debateoneworld

Posted on February 9, 2006 by Wesley Wright

On Feb 8, 2006, at 10:03 AM, Alfred C. Snider wrote:

Part 1 is a blog for debaters, localized, for specific organizations, etc. Can we also do some videoblogging here?

Video PodCasting? Piece of cake.

Part 2 is a wiki for putting together a giant debate text with many authors.

I know how to install wiki software (see http://www.uvm.edu/~waw/mediawiki ), but I haven’t figured out how to use/administer it.

Part 3 is a debating area. This is where we would like to request the cooperation of Mad Dog Wesley Wright. I have two ideas:
A. A place to do live internet debates. We already have that but we will need to link to it.

making links is easy, if that is all you want — or do you have something more in mind?

B. A place where people can have discontinuous video debates.  We envision someone uploading a video of their first speech and then the other side has 2-3 days to upload their response, etc. until we have a whole debate. These can be watched, speech at a time, by anyone. We will have an official judge who will watch it when it is over, and we can solicit audience votes as well.
This is the one we really need some help with.

Sounds pretty straight-forward. File upload is easy (see for example http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/image_upload ). Add some approval mechanisms to prevent abuse, and we’re done. Voting gets a little complicated in terms of preventing ballot box stuffing. But nothing insurmountable.

Then On Feb 10, 2006, at 4:33 PM, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hello Guys,
Since 15th is my last day here I truly don’t think I can do much however, we can certainly start installing a Mediawiki and Mambo distribution for the CMS for this project. Wesley? Could you do this and send me the urls and create a seperate admin account for these installations. They can really live anywhere (they will be masked (forwarded) via domain name debateoneworld.com I believe) and since I don’t think WDI has a MYSQL account perhaps you can also install both on an existing MYSQL db or create one for these two installations. They are pretty similar in terms of installations both use PHP/ MySQL configurations. ( You mentioned you already know how to install  there I believe)

Sure, they can live anywhere — but they need to live somewhere, and that generally means UVM and UVM’s "Zoo" cluster of servers. Which generally means that there must be an associate Zoo account and "NetID."

Fortunately, there is: from what I can tell, someone from the Theater department requested and obtained the UVM NetID "debate" and the url

    http://www.uvm.edu/~debate

sometime around May 4, 1999. And then never really used the account. Even more fortunate, the password associated with this account was trivial to guess. Guess it I did, which allowed me to

  • follow CIT procedures (https://www.uvm.edu/cit/mysql) to obtain a mySQl account (debate) and databases (DEBATE for Mambo; DEBATE_! for mediawiki)
  • install and initially configure Mediawiki and Mambo

URLS:

  •     http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/mambo
  •     http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/mediawiki

Admin accounts and secret words for both are xxx and yyy

So now what?

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Added new database table fields, new table

Posted on February 3, 2006 by Wesley Wright

For Landscape Change, I added a few new fields to our test databas and created a new table named items to store metadata for linked items (sounds pdsf, et.c associated with a single image)

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Generated Python Image Library for Zoomify

Posted on February 2, 2006 by Wesley Wright

The "zoomify" utility wanted by Paul Bierman needs the Python Image Library module, which wasn’t building on zoo. Had TSG update python installation on zoo servers, now build OK. verified it would work with zoomify, passed it off the Ben Fenster to work out details.

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CVS Server

Posted on February 2, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Built and populated a CVS server on Badger for the GLCP project. Now need to develop a plan to us eit.

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Socwork problem

Posted on February 1, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Helpline wrote me:

Entered on 02/01/2006 at 10:42:58 by Mike Kontrovitz:
Judith called back regarding this. Can someone please give her a hand?

Entered on 01/30/2006 at 11:36:00 by Zak Brown:
Client needs to update the Social Work training signup page/database.

http://www.uvm.edu/~socwork/projects/register/login.php

She was told that she needed to download and install MySQL Connector to be able to
accomplish this. That piece of software doesn’t appear to be available from the
University, and is not supported. Not sure where the recommendation for this came
from, or if there is now another program to be used. Laurie, could you look into

I called Judith C. Ingalls-O’Keeffe

The "MySQL Connector " she describes is the mySQL ODBC connector described here:

    https://www.uvm.edu/cit/mysql/?Page=mySQLODBC.html

She downloaded and installed that, and was then trying to access her data using MS-Access. Several problems from here:

  • She is located in F&A Partnrshp 7 Kilburn St 3 F — that is, off campus. The UVM mySQL database server does not allow connection from off-campus computers. I walked her through downloading and installing the Cisco VPN client, which allows her off campus computer to behave like an on-campus computer
  • She was launching MS Access, choose "File==>New==>Blank Data Access Page" . Near as I can tell, the Blank Data Access Page only allows connections to Microsoft SQL servers — not mySQL servers.

So I walked her through the "File==>New==>Blank Database" instructions, again as detailed here

    https://www.uvm.edu/cit/mysql/?Page=mySQLODBC.html

This got her to the tables; However, this does not necessarily match the instruction provided by Sarah Gallagher, IV-E Program Coordinator, or Ilan Agwin, who I believe developed the database and wrote the associated php code (http://www.uvm.edu/~socwork/projects/register/login.php )

So, immediate problems perhaps solved, but may require followup with Sarah or Ilan

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Videos for Admissions

Posted on February 1, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Jen Francouer asked about making admissions videos available for easy iPod downloading. We’re meeting next wednesday, but i preparation I

  • ensured that Current new admissions videos will indeed play with  iTunes, Mac and OC (they do using high bandwidth versions already available)
  • ensured that Current new admissions videos will indeed play on iPod (they do using high bandwidth versions already available)
  • created a sample page to demonstrate right-click-download methods
  • created a sample RSS feed page to demonstrate podcasting methods
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Updated Perseus account creation script

Posted on February 1, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Doug Varney needed this converted for use on parrot. Apaprently, it missed the queue this summer. Script updated, all is well.

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Landscape Change Project

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Wesley Wright

back in the saddle. Added a fulltext index to database table:

create fulltext index gclp_full_text on VTLANDSCAPEDB (FILENAME,OriginalFileName,Title, KEYWORDCAT, LONGDESC, TOWN, COUNTY, PHOTOSOURCE, PHOTOGRAPHER,MEDIA, title_alternative, identifier_citation, identifier_other, publisher);

Which allows stuff like this

select FILENAME,Title,LONGDESC,TOWN from VTLANDSCAPEDB where match (FILENAME, OriginalFileName, Title, KEYWORDCAT, LONGDESC,TOWN, COUNTY, PHOTOSOURCE, PHOTOGRAPHER, MEDIA, title_alternative, identifier_citation, identifier_other, publisher) against (‘+ski* +stowe -mansfield’ IN BOOLEAN MODE);

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Lab Redux

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Regenerated clean lab images for Art and CMD  with all latest Mac and Adobe updates, tested with all scanners. Fixed a nefarious problem with qmasterd, where the Apple Qmaster Daemon would not start because of a mysterious /Libary/StartUpItems/Qmaster/.disabled file that magically appeared after the summe rupgrades. Dleting that file fixed Compressor and allowed setup of networked compressor/render stations, should anyone ever reach the point where they need such a thing.

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Landscape Change Project: meeting

Posted on January 9, 2006 by Wesley Wright

Me, Paul, Emily, ben: project directions

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