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Show Notes (Play time 37 minutes)
"Like my grandmother
said, if you don't have something nice to say about
someone, let's hear it."
--Lawrence Block
(wiki), Burglars
Can't Be Choosers(amazon)
Happy St. Patrick's day to all. It is still
cold around here, and the prognostication is for
rain again this weekend. We have that much in
common with Ireland. This week we made the
decision to integrate the new Blackboard database
server on March 23; we attended a demo on RF
Audience Response systems, called rf clickers.
You see the one from CPS, the vendor we like a lot
for various reasons, in the accompanying picture to
the right. We also made the decision to stop
supporting, into the future, the Real media format,
except by special request. These ideas are
discussed in today's Tech-Talk-Topic. David
has a preview of the Blackboard 7.1 upgrade in his
Blackboard feature of the week segment. Other
topics of tech interest are discussed in the news
and events segments.
Campus Tech News
-
Next week, March 20-24 will be spring break
week. Our computer labs will be open
8am-4pm next Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Wednesday is staff development day, and Friday
is a District holiday.
-
Blackboard services will not be available on
Thursday, March 23. We are switching over
to the new Blackboard database server that day.
Thanks to Don Sullins and Jose Vargas for
supporting us with funds for the server and
assistance in the server room.
-
The library has purchased a 1-year subscription
to Safari tech books. We ran a one month
trial in February, and the library received
enough positive feedback to make the purchase
seem appropriate. This is the library's
first foray, so to speak, into eBooks and while,
not an ebook system, still is an approach.
Visit the library's
database subscription page to login to the
Safari system. Look under "Science and
Technology."
-
This week we met with the architects who will be
designing our new library building, called an
LRC, and not just a library. We need to
get detailed floor plans in to the DSA by June
30, which means the planning must be done now.
If we pass our bond measure in November,
construction could begin on the building as
within 2-3 years. Amazing.
-
Software upgrades this week:
-
Flip4Mac windows media plugin for Quicktime
is generally available. With it installed,
Quicktime can play any windows media; for OS X
version 10.3.9 or later, and Quicktime version
6.5 or later.
- Windows desktop search bar ver. 2.6.5 Beta
is now available.
More and download... Get the Adobe PDF
IFilter for this product if you want it to index
your PDFs. According to the product hype
it "works splendidly with Windows" and has "full
integration with Outlook and Windows Explorer."
-
CCCSAT has announced the
winners of their first annual student film and
video festival, and will broadcast a show
about it on April 17.
-
The Concert Hour
is on hiatus next week for spring break and will
return the following week.
-
Political Economy days, a two-day program
sponsored by our economics department, will be
held April 5-6. It will be streamed live
and archived by CCCSAT.
-
I've begun a new blog which I hope to update
daily about technology at Palomar and in higher
education in general. Access it from our
atrc web pages.
Upcoming AT Training Workshops
- There will be no Academic Technology
training next week, due to spring break.
- Our next event is March 28, when Chris
Norcross will be conducting a Photoshop 1
workshop.
- Go to our
training schedule to get the details
Blackboard Feature of the Week
This week David discusses some of the features
coming up in the next upgrade to Blackboard, version
7.1. Listen in to get ahead of the curve.
Contact Blackboard Support for more
information.
Listen to this segment [mp3 - Play time
= 8:59]
Tech Talk Topics
1) RF Polling Devices
This week a number of decision makers at
Palomar gathered for a demonstration of CPSrf,
an audience response system from einstruction.
These are the little hand-held clickers you may
have seen or used in other venues. Their
purpose is to solicit instant in-person audience
response to questions posed during a
presentation or lecture. I have seen them
used very effectively and want to adopt this
technology at Palomar. We have decided to
purchase a 2 sets, amounting to 64 total units,
2 base stations, 2 carrying cases, and a site
license for the software. We will be
looking for professors who wish to make use of
them during a pilot project, and then eventually
will make them available for checkout from
Academic Technology.
2) The end of Real media at Palomar
Our Real media server is going out of
warranty in the near future, and we have decided
it's days are numbered. We are not going
to take it down, or remove the contents on it.
We have decided to simply stop supporting this
format for new encoding at Palomar. It
just does not make economic or technical sense
to go on paying the high licensing fees from
Real and purchasing new, separate hardware to
serve up the content, when every player out
there now, including the Real player, can play
Windows media content. Especially since
the Windows media server is free as part of
server 2003 and the encoder is also free; and
most especially since Windows media is the clear
winner in adopted base among users.
Links
Listen to this segment
[mp3 - Play time
= 7:26]
Gizmo of the week
SCOTY: Smart Companion Operating Technology, from
WowWee robotics (makers of Robosapiens) and
Phillips. The two companies teamed up to make
a camera- and Wi-Fi—equipped butler who sits in your
living room, obeying voice commands to play specific
music, read new e-mail and even report intruders.
Soctty should be available in September of 2006, and
will retail for around $400. Commence
autodestruct sequence...
Music
The
music for today's show was provided by
Magnatune.com, and is used through their
Creative Commons license for podcasts. Today's
album was
The Castle of the Holly King by
Shira Kammen, folk/nedieval Celtic music.
Very appropriate for St. Patty's day.. We used tracks
1:
The Holly Bears a Berry; track 3: Christmas Day in
the Morning; track 5: Rafe's Waltz; track 7: The
Brandevin; track 10: Gower Wassail; track 13: Nou is
Yole Comen; track 9: An Dro Nevez; and track 15:
Bring Us In Good Ale. Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity.
Magnatune is not evil!
"When you come to a
fork in the road, take it."
--Yogi Berra
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for March 17, 2006 - Episode 10
