freshmeat.net: Project details for Edukalibre Collab Moodle
“Edukalibre Collab Moodle is a Web interface to the Edukalibre Repository Manager, a system to create collaborative educational material with additional functionality such as automatic conversion of documents, history of documents, etc. This interface allows users to perform the most common tasks over the system using a Web browser. Some examples are the ability to upload or update a document, review the history of a document, or view the converted formats, etc.“
Using Skype For Recorded Phone Interviews
DDN Articles – Using Skype as a Community Media Production Tool
The article doesn’t pursue this to the end I can see: podcasting. You can use Skype to record interviews and then post those to a blog, getting your own podcast going. I’m developing this sort of thing using open source tools.
Grading Essays With a Computer
Teachers leave grading up to the computer | CNET News.com
“Ed Brent, professor of sociology at the Columbia, Mo., university, spent six years developing the program, which is called Qualrus, and has been testing it on his pupils for the past two. It works by scanning text for keywords, phrases and language patterns. Students load papers directly into the system via the Web and get nearly instant feedback.How can a cold, mechanical computer comprehend the art and nuance of writing? The program is actually quite sophisticated, Brent said. It’s not enough to just throw keywords into an essay willy-nilly. The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas. It gives each work a numeric score based on the weight instructors place on various elements of the assignment.“
I wonder if this would choke on a law school final?
Ten Mysteries of about:config
Ten Mysteries of about:config | Linux Journal
“The Firefox Web browser, built by the Mozilla Foundation and friends is a complicated piece of technology-if you care to look under the hood. It’s not obvious where the hood catch is, because the surface of Firefox (its user interface) is polished up to appeal to ordinary, nontechnical end users. This article gives you a glimpse of the engine. It explains how the Mozilla about:config URL opens up a world of obscure preferences that can be used to tweak the default setup. They’re an improbable collection and therein lies the beauty of Firefox if you’re a grease monkey or otherwise technical. At the end you’ll know a little more about Firefox, but only enough to be dangerous.“
AOL Gets VoIP
Slashdot | AOL Enters the VoIP market
“AOL is entering the VoIP market with its new service entitled ‘AOL Internet Phone Service’. The service will be available in 40 cities around the US and offer integrated IM presence indicator, voice/e-mail and features like Call Waiting, CallerID. As a bonus current AOL members will receive a wireless AP when signing-up for the service.“
VoIP is all fine and dandy so long as you actually have the IP part. I’ve been experiencing considerable difficulty with my cable broadband over the past few weeks and it has been a good thing that i wasn’t relying on it for phone service.
This is the basic flaw in VoIP: no way to guarantee the same level of service availability that you get from a telco. When I pick up my land line, I get dial tone. I don’t get that from any other service. My cells are plagues by ‘dead spots’, dropped calls, and poor reception. My cable and broadband are not always there when I want them. If VoIP is ever going to be anything other than a novelty, VoIP and broadband providers need to work together to make sure that the service is up all the time.
Ajax Defined
You got your Ajax in my Ruby
“Codified by Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path in “Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications“, Ajax stands for “Asynchronous Javascript XML.” Essentially what Ajax does is move much of the smarts involving user-interaction from the web server to your web browser. This takes the form of an Ajax engine (a piece of Javascript code) embedded into a web page, downloaded to your browser, and springing into action upon arrival. Acting as an interaction broker, the engine takes care of all the whizbang interactivity you see (form input and validation, dragging-and-dropping, showing-and-hiding, etc.) while dealing with the web server (and it’s back-end database) as needed. “
Well, this clears up a few things. Now it the questions is how does this help me? I did find this toolkit, Sajax, that includes a PHP backend.
64-Bit Windows Goes Gold
64-Bit Windows XP Released To Manufacturing
“Specifically, Microsoft said that Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition all had been released to manufacturing. Further details will be released at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) later this month.The 64-bit operating system has been long awaited by both Intel and especially Advanced Micro Devices, whose 64-bit Athlon and Opteron microprocessors have been forced to run on beta versions of the operating system. Linux distribution vendors, on the other hand, have offered 64-bit versions for months.“
Kubuntu – Ubuntu + KDE
Kubuntu – Pure KGX
“The Kubuntu project aims to be to KDE what Ubuntu is to Gnome: a great integrated distro with all the great features of Ubuntu, but based on the KDE desktop.“
Integrated Apache, MySQL and PHP Pass CERT7
SourceLabs AMP Stack Integrates Apache, MySQL and PHP
“The Seattle startup announced the release of its SourceLabs AMP Stack, a distribution of open-source software–including the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP development environment (AMP)–that has been tested and certified for reliability, security and scalability, said Byron Sebastian, chief executive at SourceLabs Inc.“
SourceLab ran Apache 1.3.33, PHP 5.03, and MySQL 4.1.9 through a serious of rigorous security and performance test. The result is AMP Stack. The stack is available for download here.
Grabbing Internet Radio Streams With VLC Player
NewsForge | Building an Internet radio recorder with VLC Player
“It’s nice to be able to listen to a net radio station directly on your computer. But wouldn’t it be great if you could record it on your hard disk? Better yet, what if you could schedule recordings, so you don’t miss your favourite programmes? Using VLC Player and a simple batch file you can turn your computer into a radio recorder.“