Red Hat to Open-Source Netscape Directory

Rider has used Netscape Directory Server for LDAP services - is this going to be another open source enterprise service at Rider?

Red Hat to Open-Source Netscape Directory

According to the agenda for the show, Red Hat is planning to rename the Netscape Directory Server the “Red Hat Directory Server.” Red Hat officials are slated to detail the LDAP-based directory server’s single-authentication, user-identity management and multimaster replication capabilities.

Nokia debuts Linux-powered Internet tablet

Nokia debuts Linux-powered Internet tablet

Nokia demonstrated a compact, handheld tablet device powered by Linux at LinuxWorld in New York this week. The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet has a WVGA (800×480) screen, and is intended to offer convenient Internet browsing and email through built-in Wi-Fi, or via a Bluetooth connection to a compatible mobile phone. It will ship in Q3, 2005 to select European and American markets.

Open Message to Bb admins re: Moodle

I have used Moodle for various projects where Blackboard licensing or our user database prevented the use of Blackboard. For instance, if we are doing something with external students for a short term project, we wouldn’t want to play with our LDAP database, the Bb builtin DB, or the registrar’s course feed.

Moodle is a fantastic solution. It is different than Blackboard in a lot of ways, like look and feel and general usage, but the biggest difference is that it’s more open. There’s much less restriction in the way that you use it and the way your users use it. Authentication is optional. Moodle is great for open learning models, where you create a repository of learning objects, etc., for the public at large.

Moodle is driven mostly by constructivist style instruction. That being said, it does not have a portal system or a ‘content management’ [sic] system, or a whiteboard, or a dropbox, but there are other open source solutions for those as well, like uPortal and about 1000 webdav enabled and php based file management systems, etc. Getting them integrated as well as Blackboard has would be the trick.

What’s the best thing about it? It’s open source, and GPL licensed. It’s written in PHP with a MySQL backend. If I don’t like something I can change the code with no fear of licensing breakage, and if something’s missing I can add it. I don’t imagine Blackboard appreciates that kind of direct rewriting of their perl and java.

Oh, yeah, and it doesn’t cost over $30,000.00 a year to keep it running. It’s completely free, in more than one sense of the word. Moodle is available at http://moodle.org/

Hope this helps!

John LeMasney, Manager of Instructional Technology/WWW, Rider University.

Paper: Open Source in Education

Scholarship of Teaching
Your level of familiarity with open source software will probably vary greatly depending on your position within your institution, the financial resources of your institution, and your inclination towards the importance of technology. To many in higher education the term has popped up on the radar screen within the last year or so. However, unless you are an IT person, or directly involved in one of a handful of well-funded projects, you still may know very little about what open source is and why it could be important to higher education - not just to the IT folks, but to a significant portion of the leadership of all levels and persuasions.

freshmeat.net: Project details for mnemo memorization tool

freshmeat.net: Project details for mnemo memorization tool
mnemo is an application that helps the user memorize large amounts of arbitrary information and retain it indefinitely. Items are drilled at progressively longer intervals to allow for new ones.

NewsForge | The Fifth Commandment of system administration

The commandments continue…

NewsForge | The Fifth Commandment of system administration

If you’re a good administrator, you pride yourself on developing a fundamental understanding of the systems you build. After a while, as you begin to comprehend the complete complexity that goes along with building and maintaining your infrastructure, the commands and procedures to control them become second nature. You have to look at the documentation less and less, until eventually people refer to you as a guru. Having this kind of understanding of your servers is important, but it does no good if you aren’t available when something crashes. By creating detailed written policies detailing the ins and outs of your systems in advance, you can provide critical background information to your backup admin who can use it to restore functionality in your absence.

Samsung develops flash-based ‘disk’ for PCs - Computerworld

A hard drive with no moving parts, good capacity, reasonable price for a starting point for this kind of technology. Bottom line: I want one.

Samsung develops flash-based ‘disk’ for PCs - Computerworld
The Seoul, South Korea-based company is planning SSDs with parallel Advanced Technology Attachment interfaces in capacities up to 16GB. The 16GB devices will contain 16 memory chips holding 8GB each, it said [sic]. Such chips sell for about $55 each on the spot memory market, according to DRAM Exchange Tech Inc. That would put the chip cost of the 16GB SSD at almost $900.

EDUCAUSE | ELI | Learning Technologies

This looks like a very nice acquisition by Educause of some great content. NLI, or the National Learning Initiative is now the Educause Learning Initiative, and from what I can tell, deals with dissemination regarding learning [instructional] technologies. One thing I like a lot is that they look at things like Social Bookmarking [think del.icio.us] from a pedagogical POV and make it easier for an educator to understand its importance, or at least consider it as a tool.

EDUCAUSE | ELI | Learning Technologies
Learning Technologies

The term learning technologies encompasses information and instructional technology, as well as telecommunications tools, applications, and systems that support learning. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) explores the possible benefits and challenges of individual learning technologies, but also considers the potential impact their integration may have on advancing teaching and learning. To maximize the transformative effect of learning technologies, we look for uses of learning technology that are replicable across institutions and disciplines.

How to use RSS feeds with MyYahoo!

RSS is a protocol based in XML that allows sites that distribute lots of content to push simplified versions of their content to specialized RSS reader software. RSS feeds typically just have a headline or a headline and a short blurb delivered, so you can see very quickly if you are interested in the article without actually having to scroll past the remainder of it to see other articles being offered.

The benefit to RSS is that you can have many RSS feeds from lots of different sources converge upon a single window or application so that you need not jump from site to site filtering through animated gifs, advertisements, and other static to fond stories, articles or other information you’re interested in. If you see a story headline or blurb that you’re interested in within the RSS feed you’re examining, you can click the link in the feed that goes back to the originating site to see the whole story.

If you understand this concept, the act of subscribing to feeds is very simple. You need a site that offers feeds [the ny times and my blog which you are reading both have RSS feeds - we'll use the nytimes as an example] and a way to read them [firefox uses an RSS feed reading feature called live bookmarks, and http://my.yahoo.com has added the ability to see rss feeds along with other yahoo portal content - we'll use my.yahoo.com as an example]

Here are the steps:

1. Find a feed. If you go to http://www.nytimes.com/rss you will see a page with lots of little orange blocks that say XML or RSS on them. You can use any of these feeds as sources of content in your feed reader, my.yahoo.com.

2. Copy the feed URL. You copy the URL to the RSS feed by right clicking [on mac ctrl-click] on the little orange box you want to subscribe to and choosing ‘copy link target’ or ‘copy link location’ or the similar command in your context menu. This copies the RSS feed URL to your clipboard, where we’ll need it in a second.

3. Open your RSS reader. In this case, that means visiting http://my.yahoo.com and logging in. You need a Yahoo! account in order to use this feature. If you use Yahoo! mail or have a Yahoo! account for some other reason, that account should be fine. If you don’t have one, click on ‘New User? Sign Up’, and follow the instructions. Yahoo! accounts are free, as are these RSS reading features.

4. Add the RSS feed. In MyYahoo! you want to click on Add Content, then Add RSS by URL, then add the URL to the open field by pasting the contents of your clipboard there. In otherwords, click into the white field where it asks for ‘URL:’ then right click [on mac ctrl click] and choose paste. You should see a URL in the field that starts with the site you got the RSS feed from, something like

http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/PoguesPosts.xml

If the feed is preceeded by ‘feed:’ as in feed:http://ghost.rider.edu/insttech/wp-rss2.php then you should remove that small preceding string of text so that it says:

http://ghost.rider.edu/insttech/wp-rss2.php

When the field looks right, click Add.

5. Commit the addition. In the case of MyYahoo! it will ask you if you really want to add this RSS feed, to which you’ll agree or not. You can always remove it later from the main MyYahoo! screen by clicking on the ‘X’ next to the feed. The next time you visit my.yahoo.com, the latest 5 stories from your content source should be on the page.

palmOne - Products - LifeDrive Mobile Manager

This thing is a pretty cool mix of good interface, functionality, and storage. Is it the device I’ve been waiting for? Well, the pocket device with built in WiFi is a pretty good start, and the 4Gigs aren’t bad either.

palmOne - Products - LifeDrive Mobile Manager

With a huge 4GB hard drive1 and built-in Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® wireless support, you can easily carry all the essentials of your busy life and use them as you will.

• office docs •

Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs from your desktop computer, 300 songs, 2 hours of video, 1,000 vacation photos, and more, are always with you.

• email & web •

With support for POP, IMAP and Exchange email accounts, you can stay on top of your email at any of the thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots2 around the world

• music, photos & video •

Plus, a voice recorder, MP3 player, and photo viewer keep your precious few moments of free time both more interesting and productive.