Postscript
published by jon on Wed, 07/11/2007 - 15:33
Well, That's It.
published by jon on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 22:51
Today
was the last teaching day of class. All that's left is the technology
fair/give away on Thursday. That will be an opportunity for some review
as the students setup the accounts and settings for others, but no new
information.
Away and Rain
published by jon on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 22:50
I'm
not sure which is the bigger news, the computer giveaway or the first
significant rain since I've been here. The rain started just as I was
loading the last giveaway into a woman's truck, so I'm going to take it
as a good omen. Presumable most people aren't here for a weather report
though so I will talk some about the giveaway.
Down to the wire
published by jon on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 00:06
One
class to go until the Tech Fair/give away day. I wish we had more time
to spend on software, hardware and installs have really sucked up the
time, but we'll get there. In future I'd either split the class into
two, one hardware and one software, or make it a summery practicum class
requiring Operating Systems Fundamentals and Hardware Fundamentals.
Navajo Weaving
published by jon on Mon, 07/02/2007 - 19:31
Final weekend rambles.
published by jon on Sun, 07/01/2007 - 16:27
Didn't
quit make it to the top there, the pitch went up an the ground got
sandier, and that was a bit too daring on my own without having told
anyone where I was going or when I'd be back. But there was quite a
view. The little digital doesn't like the haze, so you'll need to trust
me a bit on that one.
Success!
published by jon on Sun, 07/01/2007 - 01:18
We have the reading colors section of gcompris
translated and working. The working part didn't happen until after
class, mostly because it was much simpler than I'd thought. Maybe we can
have a translation editor open at the Tech Fair and people add to the
translations as they go by...
Tsaile Techology Fair Thursday July 5th 2007
published by jon on Thu, 06/28/2007 - 19:58
Next Thursday we're holding the first (annual?) Diné College
Technology Fair. This was a student generated idea, though I forget just
whose and no one is claiming responsibility...
Everyone has an off day right?
published by jon on Wed, 06/27/2007 - 18:59
I killed my demonstration machine right before class today so I
didn't have a system like the students systems to project on the
screen. Since my plan for the morning was to go over the GUI environment
and installed applications this was a little bit of a problem.
What a long strange trip it's been
published by jon on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 22:52
So I spent the weekend up in Durango, CO a pretty tourist town on the
edge of the San Juan Mountains. It reminded me how much I don't really
miss "civilization". Also saw a Celtic Heritage festival there and ran
into Renaissance Faire in Mancos, CO on the way back. This put an odd
perspective on things in general...
See, I told you I have students!
published by jon on Mon, 06/25/2007 - 22:53
As you can see, Ed gave me the CD he promised along with permission
to use them for Imara. We're rolling right along in class. Students have
three PC each substantially complete, will probably end up with five
each (one to keep four to give) at the end of it all.
Long Wonderful Day
published by jon on Thu, 06/21/2007 - 18:53
Diné Perspectives
published by jon on Wed, 06/20/2007 - 01:23
I had a very exciting day today. I'd been becoming concerned about
the lack of Dine? involvement in the direction this project. The
students are almost exclusively Dine? and they've been very responsive
to topics in class, but I hadn't gotten any input on what local needs
are or how the class and computer distribution would really help the
community. But today I got quite a lot of feed back and ideas about what
people want and what they don't want. Ahe'hee'!
I'd though I'd brought all these point up before but today some of them caught.
My download completed...
published by jon on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 22:37
The Debian mirror job finally finished yesterday (good thing I
only mirrored i386 and not all the architectures), working on a local
mirror of the security updates now. We can do installs Monday, even if
we have to wait a couple days to talk about security updates.
Bad network, no biscuit!
published by jon on Fri, 06/15/2007 - 16:27
I'm living right on the edge of the current wireless coverage, well
perhaps a bit over the edge. On a good day my signal/noise is 5, and
it's a good thing that this fairly quiet on the RF out here as the
signal hovers between -85dB and -92dB. In other words the signal as
awful and I've been lucky to get what I've gotten. Well, I haven't been
so luck the past 48hr or so.
It's up now though, and tomorrow we should have a live test of the
new repeater station, though sans pole, so it probably won't be able to
actually stay up and get me network.
Busy day, but not much to say...
published by jon on Wed, 06/13/2007 - 20:31
Got
no picture today, sorry guys. Supposed to have someone from the press
office at the College come through an take pictures tomorrow, so maybe
I'll steal some of those. Class today was one more hardware upgrade, so
at this point we have two workable computers per student, one to keep
and one to give away. Not bad for the first week. Next up we get into
real OS issues or configuration and management.
Another tough weekend...
published by jon on Wed, 06/13/2007 - 20:30
Walked up the hill behind campus yesterday, got quite a view. It's been a hard weekend like that.
Antenna Day
published by jon on Sat, 06/09/2007 - 12:45
Spent the day thinking about antennas, well mostly remembering what I'd
forgotten about antennas and writing ugly little scripts so I wouldn't
have to remember long. Not too much to tell about that, just spent a
good seven or eight hours hunched over the laptop. Kevin had a phone
system crisis to deal with so, Monday we'll sit down and decide what we
need. What we need first is some measurements on what area these
repeaters need to cover, that should be simple.
The visible computer
published by jon on Sat, 06/09/2007 - 12:45
This is our demo unit. Very handy for pointing out parts as we're talking about them. That naked hard drive was
spinning. It was an excellent demo both of how hard drives work and how
fragile they are as we watched it start to throw I/O errors and finally
just stop spinning all together. Today was a bit of a free for all in
class, good thing we have a 4:1 student to teacher ratio.
Today's weather: Blowing Dust
published by jon on Thu, 06/07/2007 - 19:38
I didn't even realize "blowing bust" was weather until today, but boy
is it! I have dust in my socks despite having worn hiking boots all day,
to say nothing of my nose and teeth. In case you didn't guess from my
stunning image selection, it's another day with no pictures of class
(left my cf card in the laptop I didn't bring to class, had the camera
though). The wind brought us three power outages today.
First Day of Class
published by jon on Wed, 06/06/2007 - 19:40
My sister says I should have a picture of my self up here and I didn't take any pictures in class, so here I am. Hello World. The first day of class went very well (I think). We had eight people which is a pretty full house given the space. The students also represent a wider cross section of the local community than just the undergraduates I expected. I think we have a a very good group.
Progress?
published by jon on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 21:24
Long day for a Sunday
published by jon on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 22:03
I usually try to avoid working Sundays, but today David and I spent some quality time arranging the room and categorizing the computers we have on hand for demonstration and distribution. The existing thin client network for software work is pretty much in order, just a slight rearrangement to fit the projector in was about all that needed.
The hardware side needed a bit more work.
Mary's Hogan
published by jon on Sun, 06/03/2007 - 23:30
I've never met Mary. I don't know her last name or what she does here at Diné College, but I'm subletting her hogan for the next 5 weeks while working on the Imara/Dine? project
