Rich's Random Thoughts

Google Apps for NON-US Governments Please!

Rich McCue — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:32:30 +0000

Google just launched a new version of Google Apps for US Governments. Why do they need to have a version of their “Apps” product specifically for US governments? Because of a sensible requirement that American government data be store only on US based servers. I’m glad that Google Was able to do this for American governemnts. What I’d like to know is when the internationally based version is going to be launched?

I live in Canada, specifically in the Province of British Columbia, and our government passed a law several years ago requiring that publicly funded institutions store personal data on servers in Canada only. This makes sense especially in light of the US Patriot act, which allows for American law enforcement agencies to look through private data without necessarily obtaining a search warrant, and without notifying the owner of the data that they have been snooping around.

So Google, when is the Google Apps for Canadian Governments going to be launched? I’m looking forward to the press conference!

The Greening of Law School IT

Rich McCue — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:11:26 +0000

What follows are my notes from my Presentation at the 2010 CALI conference at Rutgers Law School at Camden. If you’d like to see a video of the presentation you can find it here.

Today we are going to learn how you can save your organization money, and reduce it’s burden on the environment, all starting in the computer lab, by reducing energy consumption.

The keys that I’ve found for reducing electricity as an individual or in an organization are to:

Measure every electrical device possible
Implement changes where ever you have the power to do so
Educate everyone in your organization

Measure:

Do you know how much it costs to run a lab computer? Before making changes to our lab, it cost $7 per day to run our 42 computers, which quickly adds up to $2500 in a year!
Terminology: kWh = Kilowatt hour. If you turn on a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours you will have used 1000 watts, or 1 Kilowatt.
Price of kWh varies widely across the country. Do you know what the price of electricity is in your area? Washington state has the lowest price at $0.06 / KWh, and Hawaii the highest at $0.28 / KWh. The average in the US is about $0.11 / KWh. In Pennsylvania, running a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours will cost about $0.12.
Measure every piece of equipment you can using a Kill A Watt (Only $20 on Amazon.com).
- Measure full power (watching video), Normal (word processing), Sleep & Hibernate modes (power draw can vary quite a bit).
- It can measure the power consumption of all types of equipment: printers, lamps, monitors, TV’s, etc.
- The chart below show the total cost of running each device 24 x 7 for a year. The cost per KWh used is $0.12.
Electrical usage across devices varies greatly. The iPad uses very little electricity… Laptops also use electricity sparingly, but desktop computers without power saving settings enabled use quite a bit of electricity. Most people don’t know this.
When my kids are playing on our XBox360 and the 46” TV, they use a lot of electricity: A combined 325 watts, as opposed to my 4 watts as I surf on my iPad
To measure the total electrical usage in a building, or if possible parts of the building (most buildings have several electrical panels). The Energy Detective does a great job measuring the total usage in my home, and they are coming out with a commercial 3-phase version soon.
The Energy Detective, as well as other similar devices, come with real time dashboard that displays current usage as well as tracks historical usage.

Implement:

Implement everywhere that you have control! The number one thing that we did was to turn computers off every night. Because of a patch management tool that we previously used, we asked our faculty and staff to leave their computers on. For the same reason we left our Lab computers turned on 24 x 7. By doing just this alone we can reduce electrical consumption by computer by 60-70%
Make Power saving the default on new computers. Encourage Faculty and Staff to make changes, by showing them how. In the past I’ve disabled power saving settings on new XP computers because of the instability introduced, but the tools seem much better in Windows 7. OSX power management features are excellent and reliable.
If you use Ghost or other similar product, you can schedule shutdown and start up times globally. If you don’t use ghost like us, we use the “Scheduled Task Wizard” and a simple command line: Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Task Scheduler … create a new task that runs the following windows Utility: c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe -s We have the task run at 10:20PM every night (the library closes at 10pm) except Friday nights, so that Windows update can do it’s magic.
Buy Energy Star equipment… make power consumption a consideration along with price. Also factor energy cost into total cost of the hardware purchase.
Virtualize servers whenever possible. Server use a lot of electricity. If you can reduce the number of “boxes” you are running, you can typically reduce your electrical consumption significantly. We’re in the process of virtualizing our servers as they come up for retirement.

Educate:

People can’t make good decisions unless they have information. Example from home: Electric Hot water tank uses the majority of the electricity in our home… I was worrying about turning lights off, when it was shower length that I should have been worried about. Most people are the same when it comes to office equipment.
Visibility is Very important. Once people are able to monitor their usage, consumption typically drops by 20%. Using a web based display, or adding power usage to your faculty website would be an easy way to let everyone know how things are going.

Let People Know: When you make changes in the computer labs, let everyone know. I did this via an email to faculty, staff and students, so that they’d know why the computers in the lab would not be turned on for them in the morning. I also included in that email Tips for how Faculty and Staff could reduce their energy usage at their work station.
Tips for Faculty: Do not give your faculty and staff a long list of things to do… just 2 or 3 key things that they can easily do… don’t overwhelm them.. Let them know relatively speaking how much energy they’ll save by doing each thing.
1. Shut down every night
2. Enable Power Management
3. Use a Laptop when possible
Competition: Once people know what they are using, then you can pit them against each other in a competition. Business School vs. the Law School… Just don’t let the Business School set the rules. Good natured competition can get people to focus in a manner that it is difficult to do in any other way.
While there is not a direct link between electricity usage and the problems in the Gulf; if we used less energy of all forms, including electricity, we wouldn’t need to import as much oil, or drill for oil in such difficult locations like the gulf…

Microsoft Word Web App – Good But Not Great for Students

Rich McCue — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:29:45 +0000

I’m happy to see that Microsoft is finally getting into the on line office market. There is nothing better for inovation than competition between two companies with a lot of money, and a lot of smart employees. I’ve been a heavy user of the Google Docs wordprocessor and spreadsheet apps since 2006. The Google Docs apps are not as powerful as the desktop Microsoft Office programs, but now have enough features that I have almost stopped using Microsoft Office desktop products. The thing that drew me to Google Docs in the first place was it’s excellent collaboration features, like real time multi-user document editing and a strong version control system – all essential features for college students.

Here are my thoughts on Microsoft Word Web App (live.office.com). Before you test drive it yourself, you’ll need an active hotmail.com or live.com account.

Word Web App Pros:

The look and feel of the Word Web App is very similar to Word 2007. Similar, but not as many features, which is to be expected at this point in it’s product development. If you use Word 2007 you have a very small learning curve.
Sharing a document with others is easy to do. Having the document on the internet makes collaboration simple… no more worrying about whether or not you have the most recent version in your email inbox or not.
The built in version control looks solid. It is now a trivial task to revert the document back to an earlier version if necessary, or see what was deleted by accident.
25GB of file storage is excellent. I’m not sure what the limite is in Google Docs to be honest.
You can edit documents in any web browser, not just Internet Explorer. I’ve been working in Google Chrome on a Mac, and the experience has been good.

Word Web App Cons:

No printing. This is huge. You cannot print unless you open your document in the desktop version of Microsoft Word, or a compatible word processer like OpenOffice. I can understand that they still want people to buy their desktop version of Office, but not being able to print makes Google Docs look very good.
No footnotes or endnotes. For students this is a problem. You can add footnotes and endnotes in the desktop version of Word, but you can’t edit them or even see them in the online version. Hopefully this will change soon, as this is a big problem for students who need to cite their references. Google Docs started out without footnotes, but added them in October of 2008.
While you can edit documents just fine in any web browser, if you want to edit the file in your desktop version of Word you need to be on a Windows computer in Internet Explorer. Not a huge deal, unless you need to add footnotes, or want an easy way to print.

Whether you end up using Microsoft Office Web Apps, or Google Docs, we’re all going to benefit from Microsoft getting into this market. Overall this is a good first effort from Microsoft. Hopefully they’ll quickly add printing and footnotes to their otherwise excellent product.

Here’s a short Google Apps video that shows how useful real time collaboration on a document can be… no more emailing a document back and forth between collaborators:

Free & Effective Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware for Windows

Rich McCue — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:32:49 +0000

Tired of being asked to shell out cash for the anti-virus software that came with your new computer last year? If so, then look no further. I’ve been using Microsoft Security Essentials for almost a year now, and it has been doing an excellent job. Here is a recent review if you’d like to see an more in-depth comparison. If you want to make the switch now just do the following:

Uninstall your current antivirus software – Do this by going to your control panel, and uninstall your current anti-virus software.
Reboot your computer.
Download & Install Microsoft Security Essentials.

Your’re done! No more anti-virus software asking for $50 or more every year. Enjoy!

Do we all “Fake it”?

Rich McCue — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:22:48 +0000

Do we all “Fake It” ? I listended to a excellent Freakanomics podcast over lunch on “faking it” that makes a lot of sense. No, I’m not talking about “faking it” in the bedroom (although I’m sure some faking does go on there), but “faking it” in our day to day lives.

I think we all “fake it” on a fairly regular basis. Not only that, but we’re taught do so from an early age. Just think of when a parent “encourages” their child to apologize to their sibling or play mate. Do we really think that the apologizing child feels sorry for what they’ve done? Most of the time they don’t, but they are being taught how to get along, and perform socially acceptable acts that help make up the civilized portion of our society. Most people would agree that this sort of “faking it” is a good thing in that it reduces tension in groups, and helps them function more smoothly.

There are other kinds of faking it of course. John Edwards (the american politician) faked it at the end of the US presidencial campaign, pretending that things were going well in his life and marriage, until it came out that the woman he was having an affair with was close to giving birth to their child. I think that is the kind of faking it that most people cringe at.

Faking it goes on in religion as well. One example of this is in the Mormon religion I was raised in. As a teenager I was taught that if I told others that I “knew” certain religious “truths” were true, even when I didn’t actually know they were true or false, that I would come to know for myself that they were true. This could be described as the “fake it until you make it” method of learning. While this may be a useful tool for learning to do certain tasks, I don’t believe that it is effective in determining truth.

So the next time my wife asks me how I like the new dress she bought, should I “fake it” or be completely honest no matter what the consequences?

A great article on how to slow down spen

Rich McCue — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:12:55 +0000

A great article on how to slow down spending habits. One idea I’ve already implemented: a 30 day wait list for toys. http://bit.ly/cbs2df

I never realized how much my dog Maggie could teach me about Marriage.

Rich McCue — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:21:02 +0000

I never realized how much my dog Maggie could teach me about marriage. Much cheaper than counseling http://nyti.ms/crlK8h

Solar Hot Water at Our House!

Rich McCue — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:48:44 +0000

I’m very excited that we’re getting Solar Hot Water installed at the house tomorrow. $3375 in Federal and Provincial grants defiantly helps! http://bit.ly/claYyR

Island Energy is doing the install of an Enerworks system. Photos and more information to follow!

Mobile Computing Discussion @ UVic Libraries

Rich McCue — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:38:24 +0000

Here’s a link to the outline of the Mobile Computing Discussion I’m leading today at the UVic Libraries. Once I’ve cleaned up the notes, I’ll post them below:

Reading List for Mobile Computing and the iPad Discussion:

Reminders From Out of the Blue [please take note of the location features] – David Pogue
Urbanspoon iPhone App Adds Augmented Reality – Barb Bybwad
QR codes for libraries – some thoughts – Aaron Tay
Evernote for iPhone – Jeffery Battersby
Looking at the iPad From Two Angles – David Pogue
What are mobile friendly library sites offering? A survey. – Aaron Tay
Amazon.com’s Kindle fails first college test – Amy Martinez

The iPad:

When I go to an almost week long conference later in the month I will not be taking a laptop, I’ll be taking this iPad and a blue tooth keyboard with me. it is just a bit iPod Touch… but in this case size does matter; that along with a 10 hour battery life. The larger screen and longer battery life turns it into a much different device than an iPod touch.
Reading: In my opinion a great reading device. Kindle App syncs accross all devices tied to my account, so I can start reading on my iPad, switch to my iPhone, and continue on a Kindle device and it keeps me “book mark” between all the devices. Allows people to set the font size to something comfortable – Huge feature as time goes on.
Email & Calendar: Quickest and easiest way to triage email & calendaring. You’re not going to want to type long messages with the virtual keyboard, but it’s fine for short messages
News Reader: Excellent. Most mornings now I read the NYTimes and Times Colonist in bed before I get up… Can be hazardous
Simple Research: Excellent for simple research. If you’re looking for an answer that requires looking up just a website or two then this is just as good a tool as a computer. For more complex searches, where you have to reference, copy and paste multiple blocks of text, the a laptop or computer will be better (at this point in time – this may get easier with a software update expected out soon).
- One drawback is that if you use the NYTimes app for reading the news, you can’t copy and paste text from inside the app… you can email the article to yourself and then do it from there… Why to the content providers continue to shoot themselves in the feet?
Meetings: less intrusive laying flat than the vertical screen of a laptop.
Drawing: Adobe Ideas. Fun, free, layer based drawing program.
The Elements: This is what I needed to get me interested in Chemistry.
Kyak Flights: Easiest way to look for the right flight.
Web MD: Great resource for offline look-up of medical information. -> First Aid, Burns

Ryan (my 15 year old son) a Case Study of our 2014 Freshmen:

My oldest son just turned 15. We purchased him a cell phone for his birthday, and on it’s first day of use he received 100 text messages.
He advertised his new phone number on Facebook, and literally within minutes his new phone was buzzing with text messages.
He has not used his cell phone once in the past week to talk to friends… just text.
He and his 4 siblings have email accounts, but do not use them… They just text messages and use Facebook for communication with friends.

A taste of What Smart Phone Apps can do for us:
Smart phones can’t and shouldn’t do everything, but they are a useful tool that can be helpful to students, faculty and staff alike. There is an old saying that say that

Reqall – A personal Reminder system – Transcribes your voice to text.
- Emails what you’ve said to you, and add text to your “to do” list & sends a copy to your email address.
- If you’re on the go, this is a great way to remember something.
- The iPhone app is location aware, so if you’ve added items to your grocery list, when you open it at your predefined grocery store, the GPS tell is your at the store, and displays the items you need to pickup there.
- This is a great personal productivity app?
Urban Spoon – An example of a location aware smart phones application.
- The GPS and accelerometer team up to let you know what restaurants are available near by, even if they are not visible… along with a review of the product.
- Very cool… could be used as a as a tour application for the library… to find resources on and around campus.
Evernote – An extension of your Brain. A universal capture application.
- On your desktop computer you can clip and store web pages, PDF files, images… anything digital.
- On your smart phone you can access all that captured information, plus you can capture images, audio, and type in text.
- Not only does it capture images, but it performs OCR on any text in the images, and makes them full text search-able. Search for “2009 conference”
- Can take pictures of whiteboards and sheets of paper so you can have a digital copy.
- All the data is stored in the “could” and is synced to each of your devices: desktop computer, laptop, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android Phone.
- An excellent tool for research and travel… Do research on your desktop, and access it anywhere!
Kindle Reader – Not just the Kindle Reader.
- Read books across multiple devices: Kindle Reader, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android.
- Highlight (& see what others have highlighted), annotate, bookmark.
4 Square – Check-in to locations (like the law library or McPherson)… win prizes at some businesses, and find out where your friends are hanging out.
- Stanford is using a 4 square like application for their graduation week. Entering students into draws if they check-in to at least two grad events. Alumni services and development are using the information from the program to keep in touch with alumni after they leave.

Library Applications (& Webapps):

Location & Hours
Computer availability
Catalog Search w/ Integrated Library mapping.
Ask Us (either chat, or a link to the reference phone number)
Room Booking (using QR Codes on the doors)
Refworks Mobile
News and/or Library Blogs
My Account (on hold, fines, …)
inks to social Media (Facebook, Twitter, …)
Links to mobile Databases we subscribe to.
QR Codes on all handouts so students can go to the website for further information.

What are Smart Phone Apps NOT Good for?

Skimming text books.
Doing in depth research

More Discussion…

Who knew that Lada Gaga was a Librarian!

Rich McCue — Sat, 29 May 2010 23:20:13 +0000

I work in a law library, but I can quite imagine our librarians doing a remix of a Lady Gaga song called “Catalog” (aka Poker Face). You really have to be up on your library terminology to get what the reworked lyrics are saying. The students and librarians at the University of Washington Information School did a great job! Enjoy!