Archive for February, 2010

• Home Access Problem – Please help!

  Date: 2010.02.21 | Category: becta, home access | Response: 8

  When I’m visiting schools lately and talking about the home access scheme and how great it will be I’m always slapped across the face(baby powder included) by one huge, big, stinky question.

  I try to encourage schools to allow pupils to bring their laptop in from home, when I ask the school:

  Me: How are you going to support kids bringing their “home access laptop” in?

  Teacher: “What about the kids who don’t get a laptop from the scheme?”

  Me: Erm…??

  Please help me answer the question!

  Nearly all of the schools I work with have good enough wireless coverage to support this so it makes sense, right?  We have technical solutions in place for antivirus, updates and other technical risks..

  PS This is a pretty stealthy site but worth knowing about.

• Installing Etherpad on Windows (CYGWIN)

  Date: 2010.02.18 | Category: etherpad, guide, howto | Response: 21

  The new documentation for how to deploy Etherpad Lite on Windows is available here — You should refer to this.

  BELOW IS THE OLD DOCUMENTATION FOR ETHERPAD FULL

  Grab the latest Etherpad .zip from http://etherpad.org and extract to c:\etherpad

  Download and install Cygwin from http://www.cygwin.com/ – use defaults

  Download Scala from http://www.scala-lang.org/sites/default/files/linuxsoft_archives/downloads/distrib/files/scala-2.7.7.final.zip and extract to c:\etherpad\scala-2.7.7

  Download and install MySQL server from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
  Create a MySQL database “etherpad” and a database user “etherpad”

  Download the MySQL connector from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mirror.php?id=402367 and extract to c:\etherpad\mysql-connector-java-5.1.16

  Download Java from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-6u25-download-346242.html and extract to c:\etherpad\JDK1.6_23

  Open Cygwin (doubleclick on icon)

  Change directory to Etherpad:

  cd /cygdrive/c/Etherpad/

  Copy the Libraries from one folder to another (temp fix):

  cp /cygdrive/c/Etherpad/infrastructure/lib/* /cygdrive/c/Etherpad/infrastructure/ace/lib

  Begin your build (if this errors check your task manager and check there are no java instances running that may cause a conflict):

  bin/build.sh

  Copy the default config to the correct location:

  cp etherpad/etc/etherpad.localdev-default.properties etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties

  Edit etherpad/etc/etherpad.local.properties and set
  etherpad.SQL_JDBC_URL = jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/etherpad
  etherpad.SQL_PASSWORD = yoursqlpassword
  etherpad.SQL_USERNAME = etherpad
  etherpad.adminPass = somestrongpassword
  topdomains = yourhostname.com,localhost

  You can now run etherpad via:

  bin/run.sh

  Access your Etherpad server at:

  http://localhost:9000/

  BELOW IS THE OLD DOCUMENTATION THAT I AM LEAVING FOR THE SAKE OF HISTORY AND FOR REFERENCE. DAVE. WE CAME A LONG WAY DAVE.. IT’S BEEN EMOTIONAL :~

  Below is my documentation that is sketchy, you should follow this guide instead.

  In Windows:
  - Install Java, Scala, MySQL, mysqlconnector and Mercurial under Windows.
  - JAVA should be set to the java executable.
  - JAVA_HOME should be set to the main jdk directory.
  - SCALA should be set to the scala executable.
  - SCALA_HOME should be set to the main scala distribution directory.
  - PATH should contain $JAVA, $SCALA, and mysql
  - MYSQL_CONNECTOR_JAR should be set to the mysql-connector JAR file included in the mysql-connector download.

  - Install Cygwin.

  These Files are needed in /etherpad/trunk/ since the archive holds files both in the etherpad and the infrastructure subfolder.

  1. Make a backup of your bin folder
  2. Extract the contents of the above .Rar file to the bin folder
  3. Run bin/rebuildjar.sh
  4. After installation run bin/run-local.sh
  Full docs coming later. Post questions as comments and I should be able to answer.
  All props goto Jutsi for discovering the solution. Feeling confident without the full docs? Follow the unix docs for config settings and you should be good to go.

  See also:
  Etherpad-win repository all props to Gyokuro:  http://bitbucket.org/gyokuro/etherpad-win/overview/
  Etherpad-win wiki all props to Gyokuro: http://bitbucket.org/gyokuro/etherpad-win/wiki/)

• Let the recording begin!

  Date: 2010.02.17 | Category: camcorder, camera, ICT, review | Response: 0

  
  

  
  This week we made a start on recording footage for the digital camcorder reviews. Above you can see the cameras we are using.

  We have designed semi scientific tests to gather our information, below you can see a selection of cameras lined up to catch a shot. Spot the obvious mistakes..
  
  Some tests were so scientific and just required a box, a camera, a tripod and a clumbsy operator..

• Samson USB Mic is super nice!

  Date: 2010.02.17 | Category: ICT, mic, review | Response: 0

  

  I have used loads of non USB professional condenser mics before, this is the first one I have instantly fallen in love with!! I want.. Check out the audio quality.. I recorded to Audacity then normalized, that’s it.. no compression etc!

  More details on the mic here

• The cameras have arrived!

  Date: 2010.02.15 | Category: camcorder, camera, ICT, review | Response: 0

  
  But which will be best for your classroom?

  Over the next few weeks we will be releasing short (less than 10 minutes) reviews of each camera. Details can be found here

  
  Here is the list of what we have ready to review:
  
  

  1. Kodak Zi6 (£90)
  2. Kodak Zi8 (£120)
  3. Toshiba Camelio P30 (£115)
  4. Apple iPod Nano 8GB 5Th generation (£105)
  5. Kodak Zx1 (£70)
  6. Sanyo VPC CG10EBK / Xacti (£145)
  7. Samsung U10 (£83)
  8. Creative Vado (£54)
  9. Creative Vado HD (£90)
  10. Flip Video Ultra High Definition Camcorder 8GB (£120)
  11. Flip Video Ultra Camcorder 2nd Generation 4GB (£90)

  The Veho VCC 002, Veho VCC-001, Sony MHS-PM1 & Mustek DV316L never actually arrived, we will try get them ordered ASAP so we can review them.