10/01/2005 05:38 PM
When you are a freelancer, especially one who flies to the workplace, you can’t call in sick. Heck, you can barely call in dead.
This past week I was in Dallas on a four-day show, and I began to feel a tickle in my throat on the first night. That’s not a good sign. By the second day, I was cold-sweating. On the third day, I found myself a bit distracted. On the fourth day, my cow-orkers were telling me how bad I looked.
Today I feel much better, but I’ve been taking antibiotics. If I had let it go, I think it would have become bronchitis. When you can’t call in sick, you have to get well quick.
I have a great doctor. My insurance isn’t the best, but it’s not awful either. I pay a $25 co-pay and sliding prescription rates, so for about $50, I can get better so I can work more effectively. An uninsured tech would be out $150 or more.
If there’s a moral to this post, it’s that as an independent contractor, you MUST have health insurance. It costs a bundle, but unfortunately in our present healthcare system, you can’t get simple antibiotics without a prescription, and it costs around $100 a pop for walk-in clinic visits.
09/18/2005 06:49 PM
My company, Molecular Media is getting into the audience response technology niche for live production. One of our major clients has been using the Classroom Performance System for a couple of years. They own the systems and we’ve been running it for them.
Lately, they (and we) have been disappointed with CPS’s hardware performance – the kit our client owns is infra-red, and as such is line-of-sight. Also, none of us have been happy with the visual integration of this software into PowerPoint. To be fair, eInstruction offers RF-based keypads now, but their software is predominately designed for classroom use and leaves a lot to be desired in the visual layout department. Think white screen with black text, and you’ve got the idea. Trying to make that look good alongside professionally designed PowerPoint templates is an exercise in futility.
Since this client does so much audience response (ARS), we’ve decided to suggest a system for them. My task was to review the software from the four vendors we decided to get bids from.
The major vendors are (alphabetically):
Five of the ARS software providers are VARs(Value Added Resellers) for Fleetwood’s Reply Systems keypads. eInstruction uses their own hardware. eInstruction also maintains a Macintosh version of their software, although it doesn’t seem to keep feature-parity with its’ Windows counterpart, and if you want to use the database files between OSes, you must juggle exports and imports on both sides.
I did not review Resolver’s product, Resolver*Ballot, as its’ feature-set didn’t match our needs. It is primarily for public voting, and as such, didn’t seem suited to quick polling and game-show use.
So, without further ado, here’s the line-item review of each software package.
CPS
- Standalone software. Visual integration with PowerPoint is poor.
- Many types of polling questions.
- Graphing style is not embedded into questions – it is a pop-up window.
- Question and Answer properties are chosen with templates.
- Poll can be timed, or manual
- Number of responders and which pad has responded are both displayable during a poll
- Poll data is embedded into CPS database
- Reporting is done within the program, against the database. Many reports exist. Question and answer text are presented in the reports.
Grades
| PowerPoint Visual Integration |
1.0 |
| Ease of Use |
8.0 |
| Reporting |
10 |
| Software Stability |
6.0 |
| Hardware Stability |
3.0 |
| Overall |
5.6 |
ARS Technologies PowerPoll
- PowerPoint Plug-In, question and answer text are PowerPoint
- One type of polling question – multiple choice with correct answer
- Very limited graphing style, limited to bar graphs with vertical orientation
- Markup based properties palette (not intuitive GUI), must be selected for each question via the “Control Toolbox” palette, and selecting the PowerPoll control via a list which is 230 items long. Really.
- Each poll object contains a timer. Which must be used, but can be escaped prematurely during polling.
- Facility for seeing number of responses during polling doesn’t appear to exist.
- Poll data embedded in slide
- Reporting is a “harvester” which is run outside of PowerPoint, and reads the embedded data within the PowerPoint files, exporting to a comma delimited file. The only data which is exported is a Question Name and the response answer number for each pad. Linking the actual question and answer text is not possible, except when done manually and after-the-fact.
(They have a more featured product called WinQuiry, but don’t license it to producers – they only rent it out with their systems)
Grades
| PowerPoint Visual Integration |
7.0 |
| Ease of Use |
5.0 |
| Reporting |
1.0 |
| Software Stability |
5.0 |
| Hardware Stability |
10 |
| Overall |
5.6 |
ComTec Synthesis XPr
- Standalone software. Visual integration to PowerPoint is good.
- Many types of polling questions
- Graphing style is presented on a results screen for each polling screen
- Question and Answer properties are edited graphically, side by side. Templates are available.
- Poll can be timed or manual.
- Number of responders and which pads have not responded can be displayed during a poll
- Poll data is saved to the presentation file
- Reporting is done within the program, from the presentation file. Three reports exist. Question and answer text can be presented within some reports, but not exported data. For making reports which utilize exported data, one must export the polling questions and the data separately and join them with “Microsoft Office Tools” (which probably means making a specialized Excel spreadsheet to join the two files)
ComTec Unity XPr
- Standalone software. Visual integration with PowerPoint is good.
- Some types of polling questions
- Graphing style is presented on a results screen for each polling screen
- Question and Answer properties are edited graphically, side by side. Templates are available.
- Poll can be timed or manual.
- Number of responders and which pads have not responded can be displayed during a poll
- Poll data is saved to the presentation file
- Reporting is done within the program, from the presentation file. Three reports exist. Question and answer text can be presented within some reports, but not exported data. For making reports which utilize exported data, one must export the polling questions and the data separately and join them with “Microsoft Office Tools” (which probably means making a specialized Excel spreadsheet to join the two files)
Grades
| PowerPoint Visual Integration |
9.0 |
| Ease of Use |
8.0 |
| Reporting |
4.0 |
| Software Stability |
9.0 |
| Hardware Stability |
10 |
| Overall |
8.0 |
Meridia ConnectPro
- Standalone software. Visual integration with PowerPoint is acceptable.
- One type of question – multiple choice.
- Graphing is presented beneath answers on the layout (picture a bar graph with the answer text overlayed on top of the bars)
- Question and Answer properties are edited on a edit screen. Font and color choices are global to presentation.
- Poll can be timed or manual.
- Number of responders can be displayed during a poll
- Poll data is saved within the polling file.
- Reporting is done by exporting the polling data. Two output options are given: HTML and CSV. The HTML versions are passable, and the CSV files appear to be easily made into human-readable Excel docs.
Grades
| PowerPoint Visual Integration |
6.0 |
| Ease of Use |
4.0 |
| Reporting |
2.0 |
| Software Stability |
4.0 |
| Hardware Stability |
10 |
| Overall |
5.2 |
Option Technologies OptionPower
- PowerPoint Add-In, thus visual integration with Powerpoint is perfect
- Many types of templated questions.
- Graphing style is endlessly variable, as the graphs are PowerPoint data objects.
- Question and Answer properties are PowerPoint based, and are endlessly variable. Questions can be converted from simple PowerPoint slides which contain just a Title and a Bulleted List
- Each question can be timed, or manual
- Number of responders can be displayed during a poll, and polls can be stopped once a threshold (percentage) is reached.
- Poll data is saved within an external database (MS SQL Server)
- Reporting is done by using a Report Wizard. Several reporting options are given. All export to formatted Excel. Since data is being stored in a MS SQL Server database, extremely complex reporting could be done on the raw data.
Grades
| PowerPoint Visual Integration |
10 |
| Ease of Use |
10 |
| Reporting |
9.0 |
| Software Stability |
5.0 |
| Hardware Stability |
10 |
| Overall |
8.8 |
THE WINNER
Option Technologies OptionPower
THE RUNNER UP
ComTec Unity/Synthesis
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS
eInstruction CPS
Reservations:
1) Don’t get the IR system
2) Don’t expect great visual integration with Powerpoint.
NOT RECOMMENDED
ARS Technologies PowerPoll
Meridia ConnectPro
08/27/2005 09:27 AM
If you are a contract a/v technician, you might travel a lot. I do – up to 200 days a year. That means you are on airplanes much of the time, which means dealing with airline food.
After a few flights on the different carriers, you’ll learn to relish Ted and Song. Eventually, with enough miles, you might be able to upgrade a couple tickets to first class – which, other than the free drinks, isn’t really all too amazing.
I don’t get that luxury, and a lot of flights I’m on tend toward the lower mileage, which means a free snack if I’m lucky, or a for-pay snack if I’m not.
To help with the inevitable munchies, here’s a mixed nuts recipe which I like to bring in my backpack :
- 1 cup un-shelled pistachios
- 1 cup dry-roasted almonds
- 1 cup dry-roasted peanuts
- 1/2 cup wasabi peas
Place all ingredients in a ziplock bag and give it a couple of shakes.
Bring this in your carry on, and have a handful when the other folks are looking on hungrily!
08/21/2005 03:36 PM
…or, “What makes my damn backpack so heavy and difficult to get through baggage screening”.
In the carry-on
Checked baggage
- Tech pouch
- LED Flashlight
- Gerber Multi-tool
- Crescent Wrench
- Tweaker
- Three or four Sharpies
- Fishing tackle box filled with A/V converters
- Several blank DVD-R discs
- Several blank CD-R discs
08/17/2005 01:17 AM
I love the audiovisual industry. There, I said it.
Since I was in high school, I’ve loved the gritty realism of the backstage environment. Out front, it can be false, shiny, contrived, beautiful, passionate, banal or fantastic. Behind the curtain, though, there’s a visceral energy of creation and sustenance which is as addictive as nicotine.
I’m an introvert at heart, so to me, it’s not surprising that I would love the behind-the-scenes roles in production. I’m in no way belittling or disparaging the folks that get up in front of the curtain, as that’s one of the most difficult things anyone will ever do. But, for me, I love to create – even if the creation is fleeting and the audience never even knows that I’m there.
Being essentially required to think on your feet most of your working hours challenges and hones ones’ abilities. Long hours don’t bother me for two reasons: I love the job, and since I’m a contractor, I can choose what jobs to accept or decline. As someone who is still recovering from a corporate job, this extreme flexibility is wonderful. It can be daunting, knowing that you don’t have a regular paycheck unless you work regularly, but that fact just causes me to want to work even more.
The camaraderie in production is to be experienced – when you meet other folks as devoted to the craft, bonds form instantly. I even love the rote. On a small show last week, I intimated to the other tech that I loved wrapping cables. He likely thought me retarded, but I actually do enjoy that aspect of this business. He told me he got a great sense of accomplishment packing a truck. I feel the same way. Unloading is like opening a huge present, and loading is like solving a giant 3-D Tetris.
But, as with any industry, there are people out there who don’t love the job anymore. There are even people who never loved the job. You can tell where these people are stationed by the quality of their work. When you meet them, you know them as the ones who are taking long breaks at the dock, or disappear from the set for no reason when you need them the most.
To those folks, please find a job you love as much as I love this one. We’ll all be better for it.
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