Tag: The CALL Facility

Video Playlists at OAC – COOL!

! VIDEO PLAYLISTS!
! AT OAC !

I discovered a feature of WordPress here at OAC that can create Video Playlists in a post! I have used Photo Gallery quite a bit, once I learned how to use them, and published some of my favourite photographs I have taken at this post, Photography Gallery.

This feature allows you to build a .. Video Playlist .. as the name indicates. Very much like a YouTube Playlist, but for OAC purposes, based on media you have at your own OAC Media Library.

The Online Academic Community has some great Tutorials on Organizing Content and the using The Dashboard too!

All you have to do is have some video media (MP4/M4V work best) uploaded to your Media Library. Then in your new or already existing Post/Page, click on the “Add Media” button. Under “Actions“, click “Create video playlist“.  All the videos that are in your Media library will now appear. Click on the ones you want to be in your playlist and a Blue Checkmark will appear on each one.

Then in the bottom right hand corner, click on “Create a new video playlist“. Then click “Insert video playlist” …
et voilĂ  …your video playlist is inserted into your Post!

You can change the order if you want by editing the Video playlist quite easily, if you want to change the order from how you  uploaded them.

If the OAC Media Library does not want to upload your video, use Handbrake to convert to either MP4 or M4V. Free software for both Mac and WIN and works like a charm for converting SO MANY FORMATS! 

A few more helpful links for creating a Video Playlist at OAC. Not all the features mentioned  will work at OAC but there are many hints and images at these sites to help create your Video Playlists at OAC. ENJOY!

  1. Tutorial: How to create a WordPress video gallery
  2. Insert an Audio or Video Playlist
  3. How to Create a Video Gallery in WordPress (Step by Step)
  4. How To Make A Playlist On YouTube (2022)

TTFN!

New CHD Staff Training
Coming UP
… and a new Jeopardy too!

CALL Dual Monitors

! CALL DUAL MONITORS !
! NOW INSTALLED !

CALL Instructor Stations #37 & #38
                            CALL Instructor Stations #37 & #38

The CALL Facility now has dual monitors on each workstation! Well, not all of them. The Instructors stations (#37 & #38) are connected to the VDP and can project to the entire room. And room is needed for laptops and materials at each station. 

The idea to install them came from a Poster Session for Linguistics, described in an earlier post! It was so successful that the monitors at HSD (in storage) that were headed to be recycled, a box of HDMI-DVI dongles and some DVI cables were found …. DUAL  MONITORS! And at absolutely no cost at all! I joke that I found a penny under a station, so my budget not only came in UNDER budget .. but showed a profit!!!!

There are combinations of Portrait and/or Landscape and relatively easy to switch around. I will survey students throughout the summer to see what combination might be preferable. 

Most students are away for the summer and fewer classes are actually scheduled so it will still look like ‘new’ equipment for September!

Thanks to colleagues T, H and G for helping me set them up! Those cable trays are heavy, awkward and filled with .. cables! LOL! And a very green mini-project, saving tech from a landfill too!

Some previous posts on recycling are “The Recycling of CALL and HSD!“,  “CALL Computer Refresh Deja Vu ….. All Over Again” and “UVIC Recycling Links“.

TTFN!

BE READY!!!!

READY!

CALL me Bog Stats

! CALL ME BOG !
! OAC STATS !

I recently found out just where my ‘CALL me Bog‘ blog … ranks here at OAC at UVic in terms of number of Posts and number of Views! NOT that anything I write here is ‘earth shattering’ but … it might just be able to kick up some dust from under an old serial port keyboard some days! LOL!

So, the Top 5 OAC websites at UVic for number of Posts are:

#1 – Centre for Youth & Society’s Community Resource Hub – 1801 Posts
#2 – My UVic Life – 1358 Posts
#3 – UVic Teach Anywhere – 820 Posts
#4 – Scholarly Communication @ UVic – 588 Posts
#5 – The World From Here (Gustavson School) – 586 Posts
#17 – CALL Me Bog at …. 230 Posts!

 

 

 

Yeah,  okay,  comparing Apples and Oranges and … WINDOWS! But all the rest are all Faculties, Departments, Groups, Organizations, etc. so … maybe I am the #1 individual blog! But each of those sites are amazing and I have actively followed My UVic Life and UVic Teach Anywhere. I recommend them all!

CALL Me Bog Page Views
                                 CALL Me Bog Page Views

And one more stat is the number of Page Views and with that I rank a bit higher! CALL Me Bog is #7 in Page Views at 13,624!! Always room to improve, grow and get more Views and more Posts and Pages!

The  gap to move up is fairly significant so I doubt that I can move up too much with Page Views! But you never know when one of my Posts will go viral at UVic! To Infinity and Beyond! LOL!

And some more mini-updates in CALL – almost done putting in .. TWO MONITORS AT EACH WORKSTATION! Only 5 left to go! I will update the next post, next week with a photo! YAY DUAL MONITORS! Many thanks to my colleagues T, H and G for helping me out and setting them up!

PS: I have a new laptop and monitor and .. added another one too!

Trio Grande
                                                                            Trio Grande

Stay tuned for when all the monitors are installed! .. SOON!

TTFN!

GOOD LUCK
ON ALL YOUR  FINAL EXAMS!
This is the last week of Finals!
BE READY!!!!

READY!

CALL Poster Session PLUS!

! POSTER SESSION !
! The CALL Facility !
! NEW-ish !

More of a ‘Back to the Future‘ vibe as CALL hosted a Poster Session for Linguistics near the end of the semester! A poster session might sound boring but … never in CALL and this one was QUITE UNIQUE!

7 groups needed to present a digital ‘Poster‘ on a computer, with a monitor that could display in Portrait … literally! So SK (Instructor) came down a day ahead and we literally FLIPPED the new monitors (from last August refresh) in CALL  …  et voila … PORTRAIT MODE! I had to change the preferences to Portrait but that was a few seconds on each computer!

SK had a sample .png  file, copied it to the desktop and it worked perfectly with the basic viewer software on each platform (MAC/WIN)!

All the groups had  to do was login  with their Netlink credentials, copy the  file to the desktop and view it as Full Screen and it worked perfectly!

Larger Photos are here and here.

And I am going to recycle some older monitors (from HSD! Thanks H!), slowly, and try to outfit as many workstations in CALL with DUAL MONITORS! That will be very useful and welcomed by all users of CALL! I will have a mix of Landscape and Landscape/Portrait for students to try!

The CALL Facility will  be the first and only drop-in classroom/lab that has both Mac and WIN computers, webcams and dual monitors! And so much much more too!

CALL New Layout
             CALL New Layout

For a quick recap of many new additions and updates, go to this post.

 

 

 

Hidden Gems of Clearihue
      Hidden Gems of Clearihue

For a quick recap of why  The CALL Facility is a ‘Hidden Gems of Clearihue‘, go to this post.

 

 

Stay tuned for when that happens!

TTFN!

GOOD LUCK
ON ALL YOUR  FINAL EXAMS!
BE READY!!!!

READY!

NEW CALL LAYOUT !

! NEW !
! The CALL Facility !
! LAYOUT !
! NEW !

All the new furniture has arrived in CALL! Okay, that is not necessarily ‘new‘ news! But I have repositioned the furniture to allow for better distancing, better sight lines and better viewing of the entire CALL Facility, at least from my perspective. The old layout is after the new layout photos below.

The best feature of this new layout (thanks to rolling desks!) is distancing to make sure everyone has enough room, should they want it. There are lots of open workstations for students and of course, all new computers from last August too.

You might notice that the LARGE rolling whiteboards are not at the back of the room. I have moved them into strategically ‘hidden‘ locations in CALL!

They are still IN CALL,  and can be moved anywhere quickly. I just found that some students (not all!) were using them at the back to hide that they were removing their masks and eating in CALL. Masks must be worn at all times and no food or beverages in any classrooms at UVic. There are also 2 smaller rolling whiteboards too!

Thanks to EVERYONE for all your help and support over the past 2+ years. Without my colleagues support and friendship, I have no idea how I would have fared! THANK YOU ALL! 

And how about a new feature every so often – a Throwback Link to topics … somewhat close to this one! LOL!

CALL Towering Tech Arrivals

CALL Computer Refresh Deja Vu .. All Over Again

The Recycling of CALL … and HSD!

GET – THE COMFY CHAIR!!!


TTFN!

 

FMIS Request – CALL Recycle December 7 2021

Photos of recent FMIS request to remove recyclables from CALL .
– A great variety of cables, power bars, computers (HDs removed), paper (text, manuals), peripherals (keyboards, mice, headsets, ethernet, etc.) and various miscellaeous other recyclables.
December 7, 2021

ON VACATION! Back on AUGUST 30!!

I AM NOW ON VACATION!

What an exhausting and long year since last August – my last full vacation!

And exhausting … for ALL OF  US! I am so fortunate to have been able to  work with such amazing and incredible colleagues at The Computer Help Desk over the past … 500+ DAYS! Yes, it has been that long since we started working remotely, late in March of 2020!

Without ALL of their support, humour, leadership, imagination, guidance  and every single possible ‘intangible‘ that each and every single one of them, ALL BRING to our Teams meetings, emails, texts, GIFs, Emojis, Jeopardy, Quote Contests, it would have been impossible to accomplish a fraction of what WE ALL DID AS A TEAM!

THANK YOU ALL!

A few key UVic and BC websites for returning to campus in September for everyone!

  1. Return-to-Campus Guidelines now available
  2. Return to campus info for students
  3. Communicable Disease Plan now available
  4. UVic News
  5. Update on getting your COVID-19 vaccine
  6. Remote work arrangements announced for the fall
  7. Working remotely
  8. Post-secondary studies during COVID-19
  9. NEW COMPUTERS IN CALL! YAY!
  10. NEW FURNITURE IN CALL! YAY!

Not to worry . . .

August 30th to prep for
. . . Septem . . . PURR !!!!

 

Pandemic


I will bring Empire Donuts when I return to UVic!

~~Bogman~~

 

Jeopardy – Revenge of the Memes – Poll for Next Jeopardy in October 2021

“TO INFINITY …. AND BEYOND!“
or 
YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE NEXT
JEOPARDY MOVIE QUOTES!

The NEXT JEOPARDY is already in the planning stages!! The Categories, such as “SkyNet”, “Altair 8800” and “Slide Rulers” will be my choices, but the Quotes will be suggestions from CHD Consultants!

I knew going in to the June Jeopardy this year … might … be a “Blast From MY Past”! And  although many are well known Science Fiction movies … not so well known amongst our Consultants! 🙂

So next time, I will let ALL the CHD Consultants give me feedback on the movies quotes THEY want to try and guess … from THEIR generation! This is, to quote Robbie the Robot … “DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER” time as I may not have seen any of the movies THEY have grown up with! LOL!

I created a Poll at MS:Office 365, using Forms,  for all the Consultants to fill in. I guessed at some movies and also left room for ‘Others..’ and a text box for comments too! Not only did it refresh my skills at Polls (it had been a year!) but it will bring everyone together again and might even add a bit of competitiveness to Jeopardy next time.

And imagine the Consultants … the “Jeopary Shaming” if someone gets one wrong! OH, the horrors! 

The actual Poll is below (screeen grabs) and each has a clickable link TO the Poll, but I have limited access to “Only people in my organization can respond“. Security reasons! A good test of settings too!

 
And it will eventually generate some stats and comments too, all part of Forms at MS:Office 365! Early results are in,  below, but a long way to go! And if you haven’t noticed, I am a big fan of MS:Office 365! So much more is coming in the weeks and months to come! Make sure you check out the Microsoft Office 365 at UVic OAC Blog Page for all the latest stuff!

ENJOY!
          
TTFN!

BE SAFE EVERYONE!

Pandemic

JEOPARDY – June 2021 Famous Computer Quotes

“DANGER WILL ROBINSON!“
or 
“I’m sorry Dave.
I’m afraid I can’t do that“
Famous Computer Quotes !

ANOTHER CALL JEOPARDY YESTERDAY FOR HELP DESK! The theme this time was ‘MEMES‘ and the movie quotes were all from famous SF computers, androids, robots, AI, replicants, ‘bots or even organics (people!) for them!

                      Click On Jeopardy ‘MEMEs R US” to go to a PDF version in another Tab

I sure had fun creating this new updated version, which included all kinds of memes and .gifs that are Computer Help Desk related! So, for a new feature here, will identify EACH QUOTE in EACH CATEGORY below, with a link to the IMDB movie page too! And as most of them are potentially ‘older’ movies, many Consultants have not SEEN these awesome movies! So a quick way to go to EACH MOVIE that I referenced! I will call this .. CHDMDB for Computer Help Desk Movie Database! 

(Click Character-for IMDB profile / on Movie/TV Show- more info)
I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey
OH dear!
C3PO … in every Star Wars movie ever made!
Shall we play a game?
WOPR in War Games
Number Five … is alive!
Johnny Five (#5) in Short Circuit
Daisy, Daisy …..
HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey
42
Deep Thought from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
We’re doomed!
C3PO … in every Star Wars movie ever made!
He’s not any kind of program, Sark. He’s a User.
Master Control Program from TRON 
You’re part of a time travel experiment that went a little … ka-ka.
Al via Ziggy from Quantum Leap
Doo-Do-DOO-Do-DUMMM?
Alien visitors in Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Forget it, mister high-and-mighty Master Control! You’re not going to make me talk!
CLU (Codified Likeness Utility) from TRON – Original version
Everybody good? Plenty of slaves for my robot colony?
TARS in Interstellar
Good-bye Dr. Brand. See you on the other side Coop!
TARS in Interstellar
DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!
(Robby the..) Robot in Lost in Space – original B&W TV Series!
Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled round their shores. Burning with the fires of Orc.
Roy Batty in BladeRunner
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Roy Batty in BladeRunner
What about the others? Can I help them?
Now that I fulfilled my purpose … I don’t know what to do …..
Sonny in I, Robot
I am superior, sir, in many ways,
but I would gladlyu give it up to be human.
Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1st ever ST:TNG episode!)
You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and ….
Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation
(Worf instructions for Spot!)
Believe me, I’d rather not to. I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.
Bishop in Aliens
Look Dave. I can see you’re really  upset about this.
HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey

 

Next Jeopardy (October 2021??) will involve Movie Quotes, again, for the categories, but … the CATEGORIES will  be based on a Poll in Teams that I will create soon! So they will be more current i.e. released AFTER most of our Consultants were BORN! Some of the movies I referenced, some of the PARENTS of our CHD Consultants .. might not even have seen!

But, guilty pleasures, if I have to recommend TWO of the movies, do yourself a favour on a Saturday night and watch War Games and 2001: A Space Odyssey! You will not be disappointed in either! The original trailers are below. And for TV shows, try Quantum Leap and The Hitchhiker’s Guide  to the Galaxy (Original BBC production!)

WAR GAMES
(and yeah, that IS Ferris Bueller!)

2001: A Space Odyssey

Quantum Leap

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ORIGINAL BBC 1981

ENJOY!
     
TTFN!

CART2D2 – There is no try! Do or Do Not Young Skywalker!

Above is the original video, shot from my iPhone SE, but with a twist. The original video is just me, slightly pushing C2D2 down the lower hallway, AWAY from myself, slowly. It took a few takes to get it to go relatively straight, and of course, slowly and safely!

I imported it into Photos like a normal media clip. Then exported to the desktop of my iMac. Then I imported it into Final Cut Pro, edited out a few seconds at the beginning and end and then …  used a built in FCP feature to ‘Reverse Clip‘ the video! Really, only a couple of clicks and it looks like C2D2 is coming … towards me under its own power! The only real ‘giveaway’ is if you listen real close, you might hear the tell tale sounds of a .. reverse clip audio effect!

Final Cut Reverse Clip
                                                                      Final Cut Pro ‘Reverse Clip’
Converted to GIF
                                                                                Converted to GIF

Then I converted the new ‘reversed‘ MOVIE clip to a GIF using my favourite website, EZGIF.com! The result is above!

Then I added text with … you guessed it … EZGIF.com again! NOW it looks like I am using ‘The  Force‘ to bring C2D2 towards myself!
                                          “CART … I AM YOUR DRIVER!“

Text Added to GIF
                                                                               Text Added to GIF

Then for even more editing, I cropped the GIF to get rid of the black borders and then resized it 150% too! And yeah, EZGIF.com again! See below!

Cropped GIF to Eliminate Black Frame
                 Cropped GIF to Eliminate Black Frame
Enlarged GIF by 150%
                                                             Enlarged GIF by 150%