key tips. His Entourage/Exchange setup script is terrific if you're looking for that function -- better generalized than what I have provided below.

-- Cisco Clean Access patch for CCAAgent 4.1.3.0
-- Disables automatic VLAN detection

do shell script "whoami"
set theUser to the result

do shell script "cp /applications/ccaagent.app/contents/resources/setting.plist \"/users/" & theUser & "/library/application support/cisco systems/ccaagent/preference.plist\""

tell application "System Events"
set the thePListPath to "/Users/" & theUser & "/Library/Application Support/Cisco Systems/CCAAgent/preference.plist"
tell application "System Events"
tell property list file thePListPath
tell contents
set previousValue to value
set value to ({|VlanDetectInterval|:"0"} & previousValue)
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell

display alert "Auto VLAN detection turned off!"

-- Adds Catlin Gabel printers

-- get desired divisions
set theDivisions to {"LS", "MS", "US", "All"}
choose from list theDivisions with prompt "Which division?"
set theDivision to result as text

-- get user name and password
do shell script "whoami"
set theUser to the result
set thePassword to text returned of (display dialog "User's network password" default answer "" with hidden answer)

-- configure lists of printers, names, and driver file locations
-- need to add Graceland
set lsPrinters to {"LS2ND3RD", "LSLAB-BW", "LSLIB-BW", "LSLIB-C", "LSOFFICE", "LSSPANISH", "LSFRENCH", "LSJAPANESE"}
set msPrinters to {"MSLIB-C", "MSMOBILEBLUE", "MSOFFICE", "MSSECRETGAR", "MSUPPERHALL"}
set usPrinters to {"USART-BW", "USDANT08", "USDANT12", "USDANTMAIN", "USDANTMAIN2", "USLIB-BW", "USLIBLAB-C", "USMATHMAIN", "USML2", "USML5", "USOFFICE", "USSCIMAIN", "USVLMLC-CPY", "USVLMMAIN"}

set lsPrinterNames to {"LS 2nd grade", "LS Comp Lab B&W", "LS Library B&W - Duplexing", "LS Library Color - Duplexing", "LS Office - Duplexing", "LS Spanish", "LS French", "LS Japanese"}
set msPrinterNames to {"MS Library Color - Duplexing", "MS Mobile Blue", "MS Office", "MS Secret Garden - Duplexing", "MS Upper Hall"}
set usPrinterNames to {"US Art B&S", "US Dant 9 - Duplexing", "US Dant 12 - Duplexing", "US Dant Main - Duplexing", "US Dant 10", "US Library B&W - Duplexing", "US Comp Lab Color - Duplexing", "US Math - Duplexing", "US Modern Lang 2 - Duplexing", "US Modern Lang 5 - Duplexing", "US Office - Duplexing", "US Science Main", "US Vollum Learning Center Copier", "US Vollum Main - Duplexing"}

set lsPrinterDrivers to {"HP LaserJet 2200.gz", "HP LaserJet 4250.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP Color LaserJet 4650.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 4MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 1320 Series.gz"}
set msPrinterDrivers to {"HP Color LaserJet 4600.gz", "HP LaserJet 2100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 5MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 1320 Series.gz"}
set usPrinterDrivers to {"HP LaserJet P2015.gz", "HP LaserJet 2200.gz", "HP LaserJet 4350.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP Color LaserJet 4600.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 4250.gz", "HP LaserJet 2100 Series.gz", "RICOH Aficio MP 161", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz"}

-- copy Ricoh driver from installer folder to system PPD library
tell application "Finder"
open location "smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@cgsfiles01/installers"
end tell
do shell script "cp \"/Volumes/Active/RICOH Aficio MP 161\" \"/Library/printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/\""

-- set range of printers to install
if theDivision is equal to "ls" then
set thePrinters to lsPrinters
set thePrinterNames to lsPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to lsPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "ms" then
set thePrinters to msPrinters
set thePrinterNames to msPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to msPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "us" then
set thePrinters to usPrinters
set thePrinterNames to usPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to usPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "All" then
set thePrinters to lsPrinters & msPrinters & usPrinters
set thePrinterNames to lsPrinterNames & msPrinterNames & usPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to lsPrinterDrivers & msPrinterDrivers & usPrinterDrivers
end if

-- loop through printers
repeat with x from 1 to the number of items in thePrinters
do shell script "/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p " & item x of thePrinters & " -E -v smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@CATLIN/CGSPRINT01/" & item x of thePrinters & " -P \"/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/" & item x of thePrinterDrivers & "\" -D \"" & item x of thePrinterNames & "\" -o printer-is-shared=false"
end repeat

-- do shell script "/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p ITVLMOFC -E -v smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@CATLIN/CGSPRINT01/ITVLMOFC -P \"/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/HP Laserjet 4000 Series.gz\" -D \"IT Vollum Office\" -o printer-is-shared=false"

display alert "Printers successfully added!"

-- Configure Entourage

tell application "System Events"
set theUser to name of current user
set fullName to full name of current user
end tell
set thePassword to text returned of (display dialog "User's network password" default answer "" with hidden answer)

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

make new Exchange account with properties {name:"Catlin Gabel", Exchange server settings:{address:"https://webmail.catlin.edu/exchange", requires SSL:"true"}, Exchange ID:theUser, domain:"catlin", full name:fullName, email address:theUser & "@catlin.edu", LDAP server:"cgsdc00", search base:"ou=catlin users,dc=catlin,dc=edu", public folder server settings:{address:"https://webmail.catlin.edu/public", requires SSL:"true"}}

set enabled of schedule "Send & Receive All" to scheduled

end tell

tags: applescript, cisco, cleanaccess, smb, printer, entourage, exchange, deployment

A teacher came in today with a Quicktime file that had sound but no audio track. How so, do you say? The video and audio were "muxed" (short for "multiplexed') into a single track. While I cannot comment on the advantages of muxing, iMovie couldn't import the file, even though a different copy of iMovie first created the file (by exporting at full quality).

I enjoy Googling for unique words, because you get results so quickly. Google led us to a free utility called MPEG Streamclip, which not only can separate the video and audio tracks of a muxed file, it also purports to convert many other formats, including flv, avi, YouTube (via URL), iPhone, and QuickTime transport files. This looks like required equipment for film teachers and others who use digital video.

A teacher would like to move his annual seventh grade trip planning project from paper to Google Earth. The basic idea is that each student plans all of the details of a trip to an international destination of his or her choice. The report includes maps, itinerary, a description of each stop, a detailed trip budget, and general overview of the destination.

Google Earth promises to add value to this project at several levels. Earth's core functionality is mapping -- it provides an unlimited number of maps, at a variety of zoom levels, of every stop on the trip. Unlike paper maps, you can even display a view of a couple of blocks in a city and produce maps for remote locations that would otherwise be hard to find. The flyover tool provides a sense of scale difficult to communicate by any other means, as the viewer zooms from one location to another. Believe it or not, about a quarter of the families actually take the trip that the student has designed (there's an authentic project for you!). It's a lot easier to share this project with others in digital form. It's even possible that the family would be able to take the student's work with them on a smart phone!

We found that .kmz files can store nearly all of the information the teacher wants students to include. The placemark Info window apparently accepts HTML, because we found ourselves inserting links, paragraph tags, and even images embedded from other locations on the web. Earth's print function automatically compiles the placemarks in a folder and produces step-by-step output suitable for sharing with others on paper if desired. Students could even store their bibliographies in the KMZ file, perhaps in the last placemark on the tour. Itinerary can be included by naming each placemark with the trip day. In this manner, all of the information the teacher wants students to research is embedded right in the most relevant place in the tour.

For kicks, we tested the concept that a KMZ file would be useful on a smartphone. We emailed a sample KMZ file to my Blackberry, but it didn't open from Mail. Then, I uploaded it to a web site instead and accessed it from the Blackberry browser -- then it worked great! Google Maps for Blackberry opened the KMZ file and displayed all of the placemarks in Rome right there. We didnt' test whether the placemark details were retained but were sufficiently impressed that Maps could display the Earth file in a useful way. This feature could be useful for a lot of other applications for when you want to take with you a number of locations that you have looked up ahead of time.


tags: googleearth, blackberry, globaled

If Microsoft makes the Office icons any more translucent, I think they may just disappear! Wait a minute ... could that be their strategy?

Last summer, I searched for a free, OS X network backup utility. I want free, so that we may easily adopt it here at school without additional costs or licensing bureaucracy.

A teacher today alerted me to the fact that Silverkeeper was not overwriting existing files with newer versions as it should. In other words, if you created a file and then updated it later, Silverkeeper would not copy over the updated version. Problem!

I wrote LaCie and received the following reply:

Network shares are a problem due to how OS X deals with dual fork files that Mac OS Extended file system relies on – if network connection does not fully support the Mac file system, you end up with two files on the network share for each native file on the Mac computer. One hidden with file permission/privilege and other info; one visible file with file data.

Therefore, unless you understand the limitations of your network connection, you should not rely on SilverKeeper for this type of backup.

Instead, as a workaround, you can use sparse disc images located on the network share and mounted locally to the Mac running SilverKeeper. This method assures a proper Mac OS Extended formatted Destiantion that fully supports the Mac file system. this is briefly mentioned in the release notes located inside the SilverKeeper application folder.

the alternative is to use a backup program that makes proprietary backup archives.

I still don't understand why an invisible permissions file would prevent Silverkeeper from determining that the copy on the server is older and overwriting it. Nonetheless, LaCie acknowledges that this is a known problem, and I cast off for a new solution.

PSyncX: Has something changed in Leopard? It could not find "make" on my computer to compile the Perl file copy library it uses.

iBackup: I am trying this now. Looks good so far.

These two sites were most informative:
Complete, free Mac backup
Mac Backup Software Harmful

Reading Dave Cormier on "free beer" as applied to the use of open source software in education, I was struck by the concept of unwillingly beta testing someone else's software. We often joke that we are unwillingly "beta testing" Vista, Leopard, or GMail, implying that it's ironic for the user community to fulfill a role that a software company should rightly fulfill with its employees. It just struck me today (why so long, I hesitate to guess) that open source software does exactly the same thing, except that the OSS community is more up-front about it. Both proprietary and open-source communities have made user testing a standard part of their business models, both set up mechanisms to gather feedback, and both stand to make money from your testing (though proprietary software makers tend to put more emphasis on the money part). May we grouse about discovering problems in buggy proprietary software that we paid for and then willingly embrace the same role for free, community-authored software. Yes, I suppose?

My parents bought our son David a SMaL-based digital camera from Oregon Scientific. I love the price point ($60) for a digital camera for our six-year old, giving him the ability to document experiences and tell stories about them without risking the loss of an expensive camera. One catch is the file format. Some time ago, I banished Microsoft Windows from the home, concluding that such an ill-behaved and resource-hogging operating system did not deserve a place in our home. Unfortunately, the default photo transfer method is a small .exe that runs straight off the camera. We needed a different solution that would work with either Ubuntu or Mac OS.

The files are accessed easily enough, as the camera mounts as a USB mass storage device. They are in RAW format, which I understand contains the data captured by the CCD card. I thought to myself, "hey, Photoshop opens raw" but then discovered that RAW formats vary considerably from one manufacturer to the next. I didn't make much progress until I started looking for SMaL RAW converters. Then, I found a number of converters, most notably through the web site raw-converter.com. They have a nifty search tool that allows you to specify the manufacturer and model camera you have (or at least come close) and get a list of links to available converters.

For the Oregon Scientific SMaL-based camera we now have, I have found a number of useful leads but nothing yet that will quickly batch process a number of files on my Mac. FDR Tools is designed for high dynamic range photo compositing, but it also allows one to convert SMaL RAW files to JPGs or TIFFs individually. Dcraw seems like the daddy of raw converters, a linux tool that is incorporated into a number of other applications. I'm not quite yet ready to compile a Linux application and go command-line, but that may prove the easiest in the long-term. PV2 seems like a good option for Windows users. JPGind looks promising -- it's a command-line tool but offers binary installers for three platforms to make getting started easier for people like me.

This has been a fun vacation project. Ideally, I will find a command-line or GUI batch converter soon and be able to suck my son's photos in without much trouble.

Update 1/14/08: GimpShop + ufRaw for Mac worked! Now I need to automate a workflow for correcting the image levels.

I am thinking about the ability and timing of our users to move to Leopard. Here are some specific items to think about:

No more Printer Setup Utility. Use the new Preferences panel instead. Windows printing seems to have become more challenging, but we have improved our ability to script the addition of Windows printers.

Printing duplex and landscape don't appear to work with Samba printers.

It has become a lot harder to find a network volume after you have connected to it -- no more desktop icon, and now OS X connects all the way to the share instead of mounting the network share.

The default download location is now Home -> Downloads. This will throw a few people, though you can change it.