Plaxo, try it, very cool

Ok, I have not used this service long enough to be any kind of authority on the subject. However, it appears to work. I now have an address book on my Mac, PALM, and PC at work that stays in sync. That's right. They all chat and stay happily together forever .... :)


Perhaps my days of importing and exporting contacts are done! Oh, right the URL:

www.plaxo.com

How did I miss this awesome concept (Really free and fast Software!)

Check this out now!

ajaxwrite

Imagine having a full version of MS Office with you on any computer at any time... Well, now you can (almost). You do need an internet connection, and it's not MS Office. But it is an office alternative that is very mature and works well. It reads and writes the MS Office file types and loads amazingly fast. I am seriously considering this for our school EVEN THOUGH WE OWN MS OFFICE!

Why? Well, our schools increasingly put pressure on our students to use the same software they use at school while at home too. Case in point: my niece continues to start projects in MS Office at school, and then expects to be able to email them to herself and work on them at home. Only they can not afford MS Office (even the student version), and so they cannot work. Yes, they can use an alternative like Open Office, but it is quite slow on their older computer.

The beauty of this solution is the processing is done server side, so it runs just fine on older machines, and you can store 1 gb of stuff on their servers. You don't even have to email back and forth. Schools need to seriously consider this!

I hope I peaked your curiosity. Go and check this out!

I used to be willing to work for Free, but now ...

So I'm pretty jazzed about the new server. It seems to be ticking along nicely. Time to do something new.

A few years ago I modified a free help desk system to help me manage the tech demands at our school. It was hard work, and took many hours to implement. Still, the rewards of having anything that worked for "free" seemed worth it. However, times have changed. Now I expect more from open source. The quality of software has risen to the point where I do not feel I should need to spend weeks of time just getting something to work. With that thought in mind I went looking for a "free" help desk solution that would work, mostly out of the box.

What did I find ... not much it seems. Far too many companies offer a "free" product in this area, but they are so crippled, it's just not worth installing. Two seemed to stand out. One is from Ilient, called SysAid. Looks robust, and covers 100 assets and two admins for free. Looks great, especially for my cash strapped public school. Let's dive in!

Install looks very simple for windows, but I want to run this on RedHat. First hick, need to get tomcat working. Ok, done that, but it was not easy. Lost of miss starts. I still don't have it running automatically on boot. Oh well.

So now the program. Ok, not bad setup, most concepts easy. Hey wait, where do I customize this? AARGH, I can't seem to just slap graphics, change text and go. Hmm, looks like more work than I can do in one night. Rats. I wanted this up and running. Now I have to decide, wrestle with this package, or try the second one. I'll fill you in later.

Going to bed.

Pando

A cool concept this "Pando". I haven't yet tried it out, but I often have to juggle attachement size. Of course, it works better on Windows with IE, but at least there is an OS X standalone. Not sure about linux.

Check it out at: http://www.pando.com/

The concept is simple.

1. Send an email to a friend, attach a large document with the Pando plugin.
2. Your friend gets the email, but with only a small attachment from Pando.
3. If your friends wants to, or has time to, he can open the small attachment and it will download the large, original attachment to his computer.

Nice idea. Keeps our inboxes clean from all the attachment clutter, and by passes all the attachment limits.

Red Hat 4 AS and Ubuntu 6.06

Ok, I'm sure I'll get flack for this one, but here goes:

If you can, use Red Hat.

I know, I know, Ubuntu is cool. Open source rocks. It's one of my mantra's too. However, there is a reason you pay for Red Hat. It's solid, it works, there's help.

I just moved our webserver again today. Third time in 4 months. First it was SUSE 10 (there must be a reason for that distro, but I haven't found it), then Ubuntu 6.06 LAMP install (good, but not good enough), now Red Hat 4 AS.

Of the three the installs it was the least painful. Being able to download current rpms of software is great. Using up2date is almost as good as apt-get. The interface seems solid. Even things as simple as plugging in a usb HD is seamless. Not so in Ubuntu 6.06.

Of course I still use mostly open source. Moodle is amazing and I just wouldn't use Linux without webmin. Red Hat for us is like $50.00 / year (education price). That is money well spent. So, until the next release of Ubuntu, we're a Red Hat house!

USB drives in Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper

I've had terrible luck getting usb drives to mount properly in Ubuntu 6.06 server. They show up on the desktop, but are inaccessible. I can't mount, since they say they are mounted, but I can not unmount either (some kind of pmount error).

I had a friend point me to a work around for now. First, exit from Gnome. Then login to Xterm (you can pick that option from the login options at the login screen). Now use the standard mount command "mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb" (Remember to first create the "usb" folder in the /mnt directory, and you will have to find the actual device using fdisk -l)

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that one since I had a harder time than usually figuring it out!

What went wrong with PALM?

Ok, I love PALM devices. They just work and I've built up a pile of cool programs I love to carry with me. that said, my life is changing, and I need to have better and better mobile access to my data and the Internet. To that end I got a LifeDrive for a great clearance price expecting to do both in spades.

Well, some of it worked. If I'm close to a WiFi point I can do amazing things with RD and EzRemote (http://www.pdaeveryday.com/). Also connecting to file servers is a snap with WiFile Pro 2.12 (http://www.handshigh.com/html/wifile.html). However, Internet connectivity is really, really poor.

Blazer (the built in browser), crashes the LD all the time after long use. It also does not work very well for many sites. I can't seem to buy Netfront, Xiino seems stalled, and Opra Mini isn't really native. I'm hoping for Universe 3.0 to be released and solve all my problems, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd love to see someone port Minimo to the PALM.

Also, I chaff at the fact I have to purchase an IM client. There are so many great open source clients for Mac or PC, why not on the PALM? I've very worried PALM Source's decision to go with Linux may have tanked this once mighty OS. (I must be having a sad night)

Back from the JTC and too much in my head

So I'm back from the JTC in Alberta. Great event, with too much to talk about. I'm going to try to be part of a one-on-one educational initiative at our school. We'll see how it comes together, but I believe this might help some marginalized students. Perhaps the non-academic stream, like science 14/24 or something.

I'm thinking tablets or notebooks. Also some probes and associated hardware. I'll also need a good online educational backbone. Of course Moodle jumps to mind. We'll let you know how it goes.