We mourn the passing this week of the great Billy
Preston (NY
Times,
Rolling Stone). Thank you, Billy.
I'll be off next week, and there will be no
podcast. To make up for it, today's show will
be shorter than usual. We have the usual news
and downloads segments. Haydn will have his
teaching with technology tip, speaking this week on
the topic of "Resources for Online Students and
Faculty." David
will discuss "using html in your course menu" during his Blackboard feature of
the week. I will discuss personal organization
and the use of MS Outlook in my
tech-talk-topic. And the gizmo this week is
the girliest one we have featured yet.
Palomar Tech and Download News
- Windows Vista Beta can be downloaded and
tried by anyone.
Click here for the download web site.
Please be aware that this is BETA software and
not meant for a production environment.
The following is a quote from the web site: "Some
risks of using beta operating systems include
hardware and software incompatibility and system
instability ..." Things could really go
wrong, so we are not recommending that this be
done on any computing platforms other than test
systems. For further information, visit
the
Windows Vista web site.
- On the topic of Windows, Microsoft announced
this week the end of formal support for Windows
98 and Windows ME effective July 11, and Windows
XP SP1 , effective October 10.
Click here for more information.
- The Windows version of
Firefox has been updated to version 1.5.0.4
with what are described as critical updates:
read security fixes for known vulnerabilities.
Click here for the release notes.
- There was a hot fix for Blackboard version
7.1 released this week, called Service Pack 1,
but, as usual with Blackboard, there was some
confusion in the release notes as to what,
exactly, it fixes--and I would add it does not
help when things are fixed silently and not
covered in the release notes--but as near as we
can tell, we do not need to apply this patch at
this time. I can hear the sigh of relief
on the part of our faculty. We will
perform this upgrade later, when it can more
conveniently be scheduled.
Click here to read more about Blackboard at
Palomar College.
-
Microsoft
formally addressed, this week, the future of
FrontPage on their assistance site.
Click here for the information.
Basically, they say if you are a tech type, you
will be using Office Sharepoint Designer, and if
your needs are less data driven, MS Expression
Web Designer. They further muddy the
waters by referencing Visual Studio 2005 and
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition.
So 4 products replace 1? In no uncertain
terms they state that FrontPage will be
discontinued at the end of this year.
-
Windows Live OneCare is free for a 90-day
trial. Click here for information.
OneCare is Microsoft's bid to take over the
anti-virus market by bundling their antivirus
solution with, firewalls, system tuneups,
backups and other services and placing it all
online. The eventual price, should you
decide to keep it, will be $49.95 per year,
allowing installation on up to 3 computers.
Training Opportunities
This week the @ONE system announced their
summer training schedule. They offer what
are called "lunch 'n learn"
desktop seminars, facilitated
online courses, and an in-person
summer institute, which will be held at San
Diego City College this year from June 13-15,
followed by a 1-day
Teaching Online workshop at the same location on
June 16. Of special interest should be the
facilitated online course they are offering "Introduction
to Teaching with Blackboard 6.0" from July
24-August 11.
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
Using HTML with your Blackboard menu.
File this one under 'frivolous but may be
useful someday...' Believe it or not, you
can use html tags within the text of a menu
entry in Blackboard (note: TEXTUAL menus, not
button menus, are highly recommended here) to
add formatting and other effects. Dave
explains how.
Links
Sample Blackboard menu, bolded, italicized,
entires separated by horizontal lines:
Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =
4:52]
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Haydn's topic today is "Resources for Online
Students and Faculty." He is diligently
researching the literature and sifting the gems.
His attention this week has been caught by a great
institution/student interface at Long Beach City
College, and some genuinely practical resources at
various universities.
Links
Notes from Haydn's presentation [pdf with
web links - 23K]
Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =
12:49]
Tech-Talk-Topic
This
week I would like to talk about personal
organization, and especially how it relates to the
use of MS Outlook. I would like to begin by
recommending a book,
Take Back Your Life! Using Microsoft Outlook to Get
Organized and Stay Organized by Sally McGhee
(ISBN: 0-7356-2040-7). Organization is a
discipline, not an art, and requires training, not
inborn talent. This book supplies the training
and MS Outlook is the tool to make it all happen.
To get an overview of the process,
click here for a webinar recently held (6/8/06 -
1 hour) by Sally and John Wittry titled "Getting to
Zero in Your Inbox." Yes. It is
possible. You can have zero emails in your
inbox. Sally teaches you that your inbox is a
collection point, NOT a storage or action point.
(Click
here for an index of archived webinars in the MS
Leadership Forum series).
Sally preaches the 4 D's: When an item hits
your inbox you handle it only once in that location
and decide to 1) Delete it (hard, but do-able, and
it gets easier); 2) Do it (if it takes less than 2
minutes); 3) Delegate it (Lord help us weak-willed
egocentrics); or 4) Defer it. Listen up.
Defer, does NOT mean place it somewhere else where
you can visit to open and re-open it while you are
waffling on what to do. It means something
very specific: place it in your a) reference
system (Outlook or My Documents folders); b) on your
calendar (schedule an appointment, meeting, or event
to handle the matter); or c) make a task for
yourself, assigning a due date for action.
Outlook provides a view that maximizes this
system, called the taskpad view. From any
calendar view, click View > Taskpad:
Tasks and thumbnail calendars will appear on the
right of the screen, your calendar in the center,
and, if you turn on the navigation pane and click
either the Email or Folders icon, your
reference system on the left of the screen.
Like this:
Better than this arrangement, however--and
especially if you need more screen real estate to
manage multiple email accounts and calendars, is to
add a second screen to your computer, and run your
Outlook Today, email folders, and navigation
shortcuts on one screen, and your calendar and tasks
on the second screen, tiled horizontally.
Windows XP is adept at driving two or more monitors,
and graphics cards are cheap. In fact, if you
have a newer computer, its single graphics card may
be able to drive more than one monitor.
What can go wrong? Technically, nothing, or
simply little, easily repaired details.
Motivationally, lots. Most of us have built up
a lifetime of procrastinating habits that we mistake
for our "character." Habits come, habits go.
If you start this method, and then fall off the
wagon, the only way out is back. Staying on
the wagon yields significant bonuses in life
balance, feelings of being in control, and freedom
from that crushing feeling of "information
overload." Here is another of Sally's
aphorisms: "If you always do what you've
always done, you will always get what you've always
got." If you want that to change, I can't
recommend more highly Sally McGhee's book and
method.
Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =
10:45]
Gizmo of the week
The
Hello Kitty iPod Dock. For your
pre-teen ultra-girly girl, the cutest iPod dock
ever. The picture says it all. Read the
specs on the product page, if you can stand it.
If you are not a Hello Kitty fan, you are probably
already cringing, maybe even retching. If you
are a fan,
click here for a product page of many other HK
products in a similar vein, including iPod speakers,
iPod FM transmitter, iPod FM transmitter for nano,
and iPod car charger. Its not just the iPod
either, the page has the HK juice maker, HK milk
shake maker, the HK 2 slice wide-slot toaster, the
HK digital video camera and on and on. Long
live Hello Kitty.
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 Bitter
Circus by
William Brooks. Here is a quote from his
biography: "He
has been detained by police on several occasions but
never actually arrested, got caught in a revolving
door with Bob Dylan, jumped out of more than 7
perfectly good airplanes, waitered in a Chinese
restaurant earning the nickname "Sing Ging Ping"
which translates to "Neurons Don't Meet", saw the
Beatles in concert, has seen at least 4 ghosts, none
of which he knew..."
We
used tracks 1: "The Gift;" 5: "Beggar;" 10: "My Love
Looks the Other Way;" 2: "Try It Like This;" 9: "Is
There Anybody There?;" 8: "Upstairs with Leslie;" 4:
"Ole' Soledad;" 11: "She's Right Over There;" 6: "A
Different State of Mind."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"It seemed the
world was divided into good and bad people. The
good ones slept better... while the bad ones
seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more." ~
Woody Allen
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for June 9, 2006 - Episode 21
