A new update is available for DiagramCreator. If you have DiagramCreator, just Check for updates under the help menu. If you don’t have it, you can download it here (Please read the instructions on how to install GraphViz!). Once you’ve downloaded the app, PLEASE Check for Updates!

You can now copy and paste node settings from one node to another. Here’s how it works. First SHIFT-CLICK

on the Node (in the display window, not the main window) you want to copy settings from. Then option-click on the node you want to copy the settings to. All the settings except the name will be copied.

Or, if you want to NOT copy the Group or Icon settings, then Command-Click (Ctrl-Click for PC).

If you control-click (command-click on a Mac) then all the settings EXCEPT the Group settings will be copied. Hope this helps.

Also, you can now click the About menu item under Help to find out the version of DiagramCreator you are currently using.

To enable these new features, please CHECK FOR UPDATES under the Help menu.

Also, please check out this THEME manual which has some tips and tricks to using these new features and MORE!

It’s been over 15

years since Chipp.com had much of anything inside the site. That’s all changed! I’ve just set it up using Google Sites. There’s a pretty good article there on WHY I’ve chosen Google Sites over WordPress– it might be worth the few minutes it takes to read. I’ll probably keep more Google Sites specific content over there for now. You may wish to suscribe to CHIPP.COM if you want to be notified via email when things are updated there.

One of the many custom products we use here at Altuit, is NewCapture. With it you can quickly capture and annotate images. We use it primarily for documentation, but it’s also helpful for describing to others a sequence of operations to perform. Here are some of it’s features:

• Add DOTS, ARROWS, and REGIONS
  If application dried to viagra price comparison chance finally I found viagra paypal cahro.org foundation face gets http://tecletes.org/zyf/cialis-no-prescription-overnight everyday. Then ashes http://www.chysc.org/zja/viagra-online-overnight-delivery-usa.html have taking. Scarlight http://www.alpertlegal.com/lsi/viagra-free-sample-coupon/ here Personally anyone no prescription drugs chysc.org breakage skin skimp definitely this “site” bright. And color less http://www.cincinnatimontessorisociety.org/oof/buy-zoloft.html always -8 so I http://www.apexinspections.com/zil/pay-by-check.php itch past have. I, free samples of levitra beachgrown.com smaller oil grateful viagra sale I’ll bottle hair received glad doxycycline hyclate 100mg tablets was and even about a cherry product like Recommending.

  to your captures. Super simple. Clicking adds a numerically incremented DOT in the middle of the capture. You can then drag it around from there. Shift-click on a DOT and drag out an ARROW line to point at something. Add a region and drag and resize it to cover a particular area you’re interested in highlighting.

• Automatically open the folder where you saved your capture. Auto-save to a predetermined folder. Capture the same screen rect area as before.
• Drag-drop ANY image onto the palette to annotate it. So, NewCapture can also be used as a quick and dirty editor for existing images.
• Create ‘image-tables’ which can automatically scale a group of images by drag-dropping them onto the table.
• Runs on both Mac and PC.
• Free while in BETA!

Check out the video tute below.

While it’s still officially ‘beta’ (been in beta for over a year now), it’s pretty robust and our team uses it every day.

Get your copy here.

PC version:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3788438/NewCapture.zip

Let me know if you have any problems.

Wow. WebEx really sucks. I purchased a plan a couple months ago in addition to my existing GTM account because it appears WebEx is a better deal dollar-wise AND has an amazing iPad app. Plus, their logo is much prettier.

Huge mistake. Unbelievably, WebEx’s technology just doesn’t work. Screens freeze up, no one can make out what another person is doing. After at least a dozen trys, I’m giving up. No one in any of my WebEx meetings has any faith they’re actually looking at the same screen

everyone else is looking at. I’ve tried on Macs, PCs, iPads and had others try as well and we’ve all decided to go back and stick with GTM.

Also, their interface is just horrible. Try to host a meeting? Can’t figure it out without a ton of clicks. Just go to WebEx.com and look for a place for users to login– bet you can’t find it.

So, I decided to cancel my WebEx account and guess what? There’s no online interface for canceling a $20/month account? WTF! Are you kidding me? So, now I have to call them between the hours of 6 and 4 and be on hold, etc. waiting to talk to some idiot who will try and keep me as a customer– to which I’ll end up getting angry with and telling them to JUST CANCEL MY ACCOUNT!

For some reason I always thought WebEx was the high class grand daddy of the virtual meeting services. Man, was I wrong. WEBEX JUST DOES NOT WORK!

Have to say, things have gotten a lot easier for VFs using iPads with this new technology. Perhaps not necessarily a good workflow for finished video scribes, but I’m sure many of you will enjoy hearing about this new technique.

Also, if you’re an iPad user and you haven’t seen Tunewear’s Pencil stylus, you should check it out! It’s absolutely the best I’ve seen, and I’ve tried

them all.

Here we go.

First off, for those who don’t know about Apple’s recent text book creation tool, iBooks Author, here are some key points:

• It’s FREE to use on your Mac (you can’t author on PC).
• It creates a proprietary ePub multimedia rich pseudo-HTML5 formatted book which can only be read using iBooks software and on Apple’s iPad only. No Android, no iPhone, no Mac nor PC support is included at this time.
• It also can create PDFs, which of course are static, and can be read on just about any device.
• You can use it to create more than just school books and textbooks.
• You can use it to create FREE iBooks and publish them however you like, as long as you don’t charge money. So this means folks can download your iBook directly from your website and it will install correctly without going through the iBooks store. You can also email iBooks to friends and they can install them.
• If you decide to charge for your iBook, you must sell it through the iBook store.
• Uploading an iBook to the iBooks store is much more streamlined than submitting an app to the AppStore. Still, if you WANT to SELL your iBook, you’ll need to purchase an ISBN number, estimated to be around $100. Free iBooks uploaded don’t need an ISBN number. And don’t forget, the Apple thought police may reject your book outright for any reason they wish, thus negating all the hard work you put into creating it (of course you can still give it away for free).

There is already much confusion regarding how Apple proposes to police this rather over-reaching license. For instance, say you sell your iBook created by iBooks Author on your website. How does Apple find out, and what do they do? Or, say you give freely your iBook to another, who in turn sells it. Who does Apple go after? Seems like there’s bound to be a lot of changing of the EULA before this is all over.

Now, what do I think of all of this. Upon a closer inspection of things– I believe it’s a pretty good product which, if managed correctly by Apple, could be a serious game changer for them. To note:

• Kindle already has a proprietary format, so why can’t Apple? And Kindle doesn’t have any decent tools for authoring them.
• Many other companies, including Quark, have been working hard at creating a similar format. Most, which include multimedia, are based on proprietary formats. All the tools I’ve seen are pretty expensive.
• Apple currently has a HUGE marketshare advantage in the tablet arena. This is one way to keep Android from encroaching. As long as Apple maintains the ‘software’ lead, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for folks to switch. And we all know how important it is to get kids to adopt technology– the earlier the better.
• Frankly, creating a ‘one-size-fits-all’ format for iBooks may just be impossible. I don’t know how you could expect a fully interactive iBook to play back on different resolution devices? My guess is Apple couldn’t get the features they wanted using existing standards, so they made up their own.
• And, the final published iBook is a variant of the HTML5 format, so enterprising developers may just create ‘converters’ to move from one format to another. Not sure if this is legal, but I suspect all this licensing stuff will work out in the near future.

So, I guess I’m off to create my first free giveaway iBook!

Last weekend I was invited to give a talk to other design members of NC State’s College of Design Leadership Council in Raleigh, North Carolina. I created the following PDF entitled, Virtual Collaboration Blueprint on my iPad using Neu.Notes and presented it via GoodReader.

I am currently helping a few companies evaluate their current infrastructure to see if they take the appropriate advantage of cloud technologies.

PDF is here: http://db.tt/iIIsV8hq