newquisk's blog

Jason Alley, our new instructional technologist, just told us about this nifty utility for Mac OS X: Clip It. It's basically a simple web browser with a screen shot tool built in. I wonder if there's a plug-in for Firefox that does the same thing?

A new version of the Lafayette toolbar for Firefox is available for download. Version 1.2 includes links to Moodle and iTunes U, and you can get it from the ITS web site. If you already have the toolbar installed, you can update it by launching Firefox, going to the "Tools" pulldown menu, and selecting "Add-ons". This brings up a window that lists the add-ons and extensions you've added to Firefox. Click on the "Find Updates" button, and Firefox will find and then offer to install the new version of the toolbar.

One of my more minor projects this summer is to update the Lafayette Firefox Toolbar, which at the very least needs to include Moodle as a link. But since I'll be mucking about with it, I thought I'd ask what you think needs to be in the toolbar ... or what might be removed. I'm not sure when I'll get to it -- probably in late July -- so you've got a few weeks to mull this over.

According to CNET, Google is set to release Google Desktop for Linux. The story says "it supports the Debian 4.0, Fedora Core 6, Ubuntu 6.10, Novell Suse 10.1 and Red Flag 5 versions of Linux, and uses either the KDE and GNOME graphical user interfaces" but will only work on computers with x86 processors. (So that's one more think that won't run on my G3 iMac running Ubuntu Linux 6).

Since folks liked Unclutterer.com, here's a few other organization/productivity/self-improvement sites that I read regularly:

• 43 Folders: A "Getting Things Done"-oriented site, but it's still useful for those who haven't drunk the GTD Kool Aid.
• LifeHack: Recent posts include "How To Use Deadlines", "Read the Classics to Improve Your Mind", and "How to Increase Virtual Memory in Windows XP"
• LifeHacker: More tech-oriented life hacks, including "Read/write to NTFS drives on your Mac", "Soundproof your apartment" and "Speed up OpenOffice"
• Mind Hacks: By the authors of the O'Reilly book of the same name (which is available through Lafayette's Safari Tech Books subscription)

If one of your goals this summer is to get organized, check out the blog Unclutter, which describes itself as a "blog about getting and staying organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place is our gospel."

It's not just office productivity; they talk about improving your shower by replacing bottles with a soap dispense, the quest for the perfect laptop/cellphone/gadget charging station, and wireless power transmission (to get rid of all those annoying tangles of wires).

This post at Lifehack about stand-up desks caught my eye. I've found myself working this way at home recently -- we have a jelly cupboard in our library that's about the perfect height for me, and since it's in the middle of our first-floor is the perfect place to check e-mail or work on a project and still keep an eye on the kids. I've also found it to be more comfortable than sitting because a) after a day of sitting I'm ready to stand for a while and b) chasing and lifting a 1-year-old is hell on the back. It's a barebones setup that's nothing like the desk that Lifehack found -- just a laptop, a mouse and a power cord -- but it's been working for me.

Looks like there's a new entry (ok, expanded entry) into version 2 of the Browser Wars: Apple's Safari browser is going cross-platform and will work on Windows as of Safari 3. So says MacWorld. Firefox is my primary browser of choice, mostly because Safari is so poorly supported. This move is apparently meant to snag Apple some more browser marketshare, and thus earn a little developer love for their browser. And hey, it's even out as a public beta now!

In "Comparing Open-Source Content Management Systems" Tech Soup considers the strengths and weaknesses of three popular open source content management systems: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone.

Based on my experiences with these CMSs, I'd say their evaluations are spot on. I haven't personally used Joomla, but I've seen quite a few sites deploying it, and it seems to be pretty user friendly. Drupal is what we're using at Lafayette for the ITS site and Soapbox; we're using an antiquated version now, but I'll be upgrading to the latest and greatest version starting next week (on a development box of course). I experimented with Plone about two years ago, and while I liked its workflow tools, the templating system made customizing the look and feel of Plone sites a challenge.

Hilarity ensues when three dozen people dressed in blue polo shirts and khakis descend on Best Buy.