Month: May 2020

Posted on

Harry Potter Teams and Zoom Backgrounds




The first time I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

I took a fair few photographs and have posted them to my other blog.

Some of my photographs I thought might make excellent Teams and Zoom backgrounds.

Right click the images to download the images for your personal use only.

Hogwarts Castle

The Great Hall

Diagon Alley

Gryffindor Dorm

Gringotts Bank

The Burrow

Dumbledore’s Office

The Potions Classroom

Yule Ball Ice Sculpture

The Leaky Cauldron

Hogwarts Express

4 Privet Drive

Posted on

No more Pogo




I am quite sad that my Polaroid Pogo printer has finally died and no longer works, despite some best efforts to fix it.

Polaroid Pogo

I bought my Pogo printer back in 2009. This was a battery powered zero ink (Zink) printer which did 2” x 3” prints (which were also stickers). You generally sent the images to the printer by Bluetooth, but you could connect an USB stick or camera to the printer as well.

I had bought one after getting feedback from friends on the Twitter.

It cost me £50, though within a few months it had fallen in price to just £17.

I did use it for a while, but there were some core reasons why it never really clicked for me, partly the size of the prints, just 2” x 3” which was too small for most things. Couldn’t really see a practical use for such small prints, even if they were stickers. The other main reason was that the quality of the prints was quite poor in comparison to the HP photo printer I had at the time. So like many other devices after the novelty had rubbed off and the curiosity value had waned, it went into the cupboard.

When I started a new role in 2015, I dusted off the Pogo and started to use it much more.

Dusting off the Pogo

…after making notes in a my new work notebook (trying out visual note taking for project planning) that I realised I actually wanted to include a diagram in my notes. I could have attempted to draw the diagram, but I am not that good at drawing clear diagrams. Also in this case I wanted the actual diagram, not a drawn representation of the diagram. I then remembered the Pogo printer and I wondered…

I had to connect it to the power adapter and remember that the easiest way to do this was to send it the image file over Bluetooth. I was actually quite surprised and impressed that it worked.

The battery had completely lost its charge, and wouldn’t hold a charge, so I had to use it tethered to a power supply, it would have been useful to take with me on trips and events.

Polaroid Pogo printer

Over the last few years I found it a really useful. However because of the Bluetooth restrictions imposed by Apple, I couldn’t print to it from an iOS device such as the iPhone or the iPad. With the current version of the Pogo (and other similar Zink printers) most now have an iOS app that allows you to print images from your iPhone.

I did have a few streaking issues following a paper jam.

Streaking on the Pogo

Pogo print

However following a quick Google search I did manage to clean the printhead and fix the streaking.

Having not used it for a while and needing to print I gave it a go and alas it didn’t work at all. It wouldn’t feed the paper through, so I think it has finally died. 

I have decided at some point to get a replacement as I did like using it and did find it a useful accompanying tool for visual note taking.

Posted on

BBC Zoom and Teams Backgrounds




The amazing BBC Archive have posted a series of images of empty BBC Television sets across the years to be used as Zoom or Teams backgrounds.

You can visit the page select the background you want and then save to your computer.

Of course there are some classic (and modern) TARDIS backgrounds.

TARDIS

I also like the fact I could be self-isolating with Del and Rodney, well maybe not.

Then I could be in Tom and Barbara’s kitchen in the Good Life.

Or sitting at the back of a Grange Hill classroom.

Plenty to choose from.

Posted on

Using iPad as separate whiteboard in Teams




So you want to use your iPad a whiteboard in a Teams meeting? Well this is one way in which you can do this easily. You will need an iPad (obviously), a whiteboard or drawing app and it helps to have another device (main computer) to interact with the meeting as well as using the iPad to draw from.

This post came about after seeing this tweet on the Twitter from Charles Knight.

It got me thinking about whether this was possible, but also how you would do it. So I quickly tried it out and it worked fine. I did tweet a response, but have now written it up as a blog post so others can refer to it (and I can remind myself how to do it as well).

Though you can screenshare direct from the iPad, once you are screen sharing on the iPad, you can’t see the chat or other members on the Teams call.

One solution is to join the meeting from both your main computer and your iPad at the same time.

As well as screen sharing you can also share other content or video from your iPad as well.

So on the main computer start or join a Teams meeting.

Continue reading “Using iPad as separate whiteboard in Teams”