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November 23, 2005
VTC for UCS Training
For UCS staff, we have a membership to VTC (Virtual Training Company). This is a fairly comprehensive movie-based tutorial system for technical coursework. Programming, Operating Systems, Certifications, Web Design and Applications are all covered to some degree. There's a player that will queue up the movies. I've placed the username and password in i:\vtc.txt. We have 1 concurrent license. It can be used anywhere by anyone. Only one person may use it at a time. So far, this has not been an issue. Please let me know if this does.
To get the player, please point your browser to VTC.com.
Posted by crowej at 2:13 AM | Comments (1)
Visit to Computing Services at SOU
Last week I made a pilgrimage to Oregon's Shakespearean Mecca...Ashland. I toured SOU's Computing Services. I'll list some of my observations:
1. They have A LOT more space and resources.
a. This led to a more natural organization than we have
b. This has led to more specialization (and specialists)
c. This strength also may be their weakness
i. My suspicion is that SOU is doing many things today in the same manner that they did five years ago.
ii. In contrast, we have had to overcome space (and personnel) shortages. By and large these have been process refinements and technical improvements.
2. They have a site license of Office (which I'd like to adopt)
a. They sell Office CD's @ $7. They did not know of 80/20...this may be the result of the site license.
b. The front office distribution is simple and effective. There's a "meet & greet" window right next to the front door.
3. They use their expansive space to separate and specialize. For me, this was perhaps the single most important discovery. They have what exists in our tech room thrown out into four different rooms. I wish to reinvent this idea within a single room. Please see my next blog for more details here...
4. Their helpdesk is staffed M-F 8 to 5. The students are technically inclined and attempt to resolve issues.
5. We both use PCounter in the labs. They do not use Deep Freeze (or similar solution) and have to reimage more than we. Their printers are all centrally located within a lab and pooled as one device. This would be my preferred solution, but we lay out the labs more deliberately.
6. Even with a comparably sized facstaff and student population, and nearly double the UCS staff, the feeling of too much work with little resources was pervasive.
Posted by crowej at 1:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2005
Staff Development for Nov 10th
I guess if one ever gets the chance to take a look at Circuit City in Salem, they must be doing something pretty secret. When I asked them if I could tour their repair shop, I was put on hold. After a bit, I was told that I could visit the front of the store, as long as I did not interfere with business. Dang! There went my grand plan of public urination in Circuit City.
I have a call into Best Buy, SOU, PSU and will call CyberHelp4U and a few others (TBD).
On a side note, I liked the Computing Services page at Southern. They had a ton of info at the top level.
Posted by crowej at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
NotifyLink, Apache and SSL
Yesterday, Troy and I worked on NotifyLink, Apache and SLL. When given the task of installing the SSL cert (from Thawte). I don't think anyone recognized that this would turn into a thing. Troy and I ended up ripping the original install of Apache 1.3 out. We installed v2 and the corresponding Mod_SSL. I think we both learned a lot about Apache and SSL installation as we needed to modify the config files manually in order to get the NotifyLink application to work.
Posted by crowej at 11:15 AM | Comments (1)
A Beginner's Guide to Remote Desktop
Please see my Movie about Remote Desktop here.
Posted by crowej at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)