Documentation Tools

While building this how-to guide, I relied on some great open-source software. Here is the list of items I relied on.

• Google Sites — Obviously... You're reading this on a Site hosted by Google. It's fairly easy to get started and very easy to modify once you have started. If you have a Gmail account or just a sign-in on Google, you can make your own pages. However, I noticed I have much greater control if I'm using the older style Google Sites. The drawback is the old sites are a bit harder to create with if you're a novice.
• LibreOffice — I used the Draw portion of the suite. Notice in the top left corner of this page is a “Company Logo” made by Converting a Text Box into a Polygon and then Exporting it as a PNG file type with a transparent background. I also used the Draw module to make transparent background titling for some of the videos.
• GIMP — Lots of static images via screen-shots were manipulated in the GIMP software and prepared for these pages and elements in some of the videos.
• Vokoscreen — Screen recording was achieved with this program. I installed it on a Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Workstation using their Ubuntu Software GUI installation interface.
• Blender — This program is a Video Creation, 3-D, super powerful program, but it can be used to do simple Video Sequencing better than a lot of expensive software (bundled with Sony or Apple products) that I've used. Their's a lot of tutorials on how to work with Blender, but my favorite set is this one, Blender Video Editing (2.7X series [Current Series]).
• guvcview — (aka: GTK UVC video viewer) Webcam work was captured by this software package also installed using their Ubuntu Software GUI installation interface.
• Android — some early video elements were captured via a tripod mounted SmartPhone and a cool app called OpenCamera.