Two Photoshop CS5 Tips

Content Aware


This is a terrific tip for removing an item from an image that you do not want in the background.

1. First select an image that you wish to edit.
2. With the lasso tool draw around the item you wish to remove.
3. Got to Edit, then Fill. Through the Contents Pull Down menu, select Content-Aware.
4. Click OK.
5. This will remove the image selection and fill in with pixels from the background.

What a time saver!

Creating a mask to include the fine details such as hair.

One of the biggest problems with cutting someone out of one image and into another is the issue of hair. Namely, getting the fine details included in the edge of a persons head.

1. Select an image of a person you want to edit.
2. With the lasso tool, select around the person. Select near the edge of the hair. Leave the fine strands of hair out.
3. Once selected, create a mask.
4. Go to channels and turn off all color except for the bottom layer (black).
5. Got to the Windows tab and select Mask.
6. Within the Mask window click on Mask Edge.
7. Raise the Edge Detector.
8. For Output, activate the Decontaminate Colors box. For both these settings you will have to play around to see gives you the best results for your project.
9. Use the Edge tool to paint over the edge of the mask where the ends of the hair will be. Every time you let got of the tool you will see the result instantly. Continue to paint until you are sure all hair is included.
10. Close the Edge tool when finished.
11. Photoshop will create a new layer over the original layer.
12. Slip a new image under it to better see the results.

This is another fun and very useful tip.

Enjoy,
DJ

Adding a Drop Down Menu in Dreamweaver

I needed to add a Drop Down Menu to a set of web pages. This pull down would link to other related pages pertaining to faculty per semester. I wanted to add it to an existing line of text so that it would not eat up any more real estate.

I originally tried a default Spry within Dreamweaver. However, I was not happy with the results. I then found a web site that offered a solution. http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/linking_famsupp_114.html.

This offered a better solution. A form is created for placement. Once it was placed I was able to add the single menu line to the left of the drop down. It very important not to accedentally destroy the FORM coding. Below is the code that I used.

Note: Using this Blogger will not allow the use of HTML coding. It ignores it. So I have placed and image at the top of this post that is clickable to see an inlarged image.

DJ

Creating a Save As button in LiveCycle Designer

I use LiveCycle Designer to create electronic PDF forms for our clients to use.

One draw back is creating a Save As button.

Using LiveCycle Designer, open your document and create a button from the library. Using the Object Field's Caption option, rename it "Save As".

To add the Save As script, the user must first turn on the Script Editor (Window menu / Script Editor). This will open the editor across the top of the page.

While the button is selected go to the editors first field and from the pull down select "MouseUp"

In the second field we will type in our Script: app.execMenuItem("SaveAs")

For the third field labeled Language use the pull down menu and select "JavaScript".

For the fourth field called Run At: select "Client".

Save the form.

Now when clients fill out the form and hit Save As they are given a choice of renaming the document.

I hope you all find this helpful,

DJ

How to Re-direct from an old web page to a new page

Example: I needed to redirect users of our old web pages to our new pages.

Issues: I tried .htaccess but kept having server errors. PHP also produced the same server errors. I even tried adding the code above the !DOC file but that killed the links to the CSS files. Finally I tried a simple javascript and it worked.

I had to place the script near the top of the page.

See the image below as to where the javascript code was placed. The code is in RED.

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Chapters 7-12

Chapter 7: Designing the Home Page

Things that the home page has to accommodate:
- Site identity and mission
- Site hierarchy
- Search
- Teases
- Timely control
- Deals
- Shortcuts
- Registration
Abstract Objections:
- Show me what I’m looking for
- And what I’m not looking for
- Show me where to start
- Establish credibility and trust
The home page needs to answer four questions (pg 93)
1) What is this?
2) What do they have here?
3) What can I do here?
4) Why should I be here and not somewhere else?
How to get the message out? (pg 101)
- The Tag Line
- The Welcome Blurb
Note: Perhaps ITAC’s site needs a Blurb?
Pull Downs and Drop Downs
- You have to seek them out
- Hard to scan
- They’re twitchy


Chapter 8: Why most web design teams arguments about usability are a waste of time and how to avoid them.

Left to their own devices, web development teams aren’t notoriously successful at making decisions about usability questions. Most teams end up spending a lot of precious time rehashing the same issues over and over.


Chapter 9: Usability testing on 10 cents a day.

Focus groups are not a usability test!
Focus Group: People react to ideas and designs. React to each other’s ideas.
Usability Test: One user at a time (web).
A) Figure out what it is. B) Try to use it to do a typical task. (pg 133)
Several true things about testing
- If you want a great site, you’ve got to test.
- Testing with 1 user is 100% better than testing none.
- Testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 users near the end.
- The importance of recruiting representative users is overrated.
- The point of testing is not to prove or disapprove something. It’s to inform your judgment.
- Testing is an iterative process.
- Nothing beats a live audience reaction.
Recruit loosely and grade on a curve. (pg 139)
- We’re all beginners under the skin.
- It’s usually not a good idea to design a site so that only your target audience can use it.
- Experts are rarely insulted by something that is clear enough for beginners.
For usability testing use Camtasia to record on screen use. For $1,000 more we can buy Morae (Camtasia on steroids).
Types of testing:
- Get it Testing: See if they understand the site.
- Key Task: Ask the user to do something then watch how they do it.
Note: perhaps we should test our new site.


Chapter 10: Usability as Common Courtesy

- Do not cause the user to drain their reservoir of goodwill.
- Avoid things that can diminish goodwill (pg 164)
- Do things that increase goodwill (pg 166) example: printer friendly pages.


Chapter 11: Accessibility, Cascading Style Sheets and you

1) Fix the usability problems that confuse everyone.
2) Read an Article.
3) Read a book (reference)
4) Start using CSS.
5) Go for the low-hanging fruit.


Chapter 12: Help! My boss wants me to _____________.

Do not ask for too much information for online forms.





This book was very informative. I loved the common sense approach.

DJ

Audience Digital Signage System Upgrade from 3.3 to 3.5

There was an issue with sending video to client’s digital signs using our digital signage system called Audience 3.3.

We recently had a request to display a video on the School of Business’s digital signs. A video was created as a MPG, version 2. Several years ago we did this without any problems.

I was able to have the video display on the Audience system using “local/host”. Note: Audience will convert MPG to WMV files. However, the system could not push to the video (via the web) out to our clients display. The video would appear only as a black rectangle.

I spent a good deal of time trying to research the issue. To make a long story short, audience can not push video to displays using Internet Explorer 7 or 8. It would display only on IE 6. Our Audience system has IE6 and that is why it could display the video just fine. However, for security reasons, I could not expect our clients to downgrade to IE6.

I contacted the tech department of Capital Networks (the maker of Audience) and they confirmed an issue with IE7 and 8. I was referred to their sale person. He suggested upgrading to an entirely new system for around $4,000. That included a new computer, video card, graphic card along with new software. He suggested that I get back in contact with the tech department to make sure there would be no issues with displaying the video.

I called back to the tech department and was told that just having a software upgrade should take care of this issue. This software upgrade would be free. However, they wanted to take some time to make sure there would not be a problem. After a week (without hearing back from them) I emailed them and found out that there was indeed an issue with the new software being able to push video to IE8 and they were researching the problem.

Then it became a comedy of errors. I dealt with three different tech people. None of whom were communitcating with each other. First there was a delay on researching the video issue. Then I was sent a software patch. After trying to install this patch I realized it was for the software upgrade Audience 3.5. I had never received the upgrade.

After several days I was sent the link for the upgrade. I had to download the software upgrade in sections from their FTP from their server. I was asked that before I install the upgrade to call the tech desk for help. When I called them, they had me do the install and walked me through manually upgrading the software.

Once everything was loaded, I hung up and tried to load the video on a test playback. It did not work. I called the tech desk back and found out through trial and error that the videos must be placed within a folder on the C drive called Digimation. Once I did that the video was encoded as a WMV and it played. The older software did not care where the video file resided.

Keep in mind our Playbacks are pushed out over the internet. The system updates every 30 minutes so every time I made a change I have to wait for a result. I also had to use another computer that had IE8 installed to confirm the outcome. It was a matter of patience.

The final result is that we are able now to push video to the client’s computers and signs.

Now when I load a video I have to match the display time to the length of the video.

Success!

Google Apps Intro

This course was taught at Case Western Reserve University by Roger Zender.

You can visit Google Guides at CaseLearns:
http://researchguides.case.edu/content.php?pid=92130&sid=686301&search_terms=google+apps

G-mail:
I check my e-mail directly in G-mail, however G-mail can be set via i-map to Outlook or any other mail handler. I-map is a mirror image of G-mail and Outlook. So if you remove a file in Outlook it will be removed from G-mail.

All messages are set up to be in a conversation mode. Meaning that a string of content will always be included in one file. Personally, it took some getting used to this initially. However it does save space in our g-mail files.

Calendar:
Quick Add. This sets up a very fast posting.
Search options: I really haven't used this feature since it is not very prominent. However it make searching far more accurate. It uses Who, What and Where, plus more options to aid in searches.

Offline: To use this function you must download Google Gears. Google Calendar will give you read-only access to your calendars when there is no internet connection. This feature will download your events onto this computer. Please make sure you are not using a public or shared computer. You will need Gears for offline access, and the installer will restart your browser.

Sync: Is a help page to help clients get set up for Outlook and other mail handlers.

Start Page:
Is our home page for news and university information. By default, all content is Case related. However, other content such news, sports, weather and many other different content can be added.

Google Docs:
These are all open source programs that can export to Microsoft Office plus other office suites.
Options are for Documents (Word), Presentations (Power Point), Spreadsheets (Excel), Forms (this is rather a simple tool for creating quick forms and the results are e-mailed with as a spreadsheet). You can create folders to store selected documents. Finally, there is a folder to select pre-assigned templates.

Presenter: You can share, publish and embed. Also there is a small selection of templates to help clients to get started. Graphics and images can be imported.
Spreadsheet: We can right click on a cell to add gadgets such as graphs and metric dials.
Forms: This is not Survey Monkey but it does have it advantages such as template designs and being able to import graphics. As mentioned above the results are exported via e-mail as a spreadsheet.
Folders: Once there are created files can be "uploaded" into the folder.

Google Sites:
This is a feature not available on public G-mail. For the Case version we can use Google Sites to quickly create web sites. As the other offerings with Google, there are templates to get you web site up fast. You can even add logos. Of course these site would not meet the university's web template but for a temporary web page this could be very useful.

Google Apps is not and end all program but can be very useful especially since it is open source and all content can be import to other programs. This course was a very brief over review but revealed features that I was not aware of. I have been using g-mail for over a year and really see no reason to export my e-mail into outlook. It's main advantage is being able to check my e-mail from any computer. With experience I will find many more features that I will take advantage of.

Overall, two thumbs up.

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Chapters 1-6

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Chapters 1 through 6

Chapter 1: Don’t Make Me Think. (PG 11)
First Law of Usability: Don’t Make Me Think.
This refers to the content on a web page. A good page should not make you think. I you find yourself asking questions about the site, then you are thinking. Example button designs, confusing text and layout design.

Chapter 2: How We Really Use the Web
Fact of Life #1: We don’t read pages, we scan them. (PG 22)
Fact of Life #2: We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfice.
Fact of Life #3: We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through.

Chapter 3: Billboard Design 101
Design pages for scanning, not reading (pg 30)
Make it obvious what is clickable (pg 37)
Avoid busyness

Chapter 4: Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
Second Law of Usability: It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.

Chapter 5: Omit Needless Words
Third Law of Usability: Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half that’s left.
This is exactly what Megan was talking about for our videoconferencing site!
Benefits of the Third Law: (pg 45)
- It reduces the noise level of the page
- It makes the useful content more prominent
- It makes the pages shorter, allowing users to see more of each page at a glance without scrolling.
Avoid Happy Talk: Too much introduction text and self congratulatory information (pg 46)
Instructions Must DIE! Eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory (pg 47).

Chapter 6: Street Signs and Breadcrumbs
Some people will always look for a Search box in a site right away. They are called Search Dominate.
Some people will always browse first. They are called Link Dominate (pg 54).
The overlooked purposes of the Navigator (pg 59)
- It gives us something to hold onto
- It tells us what’s here
- It tells us how to use the site
- It gives us confidence in the people who built it
Persistent Navigation: A set of navigational elements that appears on every page. 2 exceptions: the Home page and forms. (pg 62)
The Sections: Primary Navigation
The Utilities: Such as Home, Search, How to buy or Help
A Way to Search: Use a simple search box with a Search button. No fancy wording (pg 67).
Search options: This site or the web.
Keep it Simple.
Question for Megan: Can we make our Search field be set up to search only our web content?
Page Naming: The name of the page needs to be prominent. The name needs to match what I clicked.
You are here indicators: Highlight current location in navigation bar. Note: too bad Case’s templates can’t do this (pg 74)
Breadcrumbs: You are here indicators. Show an actual path as to how you arrived. About.com is a good example (pg 76).
Tabs for navigating:
- They are self evident
- They are hard to miss
- They are slick
- They suggest a physical space

More to my review of Don’t Make Me Think to come.

Setting up iTunesU albums for Case’s Courseware

We will have a Google Doc created for the current semesters courseware classes (spring 2010). Open or create this document.

Open Case’s Registrar page and search on a course that we will be creating an album for. We will copy data from here and paste it into our Google Doc.

The information we will need is for the following categories: Courseware Name, Course Registration Number (CRN), days of the week that the class takes place, the time of the class, location (building and room number), faculty name, faculty Case ID, title of the class, description of the class and then a Special CRN ID (more on obtaining this later in this document).

Perform a Google search on the title of the class to find and image that could represent the class. The dimension of the album art is 300 x 300 pixels at 72 ppi. The image that we are searching for has to be larger than the 300 x 300 album size.

Create the album art in Photoshop using one of our templates. The logo should be locked in order to keep its location consistent. Once the image is in place and the title of the class added, save as a PSD then as a JPG. iTunes will not accept PSD files and will lock up the iTunes “Upload Artwork” page.

Launch iTunesU and login. Open the correct semester folder. Select “Edit Page”. Click on the “Create Page” tab. Select from template “Default Course”. Scroll down to find the new page setup. There are three fields to fill out. The first is for the name of the course (ex: CHEM 106). The second field is for a short version of the course (ex: chem106). The third field is for an
Identifier Number, which will fill out later. For now leave it blank.

To close this information fields just click on the “Checkmark”. ITunes will return to the current semester folder and automatically alphabetize the classes. You may have to scroll down to find the new class. The class will have a default blank image.

Click on this image and the album page will open. Click on “Edit Page”. To add the new image, click on the “Up Arrow” on the blank image. This will open a browser page to “Upload Artwork”. Use the Browse button to upload the image for the album. Once the image is loaded, scroll down and click on the “Done” button. You will be taken back to the Class page.

There are two areas for information. To the right of the image is a field for the professor’s name. To enter the text just click on the “Pencil” icon. To close out after entering the text click on the “Checkmark”.

To enter a Description, click on the “Pencil” icon next to Description and copy and paste the text from the Google doc. When finished close it out with the “Checkmark”.

Now we must create an audio tab. Most of our iTunes will be audio only. There are occasions that a video tab may need to be created. For now we will create just an audio tab. By default there are two tabs. Remove one of the two by clicking on the “No” symbol. Then double click the remaining tab and type in “Audio”, then close it by the “Checkmark”.

While remaining in Editing Mode, minimize iTunes a bit. Open another browser window and place it behind the iTunes page so we can see the URL area. We will extract the iTunes Album ID.

* Left Click and hold on the Audio tab and drag it onto the Browser URL area (Firefox) or onto the IE8 top browser bar and release. IE8 will ask for approval.

* A URL will be generated. There will be a long set up numbers at the end of the URL. Copy this number (ex: .3111568770.03111568773). The first period must be included.

* This will be the Extracted ID number for that Album.

* Copy that number onto the Google Doc for our current Semester under the heading “iTunes Album ID”.

We are finished setting up the course album page. Return to the current Semester page in iTunes.

We will now have to extract a Special CRN ID for our class. First we must launch MediaVision’s Courseware home page. Login with our Case ID and password. Using the pull down menu, find the current class and open it. Then look for the current video. Scroll down select “Tools and Settings”. Find “What is the direct link to this class”. Double click on the link and cursor to the
far right. There will be a nine digit number that starts with 2 zeros (ex: 001652101). This will be our Special CRN code. Copy the entire number including the zeros and paste it into our Google doc under the heading Special CRN.

Return to the Case iTunes U site. Inside the current semester folder, find the Class that we just created. Click on the Pencil icon. Under the Identifier field, copy in the Special CRN code. This will point to our audio file.

Well, that’s about it folks.

DJ

Capturing Courseware Tape Jobs

- Find course tape and take note of the class name and date it was recorded.

- Create a Sub-folder in the Spring 2010 Tapejobs Desktop

- Name the folder with the class name/number of tape and date (eg: NURS316_1-28-10_Tape-1-of-3)

- Insert video tape into tape deck.

- Rewind the tape to the beginning and double-check the date.

- Press "Play".

- Launch QuickTime Pro.

- Go to "File -> New Movie Record". The video should display momentarily. (NOTE: Do not click the red "record" button yet).

- After establishing the video signal, STOP the tape and rewind to the beginning.

- Hit "Play" on the tape and then click on "Record" on QuickTime (there may not be enough time to hit play and then run back to the computer to hit record so you may need to have someone hit the tape "Play" button for you).

- When the tape runs out, the recording should stop on its own. Since these tapes are reused the recording should stop at the end of the current video. However sometimes it does not. QuickTime will show an error pertaining to an "incorrect media selection".

- The movie file will appear on the desktop as "Movie.mov" If there is already a "Movie.mov," the filenames will become "Movie1.mov, Movie2.mov" and so on.

- Re-Name the file for the class without using any spaces, symbols or extra characters (eg. NURS316).

- Move this file to the "Spring 2010 Tape Job" folder and place it in the Subfolder named for the class in Step 1 (eg: NURS316_1-28-10_Tape-1-of-3).

- Open the movie file to test it for quality (sound, image quality, any glitches and if the movie plays to the end).

- "Drop" the correctly named MOV file to a watch folder on the desktop "watchfolders -> inbox -> mediavision -> video -> vbrick -> part#" There are multiple folders labeled part. Select one that does not have a file with the same name (two files named NURS316 cannot reside in the same "part").





Troubleshooting

- Is the deck connected to the computer via Firewire?
- Error: "incorrect media selection" usually means that there was either a "hit" in the tape (a break in the timecode) that causes the recording to stop. This will usually happen at the end of the class, causing the recording to stop at an appropriate place, but will occasionally happen earlier in the recording. If this happens anywhere except the end of a class, make a new recordings as necessary until the full class is captured.
-If the recording goes past the end of the current class, the extraneous video will need to be excised. This can be done using QuickTime's "IN and OUT" editing controls.
Scrub to the beginning of the unwanted section and hit the Key "I" to set the In.
Scrub to the end of the unwanted section and hit the Key "O" to set the Out.
Go to "Edit -> "Cut."
Go to "File -> "Save As"
Save to the "Semester Year Tape Jobs" (Spring 2010 Tape Jobs) on the Desktop in the subfolder created for the class in Step 1 of the process.
*Other Key Quicktime Controls are J=backwards, K=Pause, L=forwards and Space Bar=Play and Pause.

iTunes Album ID Extraction for CWRU Courseware

Most iTunes U albums will be setup for Audio only.

ITN will be set up for both Video and Audio (there may be a few exceptions).

1. Log onto iTunes U for editing.

2. Select an album.

3. Open a separate web browser (I will use this to paste the code into the URL area).

4. Rename the tabs for where the audio / video will go (Audio). If Audio only delete the second tab.

5. Left Click and hold on the renamed tab and drag it onto the Browser URL area and release.

6. A line of code will appear. I will select the long line of numbers that follow the first period.
.3111568770.03111568773. The first period must be included.

7. This will be the Extracted ID number for that Album.

8. Copy that number onto the Google Doc for our current Semester.

9. Repeat for all albums.

For Albums with both Video and Audio keep them in this order (Video / Audio)