Hello, all.

Today we talked mostly about Twitter and Tweetdeck and their potential for shallow-web research and student teacher interactions, but also about the issues of texting in the classroom, and how we can might this activity from a nuisance and distraction into a way of interacting with the class visio-textually, and giving instant feedback in the classroom, be it virtual or physical.

I forgot to mention that we talked also last week about the idea of Netflix’s instant streaming service, and the possibilities of the impact on learning of a $5 a month account on Netflix instead of one or all of your textbooks. Movies and documentaries are a great starting point for deep learning and discussion, and $15 a semester to get access to thousands of original sources is a small price to pay, especially compared to a $100 textbook.

We had a very fun and informative gathering last Friday, and I’m reminding you about today’s meeting at 3 to 5 p.m..

Last week in our gathering and in other individual DLAC sessions recently, we all talked about:

Discussion boards vs. other kinds of discussions
Getting to a trusting state on discussion boards
Blogging as a teaching and learning vehicle
Using Scribd.com as a document repository
What is MoodleRooms?
What is ShareStream?
What is Wimba?
Pedagogical approaches for these technologies
Student privacy concerns
The Teach Act and Ferpa
Some differences between Blackboard and blogging.
Using YouTube as a seed article for discussion
Embedding YouTube in Blackboard discussions.
What is Twitter?
Using Audacity
Using SlideShare

I hope to see you in future sessions, but keep in mind that next week on Friday, we have off, and so in case you were wondering, we won’t be meeting.

Hope to see you all the following Friday for DLAC tech support group!

John.

Although we don’t use Google Apps at Rider, it’s nice to know that Moodle could so very easily integrate with it, especially now that we’re getting MoodleRooms.

Google Apps Education Edition is coming to an open source learning management system near you. Moodlerooms, a Moodle partner, is launching a new enhancement to the open source LMS in collaboration with search giant Google to provide access to the application suite using a single sign-on.

Google Apps Education Edition is the widely deployed hosted application suite that includes communications tools like as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk; collaboration apps, such as Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Labs (for software code review); and various administration features and APIs for integration with existing systems.

via Google Collaborates on Moodle Integration — Campus Technology.

Have you ever wanted to customize the way that your email replies introduce the quoted part of the message you’re replying to? Thunderbird calls this the ‘Reply Header’.

For instance, let’s say you wanted your reply message to a recent email from your friend Jimmy to look something like the following:

The entity known as jimmyjones@verizon.net wrote to John LeMasney, on the date and time 10/13/07 9:44 AM, the following message:
“Hi, John, how are you?”

With Thunderbird, it is easy to make this happen. Here is some information about the preferences that we’re going to change. Below that, I’ll give specific instructions on how to change the settings.

// Change the reply header
// 0 – No Reply-Text
// 1 – wrote: – Netscape 3.xx/4.xx style
// 2 – On wrote:
// 3 – user-defined string. Use the prefs below in conjuction with this.
user_pref(“mailnews.reply_header_type”, 3);
// If you set 3 for the pref above then you may set the following prefs.
// The end result will be
user_pref(“mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote”, “%s said the following”);
user_pref(“mailnews.reply_header_ondate”, “on %s”);
user_pref(“mailnews.reply_header_separator”, ” “);
user_pref(“mailnews.reply_header_colon”, “:”);

Source: Hidden Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird Prefs
Address : http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/
Date Visited: Sat Oct 13 2007 14:39:45 GMT-0400 (EDT)

These changes are made in Thunderbird’s configuration preferences, known better to Mozilla hackers as about:config or prefs.js

Let’s make the changes:

Open Thunderbird, open your preferences (options/preferences menu in Windows or Thunderbird/Preferences menu on MacOS) and choose the advanced tab.

Click on “Config Editor” to open a convenient GUI to edit the about:config file.

In the search bar labeled ‘Filter:’, type in “reply_header” and wait a moment for the list to filter to just show reply_header related preferences.

We’re interested in editing 4 values. You edit a value by double clicking on it, which opens a dialog window with a text box containing the existing value. Enter the new value and click ‘OK’ to make a change, or ‘Cancel’ to cancel. In these exampes, %s indicates a variable that will be replaced with the sender, date and tme, etc. Make sure it’s present as %s in order for this to work.

open mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote and edit it to say The entity known as %s wrote to me

open mailnews.reply_header_colon and edit it to say , the following message:

open mainnews.reply_header_ondate and edit it to say on the date and time %s

open mailnews.reply_header_type and edit it to say 3

This last one is very important – it indicates that you want these edited values to be used instead of none, the default, or a preset alternative (0, 1 and 2 respectively) – look at the blockquote above for a better explanation of what each of these are.

Then, restart Thunderbird, start a reply, and enjoy your new custom reply header!

Close your eyes and smile. Then, reflect on the idea that it’s only because this application is open source that you can make this level of modification to the way your information is displayed.

John LeMasney

Audio: LeMasney on How to use Powerpoint at Rider University Media Server
I gave a presentation on How To Use Powerpoint today to a semi-packed room in the new Faculty Staff Training center in FA 113. Powerpoint was discussed in some detail, but of course, we talked about alternatives to Powerpoint, ways to avoid death by Powerpoint, Google Docs newest addition, Presently, and related topics. Take a look at Rider technology training site (log in as a guest if you wish) at http://www.rider.edu/training and click on the How to Use Powerpoint course to follow along with the audio if you want the whole effect. – John.

I recently came across this list of 103 free (but not all Open Source or all cross platform, but some are) security applications for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Security is a fundamental component when using your computer, be it for work or leisure. This list is nice because it doesn’t include trail versions of software. Why not equip your computer with the software it needs to fight grayware and malware and do it without breaking your budget. This list is for a beginner in computer security to advanced power users. Even if you just breeze through the list and never heard of any of these terms, it is a good learning experience in computer security. Check out the list here at :http://www.itsecurity.com/features/103-free-security-apps-041607/.

Thanks to IT Security for this list. If you would like to view an abbreviated version of this list, click on the more link. To view the list with brief descriptions, visit the IT Security website.

-Angel Brady

Spyware

1. Ad-Aware SE Personal [Windows]
2. Spyware Terminator [Windows]
3. Spybot – Search & Destory [Windows]
4. Winpooch [Windows]
5. SpywareBlaster [Windows]
6. Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner [Windows]
7. Windows Defender [Windows]
8. MalWhere [Windows]
9.Trend Micro Anti-Spyware for the Web [Web: Windows]
10. Zebra scanner [Mac]

Antivirus

1. McAfee AVERT Stinger [Windows]
2. PC Tools AntiVirus [Windows]
3. Clam AntiVirus [Linux]
4. AVScan [Linux]
5. ClamXav [Mac]
6. AVG Anti-Virus [Windows, Linux]
7. Avast Home Edition [Windows, Linux]
8. Housecall [Web: Windows, Linux, Mac]
9. Symantec Security Check [Web]

Rootkit

1. Sophos Anti-Rootkit [Windows]
2. Rootkit Hunter [Mac]
3. chkrootkit [Linux]

Firewall

1. ZoneAlarm [Windows]
2. VisualZone [Windows]
3. PC Tools Firewall Plus [Windows]
4. Firestarter [Linux]
5. Firewall Builder [Linux]
6. TuxGuardian [Linux]
7. HardWall Firewall [Linux]
8. BullDog [Linux]
9. PeerGuardian [Windows, Linux, Mac]

Email

1. Thunderbird [Windows, Linux, Mac]
2. Smart sendmail filters [Linux]
3. Sagator [Linux]
4. Tiger Envelopes [Windows, Linux, Mac]
5. Simple ASCII Email Encoder [Mac]

Web Utility

1. WinSCP [Windows]
2. Privacy Mantra [Windows]
3. Tor [Windows, Linux, Mac]
4. BarracudaDrive [Windows, Linux, Mac]
5. Firefox [Windows, Linux, Mac]
6. McAfee Site Advisor [Windows, Linux, Mac]
7. Opera [Windows, Linux, Mac]
8. PuTTY [Windows, Linux]
9. WebCleaner [Linux] Cyberduck [Mac]

Network

1. SoftPerfect Network Scanner [Windows]
2. SecureRDP [Windows]
3. Colasoft Packet Player [Windows]
4. DomainScan Light [Windows]
5. SmoothWall [Linux]
7. nLive Core [Linux]
8. Network Mapper [Windows, Linux, Mac]
9. Wireshark [Windows, Linux, Mac]
10. Nessus [Windows, Linux, Mac]
11. dSniff Control [Mac]
12. Flame [Mac]
13. Server Admin Tools [Mac]

Intrusion Detection System

1. Snort [Windows, Linux, Mac]
2. HenWen [Mac]
3. Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System [Windows, Linux, Mac]
4. Prelude [Linux]

Virtual Private Network

1. SSL-Explorer [Windows, Linux, Mac]
2. OpenVPN [Windows, Linux, Mac]
3. IPSecuritas [Mac]
4. strongSwan [Linux]

Temporary Files

1. HijackThis [Windows]
2. Zappit System Cleaner [Windows]
3. CCleaner [Windows]
4. WinXPatch [Windows]
5. Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal [Windows]
6. EasyCleaner [Windows]
7. CleanCache [Windows]
8. xpy [Windows]
9. Cookie Eraser [Windows]
10. Yet Another System Utility [Mac]

Wireless

1. Kismet [Linux, Mac]
2. AirSnare [Windows]
3. myWIFIzone [Windows]
4. iOpus Private Internet Gateway [Windows]
5. LucidLink WiFi Client [Windows]
6. AirTrafficControl [Mac]

Encryption

1. Pastor [Mac]
2. Access Manager [Windows]
3. RememberMe [Windows]
4. Kruptos 2 [Windows]
5. Crypt4Free [Windows]
6. PicSecret [Web, Mac]
7. GNU Privacy Guard [Windows, Linux, Mac]
8. TrueCrypt [Windows, Linux]

Miscellaneous

1. Active Security Monitor [Windows]
2. PreView 1.0 [Windows]
3. PC Security Test [Windows]
4. PCPal [Windows]
5. Simple File Shredder [Windows]
6. BCWipe [Windows]
7. Permanent Eraser [Mac]
8. S3 Change Explorer [Windows]
9. Process Monitor [Windows]
10. Check Failed Password Attempts [Mac]
11. CheckMate [Mac]
12. Checksum Validator [Mac]

I was recently reading an article by Kate Greene titled: “Flash Memory Moves onto the Desktop: Flash memory is moving from iPods to desktops and laptops, providing a performance boost and the potential for instant boot-ups” about flash drives being used as a supplement to magnetic drives. If you have attended our CII sessions on USB keys, imagine having that same technology integrated into your desktop. In this article, Samsung, a big developer in flash memory and flash memory manufacturing, has begun shipping a hybrid drive, which integrates flash memory with the magnetic storage drive. What is the benefit of using flash memory? Flash memory is solid based, so you don’t have to worry about parts breaking off and jiggling around and damaging the hard drive. This makes it faster and more energy efficient. Manufacturers and developers say that this could make boot-up quicker and faster application start ups.

Imagine, a USB key being your whole hard in the near future, it’s something worth pondering. To read the whole article visit the Technology Review website or click on the link below to read more.

-Angel Brady

Thursday, March 22, 2007
Flash Memory Moves onto the Desktop

Flash memory is moving from iPods to desktops and laptops, providing a performance boost and the potential for instant boot-ups.

By Kate Greene
For the most part, flash memory has been used in small audio gadgets such as iPods and in portable USB drives. But a recent flurry of announcements from flash chip makers Intel and Samsung, among others, show that the technology has reached a point at which it is finally economical to integrate a small amount of flash memory–from 128 megabytes to 8 gigabtyes–into laptops and desktops as a supplement to the magnetic hard drive. The benefit, say chip makers, is faster boot times, faster application start-ups, and impressive power savings.

Since flash memory, which is created from silicon, is based on solid-state electronics, there are no moving parts, which makes it faster and more energy efficient than the spinning magnetic disks used in hard drives. Because flash is faster, it can be employed to cache frequently used files and applications. And since it is nonvolatile memory, flash can be used to store the start-up files for a system when the power is off, so that a computer can boot up much faster.

Earlier this month, Samsung, which is a major flash manufacturer, began shipping a device called a hybrid drive, which integrates flash memory into the same package as the magnetic storage. The hybrid drive was developed with Microsoft, says Steve Weinger, flash marketing manager at Samsung, and it’s designed to take advantage of Vista’s ReadyDrive feature, software that recognizes when flash memory is available and transfers data to it that would usually be saved on a hard disk. For instance, the software would instruct the system to download frequently accessed files to a flash cache instead of to the hard drive. In addition, when a file is saved, it’s immediately saved to flash memory. When the memory reaches capacity, the data is sent to the hard drive at once, reducing the number of times the hard drive needs to spin up, saving time and power. Samsung’s hybrid drives, which come with either 128 or 256 megabits of flash, are designed for high-end consumer desktops and laptops that run Vista.

Within the past couple of years, Intel has expanded its products to include flash memory chips. The company is working on a flash chip called Robson–expected within the year–that is also designed to work with Vista features. As with Samsung’s hybrid drive, Intel’s system will be able to save energy by less frequently using a hard disk by keeping a cache in flash, says Greg Matson, product manager for Intel’s NAND flash group. Robson is designed for consumer and enterprise systems that run Vista. Unlike Samsung’s hybrid drive, which integrates flash into the disk, Robson flash will be integrated into the motherboard of a computer.

In addition, Intel, Samsung, and others are working to completely replace magnetic hard drives in certain systems. Last week, Intel announced a solid-state drive designed for low-end servers and inexpensive computers that require less than eight gigabytes of data. Also, earlier this week, electronics maker Fujitsu announced that it is offering a rugged system with 16 gigabytes and 32 gigabytes for a cost of $500 and $1,300, respectively. Fujitsu’s target markets are the health-care, aviation, and delivery industries, for which flash provides another advantage: because of its lack of moving parts, it’s sturdier than magnetic disks and less prone to damage in rough environments.

There are still challenges before flash really competes with computers’ hard drives. For one thing, it tends to wear out over time, as files are written and erased from memory sectors. Currently, flash is capable of 100,000 rewrites per cell, and specialized software has been developed to spread out the wear on flash chips, says Ethan Miller, professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

However, Miller says, this software might not be good enough when flash is used as a hard drive supplement or replacement because operating systems tend to frequently save numerous small files, such as error files or system logs. But as prices continue to fall, Miller adds, flash will become a more common option, and he expects that more and more systems will be designed with flash in mind.

This is an anonymous post that I first found on RayNiles.com . It’s a little harsh about the traditional way of doing things, which I think often have merit and unique charms, but it does point out some advantages to having a laptop (and other technologies) in a learning environment.

This was posted on the Abilene, Kansas High School Dialogue Buzz website. It was an anonymous post, but VERY powerful. Feel free to share this with educators, parents and stakeholders about 1:1 and the power of the seamless use of technology. It seems to sum it all up!!

Let’s have a little competition at school and get ready for the future. I will use a laptop and you will use paper and pencil. Are you ready…?
I will access up-to-date information – you have a textbook that is 5 years old.
I will immediately know when I misspell a word – you have to wait until it’s graded.
I will learn how to care for technology by using it – you will read about it.
I will see math problems in 3D – you will do the odd problems.
I will create artwork and poetry and share it with the world – you will share yours with the class.
I will have 24/7 access – you have the entire class period.
I will access the most dynamic information – yours will be printed and photocopied.
I will communicate with leaders and experts using email – you will wait for Friday’s speaker.
I will select my learning style – you will use the teacher’s favorite learning style.
I will collaborate with my peers from around the world – you will collaborate with peers in your classroom.
I will take my learning as far as I want – you must wait for the rest of the class.
The cost of a laptop per year? – $250
The cost of teacher and student training? – Expensive
The cost of well educated US citizens and workforce? – Priceless

I got a great email from a friend and faculty member [represented anonymously here] at Rider who is getting into some audio creation for student use. He asked a great question, and I’m passing it on to you.

Rider Faculty wrote:

I just bought a mic for my iPod which will allow me to record my students, upload it into my computer and then email it to them. The files are about 1/2 a GB. Can I use Bb to help with this endeavor?

John responded:

As far as the iPod recordings – don’t try to email them! – the 500MB files [maybe they're actually half a MB?] would be unusable by anybody other than you at your desktop – it would take a day to download them, they’d bring our email server to a screeching halt, and in Blackboard we have an entire course size limit of 200MB, so you’d never be able to upload even one of these there. Also, you probably recorded a WAV or AIFF file, when what we want for audio distribution is MP3 or some other compressed audio format.

The good news is that it is almost surely a matter of quality settings. I have a podcast that I do at http://techarts.wordpress.com where the average length is 45 minutes and the average size is 25Mb or less. If you record at 96-128 Kbps with 11 KHz frequency and as mono, rather than stereo, your files will be much much smaller, though some quality will be lost.

We use a media server for storage and podcasting at http://media.rider.edu where I would put up, advertise, and maintain your audio files. You could use external links to point to them in Blackboard, but they would actually reside on Media, to save you space in your course.

Also, existing files that are half a GB can be reduced in quality to new settings [and therefore size] to make them reasonable for people to download. You can keep the original at the full size for posterity, but 500MB is a lot of space, and the difference in quality between a 500MB file and a 25MB file can be negligible if the conversion is done well.

I’d love to talk with you about this – can you give me a call? 609 896 5000 x7145.

John.