Dolphin Olympics Tournament Results

The lab consultants had an informal Dolphin Olympics tournament during their free time at the end of the semester. Michael was the clear winner with 19,506,379. I still don't know how he managed it, but he printed out a screenshot as proof. The final scores:

Michael: 19,506,379
Dave: 1,449,856
Neal: 659,327
Jesse: 3,148,724
Steve: 2,289,053
Nick: 755,824
Chris: 83,664
Mel and Jeff didn't play.

Have a good one!

Ah... the semester is over. A whole week of much-deserved and much-needed vacation coming up for everyone! We're open til 9 tonite, (our usual hours), and then thursday and friday we'll only be open 10-5. After that, you won't see us again until the new year.

We hope you found the lab useful this semester. If you haven't yet availed yourself of the resources we make available, please stop by in the Spring semester and check us out.

Lost and Found

See this stuff? It's our Lost-and-Found box. Yes, that's a pair of shoes. No, none of us here at the lab are sure how someone could accidentally walk off and leave their shoes behind. But you know those wacky Penn students.

It's the end of the semester, so I'm taking the box down to the Reserve Desk (ie. Rosengarten: ground floor, Van Pelt Library) to add to the main lost-and-found collection, so if anything in the photo looks familiar, stop by Rosengarten to get it.

No Red Ink

Update: Ok, we're back in business. Magenta (not red. my bad.) ink is loaded and in plentiful supply.

We ran out of red ink on the poster printer tonite. Sorry! (Thanks, Neal, for checking in and letting me know about the problem.) There's been an onslaught of poster printing in the last week the likes of which we've never seen, and our printing supplies dwindled much faster than expected. If it's any consolation (and I know it's not), we have enough glossy paper now to last us well into next year. I'm pretty sure we do have more ink down in the supply closet, but we won't have access to it until Monday, so the poster printer will be out of commission until then. If you're in dire straits and can't wait that long, check out Kinkos or Campus Copy. They both charge a lot more than we do, but then they probably have red ink, too. (note: this applies only to the poster printer. The normal color printer should be working fine.)

Holiday hours

For those of you who plan to stay on campus over break for some reason, the lab's going to be closed between December 23rd and New Year's Day. We'll open with limited hours in January, and then ramp up to our regular hours when classes start again. Our hours are available for your perusal online.

Glossy Paper

The lab ran out of glossy paper for the poster printer on Friday. But we're back in stock today, so we have both glossy and matte papers for all your poster printing needs.

Final Cut upgrade to version 5.1

[update, 1/18/2007: we've erased everything on the computers and installed fresh copies of all the software, including the FCP upgrade to version 5.1. We expect this to solve all of the problems users were encountering, but please let us know if you're still having trouble!]

We've heard concerns from students this semester that they'd created a Final Cut Pro project elsewhere using version 5.1, but that it wasn't 100% compatible with version 5.0.4, which is what we've been running in the lab. To solve this problem, we've purchased version 5.1 and we'll be installing it over winter break, so it should be available by the first day of classes in January.

Nick's Geometric Thing

Nick Salvatore is one of the lab consultants you've seen working here at the Vitale Digital Media Lab. He's probably even helped you on one of your projects. In this picture, Nick is holding a 3D geometrical object he created with the help of the Adobe Illustator CS2 software in the lab. He was able to take the computer file of his design and use it to program a special cutting laser (made available to School of Design students) to cut the pieces out of 1/4"-thick plastic, which he then assembled by hand.



Want us to showcase a project you worked on in the lab? Email us at medialab@pobox.upenn.edu

Say Farewell to Michael and Mel (rhyme not intended)

Michael Highland and Melissa Miller are leaving the lab at the end of this semester to spend some time abroad in Hong Kong. Michael and Mel have been a valuable part of the lab, and we'll miss them both. If you see them, be sure to say good-bye and wish them bon voyage.

New Director of the Weigle Information Commons

We are pleased to announce that Anu Vedantham has accepted the position of Director of the David B. Weigle Information Commons. She will begin work on January 15th 12th.

Anu comes to us from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where she serves as the Director of Instructional Technology. She is also currently a student in Penn's Graduate School of Education, pursuing her Ed.D. in the Higher Education Management program. Anu will be assuming a leadership role in the Information Commons, maintaining responsibility for the operation of both the Commons and--with David Toccafondi--the Vitale Digital Media Lab, planning technology systems to keep pace with student needs, and developing outreach programs to support teaching and learning. Welcome, Anu!