Category: Tech

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Software for drawing on the Tablet PC

I get asked from time to time what software I use. So here is a post to sum that up, I have done it before but it is out of date. Starting with what I use most. I can take images from one program to another, either whole or as layers.

ArtRage 2.5

It is my favorite because it has a good interface, and it can do a lot really well. It has some features no other programs have, or if they have them they are too hard to find or use.

ACDsee 4.

For some “post production” such as lightening or darkening images, changing the hue.

Corel Paint X

Very versatile, I can usually get the exact pen I want, and love discovering new ones.

Picasa

Other post-production. It can do some nice things like straighten & tilt.


Photoshop

It can do everything, I use it for printing.

Paint

This is the MS free one that comes with Windows. It is quick for text, and bucket fill.

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I have tried lots of others but these ones are the most stable. ArtRage has never crashed my machine, and all the others have. I have spent a lot on software, but the $25 for ArtRage 2 was the best value for money by a long shot.

Of course it is all personal preference, it depends on what you know and what you do.

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Windows 7 to get integrated touch features?

Windows 7 might be a while off, and Apple might beat them to it, but it looks as if the future will mean more images, more sketches.

Windows 7 to get integrated touch features? – Engadget

Regardless of how Tablet PCs have actually done in the marketplace, Microsoft has always been a staunch proponent of touch interfaces, and it looks like the next version of Windows, currently under the codename Windows 7, will bundle in multi-touch features like those found in the iPhone and Microsoft’s own Surface.

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JustBlogIt

JustBlogIt with a simple right-click.

I have changed blog software a few times. And I have had a few reasons to reinstall everything, so it is years since I had a right click to blog app.

This one is great.

Tools make a difference, this will lead to more little posts like this one!

JustBlogIt is a Mozilla / Firefox extension to allow easy right-click posting to a weblog. From any website your new blog post is only a right-click away.

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The Blogosphere

I have been blogging for a long time – does this count as one: 1997

But I have not used it as an interactive medium, comments never worked well & I have other fora for communication – however with my Thousand Sketches it is a bit different – I want to connect more and I am! My new blog gets 10 time the hits this one does! So that project is putting me more into the nitty gritty of the current Internet. Things to learn:

digg technorati del.icio.us bloglines & who knows whatelse.

I know & use these things but not to their full.

Today it is technorati. Technorati Profile

Lets see how I go!

~

Technorati tags:

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OnlineGroups.Net

In the last post I wrote about my Thousand Sketches project – and how it has its roots in many things I have done. One of those projects was “Psybernet” it predates my involvement with the Internet – it began on Fidonet. That project hit me with a bang just like the Thousand Sketches just has. It was the realisation that the online communication I was involved in (in CompuServe at that time) was intrinsically psychological. I was familiar with Psychodrama and knew – from experience – how groups could be an incubator for psychological transformation.

Cyberspace was full of groups! I wanted a group that was consciously exploring this online space in a psychological way and Psybernet was it. That original group began on the Psybernet BBS, then moved to L-soft mailing list, and then to eGroups which were bought out by Yahoo groups.

While my focus has been on the dramas that unfold in groups – I also found out a lot about the infrastructure of online groups. Some software was better than others, and there are many more mature forms now. Caucus is a web forum that is the best I have experienced for conversation online. There are plenty of good email lists, but some do not handle files or the web all that well. For the best of all worlds for online groups using the Web & email is OnlineGroups.Net. It is very good as a web based forum and excellent for email, groups can all be accessed either way, and they can cohere on a site to form a community.

All this is on my mind as I am thinking about Thousand Sketches because the first person I shared my Psybernet ideas with as they emerged in the early 1990s was Dan Randow the main developer of OnlineGroups.Net. He was in both IT and Psychodrama and he immediately saw the online group potential for very productive work. Dan went on to develop a career facilitating groups online for organisations, for a while I worked in the company he established, GroupSense.

The initial philosophy was to use available technology. eGroups were a mainstay for GroupSense, but that went sour when Yahoo! pruchased them. It became much harder to integrate the tech into a group’s life. People needed a Yahoo ID and the messages carried ads. Something new was needed.

That led to GroupServer an open source project which has well a developed implementation at OnlineGroups.Net

I have been using the sevice for may years and have felt at home there for professional & personal groups.

OnlineGroups.Net is now offering sites with groups to the public, this is a new development and I find it fascinating how those discussions over the years with Dan about creating forms to enhance group life has led to us making public our endeavours, though different, at the same time! In the case of Dan, excellent software for groups, and for me Thousand Sketches.

Of course I have an Announcement Group for Thousand Sketches at OnlineGroups.Net.

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Pokaka – calendar the house at Mt. Lyford

I have embedded a Google calendar on our Pokaka site.  Trying it here in WordPress.  I’ll be amazed if the Gloogle Calender shows up here, but it does on the Pokaka website: http://www.lyfordtreks.co.nz/pokaka Click the link on the bottom of the page to go to the Calendar page.

Later:  No, WordPress stripped it out, so it only works on webpages. But there it works very well! So have a look you may want to spend a night in our fantastic house in the hills!

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Google Notebooks

I am enjoying this Google feature. Really nice way to manage all sorts of note taking, and linking to the web. Making them public seems ok, though my notes are mainly for me, bookmarks and tools for my writing etc. The public version does not show the lovely ajax enabled fluidity for managing these notes, showing & hiding them & moving them to different notebooks. Here are my public ones just set up today:

waltzzz’s notebooks

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Honouring a Classic

A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email

This is a link to Kaitlin Duck Sherwood's classic and once rather useful guide. Effective Email is not a bad title.  It is, in hindsight an idealistic paper, honourable because of that but also impractical & frustrating.  There is an ideology about email embedded in the work that we now know will remain an ideal. In 2006 this 2000 document is dated.  It is dated not just because it is from the last century or because of new technology (it is somewhat technology neutral, but technology has surpassed these older ideas) but mainly because something completely new is needed

    * to relate to the reality of actual practice
    * to grapple with ineffective practices and fallacies  that have gained more popularity

For example there is a link to a page by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood on Email Overload. Which has a range of tips, some better than others but which is flawed in its attitude to the question.  Even in its title.

There is no such thing as email overload, any more than that there is a library overload, or an art gallery overload, information overload or a shortage of time, or difficult problems… you get the idea, own the challenge, don’t be a victim to abundance in the world; be wise to the flow of stuff.

I am planning some posts here around Email Intelligence.  I want to find the central principles of wise email practices.

This is not a trivial thing, a good practitioner would be a back belt in communication, there would be personal fitness combined with a thorough tradition, and like judo would use the energy in the "enemy" as a source of strength, as a friend.  There may be a bigger topic here – the art of communication in the digital era.  I will however focus (slowly I'm afraid) on principles and practices related to email.  And in case you have not spotted, I am already indebted to David Allen's GTD tradition in my thinking here. They are good on email practice, and I also see limitations.

I recall some earlier posts on this theme.  I will go back & tag some old posts.

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Guess!

Google Trends: Psychodrama:

New Zealand rates fith when if comes to Psychodrama.   Guess who comes first?

 Google trends is great fun! and mist bare sone profound! uses. like there & how ho promote services.

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