electro-textual

Thrills and spills !!

What a lovely group of people we’ve got for the new PRACE research project into audio technologies: “Can You Hear Us?”

We’re building on the successes of the 2007 “Can u hear me?” project, and last Thursday was the launch day. These sessions are always nerve-wracking and you never feel quite prepared enough, but we dived in and the water was warm! Plenty of ideas flowing around the table, and of course everyone is at different levels of knowledge and experience.

First session was about creating some excitement for the journey ahead: we started off by recording conversations directly to the iRiver mp3 recording gadgets .. and i’m about to listen back, to find out how adventurous people were in their conversations.

Now why can’t i get this photo dropper plugin to work!?
No, definitely not working. All my plugins are playing havoc. Grr.

i’m curious to find out more about Open Office, so i’m writing a staff-support document in Oo Writer. It can be frustrating .. when you know one application so well .. to try the same task in another app.

i’ve never been a fan of microsoft, but i am a big fan of microsoft word (except for beginner users with adult literacy needs); and i know the program so well, that i can make the computer whatever i want (except place images on the page and keep file size low).

• i know the keyboard shortcuts,
• i’ve built up macros for doing things more rapidly,
• i even know the key sequences for operating menus from the Alt key.

Having said that, there are many things about ms word i don’t like, for example image placement, file-size bloat, proprietary standards. So i’d like to be more flexible and try and different application. Open Office has much to recommend it .. better colours, better image placement, and a genuinely open standard. Also you can export directly to PDF format.

But .. it really reminds me of what life must be like for people who don’t have the technical skills i have. People who have to struggle with software for the first time. Frustrating .. to not know where the function might live in the application, or if it’s possible at all.

(thanks to Ross Mayfield at flickr for the image)