Moviefone

For times and locations of films, dial 305-777-FILM (3456). It works in any area code. You can also use the moviefone.com web site.

Digital cameras

In order to increase resolution, some cameras use "honeycomb CCDs" rather than the regular rectangular positioning. New "pro" cameras don't have the shutter lag that is "the most annoying aspect of the digital camera" according to John Dvorack. He also says "You will want a new digital camera in two years no matter what you buy." (From pcmag, Nov. 11, 2003, p. 61)

IM archives

For legal purposes it may be necessary to archive all IM interactions. This article lists some products that can do that. I use Trillium and it keeps a transcript of every interaction. I have found that useful on a number of occasions.

PCWorld.com - IM Poses Legal, Personnel Problems

The Chronicle: Daily news: 10/17/2003 -- 02

Harvard is offering permanent web-based e-mail accounts to its alumni. The Chronicle: Daily news: 10/17/2003 -- 02 (restricted access)

Videoconferencing Service from Internet2

$2,000 per year for 300 port hours of multipoint videoconferencing. Additional time is 10 cents per minute per port.

H.323 Videoconferencing Service of the Internet2 Commons

Wireless VoIP at Dartmouth

Syllabus News reports that Dartmouth is rolling out campus-wide wireless Voice over IP access using PocketPC PDAs.

Template for Flash training material

The Center for Research in Medical Education is working on a template for on-line training. It uses flash. This is an outgrowth of the Harvey Lab. My contact there is Richard Bambarran. Mitral Regurgitation: Introduction

SFX Lunch and Learn

The Richter Library Web Services Dream Design has some info about SFX in their June 27 entry of their weblog: Richter Library Web Services Dream Design: June 2003 Archives

PowerPoint Slide Sizes/Resolutions

There are two places to set slide sizes/resolutions in PowerPoint 2002 (XP). In Slide Show > Set Up Show... you can set the resolution to 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, or the current screen resolution. This is used when displaying the slide show and is stored in the PowerPoint program, not in the PowerPoint slide show, I think. In File > Page Setup you can set the width and height of the slide. This is stored in the individual slide shows. This second location has two interesting functions.

1. You can create vertical slides for 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Some faculty create their slide shows this way, not for projection, but for creation of overhead transparencies. Set "Slides sized for:" to "Letter Paper (8.5x11 in)" and set the orientation to Portrait. You can still apply designs, so you will end up with very professional transparencies.

2. When converting a slide show to stream using Impatica for PowerPoint, the page size determines the size of the impaticized file. The following numbers are from the Impatica web site and create a file size that will display the entire slide and the control strip at the bottom on the display size indicated.

For 1024 x 768 displays, set the page size to 10" x 7.5".
For 800 x 600 displays, set the page size to 7.5" x 5.6".
For 640 x 480 displays, set the page size to 6" x 4.5".

Howard Strauss

If you ever get the change to hear Howard, DO SO! He is a featured speaker at Syllabus Fall 2003 and it would almost be worth going just to hear him. His current title is Manager of Technology Strategy and Outreach at Princeton University. He talks fast, jumps all over the place, and is able to communicate a vision.

Classroom polls

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~pebbles/classroom/index.html

Use of wireless handhelds to perform realtime polls of students during lectures in a Chemistry class.

Wireless access on campus

We need completely wireless connectivity as more students have it at home. That would include all interior and exterior spaces.

In the same article quoted below, Bartel says, "Students expect to see on campus what is in their homes. If it is not in the university, people will start wondering about the credibility of the institution." (p. 14)

Laptops, PDAs, and TabletPCs

What is the usage of traditional laptops, PDAs, and TabletPCs at USM? How is it changing over time? What are we doing to take educational advantage of this change?

Charles R. Bartel, from Carnegie Mellon, says that he sees laptops "the vast majority, PDAs are probably coming up in numbers, and Tablets are probably in third place at this point." (Syllabus, October 2003, p. 12)