In part 1 of this series I talked about what Mythbuntu was and why I thought it would be a viable option for centrally managing video content in the school system. For those of you that didn’t get a chance to read it here’s the run down on the project. Mythbuntu is one of the many implementations of the software package called MythTV. In short it’s one of many open source alternatives to Tivo. So think free Tivo as you think about this project. (more…)
So the worst has finally happened the Tivo in our house had died. We received this Tivo as a gift for our wedding. It had been used but that didn’t bother us and best of all it had a lifetime subscription with it. So needless to say we were living large with our free Tivo until one day it wouldn’t power on. It would start to go through the motions but after a while it would just give up. Needless to say we were quite distraught over the loss. My wife who while being fairly technical in nature is typically more reserved dove into it like it was the last bit of food on earth. (more…)
If you haven’t checked out ted.com then you don’t know what you’re missing. This little site is dedicated to the conference that bears its name. In this conference the best and brightest minds from around the world bring their ideas to share. It’s a great place to learn something new or to become inspired. Here is one such video that I found particularly insightful. There’s many more and I could have posted a dozen more but that wouldn’t be any fun for you. So go take a look and see what you can find.
One of the projects I’ve started working on lately is coming up with a centralized way to offer digital media services to the faculty at TTU. One of the goals that we have as a part of the Technology Institute is to train faculty in the use of cutting edge technology. It struck me the other day as I was working on a home brew DVR solution that one of the things that seemed to be missing in the classrooms I work lack a unified digital media center. (more…)
FreeNAS is an open source operating system exclusively built to serve the purposes of implementing a small Network Attached Storage (NAS for short) device. NAS devices allow for centralization of data, data backup, and collaboration. The beautiful part, besides it’s being free, is the ease in setting it all up.At TTU we have begun using a FreeNAS server for organizing all of our files that are commonly used throughout our department. One of the issues that kept coming up within our department was versioning control (people using different versions of the same document). We were also struggling to keep all of our files that we commonly shared in one central location. It was not uncommon for one person to go on vacation and inadvertently lock us out of accessing documents that we all needed access. FreeNAS allows one central location for all of these solutions. FreeNAS’s features really shine in its versatility. With FreeNAS, one can connect to the NAS as a shared network drive, an ftp server, and many other useful methods that meet a wide variety of operating systems needs. With FreeNAS we can insure proper backup either by using a hardware RAID or the built in software RAID.
As one can already see the possibilities for education are pretty varied and wide. It for one can offer life to legacy hardware by turning older machines with lower power processors into centers for data management. A NAS does not need the heavy computing power that many other services need. FreeNAS can also be fun from a usb drive or compact flash drive further reducing its footprint. FreeNAS offers efficiency and access to files from either work, home, or abroad. It offers a method for sharing files that would other wise have to be handed off physically or broken into chunks and sent through email. It also gives schools the opportunity to centralize their documentation and backup. When combined with backup software one can greatly decrease the likelihood of data loss due to hardware failure. It also offers integration with LDAP and local user authentication and restriction control. All in all the software provides another free and easy to configure alternative to expensive projects.