Another of the changes brought about in FotoWare 7, SR 4, is a decreasing dependency on SilverLight in Operations Center. By running less of it in SilverLight, access to OPC is a lot quicker.
When you load OPC, it will load the front page first, then load the subsequent pages. If you switch from the settings pane to the log pane of a service, this is stored if you switch to a different service, then go back.
Additionally, as OPC loads all of the OPC pages, they will remain loaded as long as you have OPC open. This makes for not only quicker loading of OPC, but also for quicker work and switching between services.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them.
Category: Software
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FotoWare Operations Center goes “SilverLighter”
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FotoWare Operations Center says “bye-bye” to IIS
One of the really nice new features in FotoWare’s fourth service release of version 7, is that the Operations Center is now run as its own service, shedding the need for IIS on the server running the FotoWare suite.
This has a few practical upshots: (more…) -
FotoWeb Desktop for iPhone
It has been an exciting few months, seeing the development of FotoWare’s app for iPhone. Launched at the Tech Days at Palma de Mallorca, it received many excited murmurs.
The app does a few things that have been asked for. First off, you an search in your FotoWeb archives, and create alerts for these searches, enabling you to quickly see when new images come into the system. In addition, it contains a star rating system, allowing you to rate photos on the go.
However, easily the most exciting feature is the upload feature. You can upload images straight from your iPhone (or iPad) to the archives, editing metadata before upload. The app is straightforward and intuitive to use, and, best of all, it just works!
The app stores the searches so that they are available from the search box, and searches can be updated by pulling down and releasing the search window. In viewing mode you have sideways scrolling between photos. When you reach the end of an archive (or the hits within one that match your search), you can move to the next archive, simply by continuing to scroll sideways.
The iPhone app will be available for free from the app store as soon as it has gone through the approval process, and is supported by FotoWeb 7 SR4. If you’re interested in seeing how it works, ask me, and I will give you a quick demo!
Note: the screenshots in this post are from the beta version of the app, the app will look somewhat different when uploaded to the AppStore. The Album and Pinned options on the front page have not yet been implemented.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them.. -
FotoWeb: Notify administrator when a user registers to the site
One of the products I support at FotoWare is FotoWeb. I will post articles with tips and tricks in the various FotoWare applications, in addition to my usual subjects.
In order to enable automatic notifications being sent to a site administrator when a new user registers on the site, follow these steps: (more…) -
FotoStation Actions: Send to Flickr
Last week, I detailed how I built a custom Metadata editor that shows me only the fields I can use for Flickr. However, that’s not the only thing I’ll be using FotoStation for.
While FotoStation is not able to talk directly to Flickr’s API, it is able to call on other applications, and so, by installing the Flickr Uploadr and creating a simple action that sends the images to Flickr Uploadr, we have a semi-automated upload process.
We could make this a simple Launch application action, which just launches Flickr Uploadr and loads the images there, or we could create one or more checks of fields, such as Keywords (Tags), Object Names (Title) or Caption (Description). We can even allow or bypassing required fields, depending on how rigid we want to be.
The above screen capture shows three actions, two that looks alike (Check required text fields), and a simple Launch Application action. The Check required text fields actions check different fields (the first one just checks Keywords, while the second checks both Object Name and Caption), and only the second one has the option “Allow to bypass when a required text field is missing” enabled.
The order of operations matter here, anything I want FotoStation to do, needs to be listed before the Launch Application action. Likewise, any modifications to the file, such as cropping, resizing, Sharpening and Watermarking should be followed by a File Format or Save File action before the Launch Application action. If not, the changes will not be saved.
The reason why we don’t need to do that for the Check required text fields action, is that, when triggered, it opens the metadata editor, where you can make and save the changes before the image is sent to the Launch Application action.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them. -
FotoStation: Building a custom Metadata editor for Flickr
As I’ve mentioned in several blog posts, I’ve recently started a new job, working for Norwegian software developer FotoWare. Their client-side software is called FotoStation, and is a very powerful tool for processing photos.
Having been an amateur photographer for a while now, I have got a Pro account at Flickr, and upload a number of photos every year. Combining my job and my hobby is great, and I have used FotoStation for a number of tasks involving my own photos already.
The best way to do this, seems to be to create a custom Metadata editor, which shows only the fields relevant to uploading photos to Flickr.
The first part of this, was finding out which fields of the XMP metadata are utilized by Flickr. I used the Flickr Uploadr, and found that the three fields shown there, grabs data as follows:
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How to: Set default save format in Open office
At work, I use Microsoft Office, and have done so for as long as I have been working. At home, however, I use Open Office. It suffices for most of my needs, and works nicely. The problem with using a different set of software at work and at home is that Microsoft Office by default uses its standard formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and Open Office by default uses its standard formats.
The reality of life is that most people use Microsoft Office, and that they don’t have OpenOffice installed, so it makes sense to save in Microsoft Office formats, instead of in Open Office formats. Of course, you can do this manually for each file, but that’s a waste of time, and really doesn’t make sense. Instead, why not set it so that OpenOffice automatically saves in Microsoft Office format? Here’s how:
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Controlling the version of Java installed
Every so often, I encounter computers that, among other things, have very specific prerequisites. For SAP CRM and Mobile Sales, more often than not, a specific version of Java should be installed. If it isn’t, problems ensue. Now, while you’ll always have the option of finding out what version is installed through the control panel, there is a much quicker way.
Simply open a command line, and enter the command, and the result will be displayed promptly. The command is:
java -version
Here’s the result:
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Toolkit essentials – Software tools part one – ISO files
Like their physical counterparts, software tools are absolutely necessary for successful IT support. I usually divide them up into two categories; CD images and executables. The first are usually distributed in the form of iso-files. I usually carry the following with me, along with blank CDs, so that I can make the tools I need to:
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A better way to see trends
An old joke says that there are three kinds of lies; black lies, white lies and the internal polling data of political parties. The latter example is typically statistics, and while statistics can be presented in such a way as to prove almost anything, raw, unprocessed statistics are a great tool.
One of my habits when troubleshooting troubles is to have a look at the event viewer. While event viewer allows you to see specific events, it can sometimes be difficult to see trends. In Windows XP, we don’t really have a choice, we’ll have to look through the data, and parse it ourselves.
Enter Windows Vista, and Windows Reliability Monitor. As the screendump below shows, it will show you, as a graph, when things have started to deteriorate. You can look through the history, and see on what days there have been many errors. It also gives you a reliability index rating, from 10 to 1 (Ten being very good, 1 being exceedingly bad. Coupled with event viewer logs, Reliability Monitor makes it that much easier to read logs, and solve problems.
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A simpler way to get your apps
Every so often, I reinstall my computers. One of the biggest hassles of this, is installing all the software I use. I recently discovered a simpler way to do so; Ninite. You simply go to the website, check the boxes for what software you need, then download the installer.
Having downloaded the installer, you start it, then leave it to its business. It automatically downloads and installs all the software you have specified. That’s it. You’re done!
The list of software isn’t terribly long yet, but they are adding new software all the time.