Miscellaneous

It is now possible for individuals to convert their Thunderbird address books into a format acceptable by Norse Mail without the help of LIS. Thanks to Scott, a new utility has been created. Take a look at https://webmail.luther.edu/addrtool.

Don't wait until it's too late! If you haven't already done so, change your Norse Key password TODAY by going to https://norsekey.luther.edu . Norse Key passwords for faculty, staff, and students will expire on April 16, 2008. This includes all Norse Key passwords - even departmental accounts, organizational accounts, and accounts for student workers. Please contact the LIS Technology Help Desk at 387-1000 if you have questions.

FREE Web Conferencing to take the place of Elluminate, Webex, GoToMeeting, etc. We've been looking at DimDim for a while since there's a loose integration with Moodle out there. Its a solid product, easy to use with lots of features: http://www.dimdim.com.

Report from the Datatel Users Group conference held March 8-12, 2008 in Washington, D.C.

I attended a number of sessions that provided valuable information that we can put to use in the next year.

* Performance tuning – I attended several tuning sessions covering Datatel Colleague Release 18 (R18), Web Advisor, DMI listeners (used in R18) and web load performance testing. I gathered lots of information that should help us understand more about the database administration functions that need to occur on the Datatel and Web Advisor servers to help improve performance.

While arguably making all our (computing) lives better, faster, and cheaper and providing Microsoft a means by which to continue filling up more computational power with software glut, Intel has done some other ventures targeted at third world countries. From Ars Technica a review of their long-distance WiFi:

Twitter breaks down barriers in the classroom

As we prepare to rollout Norse Apps to students, a demo of Norse Apps has been scheduled for 6:00PM-7:00PM Wednesday, March 12th, in the Mott Room in the Union.  This session is intended to share information regarding the migration process with students and give a quick look at each of the components.

Jay stopped by this morning to say that Casper will be working up in the Registrar's Office and across the hall as their next locations.  He anticipates they will not work in the LIS areas until after Spring Break.

Tomorrow morning, Friday Feb. 29, from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Preus Library will be the site of a "happening" produced by a group of Theatre/Dance students who are enrolled in a Performance Research class. Something will occur near the front entrance which should be pretty interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining but (we have been assured) won't create a disturbance or be overly noisy. So be on the lookout if you're passing this way.

From Facilities:

This week work will be happening in the last two offices on ground floor south west side, the Print Shop, layout in the LIS area on ground floor north, 2nd floor north hallway, and insulating for the tower piping. There may also be some piping on ground floor south that will be continuing toward the north and some work on replacement lighting in the Financial Aid Office area.