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ATRC Podcast
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 Podcast
for November 3, 2006 - Episode 39
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Play time 50 minutes - Program Notes
Remember, remember the
fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
~Guy Fawkes day nursery rhyme
Nor has
Guy Fawkes day been forgot, from November 5, 1605 down
to today. Our tech news briefs include new
versions of Windows media player (11) and Sun java
runtime (9), a new episode of PCOnline Exposed, new
voice tools from Horizon Wimba, several
announcements from Apple, including a fix for the
unexpected MacBook shutdown problem, awards for best
online classes from Blackboard and ITC, another Google
acquisition, and new resources from the Electronic
Frontiers Foundation. David's Blackboard Feature
of the Week explains adaptive release of materials.
Haydn is off this week, so there will not be a Teaching
with Technology segment. My Tech Talk Topic deals with
shortcut keys in IE7. Our gizmo this week is a
high-tech bun warmer, with a difference.
Palomar Tech and Download News
-
Spring enrollment begins Nov. 14. The enrollment fee
for spring classes has been reduced to $20 per unit!
Sign in to eServices and click on the Enroll in
Classes tab to see your enrollment appointment
displayed. Contact Admissions at (760) 744-1150,
ext. 2164 if you do not see your appointment or if
you have any questions.
-
Windows Media Player 11 was officially released
this week.
Click here to download.
Click here for the set of tutorials that
Microsoft has developed on using WMP 11.
-
Also from Microsoft,
they have announced that Windows Vista,
Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 will all become
available for business clients on November 30, a day
Microsoft is calling the "New Day for Business."
The "mainstream" launch of these products will be
delayed until January.
-
Sun also updated the Java runtime platform this
week. The new version is Java 2 Platform,
version 1.5.0, build 1.5.0_09-b03. If you do
not have automatic updates already turned on for
your Java runtime platform,
click here to get the update. (This one is
also known as Java 5 update 9). Do the custom
update to be sure you do not get the Google toolbar
if you don't want it.
-
Episode 6 of David's PCOnline Exposed vodcast has
been published. It deals with allowing guest
access in a Blackboard course.
Click here to access the vodcast site,
here to visit the episode's blog posting, and
here to view the vodcast in mp4 for4mat.
-
 Horizon Wimba announced this week the imminent
availability of two new voice tools, the Wimba
podcaster and the voice presenter. The podcaster is
an extension of the voice board tool, and the
presenter allows audible comments while reviewing a
web page. Both tools will be available to
Palomar College Blackboard users as soon as our
license is upgraded, which will be on, or shortly
after November 8, according to Steve Montano, our
Horizon Wimba product representative. Visit
the
H-W demo site to see both tools in action.
-
Apple announced this week the opening of iTunes
Latino, "featuring top Latin music, music videos,
television shows, audiobooks and podcasts."
-
Apple also released (unannounced) this week a fix
for the sudden, unexpected shutdown problem that has
been plaguing the MacBook for a long time. Go
to
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ to
download the MacBook SMC Firmware Update version
1.1. Or just
click here, to get it. To find out more
about this rather serious problem from a non-Apple
perspective, go to
www.macbookrandomshutdown.com.
-
Also from Apple, the new iPod Shuffle (1GB, $79) is
available today, Friday Nov. 3.
Click here for the product promotional page.
-
 Blackboard
released its official "call for proposals" this week
for the 2007 Blackboard Greenhouse Grant Program.
Winners will receive a $25,000 Greenhouse Grant:
"These
$25,000 grants are designed to help build a
collective body of knowledge, and rewards clients
who have successfully developed and deployed
initiatives that promote best practices in the
adoption of Internet technology in the educational
environment."
Click here [PDF] to get the official rules and
call for proposals.
Click here for an explanatory web page with
links to the 2006 winners. Filing deadline is
February 16, 2007.
-
On the subject of awards, the
2007
Instructional Technology Council Awards
for Excellence in Distance Education nominating
process is now open. Nomination deadline is
Friday, November 10, 2006.
Click here for details, and to get the
nomination form.
-
Google announced this week that they have
acquired JotSpot, a web wiki site. New JotSpot
accounts are temporarily disabled (though
you can sign up for the waitlist). Jotspot
was originally conceived as "...a way to bring the
power of wikis to a much broader audience."
For the time being, the JotSpot/Google programmers
are busily moving "...JotSpot to Google's software
architecture." Watch for Google's wiki tool in
the near future.
-
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has
released their "Bloggers'
FAQ on the Freedom of Information Act" and the "Legal
Guide for Bloggers" so that you too, Mr. Smith,
can be a frontline investigator of government
agencies.
 According to the EFF,
"Online journalism makes a unique contribution to
America's vibrant culture of free speech," said EFF
Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Using the Freedom of
Information Act is a powerful way to shed light on
government activities and foster critical public
debate about the discoveries."
Training Opportunities
- Academic Technology Training
We
will be presenting the following workshops next
week:
Register for all Academic Technology workshops
through the
Professional Development web site.
Click here to access our entire training
schedule,
here to access the new "competencies"
approach to our workshops, and other training
information.
- @ONE will be hosting a lunch'n'learn seminar on
"Two approaches to strengthen computer literacy
skills," Nov. 6 from 12-1pm.
Click here for information and to register.
- Horizon Wimba has published their November desktop lecture schedule.
Next week:
- on Monday, November 6 at 11am PST they
will be presenting "Connecting the Blackboard
Community," (click
here to register);
- on Thursday, November 9 at 11am PST they will be
presenting "Examining Students' Learning Processes
Through Their Cllaborative Dialogs"
(click here to register).
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
Adaptive Release in Blackboard
Dave defines and describes the use of adaptive
release in Blackboard.
Note: To get to David's vodcast site,
click here.
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Haydn is off this week, but should be back next.
 |
See
an index of previous "Teaching with
Technology" segments. |
Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray
IE 7 Shortcuts
There comes a time when clicking around is just
too slow. You need to start using keyboard
shortcuts. That's when you know you've crossed
the frontier between casual and serious user.
Today I would like to review a few of the keyboard
shortcuts available in IE7.
Page zoom. We all know the standard shortcut keys, F11 for
full screen, F5 to refresh the page, Crtl-F to find
a term on a page, Ctrl-N to open page in a new
window, Crtl-A to select all, Ctrl-X, C and V to
cut, copy or paste, and so on. But new in IE7
you can zoom in the page view by
pressing Ctrl-+, zoom out by pressing
Ctrl--, and return to 100% view by pressing
Ctrl-0? (Holding down Ctrl and moving the
mouse wheel up or down (if you have one) will zoom
the page in or out in 10% increments).
Return Home. We all know that pressing Alt-right arrow and
Alt-left arrow will move us forward or backward in
our browse history, but did you know that pressing
Alt-Home will return you to your home page
(or pages, if you have defined multiple home pages
on your tabs)?
Favorites Center. Ctrl-D still
bookmarks a page, but now Ctrl-I will open
the "favorites center," that area of the screen to
the left of the browser window that used to hold
favorites or history. Now it holds favorites
and history and RSS feeds. When it is opened,
it is a little inset box, to open it in what is
called pinned mode (where it becomes a resizable
panel in the browser window) press Ctrl-Shift-I.
Ctrl-J opens your feed, Ctrl-Shift-J
feeds in pinned mode; and Ctrl-H history and
Ctrl-Shift-H history in pinned mode.
Ctrl-B opens the dialog that permits organizing
favorites.
Tabs. What about the new tabs?
Hover over a link on a page, hold down Ctrl and
left-click (Ctrl-Left click or just click the
middle mouse button (wheel) if you have one) to open
the link in a new background tab; Ctrl-Shift-Left
click to open the link in a new foreground tab.
Ctrl-W closes a tab; Ctrl-T opens a
new, blank tab; Ctrl-Q opens quick tab
view (the thumbnails of all open tabs);
Ctrl-Shift-Q opens a list of open tabs;
Ctrl-Alt-F4 closes all but the current tab.
Address bar. There are also cool
things you can do with the address bar using
keyboard shortcuts: Alt-D selects the
address bar (as in, select and copy a URL); type a
company name in the address bar, like "microsoft"
then press Ctrl-Enter and it will add "http://www."
before and ".com" after what you have typed and go
to that URL; pressing F4 drops down a list of all
previously typed addresses.
Search box. Finally, in the new
search window, Ctrl-E will select the search
window; Ctrl-Down arrow will drop down the
list of search providers; Alt-Enter will open
search results in a new tab.
Gizmo of the week
Hot, hot, hot...
Remember electric blankets? I sure do. I
remember the delicious warmth of cuddling down in a
pre-heated bed, being hugged by the little looping
wires, the radiance of the little click-wheel
cheerily glowing in the dark as it went about
insuring your warmth all night. What? A
nor'easter? Just turn it up a little. 7
should do. Ah, there. Perfectly toasty.
So what happened to electric blankets?
Environmentally disastrous?, unsafe?, shock harard?,
fire hazards?, just plain un-cool along with
everything from the 50s? Perhaps.
Certainly too costly, just like electric stoves,
clothes dryers, and ambient room heaters. We
pay the highest utility bills in the country in San
Diego County (perhaps because we are at the "top" of
the coutry and it costs so much to pump the juice up
here from the butt end of the country?? could
that be the reason?). The last thing we need
is to keep the meter spinning all night heating up
our blanket when we could achieve the same effect by
just piling on a couple more non-electric blankets.
 But then, electric blankets were so warm, so
comfortable... The worst thing about them was
you had to crawl out of them in the morning, to
shiver to the wash basin, break the ice and splash
frigid water on your face. To go out in the
howling, snow swirls and make your way to school or
work. Didn't it ever occur to you to cut up
your electric blanket and make a pair of pants out
of it? It occured to me, but where would I
have found an extension cord that long? Now,
at long last, the problem has been solved, thanks to
lithium-ion battery technology (thank you Sony).
Brookstone
to the rescue with their "Dual-zone heated cargo
pants. Stay toasty warm when it's cold
outside." The pants have built-in heating
elements in two zones, the lower back (I think they
mean butt) and the pockets. They come with a
mini remote that is used to control the temperature
in the two zones separately (don't lose that
remote--no word on whether its protocols are
encrypted to avoid hacks).
Product description: "Lightweight, carbon
fiber heating coils sewn into the pants deliver
adjustable warmth for a variety of comfort levels
through safe, low-power infrared rays...Simply
remove batteries and toss into the wash as
needed...Rechargeable lithium-ion battery and
charger deliver hours of warmth."
They come in sizes from small (29 waist) to XL (38
waist -- sorry fat guys). The price, a mere
$150. In view of the latest news regarding
lithium ion batteries, I think I might tuck a fire
extinguisher in one of those capacious cargo pockets
before setting out into the cold.
(Source: Brookstone)
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
Art of Not Blending In" by
Burnshee Thornside. You will have to visit the
web site and find out how these guys got their musical
start playind in a McDonalds restaurant in Stockholm,
believe it or not.
We used tracks 1: "Can I be a Star?;"
6. "Love U Like a Train;" 10. "Make It Go Away;" 5.
"Borderline;" 9. "One at a Time;" 7. "Good to Me; 3. "In
the 60s."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"The
very purpose of existence is to reconcile the
glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the
appalling things that other people think about us." ~
Quentin Crisp
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