Archives for March 2006
Managing email
43Folders has a great series of posts on how to manage your email in box. A real key is having an email client that supports “smart folders” — virtual mailboxes that display the results of a complex search. Sadly, Eudora’s support for this is a bit weak, and I don’t use Apple’s Mail.app because I need to be able to easily sync email with my laptop. Might be time to investigate other options…
posted March 28, 2006 by admin | permalink | Add comment
Coming Soon: InqScribe 1.5
InqScribe 1.5 is in beta testing. There’s all kinds of goodies wrapped up in this release, but I’ll quickly highlight three.
- We’ve revamped keyboard shortcut support, making it possible to use a much wider range of key combinations. We’ve also added several new shortcut commands. Finally, we now have first class support for foot pedals and other USB input devices, including the ability to use modifier keys with those devices.
- We’ve added support for reusable text snippets. These snippets can be assigned a keyboard shortcut, or entered via an easily accessible list. Snippets can even contain references to the current time, so a single keystroke can insert something like “[01:10:00] Interviewer: “.
- And last, we’ve added Windows Media Player support for Windows users who need to work with wmv or wma files.
InqScribe 1.5 will be available shortly. Stay tuned.
posted March 28, 2006 by admin | permalink | Add comment
Disabled menu item workaround for Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer does not support the “DISABLED” attribute for HTML form menu items (aka the “SELECT” tag). (Here’s a nice explanation of the issue by Allistair Lattimore.)
He also came up with a pretty elegant javascript solution.
But it didn’t really work well for me because I already had too much dynamic HTML on the page and it just added to the complexity. Also, with the javscript solution you’re still able to select the disabled menu item — it simply reverts to your prior selection if you select a disabled item. It does the job, but you’re only getting feedback AFTER you make your selection, and even then it’s easily missed.
One of the comments on the javascript solution page hinted at an even more elegant solution, though it wasn’t immediately obvious why it was a solution: use the “OPTGROUP” tag. It ends up, this is a VERY elegant solution that doesn’t require javascript at all. Here’s how it works…
There's more...
posted March 21, 2006 by ben | permalink | View three comments
Teleprompter-style Scrolling Subtitles with InqScribe
Someone recently asked us if InqScribe could support teleprompter-style subtitles, e.g. subtitles that slowly scroll onto and off the screen. They needed to project a video with detailed transcripts to a large audience and they were concerned that traditional subtitles would disappear too quickly off the screen before folks could read it.
While this currently isn't directly supported in InqScribe, it *is* possible to use QuickTime Text Descriptors within InqScribe to do this. Basically, we need to do two things:
- Make the subtitle pane large enough to display a lot of text. The easy way to do this is to place it side by side with the movie, like this:
- Insert special QuickTime Text Descriptors within your transcript to tell QuickTime to scroll the text on and off the screen.
There's more...
posted March 15, 2006 by ben | permalink | Add comment
Silicon Alley Alive and Well
The startup buzz is back in the mainstream media. The New York times reports about the revival of Silicon Alley. This wave, says the Times, has been enabled in part by lower operating costs and new revenue from targetted advertising via Google Ads and Yahoo Search Marketing, and is characterized by companies that are leaner, more efficient, and less interested in venture capital. Lessons learned from the 90s?
posted March 15, 2006 by matt | permalink | Add comment
My World GIS part of Apple Earth Science cart
The My World GIS software is now included in the Apple Earth Science Digital Learning Series as part of the PASCO Earth Science Classroom Bundle. Inquirium is helping to design the My World GIS software as part of our ongoing work with the GEODE initiative.
posted March 15, 2006 by matt | permalink | Add comment