Matthew Darby's Blog

Have you ever needed to write up a tutorial for something that covers a process on the computer? You could grab some screen captures and add them into a word document, but they can't cover actions or processes that are better conveyed when recording their movement.

This is where Wink comes in. Wink is a free product that allows you to create flash based tutorials. It is pretty simple to use, you can start a capture, either on a particular window, your screen, or a editable area on your computer and record your actions you want to discuss. Next you can take the screen shots recorded and add text boxes, shapes or other image to help discuss what it is your are trying to convey to your users.

I hate writing documentation and I hate having to prepare documentation, but I recognize the need for providing it. Wink has come in handy for me as I create tutorials for how to do certain things. Even now I am completing a task with it, I had long put off.

Grab a copy of Wink here: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

For some time now, my pastor has been making comments about potential problems with social websites such as Facebook.com and mySpace.com; being a software engineer at IBM helps to gives him a little creditability in this subject. He discussed the rising issue of online predators who prey on unsuspecting victims and now school and businesses that dig for information on potential candidates for enrollment or jobs. What it is important to remember is that it is not the site themselves that create the danger; instead it is the naive users who willingly put information about themselves that could later damage their character down the line.

For instance, my pastor was easily able to look-up information about several church members who had profiles on myspace.com. Among the few he found, where some very despairingly comments, pictures and phrases on profile pages of members and children of members of the church. It seems that many people, mostly teens and college-age young adults seem to believe that posting such information would only be shared among friends or other users of the site themselves thought of as their peers. Instead, for myspace.com at least, anyone can view the profile and begin making assumptions about a person's character based on what they read of see.

[More]

If you have checked out the main page for this domain at http://matthewdarby.com you will notice there is an ugly place holder with my name on it. For months I have been trying to come up with design ideas for what will become my personal site. It will include my portfolio, info about me and whatever else you would expect to find on a personal site. Unfortunately I have been stalling on making progress with the site ever since I got sick, and it has been hard for me to find that same drive I had earlier to launch this blog.

As a developer I get writer's block. My brain fatigues and I suddenly become disenchanted with doing anything creative toward web programming. I am sure this is quit common for many other people when it comes to other areas of creativity. It just so happens however it couldn't come a worse time.

My motivation to go ahead and launch my personal site has been driven by my participation in a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick's Foundation (more on this in a later post). What I would have wanted to do is set up a page so that I could not only raise the money I needed for the event I will be participating but also use it as an opportunity to showcase my site to my friends and family. However, it seems procrastination and motivation loss got the best of me.

Thankfully tonight, things took a change for the better and now I have come up with a least a template for the new look and feel of my site. So with the ball starting to roll, lookout for some changes and hopefully the release of my new web site within the upcoming week.

I can't go through a month without being asked to develop a web page for someone or give tips on what direction to go in to put a new page up. I don't mind them either. From time to time I think about doing small projects on the side then I realize what little free time I have already. Sometimes I feel people mistake what I do. They may think I do web design, which would be the graphics, the flash the general layout of the page, etc which I can do. However, that's not my specialty and it is a painstaking process for me to endure coming up with some of the designs I have created in Photoshop. I am a web programmer and therefore develop web applications that may function beyond the general user's reasonable understanding.

From time to time I will take on certain projects if I think it will help me increase a skill or some relevant knowledge toward my personal growth in web programming. This past week I helped a friend launch a web site for her business. The lesson I learned from that was that I do know not want take on any more projects at this point in time. I may do so later on but for now I shall focus on building up this site and begin releasing some cool web programs that I hope everyone can enjoy.

So therefore there is more to come. Stay Tuned!!