Category Archives: tinker
all things concerned with infrastructure and data networks
RBaldizon Executive Summary
I am one of few fortunate people who have not had to search for a job in more than a decade. But, just in case, I’ve always had an up-to-date CV at the ready. My e-CV is online at http://es.linkedin.com/in/rbaldizon. My print-ready CV I keep on Word. Still, whenever I read through either, soooo much is missing that I wish I could tell the person seeing it whenever the moment comes. So, for the past few days I’ve been tinkering with the notion of creating a life/bio summary page that will be the first page of my formal CV. After seeing it on screen, and thinking about each bit of info I’ve included I figured it would not be such a bad idea to post it here…so, here it goes.
Later on I will include short capsules on this site that further explain each piece of the following document. Stay tuned!
If you had the opportunity: iPads or laptops for faculty?
I’ve been asked to make long-term assumptions that will affect how our community goes into the last phase of finally rolling out a 1:1 program at our school. For various reasons we are committed to going forward with this initiative. For year1 we need to mobilize our faculty since currently all are tethered to a classroom PC. So….since we are strongly considering that students will have an iPad instead of a laptop in Middle and High School, I am wondering if it does not make sense to equip faculty with the same gear. Sure, it will tick many teachers since it means learning a whole new way of working, but the argument that it is not possible to do all the work in an iPad now-a-days stands less of a chance to totally hold back such an initiative. Computer monitors would be readily available in classrooms for those needing more screen space, and w/less keyboards would be available for those who wish to still type on a traditional keyboard. Also, using our GoogleApps system we would have the same basic text editing capabilities as those we are used to having now. We have other cloud-based solutions already available for e-text-books, video streaming, test taking/grading, printing, graphics creation/manipulation, music editing, etc….but I am still not 100% sure.
More later as the plan comes together….
Unleash a Squid on your network
Either by law or simple innertia, you will be requested to setup a filtering box between your school’s network and the wild of the Internet. Appliances do a great job, and there are many options to chose from. You can also skip the up-front payment along with the “maintenance” contract these appliances come attached to by setting up your own “appliance”. I’ve used Squid, installed in a relatively cheap PC running some flavor of Linux. Right now we have a Ubuntu/Squid/Dansguardian setup going. For backup we use OpenDNS for filtering.
What we are able to accomplish with the Squid-box is filtering traffic to the Internet, block incoming connections and requests to internal addresses, keep an eye on our traffic in general and firewall out internal network from the external Internet.
When making decisions about equipment to purchase, bandwidth to contract or services to install inside your network, Squid traffic reports are a great tools to have on hand.
If you’re stuck and are not able to get Squid going for technical reasons, you can always fall back on the very reliable and free OpenDNS service. I cannot say enough about this service and how great it is to have. It requires very little maintenance, gives you a lot of flexibility and gets you going within a few minutes.
