Tuesday, March 30, 2010
60 Second Tutorial - Create Image Cutouts
This tutorial will illustrate how to turn an image into a transparent cutout that can be used to add shape to fluid material. The photo editing software used in this tutorial was GIMP Shop. GIMP is available for free at http://www.gimp.org/.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Is Windows 741 too good to be true?
After recently hearing about an amazing offer for Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2007 through a website called http://www.win741.com/, I was ready to make my purchase. The offer states that you can pick up a copy of Windows 7 Professional Edition for $64.95 or Microsoft Office Ultimate Edition for $59.95.
As I prepared for my purchase, I noticed that I had never been on a Microsoft page for any part of the shopping process. The actual purchase is being sent through a store at Digital River (DRI). DRI, it seems is a reseller of software that represents over 60,000 companies.
None of this seems too far off. Microsoft may just want to move out some of their inventory and creating a generation of users from the college level seems like a savvy idea. But something is still a little off.
After a digging a little more into DRI, I came across some things that have caused me to pause and, as of now, stop my plans to purchase the software. There are hunderds of posts of difficulties in getting the software, missing pieces of file downloads and, scariest of all, a long list of fraudulent credit card charges (http://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/Lbt3GUJkxQAEXAjLmajbig).
All of this has turned a potential great deal into something that is just not worth it for me. $65 for Windows 7 is great, endangering my credit rating and bank account is not so great. I am not sure if Windows 741 is even 1% scam but it is a deal that I am going to be passing on.
As I prepared for my purchase, I noticed that I had never been on a Microsoft page for any part of the shopping process. The actual purchase is being sent through a store at Digital River (DRI). DRI, it seems is a reseller of software that represents over 60,000 companies.
None of this seems too far off. Microsoft may just want to move out some of their inventory and creating a generation of users from the college level seems like a savvy idea. But something is still a little off.
After a digging a little more into DRI, I came across some things that have caused me to pause and, as of now, stop my plans to purchase the software. There are hunderds of posts of difficulties in getting the software, missing pieces of file downloads and, scariest of all, a long list of fraudulent credit card charges (http://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/Lbt3GUJkxQAEXAjLmajbig).
All of this has turned a potential great deal into something that is just not worth it for me. $65 for Windows 7 is great, endangering my credit rating and bank account is not so great. I am not sure if Windows 741 is even 1% scam but it is a deal that I am going to be passing on.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Web Conferencing Software 101
Online collaboration and webinar delivery can be an efficient and cost effective alternative for many organizations. There are many options for software to allow an organization to host online meetings. I have broken the online meeting genre into three categories and highlighted a representative software option.
Free and Web-Based
Dim Dim: http://www.dimdim.com/ This is a free web conferencing service for up to 20 participants that does not require any software to download. It is completely web-based and all web conferencing and audio from your computer’s microphone are free but of marginal quality. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing. It allows for desktop sharing and web page sharing but little live collaboration and there tends to be a longer than average lag from the host computer to the participant computer.
It will work for low level demonstrations where one-on-one audio communication with a low number of images or web pages shared is the prime objective. This is a great resource for quick, on the fly online collaboration.
Software based, budget priced
Go To Meeting: http://www.gotomeeting.com/ This service is $49.99 per month for unlimited meetings with up to 15 participants. It is a higher end product than Dim Dim and provides a more robust sharing and collaboration tool. It is software based and hosts and users will have to download a small software application. All audio from your computer’s microphone is free but of marginal quality. There is a free to you conference calling option where users are given a toll number and charged standard long distance fees for access to a conference call for more than 2 people. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing. It allows for desktop sharing, application sharing and web page sharing. I have not used the service so I am not sure how complete the collaboration is. I am not sure if it allows for continuous and simultaneous input from multiple users or if control has to be “Passed” back and forth between participants. There is a free trial available.
This should work for most small meetings (under 10 people). Its price is fairly affordable and it may be sufficient to cover your many organization’s needs.
Industry Leader
I have been a heavy user of WebEx (http://www.webex.com/) which is the industry leader for about 4 years. It has very high end sharing and collaboration tools and seamless file collaboration (a user clicks the mouse and they have control, the other user only needs to click the mouse to resume control). It is software based and hosts and users will have to download a small software application. All audio from your computer’s microphone is free and of decent quality. There is a conference calling option where users are given a toll charged standard long distance fees for access to a conference call or toll-free number for more than 2 people. The host is charged a per minute per person fee for the conference calling. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing.
WebEx has traditionally been targeted to medium to large businesses and had a minimum of 5 hosting licenses per account. This pushed the web conferencing costs to a minimum of close to $300 per month. They have recently become more accessible to the small businesses by offering single host licenses for $49 per month for unlimited web conferencing for up to 25 participants. VOIP and toll-free conference calling options still cost extra.
This product is a great fit for an organization that is committed to providing webinars and will be hosting a large number of webinars and online collaboration events.
This is a rundown of options that cover the three tiers of access to online collaboration tools. There are a large number of providers but they will fall into one of the three categories with similar services to the providers that I highlighted. I suggest that someone testing the webinar waters should take a look at the free service and test it internally with two computers (a laptop and a desktop side by side, if possible) so that you can see the host input and the participant output. If this product does not meet your needs, then you can take a step up the ladder to the next tier of providers and hopefully the costs with match the value the service provides.
Free and Web-Based
Dim Dim: http://www.dimdim.com/ This is a free web conferencing service for up to 20 participants that does not require any software to download. It is completely web-based and all web conferencing and audio from your computer’s microphone are free but of marginal quality. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing. It allows for desktop sharing and web page sharing but little live collaboration and there tends to be a longer than average lag from the host computer to the participant computer.
It will work for low level demonstrations where one-on-one audio communication with a low number of images or web pages shared is the prime objective. This is a great resource for quick, on the fly online collaboration.
Software based, budget priced
Go To Meeting: http://www.gotomeeting.com/ This service is $49.99 per month for unlimited meetings with up to 15 participants. It is a higher end product than Dim Dim and provides a more robust sharing and collaboration tool. It is software based and hosts and users will have to download a small software application. All audio from your computer’s microphone is free but of marginal quality. There is a free to you conference calling option where users are given a toll number and charged standard long distance fees for access to a conference call for more than 2 people. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing. It allows for desktop sharing, application sharing and web page sharing. I have not used the service so I am not sure how complete the collaboration is. I am not sure if it allows for continuous and simultaneous input from multiple users or if control has to be “Passed” back and forth between participants. There is a free trial available.
This should work for most small meetings (under 10 people). Its price is fairly affordable and it may be sufficient to cover your many organization’s needs.
Industry Leader
I have been a heavy user of WebEx (http://www.webex.com/) which is the industry leader for about 4 years. It has very high end sharing and collaboration tools and seamless file collaboration (a user clicks the mouse and they have control, the other user only needs to click the mouse to resume control). It is software based and hosts and users will have to download a small software application. All audio from your computer’s microphone is free and of decent quality. There is a conference calling option where users are given a toll charged standard long distance fees for access to a conference call or toll-free number for more than 2 people. The host is charged a per minute per person fee for the conference calling. You can use existing phones for one-to-one audio conferencing.
WebEx has traditionally been targeted to medium to large businesses and had a minimum of 5 hosting licenses per account. This pushed the web conferencing costs to a minimum of close to $300 per month. They have recently become more accessible to the small businesses by offering single host licenses for $49 per month for unlimited web conferencing for up to 25 participants. VOIP and toll-free conference calling options still cost extra.
This product is a great fit for an organization that is committed to providing webinars and will be hosting a large number of webinars and online collaboration events.
This is a rundown of options that cover the three tiers of access to online collaboration tools. There are a large number of providers but they will fall into one of the three categories with similar services to the providers that I highlighted. I suggest that someone testing the webinar waters should take a look at the free service and test it internally with two computers (a laptop and a desktop side by side, if possible) so that you can see the host input and the participant output. If this product does not meet your needs, then you can take a step up the ladder to the next tier of providers and hopefully the costs with match the value the service provides.
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