ITS Coffee Break for 10/12/07

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The ITS Coffee Break tries recording in stereo as it tests out one of three new microphones recently purchased by Lafayette for podcasting. In Tech News, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley talk about ways to spruce up your Facebook profile, discuss Berkley's decision to upload 200 course lectures to YouTube, and speculate on Google's purchase of the microblogging platform Jaiku. In Help News, two new “Integrating Teaching with Technology” presentations are announced, as well as an ITS brown bag lunch about getting started with Linux.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • New Podcasting Microphones in the Library
    • We've got new microphones for podcasting!
  • Network Outage Scheduled for 10/17.
    • Details will be posted on the ITS web site. Expect network and web apps to be affected from 4-7 a.m.
  • Somebody gets a new iPhone…

Tech News

  • Fix Your Facebook Profile Now
    • http://chrisbrogan.com/fix-your-facebook-profile-now/
    • Suggestions on how to improve your Facebook profile to make it actually useful. Geared toward more professional users, but good tips all around. Including:
      • Make Information The Top: don't make people dig for your bio info.
      • If Blogging, Install Blog Friends: Let's you see what your friends are blogging as well … and what they've read.
      • Pick Apps that Enrich Your Message: Go with stuff that helps reinforce who you are — Google Reader shared items, Flickr, etc.
  • Berkeley Tunes into YouTube
  • Google Buys Jaiku
    • http://www.jaiku.com
    • The microblogging app is an alternative to Twitter, but supports features like comments. Also supposed to work better on mobile devices, but so far my friends haven't been impressed.

Help News

  • bFree: new version released
  • Brown Bag: Getting Started with Linux
    • Time: Noon-1 p.m., Oct. 15, Skillman 004
  • Using Simulations: Integrating Teaching with Technology
    • Time: 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m., Gendebien Room, Skillman Library 206
  • Web and Video Conferencing: Integrating Teaching with Technology
    • 4:10 p.m.-5 p.m., Location: Gendebien Room, Skillman Library 206

ITS Coffee Break for 10/3/07

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The October 3rd edition of the Coffee Break leads off with news of Lafayette's implementation of Shibolleth and the recent Podcamp Philly event held at Drexel University. In Tech News, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley discuss the new Firefox Campus Edition, the Chronicle of Higher Education's new Tech Therapy podcast, and one professor's attempt to rate the trustworthyness of Wikipedia's contributors. In Help News they review file compatibility issues with Microsoft Office 2007, announce upcoming Outlook and NetStorage workshops, and offer a tip for quickly saving photos using Safari.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • ITS Implements Shibboleth
    • Lafayette is an early adopter of and the first member of CLAC (the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges) to implement Shibboleth, a framework for security- and privacy-focused user authentication across and within institutional boundaries.
    • http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~its/node/403
  • Podcamp Philly
    • Ken went to Podcamp Philly on Saturday, 9/9 at Drexel University.
    • http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/PodCampPhilly
    • Posts from the show are up on Soapbox (http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~soapbox/). Show had about 250 people (at least that was one overheard head count). Had seminars on a variety of topics, including podcast analytics, recording and editing, social networking and much more. Not much on the education side; we'll need to work on that.
    • Missed Philly? Well, hopefully there will be another one next year. But they are working on putting together … Podcamp Second Life (http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/PodCampSL).

Tech News

  • Firefox Campus Edition
    • http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/add-ons/campus/
    • Including foxytunes (let you control your media player from within Firefox and load lyrics, cover art, etc. with a click), Zotero (a reference notation tool) and StumbleUpon (a tool for recommending web sites and finding sites similar to ones you've visited.
  • Tech Therapy
    • http://chronicle.com/multimedia/podcasts/
    • From the site: "Scott Carlson, a Chronicle reporter, and Warren Arbogast, a technology consultant who works with colleges, talk about the headaches, anxieties, and general problems you might be having with technology on your college campus. File sharing, security, dealing with vendors, figuring out how to talk to your president, or how to talk to your CIO—it's all game for a therapy session"
  • New tool mines Wikipedia trustworthiness
    • http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/06/wikipedia.trust.ap/index.html
    • Concerned about how Wikipedia's open nature affects the trustworthiness of its entries? So is Luca de Alfaro of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He wrote software to analyze the wiki's extensive revision history to try and determine who the most trustworthy contributors were, based on the assumption that those edited least were likely the most trustworthy. The assumption may not be perfect, but it is an interesting experiment.

Help News

  • Office 2007 Compatibility
  • Upcoming Workshops
  • Safari Quick Tip
    • Right clicking on any image will allow you to save that image to iPhoto … which then makes it available to all the other iLife applications, like GarageBand (for use in enhanced podcasts).

ITS Coffee Break for 9/4/07

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The ITS Coffee Break returns for the fall semester with news of bouncing e-mails, the switch to SFTP for accessing web sites on WW2, updates to the Lafayette Toolbar for Firefox, a discussion of the top ten Facebook apps for Librarians, and a look at the latest features added to Google Maps.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • The Switch to SFTP
  • The Case of the Bounced Email
    • Spammers are spoofing email addresses from Lafayette accounts when they send out their messages. This causes messages that are undeliverable to bounce back to folks at Lafayette. Annoying, but not much we can do about it. To verify that we're not sending these or to request a more restrictive spam filter to deal with the bounces, contact the help desk.
  • Firefox Toolbar Updated to 1.2

Tech News

  • Top Ten Facebook Apps for Librarians – Part One

  • Google Launches Mapplets

  • Students Build Campuses in Google Earth
    • From the Chronicle of Higher Ed: "Google announced last month that seven colleges won a competition that had students creating three-dimensional models of their campuses in Google Earth, the company’s mapping Web site. Out of 350 entrants, the winners were: Purdue University, Concordia University’s Loyola Campus, Stanford University, Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Dartmouth College, and the University of Minnesota."
    • http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2347

Help News