Paul writes:

Richard,
Tivo is working flawlessly. I log in, choose what should be recorded, receive a confirmation e-mail, and wait. Then, after airing, I connect via wired network, download the show from the Tivo box using Toast, and burn a DVD. In the case of Bush's war, I needed a double-layer DVD, but then, all was well. Very cool! Thanks for making this happen.

This is great news. The next question is how to scale this to the entire faculty. Paul had to update to the latest Toast in order for this to work, and I don't think we're about to purchase a copy of Toast or ask them to copy large digital video files across the network. The current plan is to move the TiVo and DVD-R to an accessible classroom and skip the network transfer step.

tags: tivo, instructionalvideo

Working in AppleScript again for the first time in many years, I have written a series of scripts that I hope will combine into a single application to partially automate fall laptop prep. Each fall, we collect and maintain 350 teacher and laptop students, a grossly time-consuming effort. Many configuration tasks involve opening an application and changing settings -- difficult to do quickly and with consistently high accuracy. AppleScript has the ability to program changes in configuration.

As quirky as AppleScript is, it provides an ideal bridge between OS X GUI user friendliness and command-line power. Partly, this is because AppleScript can call execute shell and Perl commands, so one has the power of all three languages available. For example, the script collects the user's password from a GUI window and then calls the shell commands cp to copy a missing driver from our file server to the local system and lpadmin to add the printers. One includes the password in the shell statement using simple text concatenation. Same for the Entourage configuration -- capture the user name from AppleScript's "name of current user" and then pass it to the Entourage configuration statement. Finally, you can package the entire thing into an executable application for use in-house or distribution to users. Way cool.

The first script turns off automatic VLAN detection for Cisco Clean Access agent, a feature that causes processor utilization to spike every few seconds, reducing battery life. The second automatically adds 20 or so SMB printers to the Macintosh using lpadmin, a useful post-restore action. A third configures Microsoft Entourage for our mail server. Next, I would like to set the user's server shortcuts, check for proper antivirus operation, and check Acrobat Reader version.

Please note: these scripts are currently under development (they're not yet finished) and contain Catlin Gabel-specific settings. Please use them to inform your own script-writing. They won't work as-is on your network. Many thanks to William M. Smith for a couple key tips. His Entourage/Exchange setup script is terrific if you're looking for that function -- better generalized than what I have provided below.

-- Cisco Clean Access patch for CCAAgent 4.1.3.0
-- Disables automatic VLAN detection

do shell script "whoami"
set theUser to the result

do shell script "cp /applications/ccaagent.app/contents/resources/setting.plist \"/users/" & theUser & "/library/application support/cisco systems/ccaagent/preference.plist\""

tell application "System Events"
set the thePListPath to "/Users/" & theUser & "/Library/Application Support/Cisco Systems/CCAAgent/preference.plist"
tell application "System Events"
tell property list file thePListPath
tell contents
set previousValue to value
set value to ({|VlanDetectInterval|:"0"} & previousValue)
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell

display alert "Auto VLAN detection turned off!"

-- Adds Catlin Gabel printers

-- get desired divisions
set theDivisions to {"LS", "MS", "US", "All"}
choose from list theDivisions with prompt "Which division?"
set theDivision to result as text

-- get user name and password
do shell script "whoami"
set theUser to the result
set thePassword to text returned of (display dialog "User's network password" default answer "" with hidden answer)

-- configure lists of printers, names, and driver file locations
-- need to add Graceland
set lsPrinters to {"LS2ND3RD", "LSLAB-BW", "LSLIB-BW", "LSLIB-C", "LSOFFICE", "LSSPANISH", "LSFRENCH", "LSJAPANESE"}
set msPrinters to {"MSLIB-C", "MSMOBILEBLUE", "MSOFFICE", "MSSECRETGAR", "MSUPPERHALL"}
set usPrinters to {"USART-BW", "USDANT08", "USDANT12", "USDANTMAIN", "USDANTMAIN2", "USLIB-BW", "USLIBLAB-C", "USMATHMAIN", "USML2", "USML5", "USOFFICE", "USSCIMAIN", "USVLMLC-CPY", "USVLMMAIN"}

set lsPrinterNames to {"LS 2nd grade", "LS Comp Lab B&W", "LS Library B&W - Duplexing", "LS Library Color - Duplexing", "LS Office - Duplexing", "LS Spanish", "LS French", "LS Japanese"}
set msPrinterNames to {"MS Library Color - Duplexing", "MS Mobile Blue", "MS Office", "MS Secret Garden - Duplexing", "MS Upper Hall"}
set usPrinterNames to {"US Art B&S", "US Dant 9 - Duplexing", "US Dant 12 - Duplexing", "US Dant Main - Duplexing", "US Dant 10", "US Library B&W - Duplexing", "US Comp Lab Color - Duplexing", "US Math - Duplexing", "US Modern Lang 2 - Duplexing", "US Modern Lang 5 - Duplexing", "US Office - Duplexing", "US Science Main", "US Vollum Learning Center Copier", "US Vollum Main - Duplexing"}

set lsPrinterDrivers to {"HP LaserJet 2200.gz", "HP LaserJet 4250.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP Color LaserJet 4650.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 4MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 1320 Series.gz"}
set msPrinterDrivers to {"HP Color LaserJet 4600.gz", "HP LaserJet 2100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 5MP.gz", "HP LaserJet 1320 Series.gz"}
set usPrinterDrivers to {"HP LaserJet P2015.gz", "HP LaserJet 2200.gz", "HP LaserJet 4350.gz", "HP LaserJet 4000 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP Color LaserJet 4600.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 2300.gz", "HP LaserJet 4250.gz", "HP LaserJet 2100 Series.gz", "RICOH Aficio MP 161", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz", "HP LaserJet 4100 Series.gz"}

-- copy Ricoh driver from installer folder to system PPD library
tell application "Finder"
open location "smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@cgsfiles01/installers"
end tell
do shell script "cp \"/Volumes/Active/RICOH Aficio MP 161\" \"/Library/printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/\""

-- set range of printers to install
if theDivision is equal to "ls" then
set thePrinters to lsPrinters
set thePrinterNames to lsPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to lsPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "ms" then
set thePrinters to msPrinters
set thePrinterNames to msPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to msPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "us" then
set thePrinters to usPrinters
set thePrinterNames to usPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to usPrinterDrivers
end if
if theDivision is equal to "All" then
set thePrinters to lsPrinters & msPrinters & usPrinters
set thePrinterNames to lsPrinterNames & msPrinterNames & usPrinterNames
set thePrinterDrivers to lsPrinterDrivers & msPrinterDrivers & usPrinterDrivers
end if

-- loop through printers
repeat with x from 1 to the number of items in thePrinters
do shell script "/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p " & item x of thePrinters & " -E -v smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@CATLIN/CGSPRINT01/" & item x of thePrinters & " -P \"/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/" & item x of thePrinterDrivers & "\" -D \"" & item x of thePrinterNames & "\" -o printer-is-shared=false"
end repeat

-- do shell script "/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p ITVLMOFC -E -v smb://" & theUser & ":" & thePassword & "@CATLIN/CGSPRINT01/ITVLMOFC -P \"/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/HP Laserjet 4000 Series.gz\" -D \"IT Vollum Office\" -o printer-is-shared=false"

display alert "Printers successfully added!"

-- Configure Entourage

tell application "System Events"
set theUser to name of current user
set fullName to full name of current user
end tell
set thePassword to text returned of (display dialog "User's network password" default answer "" with hidden answer)

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"

make new Exchange account with properties {name:"Catlin Gabel", Exchange server settings:{address:"https://webmail.catlin.edu/exchange", requires SSL:"true"}, Exchange ID:theUser, domain:"catlin", full name:fullName, email address:theUser & "@catlin.edu", LDAP server:"cgsdc00", search base:"ou=catlin users,dc=catlin,dc=edu", public folder server settings:{address:"https://webmail.catlin.edu/public", requires SSL:"true"}}

set enabled of schedule "Send & Receive All" to scheduled

end tell

tags: applescript, cisco, cleanaccess, smb, printer, entourage, exchange, deployment

A teacher came in today with a Quicktime file that had sound but no audio track. How so, do you say? The video and audio were "muxed" (short for "multiplexed') into a single track. While I cannot comment on the advantages of muxing, iMovie couldn't import the file, even though a different copy of iMovie first created the file (by exporting at full quality).

I enjoy Googling for unique words, because you get results so quickly. Google led us to a free utility called MPEG Streamclip, which not only can separate the video and audio tracks of a muxed file, it also purports to convert many other formats, including flv, avi, YouTube (via URL), iPhone, and QuickTime transport files. This looks like required equipment for film teachers and others who use digital video.

A teacher would like to move his annual seventh grade trip planning project from paper to Google Earth. The basic idea is that each student plans all of the details of a trip to an international destination of his or her choice. The report includes maps, itinerary, a description of each stop, a detailed trip budget, and general overview of the destination.

Google Earth promises to add value to this project at several levels. Earth's core functionality is mapping -- it provides an unlimited number of maps, at a variety of zoom levels, of every stop on the trip. Unlike paper maps, you can even display a view of a couple of blocks in a city and produce maps for remote locations that would otherwise be hard to find. The flyover tool provides a sense of scale difficult to communicate by any other means, as the viewer zooms from one location to another. Believe it or not, about a quarter of the families actually take the trip that the student has designed (there's an authentic project for you!). It's a lot easier to share this project with others in digital form. It's even possible that the family would be able to take the student's work with them on a smart phone!

We found that .kmz files can store nearly all of the information the teacher wants students to include. The placemark Info window apparently accepts HTML, because we found ourselves inserting links, paragraph tags, and even images embedded from other locations on the web. Earth's print function automatically compiles the placemarks in a folder and produces step-by-step output suitable for sharing with others on paper if desired. Students could even store their bibliographies in the KMZ file, perhaps in the last placemark on the tour. Itinerary can be included by naming each placemark with the trip day. In this manner, all of the information the teacher wants students to research is embedded right in the most relevant place in the tour.

For kicks, we tested the concept that a KMZ file would be useful on a smartphone. We emailed a sample KMZ file to my Blackberry, but it didn't open from Mail. Then, I uploaded it to a web site instead and accessed it from the Blackberry browser -- then it worked great! Google Maps for Blackberry opened the KMZ file and displayed all of the placemarks in Rome right there. We didnt' test whether the placemark details were retained but were sufficiently impressed that Maps could display the Earth file in a useful way. This feature could be useful for a lot of other applications for when you want to take with you a number of locations that you have looked up ahead of time.


tags: googleearth, blackberry, globaled

If Microsoft makes the Office icons any more translucent, I think they may just disappear! Wait a minute ... could that be their strategy?

Last summer, I searched for a free, OS X network backup utility. I want free, so that we may easily adopt it here at school without additional costs or licensing bureaucracy.

A teacher today alerted me to the fact that Silverkeeper was not overwriting existing files with newer versions as it should. In other words, if you created a file and then updated it later, Silverkeeper would not copy over the updated version. Problem!

I wrote LaCie and received the following reply:

Network shares are a problem due to how OS X deals with dual fork files that Mac OS Extended file system relies on – if network connection does not fully support the Mac file system, you end up with two files on the network share for each native file on the Mac computer. One hidden with file permission/privilege and other info; one visible file with file data.

Therefore, unless you understand the limitations of your network connection, you should not rely on SilverKeeper for this type of backup.

Instead, as a workaround, you can use sparse disc images located on the network share and mounted locally to the Mac running SilverKeeper. This method assures a proper Mac OS Extended formatted Destiantion that fully supports the Mac file system. this is briefly mentioned in the release notes located inside the SilverKeeper application folder.

the alternative is to use a backup program that makes proprietary backup archives.

I still don't understand why an invisible permissions file would prevent Silverkeeper from determining that the copy on the server is older and overwriting it. Nonetheless, LaCie acknowledges that this is a known problem, and I cast off for a new solution.

PSyncX: Has something changed in Leopard? It could not find "make" on my computer to compile the Perl file copy library it uses.

iBackup: I am trying this now. Looks good so far.

These two sites were most informative:
Complete, free Mac backup
Mac Backup Software Harmful

Reading Dave Cormier on "free beer" as applied to the use of open source software in education, I was struck by the concept of unwillingly beta testing someone else's software. We often joke that we are unwillingly "beta testing" Vista, Leopard, or GMail, implying that it's ironic for the user community to fulfill a role that a software company should rightly fulfill with its employees. It just struck me today (why so long, I hesitate to guess) that open source software does exactly the same thing, except that the OSS community is more up-front about it. Both proprietary and open-source communities have made user testing a standard part of their business models, both set up mechanisms to gather feedback, and both stand to make money from your testing (though proprietary software makers tend to put more emphasis on the money part). May we grouse about discovering problems in buggy proprietary software that we paid for and then willingly embrace the same role for free, community-authored software. Yes, I suppose?

My parents bought our son David a SMaL-based digital camera from Oregon Scientific. I love the price point ($60) for a digital camera for our six-year old, giving him the ability to document experiences and tell stories about them without risking the loss of an expensive camera. One catch is the file format. Some time ago, I banished Microsoft Windows from the home, concluding that such an ill-behaved and resource-hogging operating system did not deserve a place in our home. Unfortunately, the default photo transfer method is a small .exe that runs straight off the camera. We needed a different solution that would work with either Ubuntu or Mac OS.

The files are accessed easily enough, as the camera mounts as a USB mass storage device. They are in RAW format, which I understand contains the data captured by the CCD card. I thought to myself, "hey, Photoshop opens raw" but then discovered that RAW formats vary considerably from one manufacturer to the next. I didn't make much progress until I started looking for SMaL RAW converters. Then, I found a number of converters, most notably through the web site raw-converter.com. They have a nifty search tool that allows you to specify the manufacturer and model camera you have (or at least come close) and get a list of links to available converters.

For the Oregon Scientific SMaL-based camera we now have, I have found a number of useful leads but nothing yet that will quickly batch process a number of files on my Mac. FDR Tools is designed for high dynamic range photo compositing, but it also allows one to convert SMaL RAW files to JPGs or TIFFs individually. Dcraw seems like the daddy of raw converters, a linux tool that is incorporated into a number of other applications. I'm not quite yet ready to compile a Linux application and go command-line, but that may prove the easiest in the long-term. PV2 seems like a good option for Windows users. JPGind looks promising -- it's a command-line tool but offers binary installers for three platforms to make getting started easier for people like me.

This has been a fun vacation project. Ideally, I will find a command-line or GUI batch converter soon and be able to suck my son's photos in without much trouble.

Update 1/14/08: GimpShop + ufRaw for Mac worked! Now I need to automate a workflow for correcting the image levels.

I am thinking about the ability and timing of our users to move to Leopard. Here are some specific items to think about:

No more Printer Setup Utility. Use the new Preferences panel instead. Windows printing seems to have become more challenging, but we have improved our ability to script the addition of Windows printers.

Printing duplex and landscape don't appear to work with Samba printers.

It has become a lot harder to find a network volume after you have connected to it -- no more desktop icon, and now OS X connects all the way to the share instead of mounting the network share.

The default download location is now Home -> Downloads. This will throw a few people, though you can change it.

Putting together a couple of other web resources, here is a step-by-step guide to adding Samba printers in Leopard. Our Windows print server is on a different subnet from many of our users, so the printers don't show up automatically. This method also passes user credentials to the print server. Next step: to automate this process so that we can add multiple printers in one step.

1. Open System Preferences -> Print & Fax.



2. Select to add a new printer.



3. The first time you do this, add the Advanced button to the add printer toolbar. Ctrl-click on the toolbar, select "Customize Toolbar...", and then drag the Advanced button onto the toolbar.





4. Select Advanced then specify the following printer settings.

Type: Windows

Device: Another Device

URL: smb://username:password@domain/printserver/printername, where username is your network username, password is your password, domain is your Windows domain, printserver is the name of your print server, and printername is the name of the printer share.

Name: the printer name

Location (optional): the physical location of the printer, e.g. "Vollum common space"

Print Using: Select a driver to use -> search for the correct model.

Select the Add button to save this printer. If prompted, select Duplexing. That should do it!



Update 1/8/2008: Thank you for the many positive comments to this post. It appears that print options such as duplex and landscape orientation are not working at our site. Does anyone know whether this is a known bug or something we may correct?

Update 3/7/2008: Looks like print options are fixed with Mac OS 10.5.2. Hooray!

We have a 1:1 student laptop program in our upper school. For the past few years, the school has offered a photography class that is completely digital. The cost of this program is tens of thousands less than would be the case with a darkroom-based facility, never mind the risk of teaching an obsolete skill in a rapidly changing field. One sore point of the program is the cost of Adobe Photoshop software. Efforts to use iPhoto or The Gimp have not been successful, due to the high quality and name recognition that Photoshop carries. But the cost! Even at the great educational discounts that we get through OETC, each family has to put up at least $250 for Photoshop, more than the average book fee for a text-based class.

This year, with the introduction of media arts, the number of families requiring Adobe products at least doubled. On a tip from another school, we investigated the purchase of a high-volume license. It worked out perfectly. A quick calculation demonstrates the savings. If the 70 families enrolled in these classes purchased Photoshop at $250 a piece, they would pay nearly $18,000 total. To buy a 500-user license for the school costs about $5,000. Sure, these funds come from the school instead of the families, but paying additional, high fees beyond tuition can be quite a burden. Of course we should do it, but how may we afford such an expense ourselves? By charging each family $50, they pay less than the book charges for an average class, we pull in enough revenue to offset most of the licensing fee, and other students and teachers in the school get to use the software as well. It's a win-win-win.

We decided to buy the current version without a software maintenance agreement. This required a committment from both tech staff and teachers that we would skip the next one or two upgrades from Adobe. Otherwise, the licensing costs would be excessive. I love this approach, because it underscores the primacy of student work and teaching craft over having the latest tool. The teachers came up with other good reasons, too. Stabilizing software versions makes books they purchase last longer and allows them to more fully mature curricula for each version. In other words, the knowledge the teachers and students develop in each version can become deeper the longer you keep that version around. Having the latest, greatest features is less important when you have fully mastered the version you have.

We extended our list of Exchange-Outlook-Entourage complaints today:

- OWA for non-IE browsers can only display six simultaneous appointments. Why display more than six appointments at one time? For resource scheduling, in this case, school buses. At the same time, OWA displays more than six in the week view, which is displayed as a list instead of a calendar.

- Entourage chokes when it attempts to synchronize large public folders, such as the school Master Calendar. In its attempt to load hundreds of appointments, the application times out, and the rainbow wheel takes over. I don't know about you, but I don't consider a few hundred appointments to be a lot of data for computers these days!

- Outlook treats multiple calendars as completely separate objects. It does not have the modern calendar feature of being able to turn calendar category layers on and off at will.

- Moderated public folders are very touchy. If you manage to set up a moderated folder with email notification correctly, don't touch it! If you do so, it may break.

- Microsoft is reducing development on public folders in an attempt to move users to SharePoint to share resources.

It is looking increasingly likely that we will migrate to a new calendar solution that handles community calendars and resource scheduling properly. What will it be? If the calendar solution can make iCal feeds available, then in theory Outlook 2007 users will be able to subscribe to those calendars, allowing us to make this change without taking our users away from their familiar PIM. What calendar solution will our power-users take on? Does Sunbird have what it takes? How can I create a moderated community calendar using iCal and Sunbird?

Mozilla Sunbird just keeps getting better -- now up to version 0.7, running without error, and starting to look nicer, too. It's my preferred solution for maintaining our family calendar among multiple computers. If you use Thunderbird, try the Lightning calendar extension.

I've started testing Leopard a little bit, so that our most enthusiastic users may install it within a relatively short timeframe. So far, I am running into two issues. Our Cisco Clean Access system is not playing well with Leopard. Cisco is apparently planning to release a patch within about eight days to address this. I am also having problems finding Windows printers. I can see the Catlin domain, but no servers appear in the Windows printer browser. I would use the advanced method of manually specifying server and share name if I could figure out how to get to the Advanced printer selection options in Leopard! Onward we press ...

I received Leopard today and started to install it on a test machine, yet I am preparing to be underwhelmed. How much more can a software company improve an operating system while the market demands doodads and eye candy? That Apple's play is only a revenue generator is clear if you consider the top five new features of the operating system: automated backup, multiple desktops, video chat background, email stationary, and document preview. Yes, there's something there, but it's not going to tranform anyone's life. Social software is far more innovative and transformative.

Give me an operating system that boots up in three seconds, never crashes, has no security holes, and is totally intuitive to navigate. I will gladly spend for this. OS X comes closest, especially for ease of use. Ubuntu is a near second, though it's still very rough around the edges in places. Windows is about sixteenth, on account of difficulty of navigation and days required for maintenance.

The operating system is over. Give me the social web.