For example, the Google Calendar events we populate for student’s schedules can have a link to the Moodle course in them, and if a student clicks on the link they will go directly to the course without needing to reauthenticate. A professor could create a google doc spreadsheet for students to enter their lab results into and then embed it or link to it in their moodle course and the user experience would be seamless.

Currently, the Single Sign On system is used by Google Calendar, Moodle, the GTS Tools Page, and Media Services.

Moving forward, we hope to include more of Gustavus’ web resources into our Single Sign On solution so that we can easily customize content without constantly asking for people’s passwords.

Do you have an idea of a Gustavus service you’d like to be included? Post it in the comments or e-mail webmaster@gustavus.edu

This is a time-lapse video of the Don Roberts ice rink going from the final stages of the 2008 Nobel Conference to the newly repaired ice rink. Earlier this year the cooling system failed and had to be replaced. In this video you can see the removal of the old cooling system followed by the installation of the new cooling system. If you ever wanted to see what is down there below the ice, here is your chance.

The video was created by taking a photo every minute from October 9th through November 30th and stitching them together. To try and shorten the video I removed most of the images where not much was happening such as each night and some of the weekends.

The new stadium has really been taking shape the past couple of weeks. Just a few days ago they moved the visitor stands from the old field location to the their home as part new stadium. We captured some images of the move and put together a couple of time lapse videos.

This video is of the visitor stands being taken down from their old location.
Removing-Stands.mp4 ( 152MB )

This video is of the visitors stands being reconstructed in their new location.
Rebuilding-Stands.mp4 ( 57M )

Since the main webcam for the stadium construction is now mostly just showing the back side of the visitor stands we have begun looking into other locations for a camera so that everyone can keep following the progress. While we don’t yet have a good location for a new camera, the web team put together a page where you can view 3 of our other webcams. You can see the new stadium in at least one of the cameras off in the distance.

We’ve tried to do some user education to encourage people to download things from the web from other colleges and universities when possible, but what if you want to download something which is available using bittorrent? (Such as the many legal movie downloads at http://www.legaltorrents.com/ or Linux install CDs.)

We’ve created a list of all the “non-Internet2″ ip addresses on the Internet, which should allow you to download only from Internet2 sites. In addition to using a less costly resource (Internet2) instead of a more costly resource (Commodity Internet,) I’ve also found that downloading using bittorrent from only Internet2 speeds up the downloads a lot.

You can set up uTorrent or Azureus to use this list by following the directions below.

For uTorrent, download http://homepages.gac.edu/~sommere/ipfilter.dat and put that file in “c:documents and settings[your user]Application DatauTorrent” (”Application Data” will be hidden, so you will need to change your settings to show hidden files.) Then go into uTorrent’s settings, to Advanced Settings, Enter “ipfilter.enable” in the text box and click “Set.” Any torrents you start downloading after doing this should only download from Internet2. If you want to disable this later, just set ipfilter.enable to false in the advanced settings.

For Azureus, install the “SafePeer” plugin. Then go to the Plugins menu and select “SafePeer.” Make sure the Blocklist is on, and then go to the blocklist tab. Change the Blocklist URL to http://homepages.gac.edu/~sommere/spconfig.txt and click save. Then restart Azureus. New downloads should all use only Internet2.

Remember, you should only use bittorrent to download things you have a legal right to download, and that whenever you download something using bittorrent you are also allowing other users to download the same file from you. While there may be fewer RIAA “agents” on Internet2, there almost certainly are some.

If you would like to give it a try, visit https://www.gizmocall.com/ and install their little plugin. Once it is installed you can enter echotest@gac.edu and hit the call button. You should be greeted by our echo test.

Now that you have that working you can call your dorm room by entering your Gustavus email address and hitting the call button.

If you would like to take it a step further, you can add links to your web pages that make it simple to call you. For example, if you want to make a link to the echo test, it would look like this: https://www.gizmocall.com/echotest@gac.edu. Or you could send that same link in an email.

Once downside to all of this is that the people making the phone calls will need to have a microphone on their computer. If you want it to sound really good without any echo, they should really have a headset.

So, go ahead and give it a try. I would really like to hear any feedback you might have.

The inspiration for this comes from the Internet2 SIP.edu working group. The end result is that you can now tell your family and friends that they can call your room phone number absolutely free over the internet by using any of a number of voice over IP (VoIP) softphones. Or, if they happen to have a real VoIP phone that supports SIP URI dialing, they can call you with that phone too.

One easy to use VoIP softphone that supports SIP URI dialing is Gizmo from the gizmoproject.com website.

If you want to give it a try, start by downloading Gizmo and installing it. Once you start it you need to create an account and sign in. After you are up and running you can enter any Gustavus email address at the top and click on the green phone icon to place your call. If you just want to test it out, try calling echotest@gac.edu. That will connect you to our VoIP echotest where you can talk and hear your voice repeated back to you. For best results you should use a headset with a built in microphone.

Fore more information visit our VoIP Wiki page.

If there are other days you think would make a good time-lapse video, please let me know.