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October 31, 2008

I learned something new today...

Lately seems like I learn something new every day. I've been spending a LOT of time reading lately. Articles and websites and books and emails and just about everything.

They say the primary difference between you now and 10 years in the future is what you read.
Interesting thought. I'll philosophize that later.

Sometimes I'm concerned that if I keep reading and learning at this pace one day I'll have to raise my hand like the kid in that Far Side comic who says "Teacher can I go home? My brain is full." Well it hasn't happened yet and I've probably still got some time ... and space.

Today a grad student came into the office needing some help. They were attempting to extract some data from a website, but the content was being shown by flash. Attempts to print the information were unsuccessful.
After some playing around I tried printing the document (via their interface) to my Adobe PDF creator. This produced a fantastic high-quality result that the student was able to print.

I was extremely pleased that I had not only solved their problem, but had learned something in the process. It gave me a moment to think, which I appreciated.

Posted by ellism at 2:00 AM | Comments (0)

Report Writing

I finished a new report this morning about 1am.

We ran a system-wide test of our campus Emergency Alert system and I had 18k+ lines of data to play with. Metrics, oh lovely metrics -- how do I measure thee?

Anyway I threw our new layout onto the report and found a cute (and crazy simple) way to do some to-scale bar graphs. That made me pretty happy cuz it really helps the report.

I'll probably pull another data load tomorrow and that little report can go to Presidents Staff. I have some other research to do as digging through the data has caused me to ask some new questions.

From a high-level IT perspective, making a summary report for a bunch of data seems like lame -- but I really enjoyed it. Couldn't tell you why, but I did. I'm real pleased with the result. I hope they want more metrics that I can program into that report...

Posted by ellism at 1:53 AM | Comments (0)

Gliffy.com

Yesterday, while pursuing some CSS bar graphs, I found Gliffy.

I've always been a huge fan of Visio. I actually own an older copy which I've enjoyed using in the past. So was pleased to find a Flash program (for free I might add) that had much of that same functionality.

Here is my master work: UCS Office

The snap-to-grid feature didn't work as well as I had hoped. Objects didn't seem to line up super well, and even while moving an object I wasn't allowed to line some objects up.

However, overall I was very pleased with Gliffy. Even Visio isn't really designed to be used for architectural drawings, so this is really fine. The templates provided were pretty good (though I couldn't find a bookshelf ... seriously). Again - was very impressed with the overall look and feel and functionality.

Now if only I could find a good reason to use it...

Posted by ellism at 1:44 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Lately? Sheesh...

Presentations
So I've probably given 10+ presentations during the last few months. They have ranged from training a few users on a specific topic to new Nursing Students to holding a campus-wide Forum that we video-taped (more on this later). After doing so many I've begun to "document" my presentations so that I have 3 or 4 stock presentations that I can modify based on audience or time. I used to be embarrassed by public speaking (as most people are) but I've found a confidence in doing this type of thing. On at least one occasion I think I felt a little over-confident and did a "shoot-from-the-hip" presentation -- but wasn't particularly pleased with the overall presentation. So the prepared, modifiable presentations should serve me well.

Pawprint
The afore-mentioned Forum included students, staff (of all types) and faculty. We discussed the new web template (which can be seen here). We also worked with campus members to rename the security model we use to now be called "Pawprint". You can see Pawprint's new logo on the previous link. The other primary value of Pawpring is that as we continue to bring systems into this security model and simplify access to WOU systems through that one login -- we can implement Single Sign-On (SSO). SSO allows campus members to login to the Portal (and if chosen) then the Portal will login to Mail/Calendar, Blog and WolfWeb. We are currently in-process of expanding this to include the Forums and Moodle (online.wou.edu). Overall Pawpring simplifies access to WOU systems to all campus members.

Meetings and Conferences
I feel as though I've driven more for work lately than I ever have. Recently I've attended conferences from Portland to Eugene on a relatively frequent basis. The travel will continue for some time: I have another 1-2 conferences in the next month still to attend. In the meantime I'm learning lots.

Move-In
This was the first year since 2001 that I was not responsible for the technical (computer) aspects of the Fall Move-In (when students return to campus).
It was kinda weird, but I think we all lived through it. Kudos to John who managed this process well this year.

Portal
As mentioned before, the new web layout is available and was applied to the WOUPortal. This new layout was design in conjunction with Stewart but designed by the Developer Team (functionally, not aesthetically). We hope to roll this layout to many other pages that UCS has developed.
Also, Single Sign-On is the name of the game. The goal is to integrate all Pawprint-enabled systems to the campus Portal Single Sign-On. This is going to take some work, but we are making a little progress each week. An RSS tool is coming soon, along with additional improvements to the Portal.

Dining Menu
Campus Dining now has a dynamic web-menu and a nutrition calculation tool available. Very neat stuff. Needs some polish, but very neat.

Unix
I'm also learning Unix. Slowly. I really just need 50 hours/day and a 60-hour work week, but since that's not gonna happen I'm learning what I can as I have time. I hope to take some classes in the near future regarding Solaris and will continue to do self-study via Ubuntu.

Posted by ellism at 5:31 PM | Comments (0)

October 2, 2008

Instructional Technology

This is a technology overview from UCS (University Computing Services) at Western Oregon University.

The username and password that faculty/staff/students use to login to most WOU systems is called the Pawprint account. Pawprint's logo can be found here. If you see a webpage with the logo, you'll know to use your Pawprint account to login to it. WOU users can change this password at any time by visiting AccountLookup.

For most WOU users the first time that the Pawprint account will be used is to gain access to a WOU computer. You can login to any PC, Mac or Thinclient on campus with your Pawprint account. A Thinclient is a micro-computer that is used in many WOU computer labs.

After logging into a WOU computer, users will have access to the following drives:

H
The H Drive is a users' personal drive. Personal and work (if applicable) files can be stored here and are only accessible by the specific user.

I
The I Drive is a departmental drive. Primarily staff will use this drive to share files with other members of their department.

J
The J Drive is a shared drive. Departments use this drive to store information or share it with other departments.

K
The K Drive is a class drive. Faculty and students can access this drive to post syllabi, homework, or turn in assignments.

Other drives may be assigned based on the user.

For assistance, UCS provides a 24/7/365 Service Request Desk. They can be reached at 88925 or by emailing ucshelpdesk@wou.edu. This is similar to a "Help Desk" in that you would contact them for technical assistance. However, this student-run service is not designed to solve your problems over-the-phone (although they often can). Students will likely document whatever problem/question that you have and route that information to a UCS technician. Our technicians get that information and will contact you to help resolve the issue/answer your question.

Wireless access is available in nearly every area of campus. A few residence halls do not have wireless access, but nearly every other building and public outdoor area has wireless access. Wireless can be purchased from the WolfWeb system.

One very powerful tool that UCS offers is called Remote desktop. From any PC, you can click START, RUN and type in "mstsc", and click OK. The Remote Desktop Connection window will open. Type in "ts.wou.edu" and click Connect.
You'll be prompted for your username. If your username is "smithb", then you would type in "mash\smithb" and then type your password. The Remote Desktop window will then contain what we call a Terminal Server session. You can access your drives and many programs from the Terminal Server. You can logoff anytime by click START, LOGOFF. Macs can also use Remote Desktop, but the procedure is different.

Another very powerful tool is the WOUPortal. As expected, you access the Portal using your Pawprint account. Once logged in, you can customize the interface that you see by clicking My Preference at the top of the screen. This page allows you to do the following:
1. Change your nickname (not everyone uses their first legal name).
2. Enable Advanced Features. This will enable the Single Sign-On features in the Portal. By enabling these features the Portal will automatically login to WOU Email/Calendar, WolfWeb and your Blog. As we add features, more and more will be incorporated into the Portal and will be accessible via Single Sign-On.
3. You can add custom links to the Portal "My Home" page.
4. Hide links that you have in the My Programs area.
5. Enable/Disable web-based tools like Mapquest.com and Weather.com

You will always be able to login to each systems individually - the Portal is designed to simply your access to WOU systems.

WOU also offers many other web-based systems. Below is a list of many of those tools.

WOU E-mail and Calendar - http://www.wou.edu/newmail
WolfWeb - http://www.wou.edu/wolfweb
WOUPortal - http://www.wou.edu/portal
Blog - http://www.wou.edu/blogadmin
Forums - http://www.wou.edu/forums
Moodle - http://online.wou.edu/
WebCT (does not use Pawprint) - http://www.wou.edu/webct
Wiki (does not use Pawprint) - http://www.wou.edu/wiki
Interlibrary Loan (among others)

(Moodle and WebCT are tools for online classes. Wiki is an information sharing tool. Please contact the Service Request Desk for additional details.)

Posted by ellism at 1:32 AM | Comments (0)