Air Travel

You board an airplane. Three minutes before the plane pushes away from the gate, a computerized announcement airs: “There are four unsold seats in first class. Bidding for these seats is now open. Please use the touch screen in the seatback in front of you, along with your credit or debit card, to place a bid.” 90 seconds later: “Bidding has now completed. The passengers in seats 7D, 14A, 3C, and 12A may take their seats in first class.”

The computerized bidding system would simply choose the highest bidder(s).

Shipping

You purchase something that is shipped to you. Initially, you choose the slow-boat shipping. A day or two later, your eagerness to have this item increases. So, you go to the shipper’s tracking site, enter the tracking number, and click Upgrade Delivery Time. After keying in your credit card digits, your package is expedited so that it arrives faster.

I don’t know much about the inner workings of shipping companies, but it seems to me that packages get handled at least every 24 hours during transit. If that is true, there should be ample opportunity to upgrade an in-transit package to a faster delivery service.

I bet shipping companies could get away with charging a premium for these kind of upgrades.

Other Applications?

Well, that’s all I’ve come up with for now, but I bet this principle of in-flight upgrades could be applied elsewhere. It seems to me like an untapped revenue source for companies that deliver a service that takes a while to complete.

“Companies with IT teams of one to four people or firms with 60 or fewer employees often don’t have the level of sophistication required to make virtualization pay,” said Chip Nickolett, president of Comprehensive Consulting Solutions that has helped several small businesses take their first steps into the virtual world. “In these environments, the benefit of virtualization would be marginal at best.”

These are not hard-and-fast numbers, of course. Tiny firms in financial services, law and other sectors sometimes have both significant IT requirements, the budget and the staff required to make virtualization pay big dividends.

The use of virtualization technology is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years, especially among the SMBs. Virtualization vendors, who have primarily been targeting the larger businesses thus far, have now started paying more attention to SMBs. Similarly, SMB channel partners are also developing the required skills to offer virtualization-related services. Thus, many SMBs will start using some form of virtualization in the near future and the use of its technology will be fairly common in the next three or four years.

When it comes to disaster recovery with virtualization, you get what you pay for. If your IT budget is too tight to accommodate the most expensive VMware or Citrix packages, don’t expect continuous availability during a disaster.

Using virtualization for disaster recovery makes perfect sense. Virtual machines (VMs) can be packaged with your operating system, applications and configurations and sent off to a secondary location and take over immediately during a disaster at the primary data center site.

Handling the classroom

When students don’t know each other

I don’t try to force students to socialize with each other, but when asking questions I try to provide opportunities for interaction. Labs are also a good time for interaction. I’ll sometimes walk out from the “instructor bullpen” into the room and engage students with questions and that often sparks student-to-student interaction. This can “warm up” the room and help folks relax, which I regard as a good thing.

When students do know each other

This scenario is usually fine, but sometimes students who do know each other can be overly social in a way that distracts from learning, so I encourage you to not be afraid to be the loudest person in the room. By speaking with a loud, strong tone of voice you can often create a psychological dominance that you use to manage the classroom and direct attention to yourself when needed.

Problem students

I try to never call anybody out in front of the class, even if their behavior is aweful. I try to have a 1-on-1 interaction, tell them how their behavior is affecting the rest of the class, and respectfully ask for the specific change in behavior that I want to see. In over 10 years of working with adult learners, I have had very, very few such cases so it’s nothing to lose sleep over. Most of the times where I have specifically asked problem students to change their behavior, they have, and they have been civil to me afterwards.

Overly-eager students

Some students are especially eager to answer questions that are directed at the whole class, and if this dynamic repeats itself often enough, the more reticent students can get left behind. In this case it’s best to direct questions to specific students to balance things out. I’m always careful about putting students on the spot, and try to avoid this by asking sufficiently open-ended questions, but each mix of students will require a different blend of questions to the room vs. questions to specific people.

Try to be proactive by giving eager students an outlet to share their knowledge/experience in a way that complements the learning objectives. In other words, use their presence to benefit the class. Don’t let them hijack the class though, and don’t be afraid to interrup them and explain (in a diplomatic way) that you need to keep moving forward in order to cover important material and maybe they can share the rest of their story during a break or after class or during some other downtime.

Being approachable yet authoritative.

I think it is best to make sure students understand 2 things about me: I have significant, valuable experience but I also don’t know it all.

• 95% of students understand that the field of IT is vast and broad and that means no one person can know it all. The other 5% can’t be pleased no matter what you do, so they’re going to find something to criticize no matter what. Depending on the audience, this split may be more like 80/20.
• Skill in researching answers to difficult questions is a great asset to any trainer.

If I don’t know the answer to a question, I will usually say: “I don’t know, but here’s my best guess: <insert speculative response here>. Would you like me to look into this further and get back to you?” Also, you can ask the other students if anyone else knows the answer.

This approach satisfies 75% of the questions where I don’t know the answer but also leaves the door open for further exploration if the student is genuinely interested. This avoids me spending research time on questions that don’t really matter to the student. If the question matters to me, I’ll do the research anyway!

I try to make sure I understand the material in the class handbook 100%. The first time through a course, however, expect to discover things you didn’t know about the material. I believe I don’t fully understand anything until I’ve tried to explain it to another person. This seems natural to me so if I stumble a bit on the first time through an explanation I’m unphased. However, if I want the first attempt at explaining something to be pitch perfect, then I’ll either write out my own version of how I understand the concept, or I’ll find someone to explain it to for practice.

Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Everybody is wrong, some of the time. For my personality type, it is best to speak with a sense of implied authority and offer a simple apology and correction if what I say turns out to be wrong. For me, this works out better than being timid in my presentation of what I believe to be accurate facts by qualifying everything I say with “as far as I know” or “to the best of my knowledge,” etc.

Voice tone

Generally you will be the loudest person in the room. Get used to that if is uncomfortable for you (drink lots of water and have snacks available to keep up your energy. It can be exhausting!).

Even though you will generally be speaking very loudly, you can actually soften your voice and reduce its volume when you want to emphasize certain things. Softening your voice is a useful (and often necessary) contrast to the normal loud, clear tone of voice I recommend. For example, notice how easy it is to tune out talk radio, even though it is loud and punchy sounding almost all of the time. Loud and punchy can also be monotonous! Variations in your tone of voice are helpful to keep students attention focused on the information you are presenting, especially if it is a night class after a full day of work.

Loud should not be strident. Just a punched up, louder version of your normal speaking voice.

When students ask questions, they often will have a softer (and uncertain-sounding) tone of voice. Repeat the question so that the entire class hears the question before you respond to the question.

Personally, I try to avoid using contractions when teaching. My boyhood Southeastern USA accent comes through a bit too much when I use contractions, so in support of clarity I try to never use contractions when speaking to a class.

Space between things is often important. Do not be afraid to say something important and then just stand there and say nothing for a moment while students absorb/think about/synthesize the new information. This feels uncomfortable at first, but it is vital (IMO) to effective in-class learning.

Try to reduce nervous habits. “Umms”, “Ahhhs”, and excessively repeated connecting words detract from clear public speaking. The classic tip for helping yourself with this is to record yourself speaking and listen to the recording, taking note of how many times you say things that are really just nervous speaking habits.

Breathe enough. Take a deep breath between sentences to help regulate your tone, especially if public speaking makes you nervous.

Make eye contact with students from time to time.

Presentation

Present the concept first, then fill in the details

I believe that you can approach this differently, but in my experience it is important to first present the concept, then fill in the details.

Here’s an example:

Concept

A SQL Server table is a lot like a spreadsheet. The columns are known as fields, and the rows are known as records. All of the records in a table have the same fields, but fields can be left blank if you set up the table that way. When you create the fields, each field has a specific type of information that it can hold, and you get to decide this when you create the table. You can modify tables after creating them.

Details

You create a table in SQL Server with the create table command.

Tables in SQL Server can have up to XX fields

Tables in SQL Server can have up to XX rows

Pacing

Try to keep things on track AND offer downtime for students to make connection with each other, discuss “war stories”, etc and rest their brains before getting new information.

The right amount of repetition

Repeat things but using different teaching modalities each time

Example:

Explain something using words. Then show how it is used by giving a quick demo. Then have students practice using it. Then ask a question about how to apply it in a specific situation.

Knowledge of learning styles

There are different psychological theories on this subject, but basically be aware that some students won’t “get it” until they’ve gone through it hands on, others have to see it, others have to hear about it or read about it. Try to target all learning styles in your presentation.

Find a book on the subject of learning styles that works for you, and read it. Here’s one possibility: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=learning+styles+adult&x=0&y=0

Try to connect concepts to the real world

If you have stories from your personal experience, share them, but try to find the generally-applicable lesson in them and make that the emphasis of the story.

Checking frequently for understanding.

When presenting a concept that builds on previously presented concepts, it is important to not have any missing links in the chain, so checking frequently for understanding is vital.

Ask questions to the students as a way to help them synthesize information. Ask a LOT of questions. Next to being clear in your presentation of the information, one of the most important things you can do is ask good questions of the students. A good question helps them synthesize new information. Recall of information is not enough. Synthesizing information means the new information can be used in a way that is relevant to that student, and it is a part of their understanding of the subject. Asking good questions creates connections to what students already know, and this is vital.

Here is an example:

You are discussing SQL data types.

Good questions:

• Describe a scenario where you would use the XYZ datatype.
• Describe a scenario wherer the XYZ datatype would not be a good choice.
• List two or three ways the XYZ datatype address the limitations of the ABC datatype?
• What on-the-job scenarios can you think of where the XYZ datatype would be useful?

Poor questions:

• Have you ever used the XYZ datatype?
• Can you use the XYZ datatype to store first names? Answer yes or no.

Hopefully you can see, from these examples, that you want to avoid yes/no questions (unless they lead to discussion or reinforce a broad concept that is important to understand) or simplistic questions that only involve simple recall. Questions that invite discussion tend to be the best way to help students synthesize new information.

Find a way to keep your presentation on track if you have any tendency whatsoever to wander. Realize that you cannot talk about everything in full detail. Consider making an outline of important concepts to cover during the class. Periodically re-check your outline to make sure you are on track. Consider having a mid-term assessment to see if students are pleased with how things are going. Actaully, checking-in more frequently than this is a good idea. Remind students that you are unable to read minds, and encourage their feedback through any method they are comfortable with.

• Domain knowledge (factual knowledge of the exam subject) is important but by itself is often not enough to make you successful on a multiple-choice exam.
• Understanding the exam format and analyzing the structure of each question can help you eliminate wrong answers (thereby raising the odds of a correct guess), even if your domain knowledge is insufficient to point out the correct answer for a given question.
• Good domain knowledge combined with an understanding of a few exam-taking techniques described below can raise your success rate on certification exams.

Reverse Engineering the Exam Format

Here are my tips for “reverse engineering” the exam format. The goal of all these tips is to help you quickly weed out wrong answers so that you can have more time to use your domain knowledge to choose the correct or best answer. These tips apply almost exclusively to multiple-choice text-based questions, not questions that use a simulated software environment.

More quickly choosing the correct or best answer for each question does two beneficial things:

• Reduces the chance the exam time limit will expire before you have completed the exam and reviewed any questions you are not sure about (if the exam format allows question marking for review).
• Reduces your fatigue, raising your chances of correctly answering questions that occur later in the exam.

By the way, make sure you know the difference between a correct and a best answer! Many software certification exams will present two or three answers that correctly address the question, but one of those answers will entail less effort or time and that makes it the “best” answer. Exam instructions will tell you whether you need to choose correct answers or best answers.

Tip 1: Read the Question Backwards

Many certification exam questions are lengthy, and provide multiple supporting details or a scenario that is related to the question. The typical question structure looks like this:

1. Scenario
2. Description of the Problem you have to solve
3. List of Answers, each of which is one potential way to solve the problem

Because the Scenario section can often be lengthy, by the time you reach the second section that describes the Problem you must solve, you may have lost track of important details in the scenario. This forces you to go back and read the scenario a second time, costing you time on that question. Why not read the question in the following order:

1. Description of the Problem you have to solve (often the last sentence or paragraph in the question)
2. List of Answers, one of which may “jump out” at you as the correct answer.
3. Lastly, read the Scenario to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

By approaching the question in this order, you might save a minute or two on some questions, and on timed exams this can be crucial. If your domain knowledge is particularly good, you can scan or entirely skip reading the Scenario section if one of the answers is obviously correct, further saving time and reducing fatigue.

If you do need to read the Scenario, you will do so after reading the description of the Problem you must solve and after reading the potential answers. As you read the Scenario, you will be prepared to mentally filter out parts of the Scenario that have nothing or little to do with the Problem. This will help focus your thinking as you evaluate the answers to the question.

Tip 2: Eliminate Distractors

Distractors are wrong answers. Distractors can range from “close but no cigar” to patently wrong. Over the course of my personal experience with many certification exams, I have noticed some patterns that are common to many Distractors. Remember, your goal is to use your domain knowledge to choose the correct/best answer to every question on a certification exam, but the more quickly you can weed out wrong answers, the more time available to you to choose the best answer from among the correct answers. Developing your ability to spot distractors is very useful.

Syntax Clues

Good technical writing uses parallel structure when creating lists of items. This technical writing norm often appears in certification exams as well, with the list of potential answers for a question using parallel structure. Look for any exceptions to parallel structure when reading the list of potential answers. An answer that deviates from parallel structure is likely one of the following:

• A poorly written distractor.
• A correct/best answer.

Wait, really? You can identify the correct answer just by its grammar? Based on my experience, I would say that 15% of the time it is possible to use only your ability to spot exceptions to parallel list structure to identify a correct answer even if you have little or no domain knowledge that is relevant to that question. Remember, that some exam questions have several correct answers, and after you have weeded out the distractors you must choose the best answer from among the correct answers, so weeding out the distractors is only part of the challenge.

I’m going into speculation mode here, so treat this as a sidebar, but I suspect that Distractors are often written by someone who lacks the domain knowledge of the person/team who wrote the correct answer. This could cause a small, but perciptible, difference in the grammar or sentence structure of the Distractor answer(s).

It’s very difficult to write good Distractors. And sometimes, as a test-taker, you just get lucky when the exam authors overshoot and put in a Distractor that is just patently wrong. Often you can use your domain knowledge to determine which Distractors are patently wrong or infeasible.

Factual Clues

Look closely for references to non-existent interface components or wrong procedures. The ability to spot Distractors based on factual clues is dependent on your level of domain knowledge, but remember that Distractors often use the following format:

Answer = correct procedure + fictitious software interface name

OR

Answer = incorrect procedure + correct software interface name

Distractors that follow either of the above two formats fall into the “close but no cigar” category and can be ruled out immediately.

Remember that many software companies use fairly strict style guides when naming interface components, and they try to keep interface names consistent. Distractors that reference fictitious interface components or procedures that don’t exist in the actual product sometimes clearly and obviously deviate from the usual style guide norms for interface components. This can be a subtle clue that a potential answer is actually a Distractor.

Logical Stretches

Distractors will often outline a procedure that deviates from best practices or something that is just not possible in the software you are being tested on. This is why, when you are working on your domain knowledge in preparation for the exam, you want to focus on best practices and limits to what the software can do. These two areas easily lend themselves to the challenge of writing test questions, and so they are obvious candidates for your domain knowledge preparation. More on this below.

Tip 3: Look for Wrong Answers First

Identifying wrong answers using the techniques I’ve outlined above is more mechanistic (uses the pattern-matching capabilities of your brain) than choosing the best answer from among 2 or 3 correct answers (which taps the critical-thinking , associative capabilities of your brain). Using critical thought to analyze 4 or 5 answers is more taxing than using critical thought to analyze 2 or 3 answers. So rule out the wrong answers (the Distractors) first, and free up your mental bandwidth for the possible answers that you can’t mechanisticaly rule out.

Tip 4: Stay organized.

When you start reverse engineering test questions rather than answering them strictly based on your domain knowledge, you run the risk of losing track of which answers have been ruled out. So take notes if it helps and if note-taking is allowed in the exam format. Often you will be provided with a dry-erase tablet for use during certification exams, and this can be a place to take notes.

Tip 5: Mark Iffy Questions

If the exam format allows you to, mark questions you are uncertain about and come back to review your answer later. It is possible that a later question in the exam will jog your memory and help you answer a previous question you marked. Again, use any note-taking capabilities you are allowed to during the exam to stay organized by jotting down a note about the previous question so that when you review your marked questions, you can utilize that note to revise your previous answer to the marked question.

It’s a good idea to allocate about 10% of the total exam time limit to question review.

Targeting Your Domain Knowledge Study

Just like you can intelligently analyze test question structure during the exam, you can intelligently target your domain knowledge study while preparing for the exam. Here are my tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your exam preparation:

Tip 1: Focus on Concepts First, Trivia Last

Think of your mind like a closet. Details are like the items in the closet. Concepts are like the hooks and hangars that you hang the details on. Without a conceptual understanding of how a piece of software works, you will lack hooks to support the details about that software. For example, how can you make sense of the details about how a network packet is handled if you don’t understand the big picture (the concept) of how packets flow between computers on a network? How can you make sense of the differences between two VPN encrption algorithms if you don’t understand the overall VPN setup and data transfer process on a high level?

So make sure you understand the concepts of how a piece of software works first before you focus on details you might be tested on in the certification exam.

Tip 2: Identify Software Deltas

Find out what has changed (the deltas) between the current and previous version of the software you are studying. Exam writers want to make sure that you have current domain knowledge, so they tend to focus a significant percentage (maybe 20% on some exams) of exam questions on new features, procedures, and functionality for the current version of the software. So identify the deltas to the most recent version of the software, and expand your domain knowledge of how to use these new features, procedures, and capabilities.

Tip 3: Identify Software Best Practices

Many test questions test your understanding of software best practices, rather than details about the software itself. Knowing software best practices will help you with questions that have several correct answers, but only one best answer. The best answer will be identified because it adheres to software best practices.

Tip 4: Learn Interfaces and Procedures

Make sure you have seen and used every interface the software offers, and you have configured, used, and re-configured every function it can perform. Make sure you can identify and understand:

• Every feature described on the software’s website
• Every menu option
• Every configuration setting

Make sure you get plenty hands-on usage of the software. Setting the software up in a Virtual Machine is often a great way to do this.

Tip 5: Identify Software Limits

Sometimes exam writers run out of good questions to ask, so they resort to trivial questions about the limits of the software in question. “How many widgets can this software support?” “If you install parts A, B, and D of the software, will it make coffee for you or not?” These types of questions focus on:

• What the software can not do
• Built-in limits to what the software can do

As you are preparing for an exam, pay particular attention to details of this nature.

Putting the Pieces Together

Here’s the exam-taking approach I’m suggesting, from beginning to end:

1. Get a conceptual understanding of how the software works
2. Learn what features and capabilities are new to the current version of the software
3. Learn best practices for using the software
4. Learn the limits of the software
5. Learn any other details you can about the software
6. Get plenty of rest before the exam. Make sure you are not hungry, thirsty, or unwell during the exam.
7. Read questions backwards. Identify the problem to be solved, then evaluate potential answers and the scenario in light of the problem to be solved.
8. Use the techniques above to identify Distractors and wrong answers.
9. From the remaining answers, choose a best answer using your domain knowledge.

I hope this information helps! Please offer any feedback you would like to in the comments to this post.

Enter the Sennheiser HD-555 headphones. Circumaural, open headphones (as opposed to the Supra-aural, open design of the Grados). Although they’re not broken in yet, these cans also have a nice sound. Purists and audiophiles can argue all day about the differences, but to me the HD-555s project something that is lively and “musical.” And that’s enough for me. The comfort of these cans is top notch. They completely surround my largish ears, resting lightly enough on my skull and jawbone to allow extended, comfortable wear. And at $96 from Amazon, they’re kind of a great deal.

Operating System Virtualization

At first I thought I might organize my list by segregating Free But Not Open Source software and Open Source Software (OSS). As I thought about it more, I realized this important distinction is only academic when it comes to my usage of the software.

For a variety of reasons, I utilize three operating system (OS) virtualization products: Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, and Innotek VirtualBox. The difficulty of corralling multiple OS virtualization products onto the same PC has kept me from adding VMWare products to the mix. In addition, each OS virtualization product tends to want to bind its add its own network tap onto the host PCs network interface(s), and at a certain point this gets messy. At least Virtual PC and Virtual Server can share their “Virtual Machine Network Services” driver to keep the total number down.

Virtual PC is made freely available by Microsoft, and it does a great job of running a wide variety of guest operating systems, including many of the Linux guest OSes that I like to experiment with from time to time.

Virtual Server 2005 is also made freely available by Microsoft, and I like it because it can swap Virtual Hard Drives (VHDs) with Virtual PC fairly easily; it has the broad guest OS compatibility of Virtual PC plus a better CPU and memory usage architecture; VMRCPlus is available for a more friendly management interface than Virtual Servers’ default web management console; and I can remotely connect to virtual machines and run virtual machines without requiring they have a window open on my PCs desktop (Virtual PC can’t do this trick).

VirtualBox is an interesting product with an OSS and not-OSS version. I use the not-OSS version and find that for some Linux distros it provides noticeably better performance than the same OS inside Virtual PC. Innotek has an interesting article on how they’ve tuned VirtualBox for performance. And VirtualBox can take use virtual hard drives in the VMWare VMDK format. This is a plus for gaining experimenter-level access to the VMWare Virtual Appliance library.

Virtual Private Networking

I use two products in this space. Hamachi is a low-configuration, peer-to-peer VPN product. I find Hamachi useful in situations where you need to securely access another computer across the Internet in an ad-hoc manner, or you need a temporary VPN, or you need a VPN that doesn’t require any extra infrastructure. Steve Gibson seems to be saying that Hamachi can be trusted as secure. And the company behind it is using a two-tier pricing model (free with basic functionality and paid with premium functionality) that seems to be a successful way to sustain products. Definitely give Hamachi a try if you need any kind of simple VPN functionality!

Because I’m a technology enthusiast, and because I can, I also use OpenVPN. It’s definitely a more involved setup than Hamachi!

Telephony

I have a difficult time explaining GrandCentral to people who’ve never heard of it. It offers a bouquet of features that I find very appealing (primarily because I work out of my home office). Here’s the skinny: GrandCentral gives you a phone number (you’d probably pick one that’s local to you) to use as your main phone number. GrandCentral then forwards calls to this number to any number of other phone numbers. So in my case, GrandCentral forwards to my home office land line and my cell phone. If this was all that GrandCentral did, it wouldn’t be that compelling.

But GrandCentral also does things like:

• Web-based voice mail (delivers voicemail message to your email inbox)
• You can bounce calls between handsets without dropping the call. For example, you accept a call on your cell and decide to switch over to your landline handset. *1 invokes this feature and the caller doesn’t get dropped!
• GrandCentral keeps a log of all incoming calls, so consultants can more easily track and bill for phone time.
• GrandCentral offers a plethora of call-screening features.
• GrandCentral lets you place outgoing calls from their web interface. A side-effect of this is if your landline doesn’t have a long-distance package (as in my case) you can use GrandCentral to place a long-distance call that gets routed to your landline!
• Check GrandCentral’s website for more.

Network Traffic Capture

Wireshark does a great job with packet capture, and it’s free.

Screen Sharing

There are two products that I find very valuable for PC screen sharing. Crossloop and SharedView offer differing functionality.

Crossloop provides person to person screensharing. Thanks to Tom Shannon for turning me on to Crossloop. Both persons can control the shared desktop, or you can configure view-only access for the session. Crossloop also allows you to swap roles, so that the original “guest” is now sharing their desktop. And last but not least, Crossloop requires no firewall configuration. The company behind Crossloop appears to be pursuing the two-tier pricing model that seems sustainable and successful.

Microsoft SharedView is LiveMeeting lite, and I love it. Unlike Crossloop, SharedView lets multiple participants see a shared desktop, and all participants can gesture on the shared desktop with a “highlighter” tool. Individual participants can be granted mouse control, files can be shared, and as good time can be had by all. I’ve found SharedView very effective for delivering technology brief training sessions to groups of remote users. My only grumble is that SharedView won’t install on Windows Server 2003 x64, and that limits my usage of this great product somewhat.

Photo Editing

I haven’t found bliss in the free Photo Editing space yet, because the best product I’ve ever worked with is a pay-to-play application. LightZone offers the best photo manipulation I’ve ever experienced. It’s just so intuitive (for me, a darkroom worker) to make a digital image sing using this software. But, short of bliss, here are a few helpful applications and links:

• http://osp.wikidot.com/the-big-picture
• http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/
• I think that a large portion of digital “fine art” imagemaking will adopt High Dynamic Range techniques. At some point, the gruntwork of producing these files will be in-camera automated. In the meantime, check out some very fine experimentation in this space: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christophersoddsandsods/tags/qtfsgui/
• http://www.getpaint.net/

Dynamic DNS Products

There’s lots in this space, but I’m happy with dyndns.org.

FTP Client

Lots in this space as well, but I’ve been happy with SmartFTP.

Video Player

Too many worthy items in this space to mention them all, but check out KMPlayer. I’ve been happy with it.

Note Taking Software

I haven’t explored this space as extensively as I’d like, but there is one tool that’s sufficiently functional that my desire to explore further has been muted. Freemind is a Java-basedmind-mapping tool that makes it easy, through ample keyboard shortcuts, to take hierarchical notes when the words and ideas are flying!

Podcasting

This is another space that I haven’t explored extensively because rather quickly I found three very functional tools that get the job done to pretty high standards.

I gather audio using a Zoom H2 portable recorder.

I edit audio using Audacity.

I post-process audio using the Conversations Network Levelator.

Portable Document Format (PDF) Software

There are a couple of applications that I’ve found useful for working with PDFs:

• Bullzip PDF
• PrimoPDF
• Foxit PDF reader

Audio File Format Conversion

BonkEnc is useful for batch audio file format conversion.

Disk Space Usage Analysis

Where’d my disk space go? WinDirStat can help you find out.

Peer-to-Peer Collaboration

I haven’t found my dream solution for this space. My dream solution would look like this:

• The ease of use of Microsoft Groove
• The robust, swarming, peer-to-peer (p2p) characteristics of BitTorrent
• Could accomodate multiple identities/workspaces/peer groups and huge files
• A decentralized, p2p design
• Good control over up and down bandwidth
• Doesn’t hide shared content in a database but uses the OS filesystem

I’ve found a few packages that seem close to my requirements, but none of them are a “dream solution” yet:

• http://www.alliancep2p.com
• http://www.buzm.com
• http://www.boxcloud.com
• http://www.collanos.com (This one seems pretty close to my requirements)

If you know of a software that meets these criteria, I’d love to hear about it! Because this is primarily for experimentation purposes, free is good.