steveostudios

From the Blog

Nov

Setting up Dumb-terminals

Posted by Steve at 10:59 am

In our production space we have all of our computers back in a back closet, but student in the next room controls these computers. There are several reasons for this decision: Every piece of equipment that gets super hot or makes noise goes in the closet, so our video room has a more controlled temperature and is quieter. Wiring between equipment and computers is easier, since your only running a single wire to your desk per computer. But probably the most beneficial part is the patch-ability of the room. For a normal weekend service, we have 6 students running the room, but for some events we only need one person, but the computers are across the room. Well, you can patch any computer to any desk, allowing us to change desk positions on the fly. And here is how we do it: We use the Gefen CAT5 1000 S and R and an ordinary CAT5 patch bay.

Every computer in our closet runs USB and VGA into it’s own Gefen CAT5 1000 S (for sender). All of these run CAT5 into a patch bay. From the patch bay simply run to the desk where a Gefen CAT5 1000 R (for receiver) sits connected to a VGA monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse. And that’s it!

They’re very easy to setup with absolutely no configuring. They’re hot-swappable meaning you don’t have to restart the computers to move them around. I would say that our biggest complaint is the video quality. I’ve never really seen video over CAT5 look great, and this is no exception. It’s super compressed and sometimes the video doesn’t fill up the whole monitor (which is weird… I don’t understand that!). But, the only person that has too see that is the person sitting at the desk, and the quality is completely legible, so it doesn’t impede or distract, so the benefits far outweigh a little quality degradation. And, the Gefen CAT5 1000 S and R is only $695 for the set. If this sounds like a lot, think of the man hours alone that you’ll save just from moving computers around! For us, it’s totally worth it!

Gefen makes other extenders, none of which I have used, but they should be just as awesome.

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Nov

Friday Pick: CloudApp

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am

CloudApp is an awesome application, aimed at taking away all of the dislikes of sharing links, images, music, videos and other files. What dislikes could there be, you ask? Let’s look at one easy example.

Say you are working with a client or coworker on an image design. You’re past the draft phase and have moved on to the pixel tweaks needed to get the job done. This involves reading your email, making the change, saving the image, grabbing the image in Finder, uploading it somewhere, obtaining a link, copy/pasting that link in an email and hitting send. Pretty easy, right?

Well, with CloudApp it is even easier! On a Mac (with the Screenshots Raindrop), you simply take a screengrab the way you normally would using ⌘+⇧+4 (Command + Shift + 4), select your image, wait a second for a ding (that’s CloudApp’s signal that the file has been saved, uploaded, and has copied a shortened URL to your clipboard), and then paste inside an email. Now that is a LOT easier.

Some of the coolest features are it’s ease of use, it’s URL shortening, keyboard shortcuts, drag-n-drop support, the archiving of all your drops, and a count of how many times those links have been clicked. It even has an API for you to use in your own applications. I also use Stratus, a pretty sweet CloudApp, um, app.

I’m still not completely sure how to use CloudApp to it’s fullest advantage, but I love how easy it is. I almost want it to do more, but I can’t think of what I would have it do…

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Oct

Friday Pick: Growl

Posted by Steve at 10:20 am

I’ve been using Growl for a few years now and it’s totally worth it. Trying to explain Growl is a little difficult because, well, it doesn’t really do anything. It notifies you when something else has done something. Like that kid in grade school who runs and tells on other kids when they hit or called names. That’s Growl, only grown up and now he’s head of security for a major corporation. Yeah.

Growl has the open API mindset, meaning that developers can make their application work with Growl, granting them access in order to let you, the user, know when things are happening or have finished on your computer. And developer have pulled through! There are Growl plugins for Mail and iTunes. Alfred, Cloud, Coda, Evernote, Handbrake, Skype, Spotify, Transmit, and Wunderlist are just a few of the apps that I have enabled on my Growl. When one of these applications completes or recieves something, a nice little notification on my screen pops up, not inhibiting my work, but gives me what I need to know. There’s even a plugin for After Effects to notify you when you’re render is done, and an iPhone app that will push Growls to your iPhone.

Let’s say you’re in Photoshop, working on the weekend graphic, and you’re in the zone. You’re music is blaring. You are not checking you’re email, but there is one email that you’re waiting for. Every time you get an email, a little Growl will show up on your screen with a From and Subject line. You no longer have to check in your dock for a red star and when that red star updates, Command-Tab over to see if that email came in. Now, you don’t have to leave Photoshop.

Another great example is Coda. Coda is an amazing web editor. When using Coda, you can work locally and then publish to your server. A lot of times, you’ll hit publish, Command-Tab over to Safari, hit Refresh and it may not look like anything has changed because the FTP hasn’t finished yet. You hit the server a second too soon. Well, Coda has a Growl notification letting you know when the Publish has finished, so you can Command-Tab over, wait the 500 milliseconds for the Growl, then hit refresh. This saves a lot of frustration when troubleshooting an actual non-existant problem…

In the past, Growl has been completely open and free, although now it’s $1.99 in the Mac App Store. Usually, this would upset me. I’m cheap. I don’t like paying the extra $.10 at a fast food restaurant for the upgrade. But (when I get Lion…), I will definitely be getting Growl as one of my first purchases.

Jul

Friday Pick: YouVersion.com

Posted by Steve at 10:00 am

This week’s app is actually a whole cloud system that has the potential to change your life! (Okay, the app may not, but the content inside is guaranteed to!)

I think it is safe to say that pretty much everyone with an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad who has any interest in the Bible has the “Holy Bible” app, also known as YouVersion put out by LifeChurch.tv. It is an amazing application, if nothing else that you can look up a verse instantly in a mind-boggling amount of versions. Most other Bible applications are limited to one version, but LifeChurch has gone out of the way to pay the royalties to give you free access to more than 100copyrighted versions of scripture.
I’ve used the Bible app for a while, and about a year ago “discovered” a new feature. I had just finished skipping around to whatever book I wanted to read and felt apprehensive about starting a new one, so I started using one of the reading plans provided by YouVersion. You have to create an account (which is free), but with that you can customize a reading plan that will guide you through the Bible or sections of it. And me, I’m a check-list guy. My favorite feature is that both on YouVersion.com and the iPhone App there is a daily check-list to mark off your progress. They have also designed it in such a way that whenever you finish reading a chapter as part of your plan, it will automatically check itself off and mark your progress on it’s cloud, so that the next day when you go to read you know right where you left off. Think of it as a traveling bookmark.

YouVersion offers a ton of other features which you should check out, but one more of my favorites is the reading plan accountability. You know how it is: you get busy, you wake up late and you forget to read your Bible one day, then the next day something comes up, and by day three you’ve forgotten the Bible altogether! Or maybe that’s just me. That is what’s cool about the accountability feature. This will send your friend a notification when you forget a day. Don’t worry, it’s polite! That way by day three your friend can give you a phone call or text to say, “Hey man. Not sure what’s going on, maybe things are busy, but how is your Bible study going lately?” and you can’t lie! It’s great!

Again, the whole thing is free, no strings attached, and I promise that if you pray through your study, God can use this tool to change your life!

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