We use it to share Pics and Vids and Music. You just have everyone create a folder on their drive, then give each account permissions. They drop stuff in the folder and eveyone gets a copy via P2P. It's a bit of a pain to setup initally, but a snap to use once it's running.
When I first came across delicious, I didn't get it either. So what if it keeps my bookmarks? But now I see it differently. It's a great resource for finding sites that other people have found useful.
As an example... the other day one of my users asked me if I knew of a good place to get fonts. She said that a lot of the sites she had gone to had all sorts of pop-ups, and some had even put adware in with the supposedly free fonts.
I had no idea where to tell her to go, so I did what I always do and searched Google. The top few results were rather questionable, and I didn't feel comfortable telling her to got to them.
So I went to delicious, and type the URL for the tag "font", and then selected the most popular sites with that tag: http://del.icio.us/popular/font. This gave me a list of sites, some which had over 3,000 other people tag them. I showed her what I was doing to find the sites, and we both felt like if that many other people found the site useful, then it was probably a safe site to check out.
On the same lines, there's a great delicious search engine here: http://collabrank.web.cse.unsw.edu.au/del.icio.us/ which I have been using as much as Google when I want to see sites that people trust.
I tried some RSS readers an got pretty overwhlemed very uickly by the amount of info.. I switched to RSSFWD and it works much better for me now:
http://www.rssfwd.com/rssfwd/
You can easily let the site parse the RSS fro you and then send you an e-mail. No clunky RSS reader required.
I set up a couple of keyword subscriptions to subjects I like in PubSub http://www.pubsub.com/, and then linked to the RSS via RSSFWD. Now I get a few interesting e-mails that are filtered to a folder and I can read when I get a chance.
For sites like Slashdot that I frequent, I just visit the web page. I only use RSS to find info that I might have otherwise missed.
We've been using MediaWiki for this exact purpose: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki. It's easy to install, a snap to manage, and makes it easy to share your knowledge with the rest of the world if that's something you want to do.
I really want to give Firefox to all my users, but there's no good way of managing the updates for my users. Until the Firefox comes packaged as an MSI so that I can force an upgrade via Group Policy, I won't install it on my users machines.
And when they do make an MSI for it, how am I to keep people up-to-date with extensions? The Grease Monkey extension had a vulnerability awhile back, and I don't see a way for Firefox to allow me to force an upgrade to everyone for extensions.
IE works well because I can release patches for it via WSUS. And since SP2 for XP, we've had less calls about spy/adware installs.
I just got through reading a Wired story about new Rooftop Mirror Arrays available in the fall. Unfortunately, the story isn't avail on-line until July 11:
http://www.wired.com/wired/
The Rooftop Solar Revolution
Dotcom king Bill Gross wants to sell you a high-energy, low-cost solar concentrator that will fit on your roof. And overthrow the powers that be.
I have no idea if this is applicable to you, but I thought you might enjoy the info.
Never tried that, altough that might be something to consider, but then to write a batch script to run and wake them all up requires knowing all of their MACs, etc, which we don't currently keep close tabs on.
Maybe when it hits me how wasteful I'm being it'll be worth the work, but for now it seems like a high cost:benefit ratio.
I manage about 500 Workstations, all Dell running XP.
We schedule our WSUS (MS Software update services) to run at night so as not to bother the user. We also run quite a few machines with Deep Freeze, and they require a "Maintainence Mode" in order to unfreeze and apply updates.
My Staff are also becoming addicted to running Remote Desktop, so they won't let us control when the machines are turned off.
Most new staff ask me what they should do with their PC at night, and I always feel guilty when I tell them that it doesn't matter to me, and they might just leave it on. (Even if they turn it off, it auto-ons itself at 4:00 a.m.)
We switched to USAA for all of our banking about 3 years ago and it's been great. They just sent us a new Quicken CD in the mail free of charge. I'm guessing they didn't want to hassle with forcing people to upgrade. Free Quicken,1% cash back on all of our purchases with our Debit Mstercard, and no ATM fees makes it nice.
I've recently installed a Wiki for our staff, and if I get a question more than once, I add a little How-To for that subject to the Wiki. Now the first question I ask people is if they've checked the Wiki... it's amazing how people have sort of embraced it and are populating it themselves.
We've tested it here at the UCONN Library. We use RFID tags on our books, and if you know where the tag is and hold a pack of cigarettes in front of it when you leave, it will block the tag from being read.
In this case, tinfoil really WILL protect you!
Can we somehow make Heat Pipes to transfer heat from a place we don't want it (CPU) to a place we do (outside of our box)? Something tells me the heat of the CPU would probably melt these little pipes though.
I found it to be really enjoyable to sift through many different forums for instructions on how to mod my TiVo. I learned more by reading more than one persons account on how to do things, and was able to get help by posting questions.
There's a ton of info out there if you're willing to search, otherwise, I guess the 21 bucks is a decent price to pay, and you won't have to get flamed for asking a dumb question.
We've been using RFID tags at the University of Connecticut Library for the past year. It's more of a theft deterrent than anything else right now, but has the potential for much more.
At the exit station, patrons must walk through a barrier that reads the RFID tag, and looks up the tag in the database of all books currently checked out. If it fails the test, an alarm sounds (and the little exit bar locks)and the patron is asked if they might have something in their bag that they forgot to check out.
The greatest thing about these is the ability to do inventory of a huge amount of books at one using a portable wand/PDA type device. You can rpogram it to beep when a book is found, etc.
Anyway... the RFID tags are not "turned off" at all, and this is not even an option on the types of tags we buy to put in the books. It seems rather silly to me that anyone would even be worried about it. So what if someone "reads" the tag as you walk by on the street? It's just a sequence of numbers that means nothing to anyone but the Library.
Nice. Between this new label and cdbaby, maybe the artists will start to actually make something off of their CDs, and make me more apt to buy as well.
Slashdot Mirror
We use it to share Pics and Vids and Music. You just have everyone create a folder on their drive, then give each account permissions. They drop stuff in the folder and eveyone gets a copy via P2P. It's a bit of a pain to setup initally, but a snap to use once it's running.
When I first came across delicious, I didn't get it either. So what if it keeps my bookmarks? But now I see it differently. It's a great resource for finding sites that other people have found useful.
/ which I have been using as much as Google when I want to see sites that people trust.
As an example... the other day one of my users asked me if I knew of a good place to get fonts. She said that a lot of the sites she had gone to had all sorts of pop-ups, and some had even put adware in with the supposedly free fonts.
I had no idea where to tell her to go, so I did what I always do and searched Google. The top few results were rather questionable, and I didn't feel comfortable telling her to got to them.
So I went to delicious, and type the URL for the tag "font", and then selected the most popular sites with that tag: http://del.icio.us/popular/font. This gave me a list of sites, some which had over 3,000 other people tag them. I showed her what I was doing to find the sites, and we both felt like if that many other people found the site useful, then it was probably a safe site to check out.
On the same lines, there's a great delicious search engine here: http://collabrank.web.cse.unsw.edu.au/del.icio.us
I tried some RSS readers an got pretty overwhlemed very uickly by the amount of info.. I switched to RSSFWD and it works much better for me now: http://www.rssfwd.com/rssfwd/ You can easily let the site parse the RSS fro you and then send you an e-mail. No clunky RSS reader required.
I set up a couple of keyword subscriptions to subjects I like in PubSub http://www.pubsub.com/, and then linked to the RSS via RSSFWD. Now I get a few interesting e-mails that are filtered to a folder and I can read when I get a chance.
For sites like Slashdot that I frequent, I just visit the web page. I only use RSS to find info that I might have otherwise missed.
We've been using MediaWiki for this exact purpose: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki. It's easy to install, a snap to manage, and makes it easy to share your knowledge with the rest of the world if that's something you want to do.
I really want to give Firefox to all my users, but there's no good way of managing the updates for my users. Until the Firefox comes packaged as an MSI so that I can force an upgrade via Group Policy, I won't install it on my users machines. And when they do make an MSI for it, how am I to keep people up-to-date with extensions? The Grease Monkey extension had a vulnerability awhile back, and I don't see a way for Firefox to allow me to force an upgrade to everyone for extensions. IE works well because I can release patches for it via WSUS. And since SP2 for XP, we've had less calls about spy/adware installs.
I just got through reading a Wired story about new Rooftop Mirror Arrays available in the fall. Unfortunately, the story isn't avail on-line until July 11: http://www.wired.com/wired/ The Rooftop Solar Revolution Dotcom king Bill Gross wants to sell you a high-energy, low-cost solar concentrator that will fit on your roof. And overthrow the powers that be. I have no idea if this is applicable to you, but I thought you might enjoy the info.
Never tried that, altough that might be something to consider, but then to write a batch script to run and wake them all up requires knowing all of their MACs, etc, which we don't currently keep close tabs on. Maybe when it hits me how wasteful I'm being it'll be worth the work, but for now it seems like a high cost:benefit ratio.
We schedule our WSUS (MS Software update services) to run at night so as not to bother the user. We also run quite a few machines with Deep Freeze, and they require a "Maintainence Mode" in order to unfreeze and apply updates.
My Staff are also becoming addicted to running Remote Desktop, so they won't let us control when the machines are turned off.
Most new staff ask me what they should do with their PC at night, and I always feel guilty when I tell them that it doesn't matter to me, and they might just leave it on. (Even if they turn it off, it auto-ons itself at 4:00 a.m.)
We switched to USAA for all of our banking about 3 years ago and it's been great. They just sent us a new Quicken CD in the mail free of charge. I'm guessing they didn't want to hassle with forcing people to upgrade. Free Quicken,1% cash back on all of our purchases with our Debit Mstercard, and no ATM fees makes it nice.
We are currently trying to build an institutional repository using DSpace. Open Source and pretty cool:
http://www.dspace.org/
In the Library we are testing LOCKSS. It looks like it could go far if it catches on:
http://lockss.stanford.edu/
I've recently installed a Wiki for our staff, and if I get a question more than once, I add a little How-To for that subject to the Wiki. Now the first question I ask people is if they've checked the Wiki... it's amazing how people have sort of embraced it and are populating it themselves.
We've tested it here at the UCONN Library. We use RFID tags on our books, and if you know where the tag is and hold a pack of cigarettes in front of it when you leave, it will block the tag from being read. In this case, tinfoil really WILL protect you!
Can we somehow make Heat Pipes to transfer heat from a place we don't want it (CPU) to a place we do (outside of our box)? Something tells me the heat of the CPU would probably melt these little pipes though.
This isn't true for us. I work for an .edu and get quotes from Dell for stuff on a weekly basis. All of Dell's quotes come as an HTML attachment.
Tivo Community Forum
Deal Database Forums
Tivo Web Project Home Page
I found it to be really enjoyable to sift through many different forums for instructions on how to mod my TiVo. I learned more by reading more than one persons account on how to do things, and was able to get help by posting questions.There's a ton of info out there if you're willing to search, otherwise, I guess the 21 bucks is a decent price to pay, and you won't have to get flamed for asking a dumb question.
At the exit station, patrons must walk through a barrier that reads the RFID tag, and looks up the tag in the database of all books currently checked out. If it fails the test, an alarm sounds (and the little exit bar locks)and the patron is asked if they might have something in their bag that they forgot to check out.
The greatest thing about these is the ability to do inventory of a huge amount of books at one using a portable wand/PDA type device. You can rpogram it to beep when a book is found, etc.
Anyway... the RFID tags are not "turned off" at all, and this is not even an option on the types of tags we buy to put in the books. It seems rather silly to me that anyone would even be worried about it. So what if someone "reads" the tag as you walk by on the street? It's just a sequence of numbers that means nothing to anyone but the Library.
Nice. Between this new label and cdbaby, maybe the artists will start to actually make something off of their CDs, and make me more apt to buy as well.
$2,999 x 1100? 3.3 Meelion dollars? I hope they got Apple's .edu discount.