Steve Abrams Work Blog

• Spent most of the day working on Winter quarters base.
  - Details  on page which I will create tomorrow. (running late)
• Wrote post on SFDM page stating winter closure.
• Helped Stuart with a problem connecting to a projects folder.
• took 15 minutes and created SFDM admin background for image.

• Assisted a student with a Quicktime / Finalcut issue.
• Worked on updating Winter quarter image.
  - Updated: Filezilla, Adobe CS4, Opera, VLC, Itunes, Quicktime, Safari, Flash Player,
  - Disabled auto update (though I may have to redo it when I log in as test)
  - Added VSFX folder and moved HDR folder inside of VSFX folder.
  - Installed Jedit, CCleaner (run: CCleaner),
  - Created PR shortcut on start menu and Desktop
  - Contacted Christian about Painter 11.
  - Set file associations up to have pretty much all audio and video media play through quicktime.
• Installed AD monitor on my system, it lags a lot but I can view users and their last log in time.
• Researched creating SFDM Wave (like google wave but for SFDM) since Google Wave is OS.
• Assisted in deleting CSC files for a student.
• Returned Roberts laptop this morning.
• Sent an e-mail out this morning to those working over winter break regarding scheduling.
  - LINK TO WINTER BREAK SCHEDULE
• Added a couple items to the winter break “to do” board.

• Created a schedule for winter break.
  - Contains who will be and won’t be here and when.
  - Contains notes on roll over time for Workstudy and PTers.
• Looked at the LDAP issue again.
  - Installed LDAP browser so I can see ldap.scad.edu’s structure.
  - Attempted to integrate ldap with htaccess.
• Robert Mrozowski’s laptop now has Nuke installed and is good to go. (sitting on my desk)
• Malcolm came in to ask if Mac OSX is 64 or 32bit, I said it’s 64bit compatible.
  - He’s having issues with the newest renderman install (2 versions) and it seeing the license.
  - He has multiple versions installed which may be causing the issue, but he’s going to uninstall and reinstall some things and see how that goes.
• Picked up Jeff’s new AC adapter for his laptop from Propes this morning. He brought back the loaner I gave him to use.

• Installed Trellis on test server.
  - I personally think this may be our best candidate to replace our old PR system.
  - Easy to modify, RSS items, E-mail support, canned messages.
  - All I need to do is add ldap authentication (which it looks like others have done in the past).
• I also downloaded and reinstalled Hesk again as it seems to integrate well with wordpress, but I need to play around with it more to see if it really fits our needs or if there is adequate support for future updates.
• I also looked in to Web Help Desk, the system that techhelp.scad.edu uses. I think it may be more than we need and the server side install may be too in depth for the sfdm intranet server.
• Updated some items on techhelp.scad.edu.
• Researched LDAP integration.
• E-mailed a student experiencing Flash issues, my assumption is that she was working off her network drive which may have caused some issues.
• Malcolm brought in his laptop this morning, with the assistance of Rich or Doug, Nuke was installed with the stand alone license.
• Updated some plug-ins on the SFDM site.
• Edited some posts on the SFDM site.
• Faxed Ben and my time sheets today around 2PM.

• Updated some items on SFDM today (nothing big just some plugins).
• Had a meeting with Christian on AD policies and the future of the windows image.
  _ From here on out if we have to push out a registry mod, shortcuts, or non admin MSI s we can do so through networking.
• Contacted Faculty with Mac laptops who have the Nuke license to have them come in next week for the installs. I also contacted Rich to give him the heads up.
• Added more information on my Display solution which can be viewed on the page linked above.
• Discovered the purpose of Adobe Contribute. (BLOGGING HO!)
• Showed Tom the SFDM site as well as my Live chat beta.

Anyways… Have a good weekend.

• When I first came in this morning there was an issue in 204 not booting to Linux, went up to investigate. Windows in fine, but the linux partition requires investigation when there isn’t a class currently in the room.
• Installed cutter on my system. Seems pretty slick.
• Assisted Dan and Hassan this morning with the Nuke license install. LMTools had a bad directory address and all that that it needed to work again was a system reboot. Everything should be online and working well now.
• Went with Demitris to drop of Mont-226-06 and a Mac LCD to Gordon Tin at Morris Hall.
• Contacted Shawn from Dyson about the 3 displays that went in for repair I replied telling her we would probably pick them up once the quarter was over.
• Went up to 304 to check out a PR Micheal Garguilo submitted. The teacher station’s windows partition was corrupted and I swapped Mont-304-12 for the teacher station (304-21) and brought 304-21 to the systems office to have chkdsk run and possibly to be re imaged. Hanwei is currently in the process of getting it ready to go back into 304.
• Was invited to Google Wave this afternoon by Andres, we could really use a tool like that for the systems office, it could make software and hardware deployments highly traceable for the future.
  I plan to look into open source alternatives to see if we can deploy something like Google wave only hosted locally.
• Tried to help John Rauh with his connection issues to the project folder. Phong ended up having the solution.
• Ed Kinney came down unable to save a student’s file with an alpha channel. Was able to import layers into a different file allowing it to have alpha channels.

• Updated SFDM forum this morning from 3.02 to 3.05.
  - Updated / Fixed the BBcodes for Vimeo and Youtube.
  - Added BBcode for Metacafe.
• Created a topic in SFDM Forum under admin / images regarding things I find in Windows 7.
  - Found fix for tablet pc options interfering with wacom usage. Info in forum.
• Student came with a problem that he couldn’t mount his home drive.
  - We were able to access his drive by entering \\sav-stuhome.ad.scad.edu into the browser. I created a shortcut on the desktop in case he closes the window.
  
• Created a diagram for the Network Media player solution for the front displays. Created a page on my blog to document the info I’ve collected. LINK
• Played with the LDAP problem again, for about 20 - 30 minutes. I plan on contacting Tom by the end of the week to see what he can do.
• Contacted Gordon today, due to the parade downtown we will be dropping off the Mac and LCD tomorrow.
• Discussed with Dan on migrating the responsibility for the Windows image to me for next year.

Today I looked for option to display videos on the HD plasma displays remotely.

• Mac Mini solution requires 4x Mac Minis at $600 a piece.
  Benifits - Simple setup, allows for remote management, supports HD, looks good.
  Disadvantages - Has same problems a computer would have, may require additional wiring, cost
• V₂D-I50 Tx / Rx Solutions
  - I still don’t know much about the setup, but it supports HD and looks like a hefty system.
  - The price is still unknown, waiting for an e-mail from a rep.
• Other solutions revolve around Network Media Players (so far this IMO is the best solution)
  - Netgear EVA2000 Digital Entertainer - $130×4
  Benefits - Cheap ($130 x 4), plays from network storage, can play off USB, supports HD, uses remote
  Disadvantages - Not sure on reliability, requires Ethernet to be run
  - Apple TV - $229×4
  Benefits - Apple support, HDMI & Component out, User friendly setup, Can cache video locally in case network goes down.
  Disadvantages - Costs a little more, not 100% on reliability.
  Right now I believe a network Media player is the best option to go with as it accepts most video formats, in most cases allows for HD, only requires one PC setup to manage video files, the cost is significantly low in comparison to other options, and no additional wiring would be required.
  Diagrams will soon come, I just am having issues with windows 7 tablet drivers conflicting with wacom’s cintiq drivers… FLICKS ARE ANNOYING!
• Talked to Dave again about the ldap, I may just use the old htaccess files and older scripts to bring other systems up to date. (we’ll see)
• Talked to Doug about the distribution of Maya 2010, waiting on the final say from Peter.
• Contacted Gordon Tin about the busted LCD / Mac Tower, will drop them off tomorrow at Morris Hall.

• Spent most of the day trying to get wordpress / mibew to authenticate against the LDAP.
  - Talked to Doug to confirm my settings were correct.
  - Talked to Dave Hale as well, he clued me in to some additional things to try.
• Student came in with a renderfarm issue, I attempted to assist, but I believe Hassan had more information than what I could provide.
• Showed Andres the new workstudy site. Informed him about using google docs for scheduling rather than constantly updating adobe pdf file.
• Updated image updates in the forum. (lot of little stuff that should improve how it works in the future).
• Dan B. came in and asked if he could come in tomorrow and work from 10 - 2 instead of 9-1 as there is a speaker he would like to hear tomorrow morning. I told him it’s probably ok, but he needs to e-mail Dan H to let him know of the situation.

• Had a short meeting today interrupted by Dave Hale’s visit.  No complaints were heard.
• A student came in unable to copy a file from the desktop to his external drive. The file was over 4 gigs and his drive was fat32.
• Researched a couple PR alternatives. Mantis, Wordpress Help Desk, and Word Press Trouble Ticket. None really showed potential, but I can see word press trouble ticket being helpful in the future as a backup report system.
• Added network status to sidebar on staff site.
• E-mailed Jody about 3DsMax 2008, got a renewed license of that and installed it. Still need to see if it works out in the classrooms.
• Went around again looking at cable management. Some rooms still seem incomplete probably due to the lack to ties. I need to order more.