Smoothing Squeak's usability barriers

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.  I'm looking at them all.  

Ron

Sophie?

Well you can make Sophie books that point to web based mp3/videos etc  
etc, explaining how Squeak works.
Plus if someone wants to make a Sophie Frame that executes Smalltalk  
Code that would be welcome.

However that is all easy, the hard part (and most time consuming) is  
making up the video and storyline that you want to show.

I'll note of course our one video of how to make a sophie book got  
lots of feedback from people who said, "Oh so that is what you do. "
Something about a picture being like a thousand words...


On May 16, 2007, at 10:58 AM, Michael Doherty wrote:

> Sophie?
>

--
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===
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Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
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Well, a very good tool is Wink (the last time I visit this site, the  
linux version is old, but the windows is the last).

This tool records the desktop, and you can then edit it to bring it  
up "globes" with information, or interaction with the user.

Is the Tool thath uses the "cincom guy" (sorry, i'm offline now and I  
can't give links or names) on "Daily's Smalltalk" blog at cincom.

You can export them as "Adobe Flash", embebbed on a html page, ready  
to upload to a webserver.

I hope this is usefull tu you (because will be usefull to all newbies  
like me)


| Giuseppe Luigi Punzi |

El 16/05/2007, a las 1:40, Ron Teitelbaum escribió:

Well at least Lukas and Ramon are doing this already, so I think it is
reasonable.


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Yeah I looked at wink.  I was hoping to do something that could be used on
weeklySqueak.  I suppose if I upload the movie to Google then share it from
wordpress that will work.  I like the idea of doing Sophie too but I'm not
sure how well that meets the goals of allowing non-squeakers to view
screecasts online.  What ever we do it should be wordpress publishable.  

Thanks

Ron

JJ,

        yes, they are, and they are very very good, but you don't think that
an attitude like that is beign some kind of conformist? I mean, to find that
reasonable is to find reasonable the fact of leaving just as they are all
the gaps they haven't covered yet of useful things that can be done with a
Squeak system. So let's forget conformism.

        My guess is that here are many others that can, with modest efforts,
write experiences as valuable as Ramon and Lukas do but talking about other
interesting subjects. At first does not matter too much the media/software
used as long as it is proven to provide easyness of access to information.
For instance, reading a blog only requires a browser and internet. To work,
this stage needs to be pragmatic.

        People does not necessarily has bright because they surpassed
successfully super complex problems with their virtual models, off course
that deserves it's merit, but also because they have succeeded in the
comunication process of transmitting the value of the experience of have
done some technical stuff that is valuable to others with a minimum of
affinity of thought. And note that in the long term that fact can be one key
factor in the survival or propagation of that piece of software or it's
results.

        So let's evaluate the attitude of doing our part in supporting this,
that for instance should mean not producing inhibition, to initiatives of
people that may be almost ready (one never really are) but has the attitude
to go ahead and talk the better that they can at that moment to more people
what are being done here and it's results. That is Smalltalk+communication
value to me.

        All the best,

Sebastian

  TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_2G_0507
>
>

I think you misunderstand me (I'm not always clear).  I meant that I know of
at least two people already doing it, so it seems reasonable that more
people would want to as well.

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Re: Anyone know of some screen recording software?

I've been trying out some stuff on Windows, and there are a bunch of them, though not all of equal quality. A few are free, but most are trial-ware, and if you want the full version without a watermark on your video, you have to pay $. The one I've been using the most is Bulent's Screen Recorder 3. It can record to AVI files. It does straight screen sampling, can record audio, and you can put in subtitles. You can tell it whether you want it to record the mouse cursor or not. It has a "studio" utility where you can edit what you've recorded, cut portions out you don't want, etc. It performs OK on my 1.4 Ghz laptop w/ Windows XP for basic presentation recording, though it does slow down the machine a bit.

In addition to what Ramon Leon and Lukas Renggli have done, Giles Bowkett has done a few screencasts on Squeak and Seaside at http://vimeo.com/user:giles/clips/search:seaside.

I've also had the thought of producing some Squeak screencasts on certain functions and posting them on my blog. Just haven't gotten around to really focusing on it yet.

---Mark
[hidden email]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 19:40:07 -0400, "Ron Teitelbaum" <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> Anyone have suggestions for tools to use for recording and editing screen
> casts on windows?  

Check out CamStudio - its free, and works great.

Later,
Jon

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Here's a very good example of how a video can be used to introduce the usage of an application. It's very well done:

 in lo-fi (94 MB)
    http://FASTLabInc.com/Siren/Siren7.5.Demo-lo-res.mov
and hi-fi (240 MB)
    http://FASTLabInc.com/Siren/Siren7.5.Demo-hi-res.mov



Sebastian Sastre wrote:

Hi there,

 

    I been thinking about the value of blogs talking daily Squeak use. Squeak users/developers probably use the squeak's environment in different ways according to what they do/develop. And because Smalltalk was designed with the extremely valuable feature of making possible to be all inteligible for one individual, that sometimes could be a lonely task. That hasn't to be bad until the developer starts to loose valuable experiences because of that. For instance, if you are in pair programming, one developer could learn about a new way to find a method faster or a different class browser or a different subtle and clever way to use the browser, and so on...

 

    That subtlelties that are easily transmitted person to person so meetings, BOf's and educational experiences are great to patch that, but what if your profile just don't have access to that at certain moment to any of those?

 

    I think, (and I may be right or not in this) that there are lots of people that fits in this profile at least for some time and there is a gap on support to those people. The result of that gap is clear, or the person surpass it by itself or not.

 

    If is interesting to us that more persons can surpass that gap and find the completeness of the squeak experience I think that fact makes interesting to us to have vehicles (blogs are the more feasible I think) with articles that friendly introduces stories of developments that in fact are merely excuses to comunicate tips that should be fulfilling the gap. Even when they may seem to be silly for more experienced developers.

 

    I barely imagine a newbie's frustration to understand the complete cycle experience of developing with squeak because it happends to me the silly thing that I dicovered yesterday the preferences browser after some years of using squeak. Yes I know, I wasn't reading the menu and exploring that option by myself, but maybe that shouldn't be the only access to that information and access to information is what I'm talking about.

 

    Maybe universities and schools that uses Squeak are aware and have taken measures about this, but I wanted to put this here "just in case" and because I think that is valuable for squeak and the whole smalltalk comunity that we have more bolgs that concentrates the veteran squeakers virtual-environmental experiences that acts as welcome and friendly "doors" to the knowledge and people can have an emotionally smoother experiences surpassing the squeak/smalltalk experience gaps and knowledge barriers.

 

    cheers,

 

Sebastian Sastre

 

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> >are all the gaps they haven't covered yet of useful things
> that can be
> >done with a Squeak system. So let's forget conformism.
>
> I think you misunderstand me (I'm not always clear).  I meant
> that I know of at least two people already doing it, so it
> seems reasonable that more people would want to as well.
>
JJ,

        It's like:

-I have friend with a pop eye named John
-Really? And how it's named he's other eye?

        It's called 'syntactic ambiguity'. It's a problem that our natural
(informal) language has (in all languages), so it's constantly is giving us
some workload in pre or post desambiguations of things that we say/write.

All te best,

Sebastian

Sebastian, excellent description of the costs of ambiguity in our
language, which can be even higher in a low-bandwidth mailing list.

In working with people from around the globe it can happen a lot, and
I don't mind "going meta" on someone like you just did and asking for
clarification when it occurs on something meaningful.  We should all
pay attention to our words and their possible alternate
interpretations.

Cheers.

On 5/23/07, Sebastian Sastre <[hidden email]> wrote:

Chris, yes "going meta" is useful when it brings a chance for making things
to be a little better. Regarding to "paying attention" to our words.. I
modestly suggest that we all can benefit of improving our comunication
skills. That will print more value in all what we do. Learning a little how
to write well, some argumentation theory, knowing all classes of fallacies,
I mean, choose what is a priority for your case in other areas of knowledge
than informatics. That is basic for preventing those avoidable costs in
dev-squeak (and in life by the way).
I'm saying this because sometimes could happen that we need more than
attention. In smalltalkish: often we'll need anAttention + aNewInformation
that we can adquire it from lectures (not just googling) by reading it on
books on those non informatics topics. Good readers could make good writers.

All the best,

Sebastian
PS: just in case... by good writers I didn't mean just writing software ;)