Archive for the ‘IT Infrastructure’ Category

Buzzword alert: Virtualization

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Virtualization is one of the hottest technology topics these days. Most people have probably heard about it in the context of Apple's switch to Intel processors and the release of Parallels Desktop for Mac. Parallels allows you to run Windows applications on an Intel Mac by starting up a full ...

Back to class

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Starting tomorrow morning I'll be in three days of classes at the U. of MN working toward an ITIL foundation certificate. The foundation course will cover all the basics of ITIL, and I'm hoping it will help me as I continue to rethink how we deliver IT services in my ...

VBrick video distribution

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

I'm at a meeting of local ed tech people today learning about VBrick. VBrick is a video distribution system that the Edina Public Schools purchased recently to replace their aging system of racks of VCRs. They passed a bond in their community that funded the system, including hundreds of LCD ...

Windows on Mac with Apple’s blessing

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006

For most of us who use Macs, OS X is the reason why. Sure, the hardware is beautiful to look at, but that's just eye candy without having powerful applications available. So when Apple announced their transition to Intel chips last year and the buzz began about the possibility of ...

Paul Nelson: K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

Paul Nelson is Technology Director at Riverdale High School in Portland, OR and co-creator of the K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project. K-12 LTSP is a really cool way to take older machines and breathe new life into them by connecting them to a powerful server that takes over the bulk ...

ITIL: An enterprise planning framework

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

I was listening to an IT Conversations podcast of Michael Disabato's talk from the Burton Group Catalyst Conference recently and discovered a fantastic resource. ITIL is the IT Infrastructural Library and the ITIL Website describes it as:ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library) is essentially a series of documents that are used ...

Doing statewide assessments online

Tuesday, September 13th, 2005

I got an interesting letter from the Minnesota Department of Education last week. Here's a snippet:During the next legislative session, representatives from the Minnesota Department of Education will present a plan and cost estimates for improving the technology infrastructure in Minnesota schools. This plan will be based on the requirements ...

SanDisk’s DRM-enabled flash drive

Sunday, July 10th, 2005

I saw literally hundreds of different products in the vendor hall at NECC. Way too many, in fact, to have much of a look at many of them. One that caught my eye was a new product SanDisk was promoting. Their Cruzer Freedom USB flash drive: is a uniquely designed USB ...

FirstClass software for teacher collaboration

Monday, June 20th, 2005

I always learn at least as much in my conference conversations as I do at the sessions themselves. At TNT I spoke with Craig Nansen about some of the things he's been doing in Minot, ND. I also met Darin King, Tech Coordinator in Grand Forks. Both Craig and Darin ...

New version of Debian released

Tuesday, June 7th, 2005

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 was released yesterday. My school district has standardized on Debian for several key applications such as Request Tracker and Moodle over the last year. While it may not have the glitzy, commercial appeal of RedHat or Suse, it's rock-solid. The new version brings all the major components ...

Choosing a Content Management System

Friday, May 20th, 2005

Do you need a content management system (CMS) for your school or district Web site? Absolutely. In a world where Plone, Drupal, Mambo, and many other free and open source solutions exist, you would need to convince me that you shouldn't use a CMS. It's clear to me that individually ...

Ticketing systems for tech support (and more)

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005

Over the past year our district's tech support department has come to rely on our ticketing system more and more. We use Request Tracker, a free and open source, Web-based tech support product that has Web and email interfaces. What began as an experiment has become an integral part of ...