Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Technology’

Mar 31

2 Comments

How to Print From Your Laptop. Anywhere.

Last Friday over breakfast, I printed my response paper from my laptop in Proctor, and then picked it up in the Monroe computer lab on my way to class upstairs. The assignment was quite literally “hot off the press” when I gave it to my teacher.

Printing from your laptop to any public printer on campus is as easy as logging onto go/papercut.

You can also use “webprinting” if you need to print something from a walk-up computer.

Webprinting is so easy it’s almost certainly self-explanatory. So, of course I have prepared a step-by-step guide with pictures just to prove how self-explanatory it is/would have been!

How to Print over the internet

Log onto go/papercut:

1) Enter your username and password.
2) Choose [Web print] from the left-hand column
3) Choose [Submit a Job] on the right-hand side of the screen

3) Select a printer. Choose [Print Options and Account Selection] on the bottom-right.
4) Click [Upload Document] on the bottom-right.
5) Click [Browse..]. Choose your document. Click [Upload & Complete] on the bottom-right.

It is now as if you have printed your document from a computer in a computer lab. Your document is now ready to be released from a print release station.

Mar 2

1 Comment

Are you going to be in the yearbook?

This year’s edition of Middlebury’s yearbook Kaleidoscope is already in production, and the money for it spent. The only question at this point is, will your face be in it?

You can upload your face picture (and others) on the yearbook’s photo upload website using the login information sent to your email, or you can ask kaleidoscope@middlebury.edu.

Despite my personal skepticism of whether or not this yearly publication in its current form is right for Midd (see below), I’ve submitted my picture. Here’s a list of reasons that you might do the same…

  • POST-GRAD LOVE LIFE, PLAN B. Senior crush lists don’t always work. Maybe your Proctor crush is too alternative for Facebook. Adding your most flattering picture to the yearbook increases your chances–from zero to slightly higher-than-zero–that the lucky gal or guy will stumble across your face in just in time for your 5th reunion weekend….
  • Obama's yearbook pictureYOUR FACE (IN PRINT!). Yes, a bit vain, perhaps, but user-edited Web media completely takes the fun out of seeing oneself on the Internet. Who doesn’t get a little kick out of seeing your name or face in print?
  • RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE 2010s. If I had posted a picture of myself like the one to the right on FB, and then found out I was going to be U.S. president a few decades later, I probably would have untagged it or deleted it long before the fact. Having a concrete freeze-frame of your 2010 hairdo and granola Vermont style will force you to take a bit of ownership for the good ol’ days in front of your kids.
  • MAKING THE MOST OF IT. You don’t decide exactly how your tax dollars are spent, but you still benefit in some respect from the programs and security that they buy. Likewise, if you disagree with the yearbook, it will nonetheless be published in June with the label “Middlebury College 2009-2010.” If you were a part of that, it seems a waste of your student activities money not to be included.

What’s there to disagree about? Last March, MiddBlog posted on why Middlebury doesn’t need a yearbook. To recap the reasoning, still valid from its original posting a year ago:

  • Publishing a yearbook is expensive, especially as it’s provided “free” to seniors (they’ve paid into the student activities feed coffers for four years, and get a part of that back in the form of the book).
  • It isn’t a well-known part of Middlebury graduation tradition.
  • Documenting everything from an entire year at a busy place like Midd seems impossible.
  • Most of all, perhaps, Facebook and the Web partially replace the need for the extra 200 pages of photos sitting on your shelf 10, 25, 50 years from now. Ditching the yearbook for FB ruins the sentimental part of it, but on the upside would save a tree or two.

As much as I support participating in the current yearbook, I also think discussing the yearbook’s future should continue. It’s a large sum of money being spent, going towards a publication that many say (today) that they’re against.

MiddBlog wants to know. What’s your take? Is a Midd yearbook worth the money? Will you value a yearbook down the road, or is Facebook the answer? How should the idea of a yearbook adapt to the “social media age”? Does DePauw University have it right?

Oct 13

10 Comments

Is the Googleverse is coming to Midd?

I ask that question, not wondering whether or not there’s a looming invasion of Middlebury by an army of the computer geeks who work at Google HQ’s in Mountain View, Calif. Rather, it’s in the hope that our clunky ol’ WebMail service might be facing its last semesters online. According to monstersandcritics.com, a long list of universities and corporations (GE, and Proctor and Gamble, for instance) already utilize Google’s email service for student and employee accounts, representing just a part of the spectrum of what Google, Inc. has to offer to corporations, colleges, and individuals. Is “going Google” really in Midd’s near future?

LIS says, “Highly likely.” Mike Roy, Dean of Library and Information Services, says that this year, LIS is already taking a look at what Google Apps for Higher Education has to offer. While he says that Middlebury’s implementation of the Gmail/Google-based email server is “highly likely” for students, and possibly for faculty and staff, too, the earliest launch date we can hope for is September 1, 2010.

But, with the launch of the new and improved Middlebury.edu design just on the horizon, it looks like that will have to whet our appetites for awesome-new-stuff-on-the-web until the start of the next academic year. Or is it?

You can make the switch yourself. Admittedly I write this an unabashed Mac user, slightly offended by the general unfriendliness of our current Microsoft-based WebMail towards my Safari or Firefox browser. Regardless, and since the earliest launch date of any new college-wide email service is still far off, it’s still a valid question for anyone to ask him or herself, “Am I getting all I can out of my email service?” Since most of us spend significant time arranging the business of life sorting through our inboxes, if you answered, “No,” maybe its a time for a personal switch.

Google, Gmail, and beyond! You can take a look at what Google has to say about their Apps for Education and at the list  of Google products below, but as a satisfied “Googler” myself, given the ease-of-use, innovativeness, and cost-effectiveness of Google products in general, I highly recommend investing in the time to becoming part of the Googleverse–for individuals and the College alike. Here’s a sampling of the ingeniousness of our friends over at Google, Inc. . . .

The basics

  • Gmail: For those of you who haven’t got the free account yet, get this. You’ll never have to delete email with the free GB, your @midd.edu email can be easily forwarded, and the options and features for inbox organization are endless, while never overwhelming. If you’re a hardcore-language-pledger abroad, they’ll even translate your messages into 36 different languages–automatically. Do it! Get an account at gmail.com.
  • Google Docs: Create, save, and back up your papers online, accessible from any Internet connection. So great! Start now at documents.google.com.
  • Google Reader: As much fun as it is to go to the pretty NYTimes.com, WSJ, or Huffington Post homepages and read the headlines of the day, this Google tool is a great way to make your time browsing online way more effective. Simply add the RSS feeds you like to keep up on (like MiddBlog, the Daily Beast, New Yorker, ESPN Headlines, to get you started), and see everything laid out in a nice, easy-to-read, no-frills list arranged almost like an email inbox. Genius! Learn more at reader.google.com.

The next generation of Google

  • Google Blog and Gmail Blog: Interesting and helpful updates and articles on the newest product releases, features, and Google culture. Three thumbs up! Read at blog.google.com and gmailblog.blogspot.com.
  • Google Squared: The concept lives up to its name: organize your search results into a row-and-column table. Great for quick price comparison while shopping, for finding quick stats on anything from demographics, to lists of world leaders, to restaurants in a given area, and more. Wow! Learn more here, or get started at google.com/squared.
  • Google Latitude: Whether you’re making your Vermont rounds, traveling for vacation, or taking an excursion while abroad, and you want to let your peeps know exactly where you are, you can. Provided that you have a WiFi connection or internet service on your cell, you can use this neat little app to help your friends (or parents) let you know where your legs are taking you. How bout that! Take a look at google.com/latitude.
  • Google Wave: Although the release date is TBA, and as a matter of fact, is probably still a bit into the moderately far future, Google is promising a completely revolutionary browser that will put any conception of web browsing, e-communication, social networking, user-based content, etc. into a simple, fast, and all-encompassing Internet experience. Exciting! Check it at wave.google.com.

Jan 7

7 Comments

Defining the “all-student”

The “all-student” email is back. And by “all-student” I mean the annoying yet sometimes almost acceptable-if-you’re-in-on-the-joke way that students send an email to the entirety of the student population by entering in every name of every student in alphabetical order. And don’t forget to reply-all. There exists formal all-student email privileges which exist for a handful of people that visit your inbox regularly: Bobby Joe Smith ’09, Jennifer Herrera of OIPD, Office of the President, Dean of the College, Jyoti Daniere of Health and Wellness, Julie Hoyenski of Facilities. But when students circumvent that formal system of permission, all hell breaks loose. At larger schools, this is impossible for practical reasons. At smaller schools, it flies because the chances that you know the emailer are higher. But at Middlebury, the school is big enough that self-regulation seems out of grasp and small enough to let it continue unchecked.

The Ceramics Club spammed students via an “all-student” email Monday announcing the opening of the Ceramics Club at 75 Adirondack View (the road Tavern and Palana are on). But despite the email faux pas, it’s a semi-legit announcement that marks the beginning for an organization that deserves some publicity. But when one student puts in the work of adding every student name to an email, other students “benefit” by being able to copy and paste those names into other emails.

Emily Núñez who reps EF College Breaks for Midd spammed students in such a way that makes our browsers crash under the sheer size of the email. She brought on the wrath of Sam Libby ’09.5 who writes in an equally bad reply-all, “There’s a reason that no one is supposed to have access to all-student emails. This is an excellent example. Please don’t use this list, Emily Nuñez. We get enough unwanted solicitation every day.”

But this brings up the point that our email-heavy system of communication is killing us softly and there is not a unified way to reduce this unwanted email. We need mailing lists that are opt-in/opt-out. We need a single online announcement space with rotating headlines that is in an online space that we already use frequently. We need one daily all-student email that links to text on the web instead of spelling it all out, and students need to take it seriously by reading it intead of deleting it. We need a moderator because we can do better than futzing around with spam.

Jan 7

iTunes goes DRM-free

Just as Jeff Rehbach suggests in his recent MiddBlog comment, “why not use services such as iTunes, or advertising-supported services such as Ruckus, or subscribe for just a couple dollars a month to MyTracks.” Well, iTunes just made that a little easier today announcing DRM-free songs — a full 10 million songs worth. What does that mean? Well, in the past, most iTunes songs could only be used on iPods and with iTunes proprietary software. Now you can bring your songs anywhere and share them with anyone (no more giving your friends the password to your iTunes account). But don’t break out the champagne just yet because it also comes with variable pricing and an additional $0.30 per song to upgrade your existing library. Oh and there’s a new 17-inch MacBook Pro, iPhoto, and iWork to round out the Apple updates.

MiddBlog wants to know: will DRM-free yet variably-priced music make you buy more or less songs from iTunes?

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »