Category Archives: General

Getting serious about backing up (Part I)

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We got our first family computer last fall, a 24″ Apple iMac. It had been running like a champ until a strange hardware problem popped up a few weeks ago. It didn’t boot properly a few times, and when I investigated further I found that the system was reporting that the hard drive was starting to get flakey. Following a trip to the local Apple Store, I was back home with a new 750-GB drive (replaced under warranty). Fortunately, I had a full system backup and didn’t lose a single kilobyte of data. Here’s what I’m using as my personal backup strategy. Perhaps it will be useful for someone who runs across this post.

I’ve been busily ripping my CD collection into FLAC and AAC formats since I got the new computer. That’s well over 100 GB right there. In addition, I’ve got a complete archive of every podcast I’ve ever produced with the full uncompressed, unedited audio; some ripped DVDs (DVDs that I own, of course); Final Cut Pro projects; every digital picture I’ve ever taken; and a boatload of software. All told, I’ve got almost 450 GB of data on that disk. Backing up to a few DVDs isn’t going to cut it.

I bought a 500-GB Western Digital MyBook last year which seemed huge at the time. Currently I’m doing weekly full system backups to it with SuperDuper!, an awesome backup and drive imaging tool for OS X. SuperDuper! can be used for free to create a bootable backup to an external drive, or, if you pony up $27.95, it will do a “smart update” on subsequent backups that copies only changed files. That saves a ton of time when you’ve got hundreds of gigs to backup. When I got my iMac back from the Apple Store I did a SuperDuper! “restore” back to the new hard drive, and I was back in business.

I decided that I didn’t want to have the external My Book plugged in 100% of the time so I upgraded my wireless access point to an Apple Airport Extreme because I wanted to use the hard drive sharing feature. It works really well, but I’ve only got a 100-Mbit switch on my home network. That’s a far cry from the Firewire 800 connection that I use when it’s plugged in to the iMac directly. Feeling the need for speed, I just bought a Netgear JGS524 24-port Gigabit switch from Newegg.com ($180 after rebate). That should make the Airport Extreme’s USB 2.0 connection the bottleneck instead of my network.

I’ve shelled out a few hundred bucks at this point, but I’ve got great protection from a system failure or accidental deletion. I’m well on my way to a complete solution, but I haven’t dealt with the tornado or fire scenario. I’m working on that now, and I’ll give the details in Part II.

Reclaiming fair use

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I’m a huge Creative Commons advocate, and I use a CC license on pretty much everything I publish online. As much as I love the Commons, I think it’s important to remember (and teach) that we’re not without some rights when it comes to traditionally licensed works. (Here’s where I insert my note that Creative Commons licensed works are not copyright-free, they’re simply licensed under relatively permissive licenses in contrast with most commercially produced works.)

I found a couple great resources recently that I’m looking forward to sharing with people in my school district. The first from the Center for Social Media called Recut, Reframe, Recycle focuses on the use of copyrighted materials in online videos and argues that many of them could be legal. The authors include a list of 45 videos in nine fair use-protected categories. Believe it or not, there are shades of grey here. We shouldn’t automatically reject student work that utilizes copyrighted works.

The second piece is a video I found at the Stanford Law School by Bucknell University Professor Eric Faden entitled A Fair(y) Use Tale. Professor Faden thumbs his nose at The Mouse brilliantly by remixing clips from Disney movies to teach about copyright and fair use.

I’m adding these resources to my copyright and fair use arsenal. I hope someone else will find them useful too.

I’m not dead

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Where does the time go? Could it really be that my last blog post was on Dec 11th? Yikes. OK, I’m getting back in the saddle.

I’m an enabler

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I hear my share of horror stories from educators all over the country about innovative things they’d like to try with their students, but are unable to because of overly restrictive policies from their IT departments. Whether it’s blocked URLs or an unwillingness to load a particular piece of software on a teacher’s computer, IT departments have a lot of power to “regulate” the educational environment.

The IT department is an easy target, but most of the IT directors I know are doing their best to provide a stable computing environment for all the students and staff. The districts I know tend to run pretty lean in the tech department without a lot of extra staff to experiment on new technologies themselves. But most isn’t the same as all. Some IT directors are lazy. They refuse to consider anything new as they trot out the same old excuses about lack of money and time, network security, and the risk of rusting their servers’ router belts if they run open source software. There are some dinosaurs out there, and I’m afraid there’s not much that can be done with them.

But I choose to be an enabler. I choose to find teachers who are excited about technology so I can give them cool tools and see what they do with them. I choose to collaborate with teachers to find ways to maintain a stable network while the teachers experiment with online video, podcasting, and who knows what Web 2.0-ish site they find. I choose to trust teachers to make good decisions about what constitutes an educationally appropriate web site. I don’t have time to do all of that myself, and I’m not willing to be a bottleneck.

Enabling innovation doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind. No one’s letting the inmates run the asylum around here. There has to be a wide open communication channel between IT and the teaching and learning department. (I meet regularly one-on-one with the Director of Teaching and Learning in my district so we can work in unison on initiatives.) Saying “yes” is so much more fun than saying “no,” so I don’t understand why any IT director wouldn’t want to be on the same side as the teachers and learners.

I write this less than a week after the voters in this community rejected three levy requests for additional school funding. Some nasty budget cuts lie ahead for us, and there won’t be nearly as much money in the tech budget as there would have been had the levies been approved. Now more than ever we’ll need to work together to set priorities and move the district forward. I want to be one of the ones moving forward, not holding us back. I’m more happy being an enabler.

Tim 1, Marathon 0

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My biggest fansI did it. My finishing time was 4:45 which I’m pretty happy with considering the brutal heat. I’d hoped to finish closer to 4:15, but it was 80°+ with a dew point near 70° and I knew that I’d have no chance of going that fast. What weird weather. It’s not supposed to be like this in Minneapolis in October.

I had planned to run in a pace group that was going to come in at around 4:15, but I got the starting line late and I started quite far back near the 5:30 group. I passed the 4:30 pace group after about three miles, but I never did see the 4:15 group. I was right on pace at mile 15, but the heat started taking a toll soon after. I had to do some walking over the last 10 miles, but I finished strong. Luckily the last mile is pretty much downhill. Feel free to check out my marathon photo set.

My knees are a bit sore, but otherwise I feel good. Tomorrow morning will be the true test. I’m planning to wear my marathon shirt to work tomorrow. I hope it looks OK with khakis.

Top three signs seen along the marathon route today:

  1. Caption on large Homer Simpson cutout: “You paid to do this?”
  2. Donna, don’t die!
  3. You’re a freakin’ springbok, dude!

The marathon challenge has arrived

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Some of you probably know that I’ve been training for the Twin Cities Marathon. The big event is on Sunday, and I find myself more curious than anything else about how everything will turn out. I’ve put in my miles: 540 miles of training since May. All that’s left now is to line up and run… and run… and run. I’ll post some after-race thoughts and photos sometime next week.

Fullscreen for free

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This is relatively old news, but it’s worth reporting that Apple’s recent update to QuickTime added a much-requested feature. With version 7.2 you can now play video in full-screen mode without paying for QuickTime Pro. This is a really handy update for those of us who are using videostreaming services such as United Streaming.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the VLC media player, but for garden variety QuickTime it’s more convenient to use QuickTime with United Streaming. (One of my techs had some trouble getting VLC to work with United Streaming last spring when we were test driving the service.) The free QuickTime still doesn’t have the file conversion and recording features of QT Pro, but that won’t be a big issue for most of the teachers in my district.

Following your kids on Facebook

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NY Times writer Michelle Slatalla relates her experience tormenting her daughter on Facebook in an article entitled “‘omg my mom joined facebook!!’.”

So last week I joined Facebook, the social network for students that opened its doors last fall to anyone with an e-mail address. The decision not only doubled its active membership to 24 million (more than 50 percent of whom are not students), but it also made it possible for parents like me to peek at our children in their online lair.

It’s an amusing article, but it mirrors some of the experiences I’ve had as a grown-up after interacting with teenagers I know in the online world. Many of them seem genuinely shocked that an old fogie like me knows how to log in to a web site let alone create a MySpace or Facebook profile.

Kids need a safe space to interact with one another beyond the prying eyes of their parents. Those kinds of spaces can be hard to come by in the online world, so maybe we should cut them some slack and keep our online profiles to ourselves. On the other hand, it can be so entertaining to torment your children.