Color Printer blues

Our color laser printer in the lab is experiencing...difficulties. While it's being fixed, you can still print your documents from the lab, and then go outside into the Information Commons and release your print job from the color printer out there. (btw, did u get that pun in the post title? color printer "blues". ha! i slay me.)

Closed this Friday 1-3

Hi all. The lab will be closed this Friday, September 25, from 1pm-3pm for a symposium that will be using much of the Information Commons. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Wireless Set-up Fair, September 16

Is your laptop having difficulty connecting to wireless Internet on campus? SAS Computing will hold a wireless setup fair in the alcoves at WIC from 5 to 6:30 pm. This is a walk-in event.

iPhone OS 3.1 update

From ISC on iPhone OS 3.1:

As many of you are already aware, Apple has released OS 3.1 for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. This release has a few new features and bug fixes, but most relevant here at Penn is that OS 3.1 addresses the problem where 3.0 devices would constantly disassociate from AirPennNet.

Information Systems and Computing has tested this release thoroughly and generally found it to be a stable release, well-worth the download. However, please keep in mind that if previous releases are any indicator, the download servers will be swamped and activations may take a while. For users who are not in desperate need of the AirPennNet fix, it may be best to wait a couple of days before upgrading to 3.1

Good-Bye Posters

Just a quick FYI. Lots of people have printed posters here in the lab and then never picked them up. We'll be throwing out any and all posters left in the lab on September 3. If you have a poster here, please pick it up ASAP.

We're Hiring!

Looking for a cool job in a cool digital media lab working with (and for) cool people? Well, we're looking for a few good lab consultants for the Fall 2009 semester. Details along with a full job description are here:

https://www.sfs.upenn.edu/seo/sems/live.php?mod=search.details&job=9561

Let one of us know if you have any questions about the job!

There Oughta Be a Law!

This video contest asks participants to create a video, 3 minutes or less, describing a new law that should exist or a current law that should be amended. The grand prize is $1000!

It's part of an initiative by the Montgomery Bar Association Community Outreach Committee to promote awareness of the law and to remind citizens of the importance of the law in our society. The contest is for residents of Pennsylvania, and entries are due on October 8, 2009.

Download the info at
http://www.montgomerybar.org/mba/news/May09/documents/OughttobeaLawEdPacket.pdf

Let us know if you enter and we'll post your video on our blog for all to see.

No Wireless Today/Tomorrow

Van Pelt Library is upgrading its wireless access points today, so no wireless service will be available during that time. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

New 2GB filesize limit in YouTube

You may have noticed over the last month that YouTube upped their filesize limit from 1GB to 2GB. Unfortunately, they did not also increase the 10 minute video length limit, but at least this is good news for people uploading high-def video. More info at http://tinyurl.com/kvebav

Three Days

Just a quick reminder about our file storage/deletion policy. Although we would love to be able to store all of everyone's files forever and ever, we just don't have the storage space to be able to handle it all. So we have a policy that we will store your files on our networked hard drive for up to 3 days. And if you come back during that time and work on them some more, we'll keep them for an additional 3 days. And so on. And so forth. Etc. Etc. And you should never store your files on the desktop for longer than the duration of your work session that day. Anyone who sits down at a computer can delete things from the desktop. Just ask for help saving your files to our networked storage drive.

So if you're working on a project in the lab, be sure to come back every 2 or 3 days to work on it to avoid risking deletion. And please consider buying an external hard drive to store your project on. This gives you total control over your files, and you never need to fear that we'll delete them when you need them most.

The Disposable Film Festival

The Disposable Film Festival was created in 2007 to celebrate the artistic potential of disposable video: short films made on non-professional devices such as one-time use video cameras, cell phones, point and shoot cameras, webcams, computer screen capture software, and other readily available video capture devices.

Disposable Film Fest '09 Promo from Disposable Film Festival on Vimeo.

The submission fee is only $.99 and you have until August 31, 2009 to submit your entries!

Get started now! Find our more about the DFF at http://www.disposablefilmfest.com/

"Ask Not" Filmmaker Contest

WHYY and ITVS invite you to share your views in a short film on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the first ever WHYY Filmmaker Contest. The winner will receive a 20" iMac computer. Film submissions must be less than 10:00 minutes.

Short films may be of any genre (music video, interviews, etc) as long as they show a relevancy to an aspect of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

See the full details at http://www.whyy.org/community/asknotcontest.html

Evolution of Photoshop

This was an interesting article on the evolution of Photoshop from its inception to it's current incarnation of CS4. My favorite was the evolution of the toolbars. Also you gotta love that the splash screen for the version 1.0 release (the image to the right) only had 4 people's names on it.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-photoshop/

iPhone Art

I rather enjoyed these iPhone sketches Jorge Colombo did for the New Yorker:



He used an app called Brushes. There's also a Flickr group devoted to drawings created with the same app.

Good price on SD cards

Buy.com is has a good price on SD HC cards. It's two 4GB cards (8GB total) for only $18.95 with free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/prod/kingston-4gb-sdhc-card-class-4-twin-pack/q/loc/101/210906173.html

Computer Sale

The back-to-school sale is under way at the Computer Connection (the computer store located in the far corner of the Penn Bookstore). If you're in the market for a new computer, you definitely need to check it out. In addition to being discounted a few hundred dollars, the pre-configured Mac and PC systems they sell are generally designed to meet Penn's own hardware recommendations to help guarantee you're getting a computer that will suit your needs.

http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/computerstore/home/computers/index.html

Twitter & Iranian Elections

An interesting read for all you tweeters out there. This is a pretty amazing story when you think about it: Twitter has decided to postpone critical maintenance on its servers in order to eliminate interruption of service in recognition of the important role they are playing in the Iranian political process.

http://tinyurl.com/mdk3l3

Slide Scanner is Back

Our slide scanner is back from the shop, and is now clean, functional, and ready for you to start scanning slides again!

Exciting Software Updates: CS4, iLife 09, iWork 09

Big news! We're finally upgrading to the Adobe CS4 software suite, along with iLife 09 and iWork 09. The software affected includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. We expect to have the new software installed sometime in the coming week or so!

Pas de posters

The poster printer is back online and working again. The poster printer is down today. We have our best people on it, and we hope to have it back up again by the end of the day. In the mean time, we're taking names as usual, along with phone #s so we can call if it comes back up today.