Better late than never?

*The following would have been posted last month if I didn't constantly close Firefox in mid-blog* I have no idea what the heck they're working on next door but they're certainly doing a great job of constructing it as loudly as possible. It would be one thing if it was a steady-state din, but instead there will be a long stretch of quiet, followed by an ear-splitting CLANG! as someone (I'm guessing) starts taking a sledgehammer to a very massive, VERY resonant object. There's also the deafening buzz of a chopsaw gnawing through metal the very moment you start to get your concentration back, as well as the desk-rattling jackhammer to add insult to injury. To make matters worse, when they have a radio playing its top-40 stuff. Not like I have anything against popular music, I just don't want Ashlee Simpson as the musical backdrop to this chaotic production. Call me a purist, if you will. Anyway, the big news of the past couple of weeks has been the arrival of 14 new computers. I say a couple of weeks instead of a week because Dell certainly did their part in making sure I had plenty of work to do. It didn't start off too bad. I did get bounced to 3 different sales reps (due to the quantity), none of whom could cut us much of a break (so much for a karma discount) and had some annoyances putting together a quote, but nothing I wouldn't normally expect. When the systems finally arrived (no hitches yet), I pulled them out and noticed the CPU sticker only denoted an AMD64, and not the 64X2 dual core that I had specified. Fired it up noticed the BIOS listed the CPU as the 64. Not cool. After looking over the invoice, it turns out that we did, in fact, get the correct systems. However, the systems magically changed from 64X2s on the quote to plain-old-64s on the order. Blarg. About an hour and a dozen phone transfers later we finally arranged to the dual-core systems sent. They arrived without incident, and also without return labels for the old systems. Cripes. Another hour and a few more phone transfers later, we finally arranged for another pickup the next day. Fast forward 24 hours, and the Fedex man is here with 8 shipping slips in hand. Wait a sec...8 slips...14 computers...KHAAAAAN!!! A couple of days later, everything resolved itself and we all lived happily ever after, until it came time to order mounting systems. We wanted to mount the computers under the tables and elevated from the ground. While not unheard of, this wasn't particularly common so of course nobody locally had anything. Most online sources had units starting at $60-80ish, with the most simple units consisting of mounting plates for the table and straps to suspend the computers from the table. Not exactly kid-proof, but the alternative were designs that featured drawer slides and swivels, so the strapping method won by default. When it came time to order the mounts though, the lead time was pretty long and we already had volunteers lined up to help install the computers, so rather than arrange for rush shipping when we probably wouldn't get the units in time anyway, I cobbled together a knock-off from tie-plates, tiedown straps, and drywall screws. It used 3x7" tie-plates to hold the straps against the bottom of the table. Then, an old mouse pad was taped over the plate with some double-sided carpet tape. After cinching the straps as tightly as possible, the excess looped around the end on both sides and tied onto the other side of the strap as a safety measure. The remaining ends were cut and fused. To make the catches tamper resistant, wedges were cut from shim stock, sprayed black to match, then put into place and secured with cable ties. Not exactly foolproof, but good enough. Between the smaller footprint of the LCDs, the under-table mounting, and some cable organization, the lab looks much cleaner all-in-all. Wish I could say all the kids loved it. A few really were wide-eyed and overjoyed, but most others just kinda shrugged, said 'meh' and went back to their regularly scheduled YouTube viewing. *sigh* Installation was smooth and easy thanks to the imaging process, although our inital attempt at imaging a dual-boot XP/Vista install didn't go over particularly well. Alright, so it didn't work at all. That plus the lack of support for Deep Freeze and we're looking at a purely XP setup on most of the computers. 4 computers were manually set up with a dual-boot just for kicks. While it'll leave a big, gaping Deep-Freeze exploit, I'd be tickled to death if our kids were savvy enough to take advantage of it. Anyway, enough blabber, here's some pictures: …read more

It's painfully obvious that I grew up in the south when I get excited over 1/2" of snow (mind yer snickering, Boston-folk), but I should also add that our lab closes when schools close. That means I have at least one day of peace and quiet. Ahhhhh.... Well, apart from the racket caused by the construction next door anyway. Life at C4K is chugging along nicely. Our recruiting has been up and down (12 last month, but only 4 this month), but the ups seem to have been enough as the lab feels more full than when the year first started. Workshop attendance is still relatively low (3-4 on average), but those that do go seem to enjoy it. I've also started gravitating towards guided activities versus class settings. The more successful workshops have been things like making popup cards, CD art, posters, etc. I've been trying workshops that lead into the tougher topics like digital video and audio with things like dubbing and digital storytelling, but we're still having a tough time getting kids to try them. …read more

One of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes goes something like this: People who smoke cigarettes, they say, "You don't know how hard it is to quit smoking." Yes I do. It's as hard as it is to start flossing.... Except now substitute 'flossing' for 'blogging' and you'll get a general idea of why this blog has seen less activity than my savings account. Pretty sad on both counts. …read more

While I can't think of anything particularly noteworthy at the moment, I've got a post-it not tacked to my monitor, glaring at me menacingly with the following words, "Submit a $%@# blog entry already".  I can take a hint.  Well, sometimes anyway.   I guess the big news now is that we're a week from our fall graduation.  For me, that means getting the last of my interviews filmed and then whipping up a video.  Good thing I've only got half the interviews, time is running short, and I've never done this sort of thing before.  For a moment I was almost worried there.  Luckily (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), we're graduating 12-13 kids in what will be a relatively small ceremony.  While that cuts into the amount of footage that I need to sift through, it reflects our shrunken attendance which is proving to cause a problem with a good amount of it affecting my position. …read more