Proposed new tutorial section on configuration

[Alan Jump N5ILN/6]

Here's my first draft for a Basic Configuration tutorial. Don't hold back. The better we make these, the more willing people will be to use the software. Once it's polished, I'll get it put into the wiki.

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan

[Arnie Shore]

Alan, I've just set you up as not moderated.  AS

[Arnie Shore]

Alan, GEEE, coherent sentences!  Super.  And it's clear you've put in some hours on it, so I hope our personnel staff explained our policy re overtime????

Substance aside for the moment, does the tool you're using provide for embedding screen-shots, esp marked-up ones?  I sure hope so, cuz there's a lot of text in what you've done, and there's gonna be plenty more, it's clear.  Shots are the pictures that are worth a thousand words - the headache fully acknowledged of a periodic update of screen shots being needed as a result of version change. 

We all complain about what PowerPoint does to the brain, but it lends itself to minimal text and lots of explanatory pictures, etc..

Another problem with lots of text is that it's far too easy for a reader to miss important words, like "not".

You probably have yr own favorite, but Kev uses snag_it as his screen-shot editor/annotator,  If you haven't already, you might take a look at the screen-shots he has at the ticketscad.org site.  (I use a free image editor from CursorArts; it does arrows and lines, but no text annotations; a major shortcoming.  Andy uses Photoshop, IIRC.)

I also like the approach that consists of (a) telling the reader what you're gonna tell him, then (b) telling him, followed by (c) telling him what you just told him.

A

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Alan Jump N5ILN/6 <alan...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Arnie Shore]

'Nother thought, really re platform.  To mark-up yr text - say a trivial noun/adjective disagreement - how do I tell you where that is?  Quoting some of the surrounding text back to you works, of course,  but then you gotta find that text in the corpus.

Does Open Office provide for that, do you know?  (I don't have Acrobat.)

Any ideas re just how to get specific text identified for you?  A

[Alan Jump]

I don't really have a "favorite" way of putting together anything...I
had Word up, so I used it. Likewise, I don't have a "favorite"
screengrabber, so I'm willing to try things out as needed.

What I've got out there right now is just where I'm starting from. Feel
free to comment, with or without markup, especially if you spot glaring
errors. I don't think I goofed anything up, because in most cases I was
testing what I was writing about at the time, or it was something I had
to do just to get to the point where I COULD test.

It'll take me a little longer to add some screen images, just because
working with images always takes three times longer than you think it
will when you start. Meanwhile, the floor's open.

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan

[Arnie Shore]

Alan, understood.  A quickish scan surfaced no glaring errors, as you say, and to be honest I really don't expect any.  You've shown that you understand the system rather well, and that you can draft a coherent sentence.  That's tough to beat.

Re the shots, and the time to get them included:  Yr doc't is gonna be read by busy people, who may or may-not have the time to wade through a completely accurate document.  I think you're beginning to see why we've had several false starts; it's harder than it seems at first blush.  If you have the time, let me encourage you to ry to find the right tool-set and to develop some comfort in its use.  It's sure as %$#! needed!

Come back,

A

[Alan Jump]

I've just acquired a trial copy of SnagIt. Let's see if I can replace
some of that mass of text with a few well-placed pictures to better
explain things.

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan

[Alan Jump]

Here's an updated version, with some rough screenshots. I may (or may
not) have gone overboard with them, but SnagIt makes things just a bit
too easy to work with, hi hi.

A note on writing style...I'm deliberately trying to keep the tone of
the material light. Am I overdoing it?

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan

[Arnie Shore]

Excellent, IMO. 

I like the tone a lot;  it's pretty much that of a friendly and approachable instructor who knows his subject matter cold, and who just  might drop a snap quiz on you out of the blue.  (So listen up!)

Nice balance.

A

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[Alan Jump N5ILN/6]

I'll leave this section as it stands for now, although I did find a couple of places where I'll be clean up the phrasing before the final version. I want some more feedback as to accuracy of content, as well as another set of eyes to tell me what else might need expansion.

The next section is going to involve setting up units and facilities, and for that I'm going to need a bit of help with describing how to configure both the email functions and the tracking functions, since I didn't set either up in my test box. It "should" be fairly straightforward like everything else has been so far, but sometimes what looks straightforward has lots of little unexpected curves and tricks...

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan

[Alan Jump N5ILN/6]

Change 1...I won't be leaving it alone after all. I found a couple of mistakes that need correcting, a point that needs to be emphasized, and at least two graphics that got muddied up too much to be useful. I'll fix them tonight and send up the corrected version in the morning.

At this point, including graphics, we're at ten pages as printed. Considering how complicated setting up a CAD can be, I think I'm ahead of the curve, although I haven't started on the finer points of defining facilities or units yet. And I'm still going to need assistance with explaining how to set up the email notifications, since when I put together my test system I didn't install the email handler in PHP.

73 de N5ILN/6
Alan