Instructor Notes

You will find a summary of all of the instructors notes below.

  • Make sure if you’re conducting this workshop in person that there are enough power sockets!

From previous workshops:

  • what are signatures?
  • why do I need to know this?
  • what do I do with it?
  • Make sure pre-reading is sent out early enough to be read before travel.

More from previous training:

  • slow down,
  • collaborate,
  • more hands-on,
  • avoid colloquialismsm
  • avoid jargon (or explain jargon if used!)
  • be as formal as trainers as possible,
  • be mindful of non-native speakers.

Introduction


Instructor Note

  • Welcome, housekeeping.
  • Introduce the presenters.
  • Brief intro for audience members e.g.
    • show of hands re interests
    • prior experience

everyone will be interested in FFID to some extent.



Talking with Computers


Instructor Note

This is the high level overview, before anybody gets thrown into hex. Hexadecimal turns up here as one of three ways of saying the same thing, and that is all it needs to do. Conversion comes next, so if somebody asks, tell them it is five minutes away.



Hexadecimal


Optional quiz

You can ask the room if they know what these byte sequences might be.



Using a hex editor


Instructor Note

Make a note to participants that keeping a separate HexEd.it tab open will be beneficial throughout the remainder of this workshop.



Looking for patterns


Introducing PRONOM syntax


Reversing PRONOM syntax


Creating signature files


Instructor Note

At this point it is a good idea to navigate to the signature development utility and try this out.

Save the content and then inspect it in a hex editor and point out some of the structure that we have discussed previously.



Plugging it in


Instructor Note

If there is time, you can explain how to activate a custom signature file with local tooling, i.e. DROID and/or Siegfried using the information below. You can also skip it or summarize it for the class as you prefer. FIDO is not yet included in the guide.



Doing it for yourself


Instructor Note

For iPRES we will look at going through the process of creating and submitting a signature for the Quite OK Image format as it isn’t yet in PRONOM.

BOF is ‘qoif’,

EOF is 0x0000000000000001 -

The group can be invited to make signature suggestions based on the specification example files, e.g. dice.qoi from the test images zip available here: https://qoiformat.org.



Teaching us how to do it!


Advanced PRONOM


Final thoughts