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Funkintosh!
The 2008 Froshlife Film Festival premiered Sunday evening, February 23, in Duke's Richard White Auditorium. It was standing room only as nine movies were on display and the winning entries were recognized. Some of the themes included "a love-legend in the making, some alternatives to showering, the ubiquity of free t-shirts, a thrilling dance performance, someone in a cow suit, some advice for meeting women, an epic battle with ePrint, a walk down memory (campus) lane, and a second look at first impressions." This year's Froshlife Festival provided some new ways to see the movies. The submissions were accessible both from a streaming video link as well as a live feed in Second Life at Student Affair's Island.
Froshlife is a digital video event for first-year students sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, the Office of Information Technology, and Apple Computer. Participants depict some aspect of their student life and get to experience the ease and power of digital moviemaking. Teams are given computers, cameras, editing software, and training; movie-makers provide the creative vision. Winning entries are decided by a panel of judges. At the end, the Froshlife iMovie Festival shows off team submissions with the top entries winning highly desirable prizes for themselves and their dorm.
Duke's Froshlife event is one of America's premier college/university digital movie festivals and is a signature event in each class' freshman experience. Congratulations to the participants, organizers, and sponsors! Now on to 2009!
Have an idea for a Funkintosh project? Working on something interesting using Macs and Apple technology? Contact macadmin@duke.edu.
That's the welcome message visitors see at the Duke iTunes U site. A direct outgrowth of the iPod First-Year Experience, Duke iTunes U provides a way for users all over the world to access content created at Duke University. Audio speeches, video presentations, podcasts - they're all available at the Duke iTunes U site.
In addition, there are also many courses with private access for participating students and instructors to collaborate. In some cases, classroom assignments have changed from printed term papers to shared video presentations producing results that surprised even the instructors. Duke has been working hard with Apple for a long time and it's clear both parties are very excited to see the results of this partnership. Apple has an article featuring the iTunes U installation at Duke and you can read all about it here. Even better, visit the site using iTunes. Just click the link for iTunes U and look for "Duke University".
Have an idea for a Funkintosh project? Working on something interesting using Macs and Apple technology? Contact macadmin@duke.edu.
One of today's most popular ways of communication is online chatting or "instant messaging." People exchange instant messaging addresses just about as frequently as telephone numbers. And now Duke is offering secure instant messaging for its users based on the jabber protocol. You can find out more information about recommended clients and configuration directions at http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/jabber/.
So how does this justify a Funkintosh mention? Because Mac users have a capability other jabber users on campus don't have. Apple has been including a chat client with Mac OS X for years and the latest release of iChat included with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) supports the jabber protocol. iChat allows you to communicate via text-based chatting and audio and video conferencing. And this A/V chatting works between Duke jabber users running Tiger. You can audio and video conference with another Duke buddy on campus as long as both participants are running Mac OS X Tiger and using iChat AV configured for jabber.
A lot can happen during a lecture. Important information can be missed. Listeners can be distracted by the very act of taking notes. Wouldn't it be handy to verify what was said? Given the right equipment and knowledge, that kind of service can be provided if someone had the time and ability to record content, convert the raw recording into several different audio formats, and make that content available for later listening or download. Whew! What if there was a way to automatically notify the equipment in advance when to record, convert the content into several formats, and make the files available to the user community?
Several groups at Duke including OIT, the Center for Instructional Technology, and Event Services have been working on a solution. iLecture, developed at the University of Western Australia, is a scheduling and automation solution for classroom content. The iLecture server allows authorized instructors and staff to schedule recordings in selected and properly equipped facilities. The entire process after that is automated - from the recording of the event to the processing of the media files to the notification that the files are available for listening.
You can learn more about iLecture at Duke by visiting http://cit.duke.edu/about/ilecture.do.
Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center
The HSPSC uses PowerMacs and Apple laptops, both PowerBooks and an iBook to run the METI Patient Simulator and to digitally record, encode, and stream the audio and video captured in the Center.
According to Wired magazine, who profiled the facility and its star patient, Stan, last year, "Researchers program his vital signs and other bodily functions using a Mac equipped with the OS X operating system. With the click of a few buttons, he can suffer a collapsed lung, start to bleed to death after a car accident or show the symptoms of a bioterrorism attack."
At left, Bryan Andregg of the Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center, shows off Stan's brains.
Welcome to Funkintosh! This is going to be a page highlighting various innovative, exciting and cool projects utilizing Apple technology, both hardware and software, around Duke and in the academic world at large. It'll be updated regularly, so be sure to check back frequently.