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for December 15, 2006 - Episode 44
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Play time 55 minutes - Program Notes
"The
Office of Missile and Nuclear Technology gave final
approval, under the sole condition that the pianos not
be used for "torture or human rights abuse."
~Sendapiana.com
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Happy holidays to all. We have a somewhat
abbreviated show today. Haydn is on hiatus and Dave is
phoning his segment in. Tech news includes a
summary of Academic Technology activities over winter
break; Firefox 3 alpha 1 has been released to private
testers--the Firefox community having been under-whelmed
by the recent release of 2.0; Jimmy Wales has announced
a new free web space free web development software
venture called "openserving;" patch Tuesday came with
about 9 updates from Microsoft this week; there's news
of the economic impact of Windows Vista; a thumb drive
drive from inveneo; a mouse innovation from
Microsoft for developing countries called MultiPoint;
Photoshop CS3 beta release; and Google announced the
beta release of a new, very cool, patent search engine. David
is sending us his Blackboard Feature of the Week from a
remote location. His title is "Looking Ahead:
Winter Break Upgrades" in which he discusses the
hot fixes we will be applying to Blackboard and the
addition of Pronto and the new Horizon Wimba voice
tools. My Tech Talk Topic is an interview with our
own Shay Phillips who reviews the Microsoft Zune for us.
The gizmo section this week is titled "Every Dog Will
Have His (Holi)Day, about all things doggy tech.
Palomar Tech and Download News
-
We are pleased to announce that Palomar's
instructional administration has elected to purchase a one-year
subscription to the
TurnItIn anti-plagiarism service that we have
been previewing in Blackboard this semester.
Thank you to all who responded to our TurnItIn
survey and who tested the product in their classes.
We hope that the license will be extended beyond the
first year. For more information, see our
description in
episode 11.
-
 We are equally pleased to announce that funds have
been allocated for the
replacement of 44 going-out-of-warranty computers in
the Academic Technology computer lab on the ground
floor of the San Marcos library with new machines,
and to expand the lab by an additional 10 public
computers and 2 additional Americans with
Disabilities machines. Whether the new
machines will be available for the opening of Spring
semester depends on how quickly they can be ordered.
We will deploy them as soon as possible. This
brings the total of publicly accessible workstations
in the Academic Technology student labs to 144.
-
Academic Technology public computer labs on the
ground floor of the San Marcos campus library will
be closed the week of December 18-22. We will
be staffing the student union computer lab in room
SU-204. Please go there for public computing
services.
-
Over winter break Academic Technology will be
pursuing the following projects:
- December 19: prune Fall 2005 courses from
the Blackboard system (be sure to archive these
old courses if you think you might need them.
Click here for instructions on how to
archive. The pruning operation will have
minimal impact on Blackboard performance.
- December 20:
-
Fall 2006 Blackboard catalog removal – no impact on
Blackboard performance.
- Upgrade the
Horizon Wimba Voice Tools building block
– no impact on Blackboard performance.
Two new voice tools will be added for the
Spring 2007 semester, the Wimba podcaster
and the voice presenter.
- Install the
Horizon Wimba Pronto building block.
Pronto is a class specific Blackboard
instant messaging product that will permit
students and instructors to interact online.
The installation of the building block
should have no impact on Blackboard
performance.
- December 22: Blackboard will be down
this entire day for a Blackboard full
system backup and a system update.
- January 3-5: Academic Technology
web/application/file servers will be
re-arranged/rewired in their server racks.
Various servers will be down during this period:
- System down time for the primary
District web server will be minimized.
Our first priority will be to bring District
web services back up as soon as possible.
- Blackboard down time will be minimized,
and Blackboard services should be back up by
end of day Wednesday, January 3.
- Other systems may be down until Friday,
January 5.
-
Mozilla has released the alpha version of "Gran
Paradiso," otherwise known as Firefox 3, for
private developer testing. Since
Firefox 2 was just commercially released, it
will be a while until 3 is ready for public beta,
even, but Mozilla once again ups the steaks and puts
pressure on the IE developers.
Click here for a "first look" review from
ars
technica. Mozilla has
also announced the release of Thunderbird 2,
beta 1.
-
Wikipedia founder
Jimmy Wales announced
the release of "openserving," a free, open
source resource for web development and hosting
where the tools to build collaborative wiki-style
community web sites and the storage space is all
free to users.
 And here is the revolutionary
part, any revenue generated by the site, in
advertising dollars or otherwise, is also 100% the
property of the author. His for profit company Wikia, even though they are contributing the web
resources and tools, will not take a cut! The
only requirement is that the web developer must
include a link to Wikia.
Click here to access openserving.
-
Microsoft this week announced the release of
Windows Internet Explorer 7 – Chinese Simplified,
Chinese Traditional and Hebrew. "More language
versions of Internet Explorer 7 will be available
over the next few months" (IEBlog).
Click here to download worldwide language
versions of IE7.
-
 Microsoft released 7 security updates this month on
Patch Tuesday; three are "critical" and four
"important."
Click here for the security bulletin summary, or
read about each individually below:
- Cumulative security update for IE (KB925454).
- Visual Studio remote code vulnerability (KB925674).
- Windows Media format remote code
vulnerability (KB923689).
- SNMP remote code vulnerability (KB926247).
- Windows elevation of privilege vulnerability
(KB926255).
- Cumulative security update for Outlook
Express (KB923694).
- Remote installation service vulnerability (KB926121)
- Update for Outlook 2003 junk email filter (KB925254)
- Windows malicious software removal tool (KB890830)
- A research
project commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by
International Data Corportation estimates the the
release of Windows Vista will generate $70billion in
revenues and create over 100,000 IT jobs in the US
alone next year. "The impact of Windows Vista
on the U.S. market will drive substantial revenue
and growth for many companies that are part of the
Windows® ecosystem — companies that sell
hardware, write software, provide IT services or
serve as IT distribution channels. Today’s study
forecasts that the release of Windows Vista will
help bolster the more than 200,000 U.S. IT companies
that will produce, sell or distribute products and
services running on Windows Vista, including many
small, locally owned businesses. The study forecasts
that each dollar of Windows Vista-related revenue
earned by Microsoft in 2007 will generate more than
$18 in revenue for the IT industry at large" (Microsoft
press release).
Click here for the PDF version of the report (14
pages).
- "More than 2.5 billion
people live in rural and remote areas of developing
countries where access to communications is severely
limited due to availability or affordability" (inveneo).
Inveneo, a 501(c) non-profit charitable organization
is conducting a "thumb drive drive." Send your
old thumb drives to them for redistribution to
students, aid workers and small business
entrepreneurs in the developing world.
Click here for the address and further
information.
- Photoshop CS3 beta is
scheduled to be released as a public beta in the
early hours of December 15, according to
ars technica. The beta should be available
here,
Adobe account is required to login to the download
site and a valid CS2 serial number is required for
installation, otherwise it will work for only two
days. It is a very large download, at 337MB
for Windows and 685MB for Mac.
Click here to read the press release from Adobe.
-
 In developing countries the problem is not enough
PCs for the number of students. Microsoft has
come up with a creative solution with its Multipoint
product, which permits connection of multiple mice
and other peripherals to the same PC. "'MultiPoint
helps kids use PCs to learn together versus having
an isolated computer experience where they’re each
on their own PC. When they are accountable for
finding the right answer and clicking on it, their
learning goes up exponentially,' says Sherri
Bealkowski, general manager for Microsoft’s Emerging
Markets Education group. 'It helps them learn
teamwork, collaboration and computer familiarity –
the 21st-century skills that children need to learn,
especially children in emerging markets, so that
they can be competitive and can help their countries
be competitive'" (MS
Press Release). It is ironic that
we in the US spend millions on KVM technology to
reduce the number of mice and keyboards on our many
computers, the reverse is true in some places
abroad. Click here for a Channel 9 discussion of
Multipoint by its developers.
- Google has announced public
release of its
Google Patent Search tool this week, "...which
makes it easy to search the full text of the U.S.
patent corpus and find patents that interest
you...Google Patent Search uses much of the same
technology that powers
Google Book Search, so you can
scroll through pages and zoom in on text and
illustrations just like you can with books" (Google
press release). Google indexes the full
text of over 7 million patents granted by the US
Patent and Trademark Office dating back to 1790.
Read these very interesting (and currently
controversial) patents issued to Blackboard, Inc.
for their elearning system.
Listen to the news [mp3 -
20:00]
Training Opportunities
- Academic Technology Training
The
Academic Technology schedule of training workshops
for Spring 2007 has been published.
Click here to access the schedule,
here to read a description of the various
workshops within their competencies and also the new
Blackboard Certificate program and TBA training.
Register for all Academic Technology workshops
through the
Professional Development web site.
- @ONE has announced it's schedule of multi-week, online, instructor
facilitated courses for Spring 2007. Of
relevance to Palomar faculty will be courses on
Teaching Online, Teaching with Blackboard, and Using
Dreamweaver.
Click here for more information and
registration.
- @ONE has also announced its Spring schedule of Lunch'n'Learn seminars.
Click here for the schedule and a registration link.
- Microsoft webcasts:
- Free Microsoft eLearning courses: for a limited time access
to these excellent e-Learning products on Office
2007 is available.
Click here to access a gateway to sign-up for
training in the new Office interface, Access 2007,
Excel 2007, Infopath 2007, OneNote 2007, Outlook
2007, PowerPoint 2007, Word 2007, Visio 2007, and
Groove 2007. You may also download a free
e-book from this site titled
First Look 2007 Microsoft Office System in
PDF format.
- Free online training is available for Horizon
Wimba
Live Classroom and the Horizon Wimba
Voice Tools, both of which we have access to in
our Blackboard system.
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
Looking Ahead: Winter Break Upgrades
With the Fall 2006 semester basically over, a lot of
our recent planning has gone into the projects
scheduled for between the semesters. As per the
normal lifecycle of courses in Blackboard, the Fall
2005 courses are going to be removed on Tuesday,
December 19th. Once that lengthy process is done, we
will be upgrading the Horizon Wimba Voice Tools
system, so that there will be some additional tools
available on that list for adding content. A whole
new building block from Horizon Wimba will be added,
for the Pronto tool, and some Blackboard patches
will be applied on Friday, December 22nd.
To specifically address the two “biggies” on that
list, let me answer the questions “What is Pronto?”
and “What is changing in Blackboard?”
Pronto is a client based (both Windows and Mac)
Instant Messaging client, provided by Horizon Wimba.
Pronto includes the typical parts of an IM client,
with text messaging, voice communication, etc. What
is special about Pronto is that the list of contacts
in Pronto is automatically populated based on the
student rosters in Blackboard. The intention is that
this IM client can be readily used for student
collaboration, virtual office hours for faculty,
things of that nature. Before Spring 2007 begins,
we’ll have demos, manuals, and some suggestions for
use available.
Blackboard released a hot fix during Fall 2006 which
we have not yet applied, so that will be going onto
the system on Friday, December 22nd. The primary fix
will involve users accessing Blackboard with Safari
2, who are trying to use the Visual Text Box Editor;
other fixes will be incidental. All the testing
we’ve conducted indicates that no new problems will
be introduced… but it might not be a bad idea to
back up your course sites anyway, given that the
semester has just ended. (Click
here for instructions for archiving your
courses). Of course, before we do a Blackboard
update we do full system backups of the affected
servers, which is why this Blackboard patch process
(which will probably be over in under two hours)
will have our Blackboard system down for the better
part of the whole day. The system will go offline
sometime shortly after midnight, December 22, and I
just hope the whole process is done before it’s time
to go home in the afternoon.
So that’s what lies ahead in the near future for our
Blackboard system. Now go enjoy some time off!
Note: To get to David's vodcast site,
click here.
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Haydn is on hiatus this week and will be back next
week.
 |
See
the index of
Haydn's previous "Teaching with
Technology" segments. |
Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray
Shay Phillips Reviews the Microsoft
Zune™
Introduction
 What
is a Zune? (http://www.zune.net). Well, if you’ve
kept up with the buzz going around the net it is
Microsoft's candidate as “iPod™ Killer”. It has yet
to be seen whether the Zune is going to kill the
iPod in the marketplace, but for a first generation
digital media player, it’s not bad. Your next
question may be, what does the Zune have to do with
Academic Technology? The answer is that audio and
portable audio files are becoming another popular
tool for teachers. Many students will be carrying
around some form of digital media player, and the
Zune might just be one of them. Audio is one more
avenue for you as an instructor to get media content
to your students in a mobile format. Students may
download your lectures, podcasts or non-copyrighted
video clips for viewing anywhere.
The Unboxing
My brown Zune came with the player, a USB
syncing/charging cable, ear buds, the Zune software
CD (Windows XP only) and the instruction manuals.
 A
separately purchased car kit is a nice option to
consider if you would like to listen to your Zune in
the car. I got one and can tell you the transmitter
has a nice digital readout that auto-seeks for the
perfect station to broadcast on. Once set, tune your
Car Stereo to that station and you can listen to
your Zune. The kit also matches well with the look
and feel of the Zune, unlike many generic
aftermarket kits. It also has a pass through
allowing you to charge your Zune while listening
which is great for saving battery life.
The Good
 Although
a little bit bigger than the Video iPod, it feels
comfortable in my hand. Being a big guy, it feels
natural in my hand. It doesn’t feel like a
toy. Many digital media players feel like they are
going to break rather easily but the Zune does not.
Like many of the players out there, the ear buds
that come with the Zune are not great. The buds will
suffice but I would recommend getting something
better and more to your personal liking. The screen
size is nice and has a decent brightness to it.
Playback on the device is a breeze. I found
the Zune to be simple to navigate. Within a couple
of minutes I was listening to the included tracks on
the device. Although the Zune looks like it has a
click wheel akin to the iPod, the control is really
just a simple up, down, left and right navigation
control. I find it much easier to control
where the cursor is going as opposed to the iPod.
The Zune software imported my media files
flawlessly. The Zune software can import audio files
in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and
videos in WMV, MPEG-4, and H.264 formats. You can
also share files with others wirelessly, though they
can only play the shared file for up to 3 times in 3
days before being locked out of playing it. This
feature does not put DRM on the file, it merely puts
the song in a special Inbox folder that remembers
how many times a song is played and the date of
transfer.
The Bad
 At
the time of this writing the Zune software was not
compatible with Windows® Vista, which is the current
OS on my computer. I did find a website that gave
instructions on how to hack the software installer
to get it working on Windows Vista but I wouldn’t
recommend it since Microsoft has promised a working
Windows Vista version soon. The Zune software is
required to put media files onto the Zune so I had
to get a second computer up and running with
Windows® XP with Service Pack 2. It works fine
on Windows XP.
The Zune cannot be used as a hard drive, for storing
non-music data, and does not have a voice recording
feature. The Zune software also does not
support Pod catching. This was very unfortunate, as
it made it a two step process to get
ATRC Podcasts
onto the Zune. I would recommend using a program
like
Juice,
Doppler or
Feed Your Zune to do your Pod catching. The ATRC
website has a
great tutorial about Pod catching.
The Zune and the iPod both use custom USB cables for
syncing, which is a shame. It would be nice if you
could us a standard mini USB cable. This means if
you want to sync in multiple places you will need to
carry the cable around or buy a second one.
The Brown
 This
is the first generation of the Zune. It is
hard to know what the future holds for the device.
Microsoft has stated that they will support Pod
catching on the Zune, but only time will tell. I’m
sure the wireless features of the device will grow
over time. Vista support shouldn’t be too far away.
The Zune software will undoubtedly improve with time
so these brown areas will become clearer over
time. I have only had the device a short time, so I
can’t really comment on the battery life, but since
I can charge it in the car, I don’t foresee a lot of
problems with it.
Conclusion
 What
does all of this mean for us at Palomar? It means
that the Zune is going to show up in your classroom
much like the iPod does today. If you see your
students wearing ear buds or headphones in class it
might just be a Zune in their pocket or backpack.
Professors have varying opinions about the use of
audio devices in class. A question that arises
is 'Can students cheat on tests using the Zune, or
other audio devices? Maybe. It depends on what you
allow them to use during the class for tests,
quizzes or exams. They could load your lecture and
listen for answers. They could put pictures of
relevant material to help them out or they could
have video clips to aid them. I don’t think most
users will go this far since most of them just want
to use their audio devices to listen to music. I
would definitely recommend that professors get a
digital media player to see what it’s all about and
understand what your students are doing. If you’re
comfortable with Windows Media Player the Zune
software is very similar and will be a good fit for
you. If you are on an Apple computer then stick with
the iPod/iTunes.
Gizmo of the week
Every dog will have his (Holi)day
What says 'the holidays' more than a new pet
puppy? And what better puppy for a geek than a
ROBOT PUPPY! Yes, those clever Koreans at
Dasatech have been at it again. They have
introduced "Genibo," a Spuds MacKenzie look alike
named "Dato" capable of understanding over 100 words
and commands. It responds appropriately to
commands such as 'come here,' 'sit,' 'wag your
tail,' and 'do a headstand.' It feels petting,
via sensors in its back, can self navigate an
obstacle field, and has built-in Bluetooth
technology to receive commands via your computer.
According to
English.chosun.com, "Petting the machine’s head,
back or flank, or giving it a ball will distort its
features into a happy expression." It took a
40-member team three years to complete the robot,
that contains 17 small motors and a CPU (Via
engadget).
 Not
in to robots? Got a real puppy as a gift?
If you have never had a dog before you are about to
discover that dogs have a favorite watering hole in
the house. Yep. The toilet. You
will hear that greedy lapping sound late at night
and only hope you remembered to flush. For
years there has been nothing you could do to stop
Fido from visiting his favorite refeshment stop.
Put out his own deluxe water bowl, but the perverse
beast seems to PREFER the toilet. That's where
this gizmo comes in: "The self
replenishing doggie toilet bowl" (Collections,
etc.). It's worth a try, anyway.
 After
you have had your dog for some time, you will notice
the growing amounts of your time your dog requires
to retain a healthy self esteem. Dogs will
often suffer from separation anxiety, sort of the
opposite of what spouses experience when you leave
for work each day. The solution to this
problem can be solved, however, with the "Chatterbowl:
the talking doggie dish." "If your pet becomes
lonely and anxious when left alone...you may feel
the need to try one of these new "talking" pet
bowls. Called
Chatterbowl, the new US$20 pet bowl is the
invention of Talk2Pet...the pet owner records a
message of up to 10 seconds into a small,
battery-powered, electronic device called the
TalkBox, which fits under the bowl, and as the pet
approaches, a photocell in the bowl plays back the
owner's message (gizmag).
Happy Holidays to you and your dog.
Music
 The
music for today's show was provided by
Magnatune.com,
and is used through their Creative Commons license for
podcasts. Our music this week, appropriate to the
season, was from
Zephyrus, and the album is titled "Angelus."
"The music of Renaissance Europe comes to life in the
voices of Zephyrus, the early music ensemble based in
Charlottesville. Known throughout the region for its
innovative programming and professional caliber,
Zephyrus offers several major performances each year..."
We used tracks 8: "Missus est Angelus Gabriel" by
Orlande de Lassus; 1: "Surge illuminare," by Palestrina;
5: "Quem vidistis parores," by Cipriano de Rore; 9: "Vox
clamantis in deserto," by Giaches de Wert; 7: "Vox in
Rama," by Jacobus Clemens non Papa; 3: "O regem coeli,"
by da Victoria; and 12: "Angelus ad pastores ait," by
Andrea Gabrieli.
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"Everywhere
is walking distance if you have the time."
~ Steven Wright
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