Andy Budd's dashboard

Andy Budd replied on March 11, 2009 23:41 to the question "Can Silverback be automated using AppleScript or Automator?" in Clearleft:

We haven't added any extra hooks to make Silverback scriptable. However it's definitely something we'd consider if there was a demand.

Andy Budd replied on March 10, 2009 14:36 to the question "Can I play, instead of export, video?" in Clearleft:

Hey nefibach,

We have playback scheduled for a future release, so hopefully we'll have that in there soon.

Andy Budd set one of Andy Budd's replies as an official response to "Can I export the text?" in Clearleft

Andy Budd replied on March 10, 2009 14:34 to the question "Can I export the text?" in Clearleft:

Thanks for the suggestion nefibach. We're actually considering that for our next major point release, so you should hopefully see that ability soon.

Andy Budd replied on February 24, 2009 15:06 to the question "Unable to add chapter markers" in Clearleft:

Sorry Jon,

This is a known bug so we hope to push a fix soon.

Andy Budd replied on February 23, 2009 15:37 to the question "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft:

Yay!

Andy Budd replied on February 23, 2009 11:12 to the question "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft:

OK, both those files look fine so there's no corruption there that I can see.

Can you open the VideoCapture.mov files in the various sessions to make sure they are all running properly.

Could you try deleting the app and prefs again, making sure that you've emptied the trash before re-installing. If that doesn't work, could you save a copy of your project files somewhere safe. Reinstall Silverback, create a brand new project and then copy al the session files into that project. Restart the app and see if that's done anything.

There is a good chance this won't work as it's sort of replicating what you did by using a new machine, but it's worth a try.

Andy Budd replied on February 23, 2009 10:33 to the question "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft:

Hey Mark,

Your main preferences can be found in Your Home Folder > Library > Preferences under the name of com.clearleft.Silverback.plist.

If the older files aren't showing but the new ones are it definitely sounds like once of the preference files have been corrupted somehow. So if trashing the preferences doesn't work, can you go into the session folders on the problem disk and compare the files named metadata.plist to ensure they are all complete and look the same.

Andy Budd replied on February 22, 2009 14:56 to the question "Where do you get varied user types from?" in Clearleft:

We've done this in the past and it's worked well. I'd recommend checking with the manager of the cafe first, just to make sure they're fine with it. You can then offer people to buy them a coffee and a cake in return for 15 minutes of their time. These things need to be fairly short and sweet, so a traditional, hour long, task driven usability test may be asking too much. Instead focus on a couple of core tasks if you're testing a particular interface. Alternatively if you doing prep work, ask them to demonstrate how they would carry out a particular task using existing services, and then use that to map behaviour and look for opportunities.

Andy Budd replied on February 22, 2009 14:50 to the question "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft:

That's really strange and is something we've not come across before. Does Silverback still see the sessions you recorded on your machine. If so, you could try moving the sessions from your external HD to the sessions folder on your machine.

The problem could be with a corrupt preferences file, so it may also be worth shutting down Silverback, deleting the preferences and opening it up again. If that doesn't work, try copying your session files to a safe location and then deleting the app, the preferences and the application support files, then re-installing the app and moving the files back into the session folder.

Andy Budd set one of Andy Budd's replies as an official response to "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft

Andy Budd replied on February 22, 2009 12:21 to the question "Panic! External hard drive sessions not being recognised!" in Clearleft:

Silverback doesn't automatically recognise projects spread across multiple disks at the moment. However this is something we're working on for a future release. In the meantime you'll have to go into the preferences pane and change the disk you want your sessions stored on manually. So once you've exported the two sessions on your local disk, go to the general preferences and choose the folder you saved the other 5 sessions to and those sessions should now appear in the projects window.

Andy Budd replied on February 19, 2009 15:54 to the question "Recovering license for reformatted computer" in Clearleft:

Yep, that's what you want. So keep hold of that and drag it onto your copy of Silverback to re-licence it, once your HD has been reformatted.

Andy Budd replied on February 19, 2009 15:27 to the question "Recovering license for reformatted computer" in Clearleft:

Do you have access to the original email you got sent?

Andy Budd replied on January 30, 2009 15:55 to the question "Where do you get varied user types from?" in Clearleft:

We use a variety of sources including:

* People from other offices in our building
* Notice boards in cafes and universities
* Classified ad services like Craigs List
* Requests on mailing lists and social networking sites
* Direct from the client or the clients website

Hope that give you a few ideas

Andy Budd replied on January 30, 2009 15:40 to the problem "Exporting causes app to crash" in Clearleft:

As it stands we estimate that about 4% of our users are experiencing this problem. The problem seems localised to specific machines irrespective of OS, RAM or chip version. So we've had people move files off of their machine onto an identical machines and they export fine. We've located what's happening and are currently trying to figure out why. Unfortunately I don't have an eta on a fix as of yet but I'm hopeful it will be soon.

Andy Budd asked a question in Twitter on January 26, 2009 21:43:

Twitter keeps defaulting to the mobile site in Safari

Twitter keeps defaulting to the mobile version of the site if I've been inactive for a while. If I kill the twitter cookies it rights itself temporarily, but always ends up going back. I don't have this problem in Cameno

Andy Budd set one of Andy Budd's replies as an official response to "Video capture on secondary screen?" in Clearleft

Andy Budd replied on January 21, 2009 12:28 to the idea "Video capture on secondary screen?" in Clearleft:

If you'd like to record from a second screen, go to layout part of your screen preferences and move the tool-bar strip from the top of your current primary screen to the top of your current secondary screen. This will turn your secondary screen into your primary screen and you should now be able to record from that.

A comment on the idea "Video capture on secondary screen?" in Clearleft:

Glad I could be of assistance :-) – Andy Budd, on January 21, 2009 12:26