February 28, 2025 - This week’s notables
Enjoy the Spring Weather!
Upcoming Events
Mark your calendar and join us at Longview Farm for the following upcoming events! We're excited to welcome you—just make sure to set your GPS to 143 Cedar Ln. Glenmoore, PA 19343 (avoid Cedar Ridge Ln) for the best route straight to the fun!
📆 Sundays, 12 to 3 p.m. – Join us at the Longview Gallery every Sunday to view and shop from our current exhibition, Wildflower Joy, by Raven George. Check out what we have coming up in 2025!
Infrastructure & Support
Our team is focusing on enhancing our subscription renewal processes and warranty management. We plan to integrate a regular review of renewals into our weekly Infrastructure & Support meetings. This initiative will help us ensure the efficient use of customer resources and provide predictable equipment lifecycle management.
In other updates, Microsoft has launched a tool for analyzing our M365 environments, offering detailed insights into licensing and Azure usage. We have already deployed the tool in a couple of customer environments and plan to review the findings with Microsoft soon to identify optimization opportunities. We hope to deploy this tool more broadly to enhance the value of Microsoft licenses for our customers.
Last week, the team faced some issues with our new Xerox C415, particularly when using glossy paper and thick stock. The toner was not adhering properly to glossy paper, resulting in smearing, and thick stock paper often jams in the return path. We discovered that lighter cardstock might be more suitable, but thicker paper will need to be printed manually. Additionally, Xerox printers are quite sensitive to paper type mismatches, requiring user confirmation for the inserted paper type. We are working on resolving these problems to ensure smooth and efficient printing operations.
Devices
In our recent devices call, we closely examined a bundled Poly video conferencing solution showcased on our equipment distributor's website. What caught our attention was the affordable pricing. Previously, dealing with Poly before the HP acquisition meant expensive equipment with little resale incentive for partners like INW, and no pre-sales support for small resellers, not to mention the difficult customer support. However, we're impressed with the changes at Poly. This bundle feature aligns with a recent discussion our team had with our new HP/Poly representative, renewing our interest in the manufacturer.
We have decided to investigate the offerings on the HP partner portal further. Our focus is on Poly devices, and we are gathering information to make well-informed decisions regarding their utilization and resale potential. We are also looking into acquiring demo equipment to assess these devices firsthand. Additionally, our dedicated representative will support us with any HP and Poly device-related issues.
In other device-related news, we are expecting to receive a demo unit of the WatchGuard M390 Firebox. This is one of WatchGuard's most substantial firewall devices, designed to support large organizations with the capacity for up to 4,500,000 concurrent connections and 250 VPN tunnels. We are enthusiastic about the potential it offers as we begin our exploratory work in supporting the replacement of firewalls for a large multi-location company. The straightforward deployment of WatchGuard Firebox and its cloud management features will provide a significant and cost-saving enhancement over the customer's existing infrastructure and will offer improved network availability.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to explore and evaluate these exciting new devices!
Operations & Growth
We are thrilled to begin promoting additional services for art|Works Initiative members. This is an organic development in line with our vision as we were asked this week ‘do you know a bookkeeper,’ and well, yes, indeed we do. Our team is hard at work creating promotional content and exploring innovative marketing strategies, including blog posts, social media campaigns, and even some creative guerrilla marketing tactics. In addition to the standard art|Works Initiative member benefits, we're offering a trifecta of business support: financial help with bookkeeping, promotion help with marketing, and technical support when needed. It's an exciting time to be part of art|Works Initiative!
In other news, we've made a number of operational upgrades. We've fixed the issues with our Xerox printer, ensuring it is now fully functional for our marketing team and member artists. We’ve also obtained new essentials to streamline payments in the gallery, including a tablet stand for point-of-sale transactions and a cash drawer. Lastly, we’ve enhanced our workspace with a functional water cooler and microwave 🙌. Get ready for water cooler chats and the delightful mystery of leftover lunch aromas wafting through the barn. It's the full office experience, quirks and all!
Information Radiation
Last weekend, Longview Gallery hosted its first virtual public event, featuring an artist talk with Hannah Zartman, to mark the end of their exhibit Toward a Tender Place. The event was conducted via a Teams meeting, which was recorded and will be shared broadly with our online audience. To facilitate this, we are using Substack for accessible and well-formatted video posts, and Clipchamp as our video editing tool. Clipchamp is a relatively new addition to the Microsoft ecosystem and, in my opinion, is underutilized. Read on to discover more about Clipchamp!
Clipchamp is an intuitive and feature-rich video editing tool that empowers everyone, from beginners to seasoned creators, to produce stunning videos effortlessly.
Key Features of Clipchamp
User-Friendly Interface: No professional skills needed. Drag, drop, and create amazing videos with ease.
Screen and Camera Recorder: Record your screen and webcam simultaneously for perfect video explainers.
Templates and Stock Media: Choose from a variety of video templates and high-quality stock media to enhance your projects.
Text to Speech: Generate flawless AI voiceovers in multiple languages.
Green Screen: Replace your video background with exciting stock videos and special effects.
Audio Editing: Split, remove, or replace audio with stock music and sound effects.
Subtitles and Captions: Create accessible videos with subtitles in any language.
Brand Kit: Import your brand logo, fonts, and colors to make recognizable videos.
Background Removal: Easily remove the background of any image and replace it with stock video, images, or solid colors.
Tips and Tricks for Using Clipchamp
Choose the Right Aspect Ratio: Ensure your content looks great on any platform by selecting the appropriate aspect ratio from the start.
Use Pre-Made Templates: Save time by starting with Clipchamp's wide selection of pre-made video templates.
Dive Into the Content Library: Access a robust library filled with stock footage, audio tracks, stickers, and more.
Text-to-Speech Tool: Add professional narration without recording a single word.
Auto Captions: Automatically generate accurate captions in over 80 languages.
Green Screen Effects: Use the green screen filter to replace backgrounds and add special effects.
Picture-in-Picture: Overlay one video on another for a dynamic viewing experience.
Keyboard Shortcuts: Speed up your editing process with handy keyboard shortcuts.
Additional Microsoft Training
To help you get the most out of Clipchamp, Microsoft offers a variety of training resources:
How to Edit Your First Video with Clipchamp: A step-by-step guide to get you started.
Clipchamp Video Editing Tutorial: A comprehensive video tutorial covering all the essential features.
Microsoft Support for Clipchamp: Find answers to common questions and troubleshooting tips.
Start exploring Clipchamp today and unlock your creative potential!