[Zope] - Zope for the Impatient

Paul Everitt Paul@digicool.com
Thu, 31 Dec 1998 10:45:57 -0500


LD wrote:
>   I'm not frustrated by what I've been able to download from 
> Zope.org, but
>   I am really thinking that if I could just "watch over the 
> shoulder" of
>   some Zope guru (Jim/Amos/Brian/Paul/all/any/other) for 5 to 
> 10 minutes...
>   that all the gaps I keep running into would seal up for me...

First, I think what Amos wrote yesterday is the start of something
really, really good.  As long as we keep improving it and applying more
time in that direction, I expect it to provide the foothold people need
to get started.

Now to your point, I think you're on to something with "recorded"
tutorials, though I don't like the videotape part.

I've long used Lotus ScreenCam as a backup for making presentations.  It
allows me to "record" a screen session with all the screen events, as
well as adding audio narration and captioning.

Unfortunately the files it produces are gargantuan unless you take
painful (read: unacceptable) measures to reduce it.  An alternative is
to buy Lotus StreamCam which streams the presentation, rather than
downloading a huge (e.g. 20 Mb) file.

I don't mind the plunking down the money, but ScreenCam is a finicky
product.  It can get the audio and video out of sync, it is a
Windows-only solution, it talks directly to the display (in some cases
installing its own video driver), doesn't support all video cards, etc.

Thus I'd like to see if anyone here has alternative experience.  I'd
like something that:

o Allowed me to record screen events with synchronized audio narration

o Recordings are streamed in a bandwidth-friendly fashion

o Players are available *at least* for Windows and Linux

--Paul