Deleting files

Hi all. Just a reminder that we'll be deleting all of the files in user storage, in class storage, and on the desktops of all of the workstations in the lab at the end of this semester, so if you need to save any files, please make arrangements to copy them over to your own drive before December 23.

It's kind of important, so I'll say it again:

WE'RE DELETING ALL OF YOUR FILES AT THE END OF THIS SEMESTER. PLEASE COPY THEM TO YOUR OWN DRIVE IF YOU NEED TO KEEP THEM.

Facebook Privacy Settings

Facebook is tinkering again with privacy settings; this time giving you simplified yet powerful controls that help you get a better handle on what you share. The downside is the same controls could reveal a great deal more about yourself than ever before if you are not careful. Here is a look at the changes and how you might be affected.

Read the full article from PC World at http://www.pcworld.com/article/184465/facebook_privacy_changes_the_good_and_the_bad.html

Just what you need

Stop by the lab and grab a piece of dark or milk chocolate--just what you need to get you through this hectic time of year.

How to Make it in Film

Love film? Interested in making your passion a career? Come learn how! This Saturday, we at GPSFF are pleased to be hosting an expert panel, "How to Make it in the Film Industry". The event is free and free food will be provided!

THIS Saturday December 5th from 12-1:30pm
Location: Room G17 of Claudia Cohen Hall at the University of Pennsylvania
249 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA (corner of 36th and Spruce)

Experts include:
Marc Simon - Award-winning writer and producer
Emory van Cleve - Cinema Studies Professor
Glenn Osten Anderson - Tech-guru and award-winning documentary-maker.
Mark Moskowitz - Director of Slamdance award-winning film, "Stone Reader."
Kat Phillips - A multi-award-winning writer/filmmaker.

Check out the facebook link at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172317630339&index=1

Lost and Found

This is a busy time of year (see previous post), and people often leave things behind in the lab.

Anything "valuable" (money, eyeglasses, wallets, hard drives, PennCards, USB flash drives, laptops, other electronics, etc.) gets taken up to room 240 to the Business Office (They're open on weekdays 9-5. Ask for Jean, Bob, or Bryan).

Other items (clothes, umbrellas, books, etc.) get taken down to the Rosengarten Reserve Desk. Check for your lost items in those locations.

BusyBusyBusy

As you may have noticed, we have gotten busy. Like, crazy busy. We brought a few laptops into the lab from the seminar room to add to our capacity, but we're still overflowing. My best advice is to:

1) Do as much work as you can on your own computer, if you're able, in order to minimize your dependence on the lab.

2) Come to the lab first thing in the morning (we open at 9 on weekdays, and noon on weekends) in order to maximize your chances at getting a workstation.

3) Remember that you can find most of the Adobe CS4 software (the same titles we have in the lab: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Flash, Bridge) on the PCs out in the WIC, on the workstations in the Rosengarten Computer lab and the Long Island Friends computers on the ground floor, and on the Class of 1937 computer lab on the 5th floor.

4) You may be able to download a free trial version of the software you need onto your own computer. For example, Adobe makes 30 free trials available at http://www.adobe.com/downloads

5) Remember when we told you not to wait til the last minute (you know who you are)? TOLD YOU SO! (That's not useful advice so much as it is just me taunting you.)

We've also scheduled extra lab consultants, but there will never be enough of us to go around, so please bear with us as we try to help everyone during this hectic time of year.

Google Books Settlement: Books, Computers, and the Law

For those of you interested in copyright, Google, books, and the way those 3 things intersect...

Today at 2PM
Rush 014

James Grimmelmann, of New York Law School, will review the history of the Google Books project, lawsuit, and proposed settlement, then discuss the questions it raises for information policy and the rule of law. These touch on issues of copyright, antitrust, privacy, free speech, and civil procedure, and are connected to bigger themes in public policy. Special bonus topic: what does scanning books in libraries have to do with laying fiber-optic cable along old railroad rights-of-way?

Good background reading:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6708106.html

Co-sponsored by Earle Mack Law School

1.5TB External Hard Drive for $99

Need I say more? Oh yeah: Free Shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136470

[Update: that one finally sold out, too. Gotta be fast!]

New Video Cameras

Exciting News! We just added 9 new video cameras to our equipment lending program. They're Aiptek Action HD GVS camcorders. Here's what you need to know:

The cameras record to SD or SDHC memory cards (not to tapes) that you will need to provide. Currently, the Computer Connection sells 4GB cards for $16 and 2GB cards for $13. You can figure out for yourself which is the better deal.

The cameras shoot in HD (1080p, 30 frames per second) at about 4GB per hour. They shoot standard definition (more than adequate for most people's needs) at only 2GB per hour.

The cameras also function as 5 megapixel point-and-shoot still cameras. The quality is a little better than you'd get from a 5 megapixel cell phone.

Although they do shoot in HD, and they do a good job, they are not quite the same quality as the Sony and Canon HD cameras we lend, and they don't shoot a very wide angle. But they are much smaller, lighter, cheaper ($200 replacement cost), and easier to use.

If you're curious, you can read the manual online at http://media.sas.upenn.edu/mms/manuals/manual-agvs.pdf

Hard drive deals

I hope you've all been looking at the various Black Friday deals online. Circuit City has this 640GB drive for only $119.00. It's a good deal, and I love this kind of hard drive. It's portable enough that I just keep one in my bookbag all the time. It holds a huge amount of video, photos, or music.

http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5366262&SRCCODE=CCDSHOP&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCmtB55bETCjCVqHCjCdwwp


[Update: They're now sold out. See? I told you it was a good deal.]

Equipment extensions for TG Break

Hi all. Our online equipment lending system only allows you to borrow equipment for up to 3 days at a time. But since Thanksgiving vacation is coming up, we'll be glad to extend your reservation until Monday, November 30 if you ask us when you come into the lab.

Google Sidewiki

Google announced "Sidewiki" late last month. Basically it allows ANYONE to leave comments on ANY webpage that are viewable by EVERYBODY. (or at least everybody who has Sidewiki installed) You need to install the Google Toolbar to enable the features (we do not currently have it installed here in the lab). Once it's installed, you can visit any webpage and leave your own comments, as well as read those by others. To help reduce the effect of comment spam, users can vote on whether they find a given comment useful or not. Comments are not anonymous per se, as they are tied to an individual's Google account.

The good thing about this tool is that it puts so much power into the hands of users.

The bad thing about this tool is that it puts so much power into the hands of users. (A Google search will bring up plenty of angry comments from corporations who are upset that they have no control over the comments users leave about their site, and no way to opt out of the system.)

After installing the Google Toolbar and enabling Sidewiki, visit http://maps.google.com/ to see how a user left instructions on how to find coordinates for any given location. How great is that? One user sharing his knowledge and expertise directly with the people who are coming to the webpage where they most need that information.

Another interesting page to check out (again, after installing Sidewiki) is http://www.comcast.com/. The CEO was smart enough to jump in first and leave a welcome message to others using sidewiki. It's followed by a list of more negative comments (not surprisingly).

And another is at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19190315 where someone left their comments on a specific article.

One way I was thinking it might be useful to library users is that it could allow users to leave comments or reviews about individual library resources or even individual books. I think this would work for main webpages (http://repository.upenn.edu or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/, for example) but not so well for books in Franklin, since the URL for a book record page changes each time you visit it (to the best of my knowledge).

More info at http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/learnmore.html

Twilight Parody

All of you readers who like the Twilight books and movies (like me, 12 year old girls, and ANTH160 students) may enjoy this SNL parody from a while back:



And Conan O'Brien did his thing for the New Moon release:

Closings this week

We'll be closed tomorrow (Tuesday, November 24) for a class from 10:30-Noon. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.

Also, we'll be closed this Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, but we'll be open Saturday 12-5, and Sunday 12-9.

Magic Mouse has Landed!

Yes, we have the magic mouse! They just arrived in stores today, as best I can tell, and I picked up three of them for the lab. Ask a lab consultant if you'd like to try one out.

The entire top surface of the mouse is touch sensitive. It has a left and right mouse button, and then you can drag along the top to scroll up-down or left-right. If you use two fingers to scroll left-right, you can use it as a back-forward control for your web browser. It has a very different feel in your hand than the mighty mouse, which we've been using so far. It runs on AA batteries, and I'm not sure how long they'll last. Probably the best bet would be to use rechargeable NiMH batteries to save on money and be kind to the environment.

Feel free to leave comments on this post to let us know what you think.

The Hue Slider

It's true, you know.

Documentary Filmmaking Workshop

Thursday, November 19, 5:00-6:00pm
WIC Seminar Room, Van Pelt Library 1st floor, West

Come learn how to get started on making a documentary - from lining up interviews, shooting video to editing and trailer creation. Jacob Finkel, SAS undergraduate, made his first documentary film in 2005, and founded the non-profit Corporation for Civic Documentaries. Jacob is directing a documentary on former Senator Harris Wofford (D-PA). Sen. Wofford counseled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., advised President Kennedy, helped create the Peace Corps, is a powerful advocate for National Service, and was an early supporter of the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania. The film has been in production for sixteen months and includes many interviews, including ones with Sen. Ted Kennedy, Gen. Colin Powell, Bill Moyers, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, and former President George H.W. Bush.

Sign up online!

Fun Photoshop Examples

Some great photoshop manipulations over at 10Steps.sg, done by a variety of people. Check them out:

http://10steps.sg/inspirations/artworks/80-funny-and-realistic-photo-manipulations/

Closed Wed 4:30-6

Just wanted to let you know we'll be closed tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov 11) for a class from 4:30-6pm, so please try to plan around it in case you need to work in the lab or pick up/return equipment that day.

Google Chrome Frame

I just became aware of this last week, when I discovered that Microsoft's infamous web browser, Internet Explorer, lacks the technology to run Google Wave. The folks at Google, realizing the IE is still the most widely used browser around, wrote a plugin that allows IE to switch over to the far more advanced Google Chrome engine, thus allowing it to support certain HTML 5 and Javascript functions that it otherwise would be unable to cope with. And the plugin is open source, so you can check out the code before installing it, if that's really your thing.

Of course, the far wiser thing to do would be to simply switch to Firefox. But that's not an option for everyone, especially in certain work environments. So for those folks, there is Google Chrome Frame. Check it out (and install it) at http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/