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ITS Coffee Break – 6/29/07 – LVAIC Symposium, Network Upgrade, Unclutter, Instructables, Summer Workshops

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Technology in the class room is the focus of an upcoming LVAIC symposium, and news of the event leads off the latest edition of the ITS Coffee Break, recorded on location at the Cosmic Cup Coffee Co. on College Hill. Hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley also have news about the network upgrade project and upcoming outages associated with it, as well as an update about progress with Moodle. In Tech News, they discuss the much hyped iPhone, review Google Maps new "drag your route" feature, get organized with Unclutterer.com, and discover how to build things from scratch with Instructables.com. News about July and August workshops and of just-added Moodle documentation rounds out the podcast.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • LVAIC Technology in the Classroom Symposium
    • Wednesday, August 1, 2007
    • Time: 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
    • Location: Muhlenberg College Allentown, PA – Moyer Hall
    • Facilitator: LVIAC
    • The LVAIC Technology in the Classroom Symposium is an annual event to look at different technology being used on campus across the Lehigh Valley. This year, Chris Borick, Director, Institute of Public Opinion, Muhlenberg College will give a keynote on "The Role of Technology in Public Opinion Research." Other topic for the day include: Using Second Life to Enhance Academic Content, Outcomes Assessment: Developing Real Data on Student Achievement, Podcasting and Emerging Technologies in Higher Education.
      For registration and additional information, visit: http://lvaicclasstech.org.
  • Network Upgrade Work
    • ITS has scheduled work associated with the network upgrade project for three evenings the week of July 9.  Each evening's work will result in some disruption to network services.  Details follow;  reminder messages will be sent the day of each scheduled outage.
    • Monday July 9, 6:00 PM through Tuesday, 7:00 AM
      • Sporadic outages affecting all Lafayette network services.
    • Tuesday July 10, 6:00 PM through Wednesday, 7:00 AM
      • No access to email, Lafayette Web sites, Banner self-service, and Blackboard.
      • Internet connectivity should not be affected, but access may be slow at times.
    • Wednesday July 11, 6:00 PM through Tuesday, 7:00 AM
      • Interruptions to Internet connectivity.
      • Access to Lafayette network services from on campus should not be affected.
    • Concerns/questions should be addressed to John O'Keefe at okeefej@lafayette.edu.  Details about the network upgrade project can be found at http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~its/facilities/networkupgrade.
  • Moodle Progress
    • Fall 2007 courses are now available for faculty within Moodle.
    • We've added rotating images to the home page representing a cross-section of the campus's buildings.
    • Working on student enrollments and course-crosslistings now.

Tech News

  • iPhone
  • Google Maps
  • Unclutter
    • Unclutterer is the blog about getting and staying organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place is our gospel
    • http://unclutterer.com/
  • Instructables
    • A huge DIY instruction site. If you like Make, you'll like this.
    • R/C Steam Turbine Tank, Laptop Converted to 2nd Monitor, How to make a Green Lantern ring- including a glowing version!, Laptop Sleeve from a FedEx Envelope
    • http://www.instructables.com/

Help News

Rid your drive of useless files.

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I heard of an interesting utility on MacBreak Weekly podcast recently. It's called Cache Out X and it does a great job of cleaning out all those stupid cache and swap files that show up mysteriously when you start your Mac and your trash is suddenly full. This application handles both system files and internet files that take up useless drive space. It handles 8 different web browsers and has loads of automated preferences, you can even schedule it to run via iCal. Best of all, it's FREE! I found it at versiontracker.com

ITS Coffee Break – 6/15/07 – Network Upgrades, MIT Virtual Residences, Leopard, Training Feedback

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The ITS Coffee Break begins with news of the first-year student technology guide, an update of ongoing work on the network redesign project, and latest about our progress importing Fall 2007 course data into Moodle. Moving on to Tech News, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley look at MIT's virtual residence halls within Second Life, discuss the new Leopard edition of the Mac OS X operating system, and check out the new Windows version of Apple's Safari web browser.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

Tech News

  • MIT's Virtual Dormitories for Freshmen
  • Leopard Features
    • http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/06/11/leopardnew/
    • Stacks: Browseable lists of files; seems to work like my right-clickable Dock folders do now.
    • Quick Look for viewing popular file types; I expect this to be very useful at work, when I need to view fills but don't need to launch Photoshop to do it.
    • New Finder will allow searches across multiple Mac; this would be useful now when my primary computer is a PowerMac desktop and I'm working on my work MacBook Pro laptop, but might not be as handy when my primary home computer becomes a mac book.That said "Back to my Mac" search allows you to look at computers even when you're on the road, across the net, which is very cool.
    • Spaces — multiple virtual desktops — is nothing new for Linux users (and even Mac users who've tried one of the many third party or Unix options. This is integrated into the new OS though, and I see this as being very handy — I expect to have "Web", "Writing" and "Audio/Video" spaces as soon as I have Leopard.
  • Apple brings Safari to Windows
    • http://www.apple.com/safari/
    • Apple's "one more thing" at the Worldwide Developers Conference was a beta release of Safari 3 for Windows.
    • No one is sure if this is a new front in the browser wars, an attempt by Apple to familiarize Windows users with Safari ahead of its iPhone release, or just a Windows blip that will fade away in a few years.
    • One things for sure, it's a beta. Security problems have already been reported, and its been reported to crash in a variety of Google apps (like Google Reader and Google Docs).
  • Safari On Windows A Security Risk

Help News

  • Workshops
    • Still only Moodle workshops; we're working on a full schedule of workshops (including more advanced Moodle workshops and non-Moodle workshops like Dreamweaver, Audacity and iMovie) for July and August.
    • View the schedule or register for a workshop.
  • Feedback on Learning

    • We want to know how you like to learn new programs and techniques: workshops? online tutorials? cheat sheets?
    • Send feedback to itsblog@lafayette.edu.

Contacting the Podcast