June 15, 2007 Contents Technology News Training Opportunities Next Week Blackboard Feature of the Week: "Flotsam, Jetsam, Miscellaneous & Sundry" Tech Talk Topic: "Installing Fonts" For more, see podcast notes page for Episode 64.

Blackboard  Summer Courses   Your students cannot login to your summer Blackboard courses until you make them available.  How?  Click here. For information email:  atrc@palomar.edu or call ext. 2862.

Technology & Download News Briefs

• Safari does Windows!  Apple announced this week the release of the public beta for their web browser called Safari 3 (Apple press release).  It comes in versions for Windows or Mac.  Click here to download, or read a review here.  Two hours later it was announced on various web outlets (not Apple's web site) that Safari for Windows has serious security vulnerabilities.  Click here for a description of the eight bugs found so far.  "...executives from both Microsoft and Mozilla expressed a lack of concern for their new (Windows) foe." (ars technica).  We are not recommending it for Palomar College production computers.
   

• Also from Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) this week, the look of the new Leopard OS was revealed this week.    There is a new desktop, dock, stacks in the dock; consistent windows looks; a new finder featuring cover-flow view, borrowed from iTunes; a new sidebar; better searching technology (thank you Vista); something called "Quick Look" like Microsoft's new preview function; "Time Machine," a new way to back up and restore files; Spaces, a quick way to create groups of applications and documents; and enhanced iChat and mail applications.  Click here for the Steve Jobs video, here for the engadget summary.
   
• An MIT team has demonstrated the wireless transfer of power. "Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate" (MIT News).  It is called "WiTricity," and operaties by magnetically coupled resonance: "...for laptop-sized coils, power levels more than sufficient to run a laptop can be transferred over room-sized distances nearly omni-directionally and efficiently, irrespective of the geometry of the surrounding space, even when environmental objects completely obstruct the line-of-sight between the two coils."  It's not new.  It's just that we can't stand that our gadgets have to be tethered any longer.
   
• Rome Reborn 1.0 was released this week by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia.  It is the product of 10 years of research and labor by archaeologists and computer specialists.  "The goal of 'Rome Reborn' is to create a digital model illustrating the development of ancient Rome from the earliest settlement in the late Bronze Age (ca. 1000 B.C.) to the beginning of the medieval period."  "They are calling it the largest, most comprehensive simulation of a historic city ever created" (CNET).  The 3D display of historical development is very much a dream at this time, and the developers have focused on showing the city as it was in 320AD under Constantine.  The best review we have seen thusfar is in the blog News for Medievalists.
   
• Yahoo issued a statement this week condemning government control of the Internet in China.  "Yahoo is dismayed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet," Yahoo said in a statement faxed to the Associated Press. The company went on to deplore "punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression"  (reported in ars technica).  At the same time Yahoo continues to hand over information to the Chinese government when required to do so.  "Yahoo is currently involved in a US lawsuit alleging that the company is complicit in torture because of its cooperation with Chinese legal procedures, and a second plaintiff has just joined the case. "  Yahoo's Flickr photo service has been unavailable in most of China for over a week now.
   
• It was patch Tuesday this week for Microsoft.  They released four critical patches, one important one, and one moderate one.  Small potatoes by Microsoft standards.  Click here for the full security bulletin, if you are interested.
   
• Microsoft Research released this week their software source code and tools to help science progress toward an AIDS vaccine (MS press release).  "The source code for a set of software tools developed by Microsoft Research to advance AIDS vaccine research and development is available for download starting today from Microsoft’s CodePlex Web site. By sharing the code openly and at no charge with the worldwide AIDS research community, Microsoft hopes to spur other scientists and researchers to take up the tools and even build on them, thereby speeding the way toward a vaccine. "  Click here for an overview of the tools.  Kudos to Microsoft for donating millions of dollars worth of research materials in an effort to halt this human disaster.
   
• For those participating in the beta (or wannabe participants), Windows Home Server Release Candidate 1 was made available on Wednesday.  Click here for registration and download information.  Home Server is for home computer networks and will act as a central repository for backups and sharing media and data files.
   
• Google has added a "view as slideshow" option to GMail.  Now, when you receive a PowerPoint attachment to a gmail, you can: a) View as HTML; b) View as slideshow; or c) Download.  The slideshow viewer does a reasonable job of rendering static PowerPoints, and even preserves some animations, but not complex animations like motion paths.  It also does not play embedded audio or (certainly) linked audio or video.  It is speculated that Google has released this feature slightly in advance of releasing their own web-based presentation product (formerly called "Presently" when Google first acquired it from Tonic Systems).
   
• Featured Safari Tech Book Online: Ubuntu Unleashed, by Andrew Hudson and Paul Hudson. "Ubuntu Unleashed is the second edition written by the authors of the popular Fedora Unleashed books. It includes new and additional material based on the latest release of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, Feisty Fawn. Incorporating an advanced approach to presenting information about Ubuntu, the book aims to provide the best and latest information that intermediate to advanced Linux users need to know about installation, configuration, system administration, server operations, and security." Palomar maintains a subscription to Tech Books Online, and the books can be accessed from any computer on the campus network, or from off the network with a password obtainable from the library. 

   Listen to the news [mp3 - 14:49]

Training Opportunities

• Academic Technology Training
  • We have published the Academic Technology fall 2007 training schedule.  Click here for the training overview page, here for the schedule.  You can also view/download the schedule in PDF format by clicking here.

• @ONE training resources:
  • Multi-week, instructor facilitated online classes.
  • Lunch'N'Learn 1-hour webinars.
  • Self-paced courses.

The Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray

Flotsam, Jetsam, Miscellaneous & Sundry

This week you’re treated to a variety of issues that have drifted onto the technical support desk over the last couple of weeks, since it’s apparently “that time of year.”

First off, the Blackboard system will be restarted tomorrow, Saturday June 16th.  Blackboard will be down for up to fifteen minutes right around 6:00 a.m. When it comes back up, the Wimba add-ons will be gone, and a minor bug fix from Blackboard on how the “My Courses” module works will be applied.

Secondly, with Summer 2007 classes about to begin, it’s time for the recurring reminder: Instructors must make their own courses available to students. The courses are generated as Unavailable to students, and instructors must manually cause the course sites to be available. Instructions on this procedure can be found in this online video.

With a new semester looming, this is also a good time to check to confirm that your instructor’s email address is properly set in Blackboard. The email address your Blackboard account uses comes out of eServices, so you’ll have to log in there to change it. Instructions on this procedure can also be found in this online video.

Now, hopefully everyone already has their Blackboard courses ready for summer. But, if not, or if you’re trying to get ready for Fall 2007 already, you may want to consider the two methods of moving your course material into a new course site. The Course Copy tool, which is the preferred method, has you going into the older course and directing which material you want to copy into the new course site. Instructions on this can be found online. The alternative, Exporting from one course site and Importing into another, also works well, and in some cases works better than the copy procedure. Instructions on this are also online. Click here for Export instructions; here for Import instructions.

There is a twist to consider, however, when using the Export/Import model to transfer course materials. Any announcements that are imported are shown as having been added by the Blackboard Administrator user. Normally this isn’t a big deal, as most folks don’t look over to the right of the Announcements area to see who added the postings. However, as detailed back in episode 60 of the podcast, there was a new ability added to announcements in version 7.2 of Blackboard. Namely, it is possible to send out an announcement as an email – and the emails use the return address of the original poster. Basically what we’ve seen happen a couple times is that announcements have been imported, then the instructor edits the announcement and sends an email; since the original poster is listed as the Blackboard Administrator the email has the tech support email address on it, rather than the instructor’s. Of course, I’d consider it a best practice to not transfer announcements, but to repost in a new course anyway…

Finally, let’s not forget that there is Blackboard technical support available on Saturdays this year, so if you have any questions feel free to contact us at atrc@palomar.edu  or by calling 760-744-1150 X2862 any time between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, even over the summer.

Now that the debris is out of the way, on with the Summer semester!

	Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =10:38]
	See the index of Dave's previous "Blackboard Feature of the Week" segments.

Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray

Installing Fonts

Most fonts get placed on your system by some other program, either the operating system, Office, Publisher, Adobe applications, and so on.  That accounts for that prodigious list of fonts you see on the font drop-down menu in any program that uses fonts.  Sometimes you will come across an individual font, either a free one you have found on the Internet or one you have purchased.  In this case, you must install it manually.  Here's how.

The first step is the same regardless of the OS platform you are using.  You must get it onto your computer, either by downloading from the Internet (the usual method) or by copying it from a distribution CD or other media.  Be sure you scan it for viruses before unzipping it or working with it in any other way, unless you have downloaded it from a source that you trust.

Fonts are usually distributed as zip files, so the next thing to do is unzip it.  There are several types of fonts.  It may be an old style true type font, a new style true type font, called an open type font (these two are the most common in the Windows world).  It may also be one of the older style Adobe fonts, a metafont, or a custom-made font from some third party or individual.  See the Wikipedia article on computer fonts for an explanation.  Typography is a very complex topic and we don't have space to go into detail on font types here.

After unzipping, locate the font file.  There is often a readme file included in the zip file explaining certain features or uses of the font(s).  Always read this file.  When you are ready to proceed, do the following, depending on what operating system you are using.

Windows Vista

The quick way to install a font in Windows Vista is to locate it, right-click it, and choose Install from the context sensitive menu.

The long way is to click the Start button, select the control panel (or type "control" into the search box), click on Appearance and Personalization:

and then click on "Install or remove font" under the Fonts label.

A Vista Explorer window will open with a list of all the installed fonts available on your system on the right (the contents of your Fonts folder) and a folder list on the left.  If you do not see the menu bar in this window, press the Alt key and you will.  Now select File > Install New Font...

You will be taken back in time to the pre-history of Windows computing in the next dialog box.  Navigate its Folders view to find the font file you unzipped earlier.  (If you used the new Vista Downloads container, you will find it, in this view, under C:\Users\Username\Downloads\Userfolder\and so on...).

If the "Copy fonts to fonts folder" is checked, as it is in the illustration above, you will find a copy of the font (if you want to give it to someone else, or copy it to another computer) listed among all your other system fonts.  This is a good thing, so leave the box checked.

Now click the Install button in the dialog above and your work is done.  The new font will now appear in all the font drop-down menus for any program on that computer.

Once you learn the right-click shortcut, you will never use the long way again.

Windows XP

On XP it is very similar to the Vista method.  The right-click shortcut is not available on XP, which means you have to take the long way.  First (after downloading and unzipping) open the control panel.

The long way on XP is to open the control panel,.  If you are in "category view," i.e., the control functions are grouped into 10 broad categories with big icons, click the "Appearance and Themes category.

Now click the Fonts folder in the "See Also" area in the upper left of the task pane:

From here things are similar to the Vista install.  You will be shown a folder view of all your fonts.  Click File > Install New Font...  Use the same primitive navigation dialog to find the font you unzipped.  Be sure it is selected in the "List of fonts" field and click the OK button.

It is far easier to use "Classic View" in the XP control panel and to simply double-click on the Fonts folder icon to achieve the process outlined above.

Tip:  The easiest way to install a font in both Windows Vista and XP is to open the fonts folder and open the location of the font simultaneously and drag the font from its download location (after it has been unzipped) to the fonts folder.  The install will happen automatically.

Mac OS X

As with many things, font installation is much easier (but you have less overall control) on Mac OS X.  Zipped files are automatically unzipped and placed in the download location on the Mac (usually the desktop).  To install the font, double-click its icon.  A preview of the font will appear, along with an "Install Font" button.  Click Install Font and that's it.  You will see the font installed in your font book.

As with Windows, you can simply drag the font icon from the download location to the center column (the "Font" column) in the font book and it will be installed.

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