Windows 7: Making documentation easier

A big part of our jobs as IT folk is often creation of documentation, especially how to or dummies guides. This often means lots and lots of screenshots, and could take a crapload of time. I overheard a friend and colleague recently tell another colleague to use the Windows 7 problem recorder to this end, and I was intrigued, so I did some research this morning, and came across this:

7. The Black Box Recorder. Every developer wishes there was a way that an end-users could quickly and simply record a repro for the problem that they’re running into that is unique to their machine. Windows 7 comes to the rescue! Part of the in-built diagnostic tools that we use internally to send feedback on the product, the Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions. Once you hit “record”, it tracks your mouse and keyboard and captures screenshots with any comments you choose to associate alongside them. Once you stop recording, it saves the whole thing to a ZIP file, containing an HTML-based “slide show” of the steps. It’s a really neat little tool and I can’t wait for it to become ubiquitous on every desktop! The program is called psr.exe; you can also search for it from Control Panel under “Record steps to reproduce a problem”. (source)

And it really is that simple. Very little configuration is required. You simply fire up the recorder, click Start Record and then happily click through the process you want to capture.

 

The result is a very workable output. I tried it out on creating a dashboard for OpsMgr 2007 (SCOM) in Visio (blog post on this topic coming shortly) and was rather pleased with the results. It captured every click with actions and screenshots, which means I now simply have to edit the document to make it idiot proof and big boss friendly :)

This Twitter thing

   I have been watching this Twitter thing for a while. I have had my own little Twitter account, merrily minding my own business, but have noticed that there seems to be quite a bit of social pressure around Twitter, who you follow and who you don’t.

When I signed up for Twitter, I believed it to be a micro-blogging tool. Something to allow me to jot down quick thoughts, share a link here and there, maybe keep track of story ideas and so on. So, that is what I have been using it for and as.

I may, on occasion, reply to someone else’s tweet, or direct content at a specific person, but, overall, my interaction with others on Twitter is much like it is elsewhere – non-existent.

I follow others quite randomly actually. There are a number of literary agents I follow on Twitter, as well as a couple of my favourite authors and other celebrities. I follow those with whom I already have a relationship in real life – friends, blogging acquaintances, etc. In fact, if we have anything in common or say 80% of the tweets are interesting, I may just follow. If you follow me, I will generally follow back, unless there is anything in your stream that I disagree with: hate speech, inappropriate sexual comments and so on. That said, I do not believe it is possible to manage a vast number of relationships on any platform, even when the relationships I build are as non-existent as they are, and always try and keep the number of people I follow on Twitter down to a manageable number – as I do on all the social networks. Breaking point, for me, is around 200.

If I choose to unfollow you on Twitter, it is nothing personal. It may be because you haven’t updated for a while, or because I am going through an unfollow phase – which happens regularly. And if you choose to unfollow me, I promise I won’t take it personally either.

How do you choose who you follow on Twitter?

Twitter friends

While I am not incredibly active on Twitter, I do have a couple of friends and followers now. This took me by surprise.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Twitter has become a fairly handy tool to keep in touch with a large variety of people, and to see who they are beyond the blogs. There are also a large number of literary agents, editors and writers on Twitter – fascinating follows.

Regular blogging should resume next week when I tell you why I have not been writing.