Training Videos

If you are like me, you probably have a few hundred people trying to get your attention at the same time, and all of them are thinking that their problem is the one you need to work on first. Fortunately, some of these users have the same problem or it is a problem that you have seen before. In these cases you may be well server to create a training video distribution system. Training videos are very easy to create, convert and distribute if you have the right software.

Here is a list of the software that I use to make my video files. You may know of better ones, if so, let know! These are all OpenSource and FREE to use:

CamStudio
This the main video capture program that I use. It does a great job recording what is on your screen. It can do voice overs while recording, pop-up info clouds, and highlight your mouse for high visibility. If you would rather not have to deal with an AVI file, it can also record to Flash.

SUPER
Is a program that handles video conversion of the .avi files from CamStudio to .mov files so I can use them in iTunes. I am sure it can do more but that is all I need it to do at the moment. It has "drag and drop" file importing and will take an AVI created with the Microsoft1 Video codec that is 857MB and convert it to an 8.61MB MOV file encoded with DivX. (Real numbers!)

PodProducer
Is an audio mixing program that can handle multiple audio inputs such as MP3s, and WAVs and combine them with your voice via the microphone. It has queuing capabilities, audio level control, and instant play buttons that you can configure as well and the ability to
upload it strait from the program interface.

Basically, if you can see it on screen or have to tell someone howto do it, it can be captured with these programs and distributed to your users. I am getting rather long here, so I will save that for later missives...

It's Been A While...

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I hope to rectify this in the coming weeks. I have a few new (To me!) topics that may be of interest to those that work at school districts:

Creating tutorial videos for employees and how to distribute them for FREE.

Creating a podcast entry in iTunes for a LOCALLY created and used podcast.

An interesting use for iPods in schools.

Other truly useful Freeware programs.

That's about it for now...

A peaceful Sunday...

Yesterday my family and I went to my father-in-law's house to hang out and ride horses/4-wheelers. Now you have to bear in mind what this entails ... Getting everyone ready. Hooking up the horse trailer. Loading the 4-wheeler and (The freshly groomed) horse into the trailer, loading our "house horses" (4 year old rotties) in to the back of the truck; THEN wrangling the goat (Who thinks the horse is mamma!) back in to the pasture while loading all the tack. But I digress...

We made it safe, happy and ready to ride. It was nice to see my father-in-law!

The UK and Microsoft

It looks like the UK education agency has an issue with Microsoft...
According to this page at least.

Thanks for the heads up Phil!

The Meeting is Set!

I am still working out the finner technical details, but the date and place of our meeting has been set. I hope to have about 20 people show up, but we shall see. Patrick tells me he is excited about this because it is a new take on an old process. It seems that he is liking the idea about avoiding the purchase of MS CALs by using an X-server to authenticate against. More details soon!

Planning

I had a call today from Patrick, he wants to push back the meeting till the first of the month. It seems if we can accommodate this he can get a SE to come to the meeting that may be able to go into more detail about the server and setup in a bi-computer environment... We shall see.

Can't Please Everyone

I don't think that I have mentioned this before, but I work at a small school district in Central Texas. What this means is I am continually baffled by the goings on of the typical student mind. It is amazing to watch the thought process and see where those thoughts take them. For instance, I was working on a student computer station the other day when I came across the search history of the browser. It seems that there is a student here very upset with me because after trying to get to several blocked sites, and proxies this student decided to search for "gay fat computer teacher that blocks web sites." I can only assume this student meant me as I am a rather joyfully rotund individual and I do block websites, however, I am NOT a teacher. My wife and I got a good laugh out of it because it lets me know that my new web filter is working... apparently pretty well. Just remember if someone is mad at you at work, it may be because you are doing a good job!