I finished configuring and customizing Podcast Producer on Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard Server.  This setup allows podcasts to be produced and published with ease from the end user standpoint.  The server is setup to handle all rendering functions and handles the publishing of the content to an RSS|Podcast feed and to a web server gcsdpodcast.org.

Podcast Producer has been setup on a IMac Dual Core 2 GHZ and is connected to an XGrid computer system that utilizes 7 other Imacs giving the system 16 x 2GHz (32 Ghz) processors to utilize for rendering the images.  This system will take the video feed from podcast capture and will render|format|publish|add intro and exit video’s and link the podcast directly on the web and in itunes.

I made the Intro and Exit Videos for Podcast Producer using Adobe After Effects CS3 - These are combined with Apple’s Quartz composer to add a text intro with the creators user name and the publish date.

Click Here for a short Podcast on using Podcast Producer with Xgrid Computing

Podcast Producer and Xgrid at Geneseo CUSD 228

Subscribe to my District 228 Tech Podcast

Since all teacher and staff computers are now running OS 10.5 Leopard, the utility Podcast Capture is included.  Simply use Spotlight and search for Podcast Capture or go to Applications | Utilities | Podcast Capture.

Simply login and proceed to the next screen

From here you can Select the type of Podcast you would like to create.  If you already have a podcast created but would like to create and xml index and link to Itunes you can select the File option.  You can also choose a screen capture podcast, video podcast or an audio podcast.

The Podcasts are stored on the Podcasting Server and are also available via a webpage.  I setup a new site gcsdpodcast.org, this site hosts the podcasts in a blog style format.

Here is a screenshot of the website

Since Geneseo CUSD 228 is primarily a Mac Based district with 95% of all computers being Apple I have setup a customized Apple Store for the District.  This store is the same as the Apple Educators store with the education discount included for staff employees.  This store will also feature a recommended system option which will appear on the right hand side of the screen.  This is a system that I put together that I believe would work great for any staff member wanting to purchase a compatible system for home use.

Take a look - http://www.apple.com/edu/dist228

I have also added a direct link to the new site on the staff portal

The School District has renewed its subscription with Kerio to manage the software end of hosting the districts mail accounts.  Nothing too exciting with this upgrade other than to note that this product has proved its worth.  Kerio has never encountered anykind of software error or service disruption to my knowledge,  this is remarkable given the number of users and emails that flow in and out of our network.

The new Daktronics video scoreboard is up and running. The video portion of the scoreboard works well and displays images in 176 x 112 format. This is strange resolution but one that compares with a scaled down version of wide screen 16:9. With such a small resolution editing and formating images can be a little tricky but overall images are displayed quite nicely.

The scoreboard has and onboard 500 megs drive (megs not gigs) and loads data to and from using 900 mhz dedicated connection via TCP/IP. The makes data transfers a little slow but also makes it easy to upload data from far distances.

My current plan is to setup a pc and dedicate to the football scoreboard booth. I will have this machine connected to our schools network and to the scoreboard. Then using RDP remote desktop I and others will be able to configure the device from anywhere within the distirct.

I have been impressed with the new Sunray client software version 4.0 and the windows connector software 2.0. I recently installed a new T1000 server and a Dell PowerEdge Server 64 bit dual quad core server that work together to run 50 Windows Terminal sessions.

Using 3com 5500 switches and dedicated 1 gbps ports on the T1000 this setup easily powers two Sunray based labs. The performance of the machines is impressive, with 44 users logged in program startup time was impressive (Word less than 1 second, Excel 1.5 seconds).

The advantage of this setup is definately in the maintenance of the labs. These machines can easily be switched out and require no configuration. My only complaints with the setup are the lack of CD/DVD drive on the T1000 (instead have to do a network share from a server with such a drive, this is kind of silly on Suns part) and the strange performance of JAVA on windows 2003 64 bit OS. It looks like a 64 bit broswer based version is still in the works for Server 2003.

Link to SRSS 4.0 at Sun

http://www.sun.com/software/sunray/index.jsp

I recently finished building a new website for the Geneseo Park District. This website was challenging because the owners of the site wanted multiple features incorparted into the site which I had little experience with. This site is still under construction but has now been put online.
New Features:

Java Based Drop down menu system (had used PHP in the past)

Java Script to avoid the IE 7 Active X popup. Internet Explorer has a new security function that restricts flash from opening automatically, using a simple Java script program you can bypass this security so that the warning is not displayed.

Flash based animation - images that alternate and fade into each other on timed interval. I had never worked with Flash before, I built this simple image flash using Flash CS3.

Custom Google Search - Search engine that uses an ASP overlay to display the search results specific to the site inside of the site in the form of a overlay window.

Create XML sitemap - used to program the custom search engine (not quite finished with this). Search function should be functional within one week.

CSS StyleSheet - Have used these in the past but this style sheet is much larger and robust and manages some unique formatting for the website and helps keep the site speed decent.

http://www.geneseoparkdistrict.org

There is now a fully functional instant messaging system at GCSD 228 that can be used by all staff members on and off campus. I setup this system on an old G4 Xserve running OS 10.5 Server using the ICHAT server software that is bundled with the OS.

Server Setup:

Earlier in the year I rebuilt a G4 Xserve and installed Mac Server 10.5. I have setup the server as a registered domain gcsdchat.org with an ip address mapped to our Cisco PIX device. I modified the PIX configuration so that outside network traffic is correctly routed to the ichat server and so that only ichat traffic is allowed. This modified setup allows the Jabber based IChat server to work from both on and off campus.

Earlier in the year I modified a spreadsheet containing all staff email accounts and used this information to import all staff members into our apple LDAP directory. This main directory houses all student accounts for the district and is a central point for managing and maintaining all Mac users. The Ichat server is setup to interface with this directory so that all staff members have an instant messaging Jabber account.

The new Mac IChat jabber client works well and now allows instant communications between all geneseo staff members. The instant messaging system can handle text, audio, and full video communications. Another nice feature is that the ichat system allows users to share their screen which makes troubleshooting computer problems from off campus much easier.

I give apple a big thumbs up on this product. The software is included with the OS 10.5 Server, is easy to setup and works well. The program interaces nicely with Apple Address Book and all functions of the IChat client are stable and work well. The only problem that I have run across is where a user may be caught in a loop of waiting for authorization, this can be resolved by deleting the user and editing the address book.

The system is in the final phases of testing but will be available to all District Staff by the end of the school year.

With the addition of new Intel based MacBook’s running the new 10.5 Leopard Operating System there have been a few programs which no longer function. Many of the CD-ROM Textbook software has been designed to run on Windows and will not work on Leopard.

One possible solution is to use Bootcamp and actually load a Windows machine to use the software. This solution has major drawbacks since it requires shutting down the computer and restarting just to load one program. Also Bootcamp only works with XP or Vista and requires a License per copy which would amount to 60$ per machine. The school district has owns extra copies of Windows 2000 but would have to purchase XP or Vista.

Apple’s solution is to use the product Parallels, this program works well but unfortunately costs 50-70$ and also requires the 60$ windows license for a combined total of 120$ per machine.

Another possible solution is good product from VMWare. This company makes a Mac version called VM Fusion that costs 70$ per license but could be used to load Windows 2000.

After looking around on the internet I have come across Innotek’s VirtualBox which is now owned by Sun Mircosystems. This product
is completely free to educational institutions. This product works well and can be used to load a Windows 2000 system as a virtual machine. This works out to be excellent since the district has already purchased Windows 2000 Professional licenses for over 90 machines and is currently utilizing less than 10 of the licenses. This provides more than enough licenses to run Windows 2000 on the MacBooks that need Windows compatibility.

VirtualBox and Windows 2000 makes a cost effective and user friendly solution to getting PC compatibility on the new MacBooks.

As you can see from my screenshot VirtualBox loads easily and can be run inside of a windows on the Mac desktop. No rebooting is required.

Here is a screenshot of Holt’s One-Stop Planner Textbook software that will not load on Leopard 10.5. Simply insert the CD and load the VirtualBox Windows 2000 machine and the program works perfectly.

Here is the setup I am using for VirtualBox. 260 megs of Ram, 4 gig harddrive, CD-ROM support, full audio support, and full network support.

For deployment to the Middle School and High School Staff I will probably turn off the network support and thus prevent any malicious software from entering the Virtual machine.

The new Destiny Library Catalog system is now up and running. This system now manages all library catalogs for all schools within the district. This system is a nice upgrade from our previous system as it performs much quicker from both the end user and administrative side of things. Another nice feature is that this system integrates with our school student information system Skyward so that student records are more easily maintained an updated.

I registered the URL www.geneseoschoollibrary.org and configured our Cisco Pix firewall to allow communications in and out making the new library system available online from any location.  I configured this system on a new dual quad core processor PowerEdge 2950 Server which provides a lot of horsepower for a library cataloging system.

With the arrival of Spring Break I have decided to upgrade some of the existing Servers at the High School. Earlier in the year I upgraded the OS to Server 2003 and upgraded the RAM from 1 gig to 3 gigs. The only thing left to upgrade was the actual brains of the unit itself.

There are two PowerEdge 6400’s at the High School and one PowerEdge 4400 at the Middle School. Each of these servers can hold up to four processors although they were purchased with only two processors installed.

The PowerEdge 6400 HServer02 originally had 2 processors that are Pentium III Xeon class processors at 700 MHZ. With a minimal investment (less than 100$) the server has now been upgraded to four processors.

Since this upgrade was not overly difficult and was relatively inexpensive I plan to upgrade the other PowerEdge Servers in the same way. Since these servers still handle some major duties for the district (Storage for all Windows based accounts, DNS, DHCP, file storage, Print Serving, etc. ) this is an inexpensive way to keep our existing infrastructure running strong.

Here are the new Processors: These Pentium 3 Xeons are in the Single Edge Connector (SEC) format. Notice that they have no Fan based coolers attached to their Heatsink. I believe this is that last Pentium created by Intel that does not require a fan directly attached to each processor.

Matching set of new PentiumIII Xeon processors at 700 MHZ

Here is the PowerEdge 6400 HServer02 at the High School.

CPU layout with 2 processors and 2 blanks (blanks are black)

Here is the server with new CPU’s installed

And finally here is a snapshot of HServer showing that all four CPU’s are operational.