Asus gets futuristic with modular PC - ZDNet UK News

This has got to be the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.

Asus gets futuristic with modular PC - ZDNet UK News
Laptop manufacturer Asus has unveiled its vision of the future — a modular PC that stacks on a shelf

Laptop manufacturer Asus on Wednesday unveiled a blue-sky design for a modular PC that stacks on a shelf.

The separate modules would both communicate wirelessly and be powered wirelessly through inductive charging — something that isn’t feasible today.

A row of laptop modules on a gray shelf

A user would build their own PC by stacking individual modules — such as hard drive, battery and card reader — together. Full-size modules, approximately the size of a CD, would stack next to half-size modules.

Heading East: 10 Semi-Obscure Mac Programs You Shouldn’t Be Without

This is a nice list of useful Mac based utilities. Angel - this is more fodder to counter your brother’s anti-Mac campaign.

Heading East: 10 Semi-Obscure Mac Programs You Shouldn’t Be Without
I keep seeing lists of 10 must have Mac programs, but the lists is they are well known can’t-live-without programs like Launchbar and Windowshade already installed on Machead machines. Here are some slightly more obscure programs I use every day

An Illustrated Guide to SSH Agent Forwarding

As always, OpenSSH is one of my favorite applications, and understanding it is kind of an art. Whenever I see a good overview, howto, or explainer, I like to capture it here. Enjoy!

An Illustrated Guide to SSH Agent Forwarding
In this paper, we’ll present the various forms of authentication available to the Secure Shell user and contrast the security and usability tradeoffs of each. Then we’ll add the extra functionality of agent key forwarding, we hope to make the case that using ssh public key access is a substantial win.

Strategic Public Relations: 10 Flickr Hacks

This is a nice collection of various Flickr based/powered tools, including the letterform image manipulation tool [to make unique looking strings of text] I mentioned at http://lemasney.com

Strategic Public Relations: 10 Flickr Hacks
Flickr—one of the most underutilized online pr tools in the blogosphere. Flickr makes it easy to store and share photos online, but it also empowers PR people with a powerful visual tool. Here are ten tips to get you started.

Screencast: Intro to Audacity

http://orion.rider.edu/screencasts/intro_to_audacity.MP4
In this short screencast, we talk about the open source Audio editing tool called Audacity. Effects are touched upon, getting the MP3 encoder, and making an MP3 out of a wav file.

Screencast: Using del.icio.us

This is a brief overview of del.icio.us, the social bookmarking service owned by Yahoo! and loved by many a geek in search of the next big thing. I talk about using the popular branch, as well as features of the accounts in del.icio.us, and how you can use them to help add content to your blog.

podcast: Intro to Blackboard

Here’s an audio feed of a presentation I gave on February 6th, 2006. It goes over announcements, email in Blackboard, discussions, best practices, and content areas, like course documents.

CFP: New York New Jersey Association Support Teaching and Research (NYNJA STAR)

Dennis Hood writes:

Dear John,

I am sending this Call for Proposals on behalf of the New York New Jersey Association Support Teaching and Research (NYNJA STAR), formerly the NYNJ Blackboard Users Group.

We recognize, especially with the Bb-WebCT merger and the rise of Sakai and Moodle, that the virtual learning environment (VLE) landscape is shifting, hence the more inclusive nature of our group and accompanying name change. This change meshes nicely with the theme “Interoperability” for our second annual conference to be held at Princeton University June 19, where we are hoping to have presentations about multi-platform learning objects, plugins, building blocks, collaborative tools, etc., and on commercial and open source platforms working “cooperatively” in the same institution. A CFP will follow.

We welcome all our VLE colleagues to join us.

NYNJA STAR
New York New Jersey Association
Supporting Teaching and Research
(Formerly NYNJBUG http://www.nynjbug.org/)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Second Annual Virtual Learning Environment Conference:
“INTEROPERABILITY�

June 19, 2006
Princeton University

Abstracts for presentations related to the following suggested topics are requested:

Pedagogy and Technology
•    Student Issues and Perceptions
•    Assessing Pedagogical Successes and Failures
•    Teaching and Learning
•    Teaching and Technology
•    Building Faculty Communities of Interest
•    Lessons Learned
•    Collaboration

New and Emerging Technologies
•    Innovations
•    Open Source Initiatives
•    Beyond the CMS/LMS
•    Interoperability
•    Systems Integration and Open Source
•    Where do we go from here?  A Roadmap for the Future
•    Roundtable discussion of CMS/Open Source Issues

It’s About Support!
•    Community Building
•    Learning from Past Mistakes
•    Survival Techniques
•    Building In Quality Support from the Ground Up
•    Assessing Quality Support
•    The Promise of 24/7 Support
•    Online Support Tools:  How good are they?

Building Blocks and Plugins
•    Versioning Issues
•    Collaborative Tools Assessing Quality Support
•    Improving Performance of Building Blocks
•    Deciding Whether to Update Your Building Blocks or Build New Ones
•    Evaluating and Comparing Building Blocks:  Strategies
•    Interoperability

Sessions will be 60 minutes in length and will be comprised of no more than three presenters, but can include a session moderator.  Presentations must be interactive.

Abstracts should be no more than 250 words in length and should be addressed to the Conference Organizing Committee by March 3, 2006 at
NYNJ-CFP@Princeton.EDU.

CFP: “The Student-Customer in the University-Corporation: Keeping the Focus on Teaching and Learning.�

The New Jersey Faculty Development Network’s 17th annual conference will be held on April 21, 2006 at Centenary College. The conference theme is “The Student-Customer in the University-Corporation: Keeping the Focus on Teaching and Learning.�

Strands include:
-Defining the corporate model
-Effects on classroom teaching
-Implementation of the corporate model by faculty in the classroom
-Effects on faculty morale
-Role of student-customers in creating/reacting to the corporate model

You are encouraged to submit a proposal to present at a conference session. Proposals will be accepted until Tuesday, February 28, 2006.

Proposal must include the following information:
1. Presenter(s) name(s)
2. Institutions(s)
3. Address
4. Telephone number(s)
5. Session title
6. The strand(s) being addressed by your session (see above list)
7. Session abstract (not to exceed 100 words)
8. Session objective(s)
9. Description of your session (with explanation of both the content and the interactive
process of the session). The description should not be longer than 2 double-spaced pages.

Please send your proposal to: Stacy Davies
Centenary College
400 Jefferson Street
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
908-852-1400 x. 2384

or via email to: daviess@centenarycollege.edu

Proposal must be received no later than February 28, 2006.

Photos from FDD Technology Fair 2006

Kathy took some snapshots during my presentation as an example of Archiving. Here they are, being presented as an example of Dissemination.