Tutorials on Google Docs and Spreadsheets (beta)

I recently had the benefit of working with a new service provided by Google, called Google Docs and Spreadsheets beta. I like the flexibility and ease with which you can create spreadsheets and text documents that are identical to those produced by other productivity software, like Microsoft’s Word and Excel.

I have documented my experiences and created a two part tutorial that you’re welcome to view. Part one is here, and part two is here.

One thing that you need to do before you can use this service is sign up for a Google account. After visiting the site and logging in, you’re presented with a similar interface to any spreadsheet or word processing software.

Some advantages of using Google Docs and Spreadsheets Beta include

• having the ability to publish the documents live on the web
• making them editable by other Google account holders whom you choose
• chatting in real time with other collaborators about your work
• inviting people to view your work in a protected format

You can also create an RSS feed for your documents to see if any collaborators made any changes at a glance.A new feature is the ability to write an e-mail and send it to an unique e-mail address that will create a document using the text of your e-mail. If you would to take a tour or sign up, check out the link here: http://docs.google.com

~Angel Brady

Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference on February 22nd and 23rd, 2007

I got this message about an uopcoming Educational Technology conference, and I thought you might find it interesting too.

John.

Dear Instructional/Educational Technology Colleagues,

I’d like to invite you to participate in the 2nd annual Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference to be held at Drexel University on February 22nd and 23rd, 2007. I’d also ask you to forward this to other colleagues and faculty. I’m trying to include a wide variety of people, from IT staff at both the college and K-12 level to faculty using technology in interesting ways or doing research in the area of educational technology. I’m pasting below what I’ve been sending out. We also have a blog at paetc.wordpress.com.

Thanks for your help and I hope many of you will decide to participate in some way.

I’d like to invite you submit a proposal for a workshop, discussion, or presentation for the Philadelphia Area Educational Technology Conference (PAETC). Last year, I organized this conference to bring together faculty and staff interested in incorporating technology into the educational mission of their institutions, whether that was for specific courses or for institution-wide initiatives. We heard presentations on the use of video games in literature courses, the use of podcasting in a geology course, how to optimize your blog for search engines, and how to use online tools for cohorts of students to better communicate with each other and campus administrators. We had faculty, instructional technologists and K-12 staff and began a conversation about bridging the gap between K-12 environments and college environments.

This year, we’d like to continue to bridge the gap between the K-12 environment and college. We hope to foster discussions about the way technology is being integrated into the K-12 curriculum and how that creates certain expectations at the college level. We also hope to foster discussions about what skills students need to continue to develop at the college level and how technology can contribute to that development. To help begin this conversation, I’m happy to have as our keynote speaker, Chris Lehmann, principal at the new Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. The Academy has fully integrated technology into the curriculum, providing students with laptops and working with teachers to help develop appropriate assignments that take full advantage of the technology available to them. Chris will share with us his experience thus far and will provide a valuable insight into what’s going on in the K-12 system.

Our theme this year is multiliteracies, the idea of developing literacy across various kinds of media including video, audio, web sites, and text. We hope that people with share theories behind teaching interpretation of multiple media, activities that have worked well in the classroom, or other work they have done to foster multiliteracy in their students. We especially want to think about reimagining technology not as a tool but as an aspect of the learning environment that requires us to rethink how and what we teach.

The conference will be held on February 22 and 23rd, 2007 at Drexel University. On February 22nd, we will have a half-day of hands-on workshops. We invite proposals for these workshops. If you have developed software or use a technological tool in your work that you find particularly useful and want to show others how it works, please submit your ideas. On the 23rd, we’ll have our keynote speaker as well as presentations and discussions. The submission deadline for workshops or presentations/discussions is October 31st. We ask for a brief description and preferred format. Complete panels may also be submitted. Submissions may be emailed to me directly at lblanken@brynmawr.edu. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Laura Blankenship

–
Laura Blankenship
Sr. Instructional Technologist
Bryn Mawr College
610-526-6578
lblanken@brynmawr.edu
website: http://www.brynmawr.edu/etc
blog: http://www.brynmawr.edu/etc/etcblog/

List of CSS Tools

While I was trolling around on del.icio.us, I found this link that listed CSS tools from the beginner level of web design to the graphic designer professional (good refreshers). The list was compiled by Smashing Magazine. It covers different topics such as fonts, forms, layouts, and formatters. I checked out some of the links myself, and they are very good beginner guides to CSS.

Please check them out at this link:

List of CSS Tools by Smashing Magazine

Direct URL: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/09/02/list-of-css-tools/ 

~Angel Brady

How To Uninstall Darwin Streaming Server for Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I recently installed the open source Darwin Streaming Server (DSS) onto my eMac. I wanted to re-install DSS. To do that I needed to un-install DSS before I could re-install it. So I thought to un-install DSS it was as simple as dragging the QuickTimeStreamingServer folder (that was in the Library) into the Trash. Boy was I wrong, really wrong. If you try to re-install DSS and not all the files from the previous (same version) installation are not removed, you will receive an error stating you have a newer version of DSS on your computer and you can’t go any further in the installation (you will see a red stop sign with a !) After reading over a hundred posts about this topic on the Mac Mailing Lists, I pieced together a few posts that helped me delete DSS totally from my computer, and I was able to re-install it onto my computer.

First, I dragged the QuickTimeStreaming folder located in the Library into the Trash (/Library/QuickTimeStreaming). I then followed the advice of one post on the Mac Mailing list to delete these files (using Terminal of course):

/usr/sbin/QuickTimeStreamingServer - Streaming Server app
/usr/sbin/streamingadminserver.pl - QTSS Web Admin server
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/Modules/ - QTSS plug-ins
/usr/bin/PlaylistBroadcaster - The PlaylistBroadcaster
/usr//bin/MP3Broadcaster - The MP3Broadcaster
/usr/bin/qtpasswd - Generates password files for access control
/usr//bin/StreamingLoadTool - RTSP simulated client stress tool
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/Config/ - QTSS config files
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/Movies/ - Media files
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/Docs/ - readme.html & user manual.pdf files
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/logs/ - Logs
/Library/QuickTimeStreaming/playlists - Web Admin Playlist files

After that, I still couldn’t re-install DSS. I then used this forums advice:

Most of DSS is installed in /Library/QuickTimeStreaming on Mac OS X. Delete that directory and it is pretty much uninstalled. Some other things that you can do include deleting the startup item for the streaming server and editing /etc/hostconfig. It’s easiest to do these from the command-line (using the Terminal application) as you need to be the super-user to do these things.To get rid of the streaming server startup items:

sudo rm -r /System/Library/StartupItems/QuickTimeStreamingServerTo

edit /etc/hostconfig with the “pico” editor, first make a backup copy just in case:

cp /etc/hostconfig ~/Desktop

(this will copy the file to your desktop)
The edit the file with pico as the super-user:

sudo pico /etc/hostconfig

Use the cursor keys to go to the lines that begin with QTSSWEBADMIN and QTSSRUNSERVER. When your cursor is on the line press Ctrl+K to delete the line. Don’t change anything else. When you are finished editing press Ctrl+X to exit. A prompt will appear on the bottom of the screen:

Save modified buffer (ANSWERING "No" WILL DESTROY CHANGES) ?

Type “Y” for yes. A prompt will appear with the file name. Press Return to overwrite the file and exit the pico editor.

As an alternative, you can also turn off the streaming server so it won’t startup when you reboot your Powerbook by editing /etc/hostconfig. Follow the editing procedure above and change the -YES- to -NO- for QTSSWEBADMIN and QTSSRUNSERVER. This leave the streaming server installed, but disables it.

After that I still couldn’t re-install DSS. I then followed this post:

rm -Rf /Library/QuickTimeStreaming
rm -f /usr/sbin/streamingadminserver.pl
rm -f /usr/sbin/QuickTimeStreamingServer
rm -f /usr/bin/PlaylistBroadcaster
rm -f /usr/bin/MP3Broadcaster
rm -f /usr/bin/qtpasswd
rm -f /usr/bin/StreamingLoadTool
rm -f /usr/bin/broadcasterctl
rm -Rf /Library/Receipts/QuickTimeStreamingServer

(might be different, I don’t know if you are using QTSS or DSS.) Remove any QTSS-related lines from /etc/hostconfig (QTSSSERVER)Then kill the running programs (QuickTimeStreamingServer, streamingadminserver.pl, and any broadcasters) or just reboot. I think that’s it but I could have missed something.

-Joel Hedden

After that, I was given the green light to re-install DSS. If you follow these steps, you should have DSS off your computer. Note: try this at your own risk. Should know the basic understandings of Terminal and CLI. Remember, when executing these commands, you need to be logged in as a super user or use the sudo command.

~Angel Brady

Searchmash: A Search Engine

Today I was browsing del.icio.us and I came across this search engine called Searchmash. I decided to use it along with my other arsenal of search engines. I liked how Searchmash searched for the content I was looking for. It seemed like Searchmash interpreted the search words close to the information I was looking for (which is not always the case with Google).

It’s a clean interface (no ads) and I like how you can navigate between groups of pages. Instead of having to click on a back arrow or on a number for a group of searches, Searchmash allows you to scroll up or down the page. The drawback of this is that the webpage can get pretty long depending on your search (but still organinzes the findings in groups of 10). If you are interested in using Searchmash to enhance you websearch, you can find Searchmash at http://www.searchmash.com. Enjoy!

~Angel Brady