Getting Ready for Peru

I'm getting ready for my teaching trip to Peru. This is my third time, so I pretty much know what's going to be happening.

There are three students this year. Their names are Katie, Crystal, and Aaron.

Here are their blogs:

Katie
Crystal
Aaron

Where angels fear to tread

Well I took the plunge, tore apart my PowerBook G4. I had instructions from PBFixit.com. Excellent instructions. Showed pictures with little colored circles showing what screw to remove. Every time I took a little screw out I taped it to the paper.

No problem getting the hard drive out--basically remove the keyboard and top cover, and there you are. But the optical drive was a different matter. In fact, I couldn't do it. When I got to the step where I was supposed to remove two spring-loaded screws to release the heat sink, I couldn't get one of them out. It was sort of a hollow thing that screws onto a threaded post underneath. One of them came out fine, but the second would only loosen. It would not come off. So I was stuck. Ah well it all went back together ok and I'm up and running with a new 100 GB hard drive.

I put my old one into a little "FireXpress" hard drive case "slim storage by CompuCable". Such a nice little aluminum case. I put the new 8x dual layer DVD burner into an external "Digistor" case. Both are so nice and compact.

Oh yeah when I first got the hard drive and case, I put the new one in the external case, and then used Disk Utility to "restore" my old hard drive onto the new hard drive. Then I tested that it would boot ok, which it did. Then I swapped the hard drives. Slick as a whistle.

These small external media cases are so cool.

Oh yeah I forgot to say I also bought some audio stuff--an iMic by Griffin. Nice piece of hardware, provides improved quality of output over the built-in headphone jack (at least it seems that way to my untrained ears), and also provides low level and line level microphone inputs. That will be nice because I'm still working on digitizing my LP and cassettes.

Bought a nice little microphone on eBay. It's basically just a gold-plated 1/4 inch plug with a microphone mounted in the end and a wind-screen. I think combined with the iMic it will provide high quality audio input to the computer.

Stuff I did today 7/8/05

1. Ordered my hard drive
2. Tried to order DVD writer, online process didn't work, will have to call
3. Ate breakfast, made a cup of coffee
4. Showered & dressed
5. Went to work
6. Watched the Ken Ham video for next week's ABF class.
7. Went online and printed the instructions for changing my hard drive and DVD.
8. Printed and tallied distance ed course evaluation feedback.
9. Made spreadsheet for distance ed course feedback, graphed data, printed out, dropped copies off for the boss.
10. Called mwave.com and straightened out the order that didn't process--it got stuck on the "verified by visa" step, probably something Firefox didn't like.
11. Fired up Adobe GoLive and fixed a couple of typos on my online course evaluation page.
12. Ate a piece of blueberry coffee cake. Heh.
13. Set up a link in the Finder to connect from my laptop to my Windows desktop machine.
14. Went online and ordered a hard drive enclosure for the drive I will pull from my PowerBook. Should I order an enclosure for the DVD writer I pull? Hmmm. $50 from mp3car.com, looks nice.
15. Transferred a font from my Windows machine to my PowerBook, and installed it with Font Book.
16. Modified several pages on the school web site to have updated brochures.
17. Gave some instructions to a new client on my server how to set up his email.
18. Listened to Calvary Quartet all morning.
19. Talked with Jim about the school website and fixed up a page for him
20. Went home for lunch with my wife
21. Added some info to a page on the school website
22. Checked out stampauctionnetwork.com for any interesting 1909 commems--hm there's a nice 367 FDC mailed 2/12/09 at 8 am, and also a 370 plate/imprint block, nice.
23. Started up an iTunes podcast, an interview with a fellow from Google. He worked on Google Earth and mentioned the URL.
24. Downloaded Google Earth from earth.google.com and played with it for a while. It crashed once but I zoomed in on my area, and my sister's house was in one of the higher resolution scans. Kewl.
25. Listened to a couple of podcasts "Tips from the Top Floor" (digital photography)
26. Ordered the Slimline DVD enclosure w/FireWire/USB interface. Should be cool.
27. Worked for a good share of the afternoon without interruption on some academic achievement statistics, recalculating some percentiles and graphing them out.
28. Made a cup of coffee
29. Read an http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/08/london.muslims/index.html?section=cnn_topstories article about the Arab world reaction to the London bombing.
30. Handled a mis-directed phone call.
31. Almost time to go home. Maybe I'll read a bit on my PDA while I enjoy my coffee. I'm reading "The Clue of the Twisted Candle" by Edgar Wallace.

Upgrade season

Well, we're in upgrade season. I've ordered a new 100 GB drive for my PowerBook G4 from eBay, got a good deal for $175 for a brand new Seagate.

Now I'm working on ordering a new DVD burner, 8X dual layer for the PowerBook, too.

Will also pick up an external hard drive enclosure to hold the old hard drive from the PowerBook. Might as well use that 60 GB. Not sure if I'll get an enclosure for the old DVD burner, I just might and then sell it.

Installation. That's another matter, fortunately there are some good instructions online.

I like ecto.

Trying out "ecto"

I just downloaded a Mac blogger client called "ecto." Setup was pretty easy, I just pointed it to my account and it made the connection without any problem. I'm typing this with the "rich text" option--looks like I have options for alignment, tabs, bullets, numbering, italics, underline, bold, strikethrough, colors, and background color.

Looks like a nice little gizmo. Here's a nice capability--it interfaces with iPhoto, iTunes, and Amazon.com. Hm but I selected iPhoto and then a photo and then clicked "import" but it didn't... After looking at the help, I don't think my blogger account is the right kind to allow it.

Well sometime I will set up a directory on my server and show you some of my fractal screenshots that I use as wallpaper on my iBook desktop.

--Steve

Information Flow

Talk about swimming every day--my life is a constant swim in information. I can't even begin to tell all the times today I have interacted with information. Email. Web. Paper. Phone. Network files. Spreadsheets. PowerPoint. Digital video. Let's see:

1. I transferred our entire Intranet to my PowerBook so I could burn a DVD for backup. We had a bad experience with a power outage and email, so I'm playing it safe.
2. I exported several of my students' iMovie projects to Quicktime so I could show them in class.
3. I interacted with Ray regarding why Entourage won't/can't access the LDAP email server.
4. I checked my bank balance online and scheduled a couple of payments.
5. I searched for a photo of the new Mercury Milan.
6. I searched online for a photo of an iPod shuffle for my class presentation.
7. I looked up the FEMA website that offers the book Taking Shelter From the Storm for free for a friend.
8. I received a payment on account for my server business via PayPal.
9. I interacted with the fellow who does my DNS for all my domains about the proper way to set up my backup mx.
10. I went online to the ***.com website on my server to delete the stupid gambling posts that someone keeps putting on the guestbook there.
11. I went to the IMC to help one of my students who was having trouble getting her iMovie project to record her voice properly using the eMac; and another was having trouble with the volume on a clip on her movie.
12. Gotta debug why when I connect to the net with the wireless connection, why I can't access the web or email.

See you in the EAIC (East Australian Information Current) (hat tip to Finding Nemo)

A Day in the Life of...Me

Well here I am, sorry to say, weeks and weeks overdue. The systems portfolio project has just eaten up all of my spare time since November. But it's finally done, and I'm glad.

Today's work, wow:

1. Added asp code to our Intranet page so the course evaluation percents would show.
2. Loaded the new building pictures into iPhoto, produced web pages, uploaded them to the Intranet, and linked them to the What's New section.
3. Added the link to Shadow of the Cross web pages to What's New.
4. Picked out a nice photo of Shadow of the Cross play, exported from iMovie to 640x480, used Photoshop Elements to oil pastel it and then create strokes frame. Finally exported to web and put it on home page.
5. Fixed the Systems Portfolio spreadsheet with the correct figures, copied the pie graph to the Systems Portfolio, and then did the magic to make it fit nicely on the page.
6. Modified the OIR home page, uploaded it to the server.
7. Found a page of ASP that will display a directory of files, installed it in the old Intranet front page images folder. Then added a link from the Intranet front page image to that page. That way people can browse the old front page images.
8. Worked with a student to figure out why her video was coming out so dark when she imported it into iMovie.
9. Worked on the AAT Liaison assignments for non-instructional departments.
10. Worked with Financial Aid manager on FAFSA survey. Printed 50 bubble forms.
    
11. Worked with Guest Relations manager on survey of dorm students who house campus visitors.
12. Performed emergency recovery on the Intranet front page--who knows why it went AWOL for 10 minutes. I couldn't connect via FTP on the computer lab subnet, so I mailed a copy of it to myself and then restored the file.
13. Talked on the phone with one of my customers to resolve a couple of issues with their web forms.
14. Worked with one of my students in Web Design class who was working on rollover buttons for her MenuMachine web site menu.
15. Sprayed my fruit trees. Watered my flowers.
16. Drank a few cups of coffee. "8 O'Clock" is my favorite so far. Not sure if I'm going to become a dedicated coffee fan, but I'm getting so I an enjoy a good cup. Not black, though.
    
17. Composed and sent an email to IT folks regarding specific incompatibility of Macs w/our Intranet (we have some files that are linked from the Intranet to shared files via the file:/// protocol; this does not work with Mac). Posed three possible solutions, hopefully one might ring a bell and get this last incompatibility resolved.
    
18. Spouted off to my boss about the school calendar that keeps changing without notice of any kind.
19. Wrote a note to my sister asking if the new cordless drill is working out for her.
20. Read some more of the second Left Behind book called Tribulation Force.
21. Tried about 4 times to get through to CSC Credit Services (division of Equifax) to ask about my credit report.

That's about it, and that's enough for one day.