One Night in Camtasia...

Actually, it's turning into months in Camtasia but that doesn't sounds as cool.

I've been spending a lot of time this month creating screencasts for work.  I'm putting together product training videos and sales program training videos.

This has involved me sitting in front of the computer with my headset on, and recording scripts that I wrote.  Then there's the post production stuff of trimming a second here, a half second there, resyncing the video and audio after I break it, and then finding out after I rendered the final product that I misspelled something on a source graphic.

Here's a few of the things I've discovered as part of this process:

• It is weird talking into my headset when there's no one on the other end.
• I'm at the point in my life where I no longer worry about the neighbors calling the cops because of a loud party.  I'm worried they'll call the cops because I'm speaking too loudly into my microphone about SKUs, referral fees, and purchase orders.
• After playing back my audio over and over again, I'm glad I don't have to hear myself speak in real life.  I'd just like to apologize to the world that does.
• Portions of the script that I wrote, I can read and record with few problems.  As soon as I get to a section where I copied the text from somewhere else in the organization, my tongue trips more than a hypersensitive car alarm in a hail storm.  
• I'm becoming a reluctant fan the Quik Time format
• 5 seconds is an eternity
• Deciding when a project is done is much more complicated than it would seem

It's been quite a learning process.  If I had to offer one tip to Camtasia users, it would be this:  Don't record your audio while you record your screen actions.  Separating the two processes allows you to concentrate on one things at a time.  And it makes editing and correcting easier.

Any other screencast tips?

No more Money

A couple weeks ago, Microsoft made they sad announcement that they are discontinuing my favorite video game -- Microsoft Money. The current version will be the last one, and in less than two years, they will turn off the online updates service.

You can see the official announcement here, and the FAQ here. The software will keep working beyond that day; users just won't be able to make electronic payments through Money or automatically download updates. To get updates, they will need to manually download them from their banking provider.

Or switch to Quicken or another financial application.

It's too bad, really. I've been using Money to run my financial life for years. The first entry in my Money file is from 1995-02-17. I paid $17.72 to my Exxon credit card. I probably began using the application a couple months later (since I didn't have the computer until about March) but I went back and entered older data.

It was Money that showed me just how far in debt I was at my worst, and kept me on track for paying things off and minimizing my spending. The EPAY feature allowed me to make payments directly from the software instead of mailing in checks. That helped keep me from missing payments, incurring more late fees, and spending a ton on stamps.

The rising net worth chart gave me some positive reinforcement and encouraged me to continue. The drops in the net worth chart reminded me to refocus my efforts to pay down debt and save more.

A few years later I started traveling for work, and Money was an invaluable tool for managing my expense reports. The charts and reports made it easy for me to track my business expenses and separate them from personal expenses. It made it easier to manage the whole process of making interest free loans to large multi-national corporations.

And more recently, I learned to use Money to maximize my profit from Credit Card Arbitrage.

It's disappointing to see it go, but I suppose it makes sense for MSFT to do it. They seem to be streamlining their products lines and cutting products that are less critical to their success, less profitable, and with smaller fan bases.

And as a product it may have been reaching then end of its development life. Money is already a full featured home-finance application so there's not much more they could do to it to enourage people to buy the next version.

I guess I'll be doing some research over the next year.

Seesmic instead of Tweetdeck

I like Seesmic. It's a flexible alternative to Tweetdeck.

If you use or are interested in hearing about Twitter, you may find this post interesting. (And you should follow me if you don't already. I promise -- my Tweets are as sharp as a butter knife -- @Cromely)

If, like many people, you want the strip off your own ears when one more person mentions Twitter, I understand. Feel free to skip this one

Once you are following more than 50 people on Twitter, the homepage just isn't useful for reading tweets. There's no sense of organization. Hence, the proliferation of free applications that make Twitter easier to use.

Tweetdeck is a popular tool because it lets you create a limited number of groups of people you follow. You can separate work people, from family, from celebrities, etc.

But Tweetdeck is missing some important features. First, it shows all the columns at once. It's great if you always use it on a large monitor, but it's more challenging on a smaller laptop screen. The ability to create different tabs for different groups would be great, but it doesn't have that.

Second, you can have only about 10 columns. If you want to add another group, or always have a search running, you have to delete a group.

Seesmic doesn't have those problems. I can have as many groups as I want. I can close a column without deleting the group. I can hide all but the one I want, or I can see as many of them as I want and scroll across the screen.

Seesmic also lets me manage multiple Twitter accounts, which is nice.

It's not perfect. Tweetdeck has a nicer color scheme. It's also easier to add users to Tweetdeck groups. Tweetdeck lets me pull up a list of everyone I follow and choose who goes in each group. On Seesmic, I have to chose a person and then assign them to all the different groups I want to put them in. Since it doesn't show a list of everyone I follow, I have to wait until a Tweet comes through from that person, and then I can assign them.

Seesmic also uses more memory. Right now, Tweetdeck is using 116 MB of memory; Seesmic is using 274 MB.

There both strong products, but the productivity advantages I get from Seesmic make it the primary Twitter application on my personal computer.

Canvas for OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is one of my favorite applications. At work, Outlook and OneNote are the two programs you will most often find running on my machine. I take all of my handwritten, typewritten and copy/pasted notes in OneNote.

It means I don't have paper notebooks laying around. I don't have multiple files to keep track of my conversations. I don't have a lot of scratch paper. It's all in OneNote. OneNote might even be my most often used printer.

At home I write my book reviews in OneNote, manage quotes, draft long blog posts, collect miscellaneous stuff from the web, and just generally dump stuff in there that I don't have another place for.

Tonight I saw an article about Canvas in the Seattle PI. I'm looking forward to putting it through its paces.

From the Seattle PI:

Discard the notion that working with documents, at least in Microsoft's OneNote software, requires looking at them, for the most part, page by page.

A prototype unveiled Friday lets users see thumbnails of all the pages they have created within the organizing and note-taking program on one screen.

...More

If you are not familiar with OneNote, think of it as a virtual three ring binder.

I can put as many pages in it as I want, and I can divide those into as many sections as I want. I can use handwriting in it if I'm on my Tablet PC, or I can just type in it. Unlike Word, I can type anywhere on the page at any time.

It has an audio recorder so I can record meeting notes while I take them. When I play back that audio it highlights where I was in my notes at that point in the discussion. Or I can just click on a confusing part of my notes and it plays just that portion.

Etc. Etc.

Plus, I never have to save my file. OneNote is always automatically saving in the background.

I could go on about OneNote, but I'll spare you that. I don't work for MSFT, but I often do end up doing OneNote training presentations in my job. If you want to play with it (a don't already have a copy that came with some flavors of office) you can download a free trial from MSFT.

Canvas is an add on for OneNote that takes the metaphor a step further. Sure, it's great to have a three ring binder, but sometimes you want to crack open those rings and spread those sheets of loose leaf out over the floor so you can see and navigate everything at once.

Canvas lets you do that.

According to Microsoft:

Canvas for OneNote allows you to navigate and edit notebooks in a new way by providing a high-level canvas-view of all your content. The prototype lets you zoom and pan around; view and organize content in new ways; add new pages right where you want them; and even locate pages in a timeline view.

It's a new innovation from Microsoft Office Labs. Office Labs is basically experimenting with new approaches to Office applications. From their website:

As you view and try our ideas and prototypes on the site, treat them like "Concept Cars." They aren't actual products or features of Microsoft Office and may not work perfectly under all conditions. However, they are steps toward improving everyday productivity and we’d like you to be part of the innovation moving forward by taking a test drive or two, telling us what you think, and helping us shape the technology of the future.

I'll be playing more with Canvas over the next couple of weeks on my personal machine. You can see some sample videos on the MSFT Canvas page.

MS Money Plus error: "This operation cannot be performed"

Two years passed since I last bought MSFT Money. That meant I could no longer use it for online banking.

It makes little sense to me why they cap the banking service at two years, other than to make people purchase the updated version. I didn't need any of the new features. I've been pretty happy with the feature set for the past six or seven years. Regardless, I had to upgrade if I wanted to continue to use on line banking in the same way.

The latest version of Money -- Microsoft Money Plus is no longer available in retail stores. You now have to purchase it and download it from Microsoft or a different vendor. I'm still a fan of shrink wrap software, so this was mildly frustrating, too.

Since I don't like Quicken, though, I bought and downloaded Money.

I made a back up of my data file and the downloaded application. Next, I installed the new software. It seemed to work well, and it seemed to import my file properly, but then the error started.

Every time I went to the main landing page, it said "This operation cannot be performed." It gave the option of clicking "Okay" or "More information." I clicked okay and got this error message:

"This operation cannot be performed."

It gave me the same option again. And I got the same result.

"This operation cannot be performed."

This went on for 10 or 15 clicks and then I would get to the landing page. Every time I tried to get to that page, it told me 10 or 15 time that the operation couldn't be performed.

If I chose the more information option, I got this:


You can see how helpful that is.

Everything seemed to work fine, but those extra 10 or 15 clicks were starting to wear out my mouse.

Google to the Rescue!

A quick Google search took me to this Live Journal page by Edmund Wong. He apparently went through the same thing.

When Money imports the date file from a previous version, it can corrupt the budget data. To fix the problem, delete the old budget. Once you delete the old budget, the error message goes away and you can create a new budget.

So now instead of an old budget that I never used, I now have a new budget that I'll never use.

And that's what we call progress.

Digital Picture Data

When you take a digital picture, the camera attaches all sorts of data to that image. Most camera users are familiar with the basic data -- date, time, file name, etc.

But there is a lot more information a camera can put in the picture. That inlcudes things like exposure time, ISO settings, zoom, flash, white balance, camera serial number, number of times the camera has been used, and so much more.

By understanding those settings, you can learn more about your pictures, your camera, and your skills as a photographer. Some of it may also be useful in photo editing.

This data is called EXIF data. Sometimes it's difficult to access without the right software.

I'm currently playing around with PhotoMe, which is a free, downloadable tool that will show you all the EXIF data on a picture. You can download a copy here, and start playing with it.

How much data is in this photo?


Click here to see the EXIF data from PhoteMe

Brief thoughts on PowerPoint

In many organizations, people use PowerPoint for two different purposes:

1. As a presentation tool for a speaker
2. As a word processor where the author intends the recipeient to read the slides at their desk

Whether people should be using PowerPoint as an alternative to Word is another matter.

Much of the bad PowerPoint presentations in the world exist because many users fail to make that distinction. A PowerPoint file intended for reading must be written differently than one intended for use by a speaker. The same slide deck is unlikely to be appropriate for both purposes.

If more authors pay attention to these distinction, PowerPoint may cease to be such a painful experience.

Beauty in a spreadsheet

There is beauty in a spreadsheet.

Much of my job involves working with people. I don't spend all day buried in numbers. But sometimes that is exactly what I need.

With a spreadsheet, there are right and wrong answers. When you provide the correct input, with the correct formulae, you get the correct output. When you are done, it's either right or it's wrong. And sometimes you can learn from the answer.

A deep, hours-long dive into a spreadsheet can be a welcome bath in the sea of black and white. When I hit that state of flow I feel invigorated. It's been like this for several years.

I'm a fairly competent Excel user at this point. I can work with charts. I can make the things look pretty. I can even code my own macros (not that I've had to do that lately).

Even after all these years, though, I still don't "get" pivot tables.

I can sometimes make them work through trial and error, but despite the exercises I've done, the help files I've been through, and the books I've read, I still can't conceptually grasp pivot tables. I'm starting to accept that I never will. I will always remain an "intermediate" Excel user.

(Can you guess what I've been working with tonight?)