Ithaca College ITS is proud to announce that, with hard work from Mike Tomei and Rick Basha, that Textor 102 is now outfitted with two cameras as well as enhanced audio capability.  

The cameras are set up on each end of the classroom and can both be controlled with the Pixie controller located on the lecture podium.  A high-tech mixer and amplifier pick up the entire space very well and are dynamically adjusted to make sure they pick up your voice as well as a student in the back.

This is a huge step in the right direction as the hardware can now support lecture capture, web conferencing and can be used in any number of ways with applications that use video or audio.  There is a little guide sheet on the podium that can help you get started using the upgrade.

If you would like to set up a time to go through the techincal funcitons and capabilities of Textor 102, please call Matt Gorney at 4-5700 or e-mail to mgorney@ithaca.edu.

Digital content is, almost without exception, a computer file. If you think about the flexibility of a computer file, reaching back perhaps to your interactions with DOS and file based computing, the commands COPY, RENAME, DELETE, MOVE, and SAVE may come to mind. These basic file commands represent the fundamental ease at which digital content can be stored, transferred and manipulated. The act of digitizing analog content provides us with this flexibility and, with care, sustains the content in a more durable form. Photos, documents, video, audio and artifacts can all be captured in one manner or another to preserve a digital copy.

Digital imaging (scanning, photography) has come a long way in the past ten years with capture results nearly imperceptible from the analog original. One facet of digital imaging that is unique is the idea of non-destructive editing. We can make a copy of a digital photo for example - make changes or edits, crop, rotate, re-color and re-size all without affecting the original. In short there is no control-z (command-z for Mac users) in the analog world. That's the 'undo' command for the uninitiated!

Digitizing analog content provides additional flexibility when sharing or presenting content. Sending via e-mail, uploading to a drop-box service, inserting into presentation software (PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi) and building complex multimedia are just a few uses for digitized content as components. Of course saving, deleting, compressing and other file based actions also underline the flexibility and mobility of digital content.

For best results, the resolution of the digitizing process must be carefully considered. How large should the object be when printed or displayed? What are the file storage requirements? What are the file format requirements? And finally, should the content be archived and how?

For assistance with these and other digital content questions, contact Digital Media Services. E-mail us at dms@ithaca.edu

I recently fielded an excellent question from one of our faculty regarding exporting PowerPoint slides as images. In his case, he needed to export a specific slide to a JPEG image to use for print. This operation is a two part process. I've copied my response below in hopes that others might find it useful.

You can export slides from PowerPoint and specify the type as JPEG (and several other formats).

First, navigate in the presentation to the slide you would like to convert to a JPEG. On a PC, depending on the version of PowerPoint you have, go to either 'File' or the ball in the upper left hand corner and choose 'Save As' then choose 'Other Formats'.

A file dialog box will open. In the file type pull down menu, scroll down (it's a long list but doesn't look it at first) until you see 'JPEG File Interchange Format'. This will export the slide or slides as a JPEG or series of JPEGs. If you have more than one slide it will ask you if you want to export the current slide or all of them.

PowerPoint's native resolution is 96 dpi, which won't normally suffice for print. Because the slide is relatively large, you can open it in Photoshop and change the resolution to 300 dpi.  This will take a 7.5" X 10" PPT slide to approximately 3.2" X 2.4" but will retain the quality of the slide for print.
 

Open the JPEG in Photoshop^®

In Photoshop^® choose 'Image' then 'Image Size...'

Under 'Document Size' enter 300 in place of 96 in the 'Resolution' field.  Be sure to deselect or uncheck 'Resample Image'.

Click OK then choose File >> Save.

Adobe Connect Pro, for the uninitiated, is a  suite of web conferencing tools. Web conferencing connects two or more parties remotely from a browser-based interface. The Adobe Connect Pro tool-set consists of video, audio, chat, screen sharing, file sharing and a few added features such as poll creation and link sharing. The big news is the latest update by which Adobe has completely re-vamped the application interface (UI) and has spent some time improving the connection quality.

One of my chief concerns regarding Adobe Connect Pro has been visual and aural quality. I've always expected more from the company that brings us the likes of Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design - excellent and reliable design tools. With this latest update it appears major changes are happening behind the scenes to improve both video and audio transmission quality. Latency has been reduced and the slick new interface provides a user-friendly environment with positive ergonomics in mind. For more information or to try it out, send an e-mail to dms@ithaca.edu.

From Sample Album

Apart from the interface