Happy Halloween

I did this Photoshop job of my friend for Halloween last year, and then used Photoshop to animate the process. It starts with a photo from what I think was an office Halloween party, complete with scary contact lenses, and then I took it from there. Enjoy.

Don's Halloween costume from David Toccafondi on Vimeo.

Dreamweaver Training from Lynda

Lynda.com has some good Dreamweaver CS4 training now available. It's called, "Creating a First Web Site with Dreamweaver CS4" and it's great for the beginning Dreamweaver user or web designer. I'm a little rusty on my webdesign skills, myself, so I'm going to use it re-learn dreamweaver (I think the last version I used was MX!) and make myself a new website.

Take a look at the contents here:

http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourseN.aspx?lpk2=52770

and if you're interested, just let the lab consultant on duty know you'd like to watch it, and we'll log you in on one of our workstations and you can watch 'til your heart's content.

Apple's new Magic Mouse

Is anybody else as eager as I am to get their hands on Apple's new "Magic Mouse?" They actually do have one on display over at the computer connection at one of the new iMacs they have on display (the 24", I think), but none on the shelves for folks like you and me yet. I called yesterday, and they said they expect them to ship out in about a week. A WEEK?! I have to wait a WEEK? (One of the lab consultants says it's a matter of Apple coming up with an OS update to take advantage of all the new features in the magic mouse) Anyhoo, the new mouse is very sleek, and they feel good in the hand (although they're a little thin), so go over to the CCX and give them a try. I promise I'll buy 2 or 3 of them as soon as they hit the shelves so you can come by and try them soon.

Educause Presentations at the Library

Penn has registered for EDUCAUSE 2009 Online, which will enable interested staff to view EDUCAUSE 2009 general, featured, and point/counterpoint sessions as well as a selection of track sessions streamed. Penn’s Educause 2009 Online event will be held next Wednesday through Friday (Nov. 4-6) in the Class of ’55 Room in the Van Pelt Library from 10:00 AM – 6:45 PM.

The full list of Educause 2009 sessions that will be streamed to Class of ‘55 can be read at http://www.upenn.edu/computing/isc/training/educause2009online.html

New Equipment Lending System

We've gone live with our new equipment lending system, WebCheckOut! You can get help and find more info at http://wic.library.upenn.edu/wicfacilities/lending.html

The web form you used to use to reserve equipment is gond, and it's been replaced with a snazzy new interface at http://checkout.sas.upenn.edu

We're eager to hear your feedback, so please let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the system further.

(Oh, and we've lowered our late fines to $25 per day!)

Drawing the Line

Cartoonists Lynda Barry, Eric Drooker, and John Jennings will be joining cultural critics Jared Gardner, Jeet Heer, and Sharon Mizota and members of the Haverford College community for Drawing the Line: Comics and the Art of Social Transformation, a symposium focusing on comics as a medium for social commentary as well as means of political intervention.

Drawing the Line brings together groundbreaking artists who draw their influences from sources as varied as Frans Masereel's woodcut novels to Bil Keane's Family Circus with scholars and critics who are exploring how models of subjectivity and modes of political agency are created in relation to visual and textual forms of representation.

Members of the public are invited to take part in the workshops, master classes, lectures, and panel presentations on the role of comics in movements for social change that will be taking place on Haverford's campus from October 21-25, 2009.

http://www.haverford.edu/drawingtheline/