Re: [MCN-L] Eliminating headphones

[hoplist]

While headphone technology is changing, 1/8” jacks are far from obsolete. 
Adding 1/8” jack to an exhibit is cheap, easy, and space efficient. The 
hardware is tiny, standardized, simple, and robust. And the most important 
reason, ear buds with 1/8” plugs easy to provide on site. They are incredibly 
cheap, under $3.00 with retail packaging in bulk. Sure, cheap ear buds are not 
an audiophile experience, but they are an easy accommodation that should not be 
overlooked.

Bluetooth is the near-term future for headphone connections, but in an exhibit 
environment you should be thinking about bluetooth connections to smart phones, 
not directly to earbuds. All modern phones are capable of bluetooth 
connections. Anyone carrying bluetooth headphones has already linked these to 
their phone. 

Cheers,
   tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.




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Re: [MCN-L] Eliminating headphones

[hoplist]

I have historically recommended that any exhibit with headphones also include a 
standard mini jack for personal headphones. This is not a response to Covid but 
rather to the general visitor discomfort with sharing headphones. I also 
suggest that inexpensive ear bud type headphones be made available for purchase 
since visitors don’t habitually travel with headphones in their pockets. The 
cost of adding a mini-jack to an exhibit with headphones is usually 
inconsequential, even retroactively. The functionality is often already there, 
just not implemented.

Unfortunately, mini jacks don’t work for bluetooth headphones, so it’s tempting 
to consider adding a bluetooth connection. But making a bluetooth connection 
direct to headphones is complex as you’ve observed. Pairing is difficult to do 
without a visual user interface. I don’t believe this is practical at this 
time. It may never be since making it easy would have to be a feature in the 
headphones, not the exhibit design, and why would manufacturers care?

However, using Bluetooth to connect to visitor phones to provide a personal 
interface is promising. I know of at least three companies capable of 
implementing this now, via wi-fi or bluetooth, and I’m sure many others could. 
At the moment, these would still be “custom” solutions, but companies are 
working on “commoditizing” this approach. 

Streaming audio is fine for asynchronous audio, but not for synchronous 
delivery. And it’s effectively the same as a mobile app or web delivery.

“Focused” speakers are not, in and of themselves, a solution. Acoustic control 
requires wholistic design. Focused speakers can be a part of this but without 
environmental controls they don’t solve the problem. With wholistic acoustic 
design, you often don’t need hyper focused speakers. I generally prefer 
“narrow-beam” rather than “focused” in a wholistic design.

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.




> On Aug 12, 2020, at 10:23 AM, George Scharoun  wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm curious to know how you have or plan to adapt to new hygiene standards in 
> terms of headphones, specifically the type attached to a video or interactive 
> in the galleries.
> Do you have short term fixes or long term strategies you'd like to share or 
> think through?
> 
> Some ideas (all with pros and cons I think):
> -Streaming audio at QR-code link
> -Focused speakers
> -Open headphone jack, plug in your own
> -Create new content silent by design when speakers aren't appropriate
> -Move content to mobile app or web
> 
> Looking forward to hearing from others,
> George
> 
> -
> 
> George Scharoun
> He/him/his
> Manager of Exhibition and Gallery Media
> Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
> gschar...@mfa.org | 617-276-5217 (mobile)
> www.mfa.org
> The MFA is currently closed and staff are working remotely
> 
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Re: [MCN-L] Cleaning touchscreens/exhibit interactives

[hoplist]

On Mar 10, 2020, at 1:26 PM, Matt Popke  wrote:
> 
> Apple's guidance was changed earlier this week to reflect that you can use 
> Clorox wipes and products that use up to 70% isopropyl alcohol on their 
> screens. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204172?mod=article_inline 
> 
Thank you for pointing that out. The quote I posted yesterday was copied 
yesterday, so that update has not rippled through the website yet.

Take note of Apple’s carefully phrased specifics:

70% Isopropyl (aka “Rubbing Alcohol”), not 90% which is what you will find on 
medical shelves for disinfection. 

They also specify “wipes,” probably more because of concerns about abrasion and 
controlling drips, but also because these are generally 70% alcohol.

Don’t get the alcohol on anything else. Just the display screen.

Cheers,
   tod


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Re: [MCN-L] Cleaning touchscreens/exhibit interactives

[hoplist]

> On Mar 9, 2020, at 12:15 PM, Jason Bondy  wrote:
> 
> I am curious as to what others are using to disinfect or sanitize 
> touchscreens in exhibits.  

TLDNR: I would not recommend alcohol. Otherwise, consider that your cleaning 
crew is probably using whatever they have on hand unless you have explicitly 
told them not to clean your touch screens.
 
Longer and more detailed answer:

Not all monitors are the same. No manufacturer I’ve encountered will tell you 
that you can use alcohol, even if you can. Modern video monitors, especially 
large sizes, are generally pretty tough. The screens are glass and you can use 
anything that you can use on glass, including alcohol, but do not generalize. 

This is not true of all screens!

"Don't use window cleaners, household cleaners, aerosol sprays, solvents, 
alcohol, ammonia, or abrasives to clean iPad. iPad has an oleophobic coating on 
the screen” - Apple
  
This type of coating is common on consumer style touch screens like iPads and 
phones. Do people use alcohol on iPads and phones? Yup, all the time. Did they 
notice that they destroyed the coating? Nope, because they are constantly 
cleaning their screens.

Many “computer” monitor screens are plastic and may also have various coatings. 
Generally you tell if a screen is glass or plastic based in the feel. Plastics 
can certainly be damaged by alcohol. Some monitors also have coatings, such as 
anti-glare which can be damaged by harsh chemicals. 

Most frames are plastic whose finish may be damaged, at least cosmetically. Any 
other finished surfaces around the monitor, especially paint, may also be 
damaged by alcohol.

Some touch screens, especially older touch screens have a touch sensitive film 
overlay which can be damaged by harsh chemicals. 

Most important: stop deluding yourself. You cannot “disinfect" a touch screen. 
You just can’t. Unfortunately, no one wants to hear that and so we are forced 
into “security theater.” I suggest providing high visibility hand sanitizer 
stations everywhere. That way any germaphobe is only seconds away from much 
more satisfying personal sanitization regardless of what they’ve touched. 

Cheers,
   tod






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[MCN-L] Vimeo and Accessibility

[hoplist]

Vimeo is announcing that their embedded player now meets WCAG AA standards.

https://vimeo.com/blog/post/accessibility-updates-to-the-vimeo-player/?utm_source=email_medium=vimeo-newsletter-201910_campaign=37489


cheers,

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.




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Re: [MCN-L] Video hosting question

[hoplist]

> On Oct 15, 2019, at 9:12 AM, Matt Morgan  wrote:
> 
> It's worth mentioning Vimeo Pro, 
> 
> https://vimeo.com/professionals 
> 
> which is super cheap compared to self-hosting or the enterprise video 
> providers but does everything most people want. 

I second Vimeo Pro and have used it for years. YouTube is a promotional 
platform and its pretty much the only game in town if promotion is your goal. 
But YouTube is a terrible host. It’s only advantage as a host is that it is 
free.

Vimeo Pro is inexpensive and offers sufficient tools to be a proper host 
service. My one complaint is that its video management tools leave a great deal 
to be desired.

Cheers,
   tod


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[MCN-L] Captioning Suggestions

[hoplist]

Some suggestions for approaching captions:

Don’t blindly auto-caption. If you rely on YouTube auto-captioning, you should 
invest a small amount of time in learning to use YouTube's caption editor to 
review and correct your captions. Bad captions are worse than useless and 
terrible for your image. 

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734705?hl=en

I personally find YouTube's caption tools clumsy and do not use them. YouTube 
captioning does not meet my standards. Whether it meets some standard of 
“minimal” compliance is a subject of heated debate, but they don’t properly 
represent my company or my clients.

The point is that captions represent you. The issue is not simply “compliance.” 
Try watching your auto-captioned programs with the sound off. Are they helping, 
or are they just a distraction? Keep in mind that many people with perfectly 
good hearing turn on captioning. My wife turns on captions when the baby is 
sleeping for instance. People for whom English is a second language turn on 
captions. And people on the subway, because they forgot headphones, or just 
because it’s noisy. 

So, better ideas, in ascending order of quality-cost-effort:

I use a variety of services for transcription and captioning depending on need, 
but the cheapest is www.temi.com  (about ten cents a minute) which provides 
very cheap automated transcription along with a powerful and easy to use cloud 
based editing and sharing solution. It’s great when the audio is clear and 
straight-forward. The transcript is cheap, and if the audio is good, editing is 
simple. This works fine for simple programs with one or two voices at a time: 
presentations, interviews, narrated programs.

When the program audio is more complex or the audio is poor or the subjects 
have accents or their are multiple languages, you need a human.

For inexpensive human transcription, there’s Rev.com and similar online 
services (about $1 per minute) which replace computers with humans, but are 
otherwise quite similar.  I suspect many are actually the same company behind 
different front ends. Rev.com does NOT replace a dedicated captioning service, 
but it does add humans to the mix. These services are accurate, but they are 
not captioning experts and don't combine your captions with video for you.

Real, proper captioning is not transcription. It is an art. If you want to 
understand the difference, and why it matters, start here.

https://www.captioningkey.org/quality_captioning.html

You can do captions yourself. I’ve trained many interns to caption. It takes a 
few days to train someone with decent grammar skills to handle basic captions, 
and I always review and edit them.

I prefer an application called Inqscribe, available for both Mac and PC, but 
not particularly cheap and arguably not the easiest. This is predominately a 
transcription tool (an excellent one) but it can be used for captions even if 
the transcript comes from elsewhere.

There’s also Jubler, which is free and a dedicated captioning program. If 
Jubler had existed when I started, it might be my preferred tool.

And don’t discount full service companies just because they cost money. They 
are, on balance, pretty cheap, all things considered. Remember, time is money 
and they work MUCH faster than you can. Good captions are like any good 
writing, both a skill and an art, and expertise matters. 

I notice good captioning and I must assume I am not alone. Just last week I 
commented to my wife (baby asleep, captions on) that a program had exceptional 
captions and I wished I could find out who did them.

Cheers,
 tod





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Re: [MCN-L] Voice to Text Software/Hardware for Cataloguing

[hoplist]

> On Mar 1, 2019, at 12:09 PM, Sterling Jenson  wrote:
> 
> it make more sense to utilize a headset to cut out some of the ambient
> noise and thus reduce the number of errors in the process?

A headset is much better for dictation work and generally recommended. Headsets 
are specifically designed to capture one voice clearly. They keep the 
microphone in a constant, close position.

And most important, no feedback. 

Cheers,
 tod
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Re: [MCN-L] Oral History Recording Booth in Exhibit

[hoplist]

It depends a great deal on what you wish to accomplish. Recording visitors is 
relatively easy. It’s the visitor experience design and the the back end that 
are tricky: how you guide the visitors and what you do with the recordings. In 
other words, how does this become meaningful for the visitor.

In my experience, institutions are motivated to create oral history recording 
booths because they see inherent value in collecting oral histories, but they 
have not considered the visitors. Why would they want to do this? What should 
they say? What is their reward? Do you really want a fun visitor exhibit, or 
something more formal and academically meaningful?

We’ve done this several times in a variety of ways. I’m happy to discuss ideas 
with you. My contact information is below.

We’ve done a ton of oral history work for OKCNMM, though not a visitor 
recording booth. If you run into Dustin Potter at OKCNMM, say “hi" for me, and 
pigeon-hole him. He’d be a good one to bounce around ideas. And feel free to 
call me. I’m always happy to chat.

Cheers,
  tod


Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
2233 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20007
202-342-0001

> On Apr 14, 2017, at 2:22 PM, Jason Bondy  wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> 
> My apologies if this has been discussed here before, but I didn't find 
> anything when I searched the archive.
> 
> We are planning an exhibit and would like to set up an oral history recording 
> booth for visitors to record their stories on the topic.  I know this has 
> been done before, but not in our museum and I'm not sure of the best way to 
> go about it.  Would anyone here have experience with this and would like to 
> offer any tips or advice?
> 
> Feel free to contact me off list if needed.
> 
> Thank you in advance!
> 
> 
> Jason Bondy
> Exhibits AV/IT | Oklahoma History Center
> 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, Oklahoma City, OK 73105
> www.okhistory.org
> (405) 522-0783
> 
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Re: [MCN-L] Mailing list submission - TIFF file compression

[hoplist]

Zip compression should not harm the file but unless it is your intention to 
bundle many files into one, I would not chose it over using an internal 
graphics compression scheme. 

Your TIFFs may already be compressed internal, using LZW or Packbits. If so, 
zipping them will not reduce the file size and may even increase it. LZW is an 
internal standard for TIFF files. Both schemes are lossless. I use LZW 
routinely and never have a problem. 

I just did a quick test on a very large, uncompressed TIFF. Zip compression was 
only slightly more compact than using internal LZW compression: A 105MB 
uncompressed TIFF compressed to 56MB with LZW and 52MB with Zip.

Other more aggressive strategies would be to convert to PNG or JPEG-2000 
lossless. Both use internal “lossless” compression, though some question 
whether PNG is truly 100% lossless. PNG is widely recognized now, but JPEG-2000 
is rapidly become an archival standard. JPEG-2000 (entirely different from 
plain JPEG by the way) is NOT universally recognized by graphics software.

My PNG test compressed to 52MB, the same size as the Zip file. 
The JPEG-2000 “lossless” was 38MB. 

> On Mar 10, 2017, at 11:02 AM, Elizabeth Chiang  wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> Does your institution compress master TIFF files? I am particularly curious
> about zip compression - have you used that and if so, are there any
> downsides?
> 
> Thank you,
> Elizabeth
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> *Elizabeth Chiang*
> 
> Photographer​
> 
> George Eastman Museum
> 
> 900 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607
> 
> 
> E: echi...@eastman.org
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Re: [MCN-L] iPad Lockdown Help

[hoplist]

Very interesting. I’d like to learn more.

Assuming accessibility is not built into the running application, which iOS 
functions would you consider important to the accessibility of iPads? 

Do you know if these functions can be made available via touch if the Home 
button is covered?

Cheers,
   tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.

> On Jun 23, 2016, at 5:12 PM, Sina Bahram  wrote:
> 
> One thing I would like to bring awareness to is with these apps that lock out 
> external functionality to make sure that they do allow for the enabling of 
> VoiceOver or other triple-click-home accessibility feature mappings.
> 
> There are very few feelings more frustrating to users than seeing an 
> institution with iPads serving content that's mostly accessible but with the 
> home button disabled and no awareness of VoiceOver.
> 
> Take care,
> Sina
> 
> President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.
> Twitter: @SinaBahram
> Company Website: http://www.pac.bz
> Personal Website: http://www.sinabahram.com
> Blog: http://blog.sinabahram.com
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Bryan 
> Kennedy
> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2016 5:07 PM
> To: Museum Computer Network Listserv 
> Subject: Re: [MCN-L] iPad Lockdown Help
> 
> If your content is local HTML or a remote web resource, I would highly
> recommend* Kiosk Pro App:
> 
> http://www.kioskproapp.com/
> 
> It's about $40/iPad, but it's highly worth it. It does a great job of locking 
> you into a specific web view, and you can force it into single app mode.
> 
> bk
> 
> bryan kennedy
> director, exhibit media
> science museum of minnesota
> bkenn...@smm.org   651.221.2522
> 
> 
> 
> * - Actually, I would recommend avoiding iPads like the plague, but that's a 
> whole 'nother post.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Steve Gemmel  wrote:
> 
>> You may want to check out Apple Configurator which allows you to lock 
>> your iPad to a single app so folks can't access the home screen and settings 
>> app.
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.apple.com/support/education/apple-configurator/
>> 
>> http://help.apple.com/configurator/mac/2.2.1/#/cadbf9c172
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> + + +
>> 
>> Steven Gemmel
>> Digital Media Specialist, Interpretive Media J. Paul Getty Museum
>> 310.440.7203
>> sgem...@getty.edu
>> 
>> 
>> From: mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu  on behalf of Laura 
>> Huntimer 
>> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2016 9:37 AM
>> To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
>> Subject: [MCN-L] iPad Lockdown Help
>> 
>> Hi all ­ First time poster here. We have iPads in an interactive 
>> learning space here with artful apps for our visitors to use. Every so 
>> often we have to restore the iPads after valiant efforts to ³break 
>> into² the settings which changes the passcode. We¹ve placed 
>> restrictions through the settings and researched to see if there¹s any 
>> way to hide the settings/misc folder. Our iPads are in stationary 
>> enclosures with access only to the home button.
>> 
>> We¹re looking for an app or software that would make it possible for 
>> our iPads to only allow visitors to use the apps we¹ve loaded and 
>> restrict access to the settings ­ is there such a thing? Has anyone 
>> else experienced this and how did you resolve it?
>> 
>> Many thanks,
>> Laura
>> 
>> 
>> Laura M Huntimer
>> Director of School Programs & Interactive Media Joslyn Art Museum | 
>> 2200 Dodge Street | Omaha, NE 68104
>> (402) 661-3847 DL | www.joslyn.org
>> 
>> 
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Re: [MCN-L] Transcription software for oral histories

[hoplist]

On May 1, 2016, at 4:21 PM, Levy, Michael  wrote:
> 
> Peter, if you are interested in speech-to-text software, let the list know
> and I'm sure there are people who can share their experiences.

Automated speech to text can’t yet do better than about 80% accuracy under 
ideal conditions. Most recordings are not ideal. 80% accuracy is often cited as 
the minimum to be consider usable. Greater than 80% requires some form of 
“training” or human moderation. One trick used in the interview business is to 
have the subject read the standard training “script” at the beginning of the 
interview. This is used to train the software to each voice prior to 
transcription. Obviously this requires planning and is not particularly 
convenient.

Nuance: Makers of “Dragon Naturally Speaking” is arguably the market leader in 
voice-to-text. 
Google/YouTube incorporates automated transcription and can be used as a “free” 
solution. It’s a bit cumbersome use this method at large scale. 

Commercial, web based transcription services have exploded. These services have 
made professional transcription much cheaper.

This company markets itself as a captioning service, but you can use the 
service for simple transcription. I have not yet used them, but I do like their 
system.

https://www.syncwords.com/


Cheers,
 tod
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Re: [MCN-L] Transcription software for oral histories

[hoplist]

Assuming you are working with files, I highly recommend Inqscribe.
https://www.inqscribe.com/

And a foot pedal.
http://support.inqscribe.com/knowledgebase/articles/14409-which-foot-pedals-can-i-use-with-inqscribe

Yes, there are cheaper products, but Inqscribe is better. The killer features 
(which you may not need) are:
Cross platform. Works great on Mac and Windows.
Video. Inqscribe will play and control most audio AND video file 
formats, with video. It’s great to be able to transcribe directly from video 
files.
Time Code. Inqscribe will read and insert time code into your 
transcripts. Most programs can insert time stamps, starting from zero, but 
Inqscribe will read production time code. This is invaluable for professionally 
recorded audio and video.

Cheers,
   tod




> On Apr 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Peter Rooney  wrote:
> 
> Is there a program that can "listen" to an oral interview and transcribe it 
> into text?such a program would need to deal with various persons' voices. The 
> interviewer, however, would remain the same, as well as the general subject 
> matter. Considerable cleanup might be necessary, but that is okay so long as 
> understandable speech can be captured.
> 
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Re: [MCN-L] Touch screen monitors

[hoplist]

I’m a big fan of Planar Systems. They are a very personal company in an 
impersonal business whose product lines target the exhibition market. US based 
with great personal support and their products are world class.

http://www.planar.com/products/large-format-displays/

I wrote this a few weeks ago in response to a similar question. It does not 
directly address securing a browser running HTML, but I hope it’s helpful.

> There is no one-size-fits-all answer because the needs and circumstances of 
> each installation are different. It requires a multi-layered approach. First, 
> define the threats. Prioritize them, then look for the mitigations of those 
> threats. There are so many potential failure points and they can’t all be 
> addressed with one approach.
> 
> Here are some strategies to consider off the top of me head. I am currently 
> securing two Windows 7 exhibits.
> 
> I think of exhibit application security in three layers.
> 
> 1) The App. First, make your foreground app stable as you can. If your 
> foreground app never crashes or gives up focus, the user can only do what it 
> allows. Make sure you’ve disabled all possible options for closing or 
> crashing the app. Let it run for long periods of time and see what happens. 
> For instance, the Windows 10 update blindsided me on this install. A totally 
> new problem!
> 
> 2) Peripherals and Connections. Isolate the system and strip all unnecessary 
> “tools” away from the user especially those that might allow them to crash 
> the foreground application!
>  - Take away the keyboard and mouse and disable unnecessary touch functions 
> and don’t forget the Windows 7 virtual keyboard. Attach a keyboard for admin 
> as needed but don’t leave it accessible to users.
>  - Disable all "network" connections and functions that are not absolutely 
> necessary: ethernet, wi-fi, bluetooth, DNS, DHCP, etc… Most interactives 
> don’t NEED a full time network connection. Even if you do, say for remote 
> admin or a backend system, you will only need narrowly defined functionality. 
> Disable everything and then open only what you need.  Firewall all 
> communications not explicitly required. 
> 
> 3) The System. Make the system as lean and stable as you can.
> - run your app on a “limited” user and strip all needed functions from that 
> user. You can use parental controls on many systems to disable a lot of 
> functionality. And make sure all admin user is password protected! 
> - Disable everything that runs in the background, especially any kind of 
> updating. Turn off all automatic updates and all “alerts.” Remove every 
> background app and function. 
> - I like to automate a periodic restart. This helps with long term stability. 
> Windows simply can’t run for long periods without eventually crashing. It 
> just can’t. Macs too. 
> 
> Those are just highlights. Many threats can be eliminated en masse using 
> security apps and application design, but you still need to think about all 
> the possible undesirable consequences and make sure you are guarding against 
> them. If you keep a close eye on your existing installations, failures will 
> reveal threats that you never anticipated.
> 
> Some other things to consider:
> 
> If the app crashes, what does the user see. I like to clean off the desktop 
> and put a “restart” icon right in the middle. Most users don’t want to hack 
> your system and will happily restart your app for you if it’s obvious how 
> this is done.
> 
> You can also purchase app monitors that will check the run state and restart 
> the app if it crashes. If you have good  monitoring though, this is probably 
> more trouble than help though. It’s a background app. ;)
> 
> Can your user get to physical buttons on your monitors or systems? You can 
> often disable them via menu controls.
> 
> Can users access the power? This allows them to reboot. What happens when the 
> system reboots? Does it automatically load the correct user and application? 
> 
> What happens when power fails? Does the system automatically reboot when 
> power comes back? 
> 
> Etc…
> 
> I’m considering writing a longer more formal “how to" so I’d love to hear 
> anyone’s horror stories or specific configuration tips.

Cheers,
  tod

Technical Director
Hillmann & Carr Inc
202-342-0001


> On Nov 18, 2015, at 2:28 PM, Tamsen Young  wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> We are looking into purchasing a touchscreen monitor for a web-based
> interactive component to our exhibition. We are looking for one
> approximately 50". We'd also need to lock-down the "website". For iPads I
> do this with a combination of KioskPro and Guided Access. But these are
> Apple apps. Is there equivalent software for large touch monitors?
> 
> Does this list have any brand suggestions and/or specification suggestions
> such as: LED/LCD, output/input must-haves, what to avoid, what must be
> included?
> 
> From scanning the MCN archives I only 

Re: [MCN-L] Securing public computers

[hoplist]

There is no one-size-fits-all answer because the needs and circumstances of 
each installation are different. It requires a multi-layered approach. First, 
define the threats. Prioritize them, then look for the mitigations of those 
threats. There are so many potential failure points and they can’t all be 
addressed with one approach. Is your system a PC or a tablet? Windows or 
Android? Networked or not? Does it use peripherals? And so on. 

Here are some strategies to consider off the top of me head. I am currently 
securing two Windows 7 exhibits.

I think of exhibit application security in three layers.

1) The App. First, make your foreground app stable as you can. If your 
foreground app never crashes or gives up focus, the user can only do what it 
allows. Make sure you’ve disabled all possible options for closing or crashing 
the app. Let it run for long periods of time and see what happens. For 
instance, the Windows 10 update blindsided me on this install. A totally new 
problem!

2) Peripherals and Connections. Isolate the system and strip all unnecessary 
“tools” away from the user especially those that might allow them to crash the 
foreground application!
  - Take away the keyboard and mouse and disable unnecessary touch functions 
and don’t forget the Windows 7 virtual keyboard. Attach a keyboard for admin as 
needed but don’t leave it accessible to users.
  - Disable all "network" connections and functions that are not absolutely 
necessary: ethernet, wi-fi, bluetooth, DNS, DHCP, etc… Most interactives don’t 
NEED a full time network connection. Even if you do, say for remote admin or a 
backend system, you will only need narrowly defined functionality. Disable 
everything and then open only what you need.  Firewall all communications not 
explicitly required. 
 
3) The System. Make the system as lean and stable as you can.
 - run your app on a “limited” user and strip all needed functions from that 
user. You can use parental controls on many systems to disable a lot of 
functionality. And make sure all admin user is password protected! 
 - Disable everything that runs in the background, especially any kind of 
updating. Turn off all automatic updates and all “alerts.” Remove every 
background app and function. 
 - I like to automate a periodic restart. This helps with long term stability. 
Windows simply can’t run for long periods without eventually crashing. It just 
can’t. Macs too. 

Those are just highlights. Many threats can be eliminated en masse using 
security apps and application design, but you still need to think about all the 
possible undesirable consequences and make sure you are guarding against them. 
If you keep a close eye on your existing installations, failures will reveal 
threats that you never anticipated.

Some other things to consider:

If the app crashes, what does the user see. I like to clean off the desktop and 
put a “restart” icon right in the middle. Most users don’t want to hack your 
system and will happily restart your app for you if it’s obvious how this is 
done.

You can also purchase app monitors that will check the run state and restart 
the app if it crashes. If you have good  monitoring though, this is probably 
more trouble than help though. It’s a background app. ;)

Can your user get to physical buttons on your monitors or systems? You can 
often disable them via menu controls.

Can users access the power? This allows them to reboot. What happens when the 
system reboots? Does it automatically load the correct user and application? 

What happens when power fails? Does the system automatically reboot when power 
comes back? 

Etc…

I’m considering writing a longer more formal “how to" so I’d love to hear 
anyone’s horror stories or specific configuration tips.

Cheers,
   tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.




> On Nov 6, 2015, at 9:04 AM, Patrick Davis  wrote:
> 
> New to the group. Looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say.
> 
> One question that just recently was asked of me by our Director of
> Technology was how we are securing the computers that run our digital
> interactives in the public space. Not well was my answer. We are currently
> hovering around 75 different digital interactives and are adding new ones
> all the time.
> 
> I was wondering what everyone here does to lock down their windows 7 pro
> installations. In our situation we have three different kind of
> applications running. A majority of them are standalone flash projectors.
> The rest either run on Firefox or Chrome. I always lean towards open source
> solutions but we do have some room in our budget to purchase software to
> make this work. Ideally there would be some kind of central management
> solution that we could use to not only lock them down but keep tabs on what
> is going on.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ---
> Patrick Davis | Exhibitions AV Specialist | The Field Museum
> 1400 S Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605
> 

Re: [MCN-L] Adobe Creative Suite licensing

[hoplist]

Does this help?

http://www.tech-crawl.com/products/adobe-creative-cloud-for-teams-non-profit

We are not a non-profit so I can’t speak directly to your needs. We have to go 
the standard route at $600 per year. All things considered, it’s better deal 
for us than the old system.

cheers,
 tod

 On Dec 17, 2014, at 10:02 AM, Jennifer Schmitt jschm...@decordova.org wrote:
 
 Hi all -
 
 I'm looking for advice on how to implement Adobe Creative Suite now that it
 has gone to a subscription model.  We have, in the past, purchased one copy
 per fiscal year from Tech Soup. Tech Soup no longer offers CS, and when I
 contacted Adobe about a non-profit rate, it sent me to a list of
 resellers.  The resellers seem to want to sell their add-ons, training,
 etc. All we need is a few licenses for Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, and
 InDesign.  I'm curious how others, especially with limited budgets, have
 handled this.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Jenn Schmitt
 
 
 Head of Information Technology and Electronic Communications
 *deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum*
 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, MA 01773
 *T* 781.259.3626
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