My Favourite ‘Favourites’ at OAC!

! MY Favourite ‘Favourites’!
! AT OAC !

It occurs to me that …  I really like blogging here at OAC! I published a daily blog in the initial months of remote computing and all of a sudden, I had published almost 230 Posts! And a handful of Pages too. What is the difference between a BogPost‘ and a ‘BogPage‘, welPages and Postsl, I wrote a Post about that called Pages and Posts … What Gives?

And of course, that led me to think about which ones were my … favourites amongst them all! Yeah, not fair, but … I make the rules here! So I will now attempt to list, in no particular order, my “Top 10 Favourite Posts

I will  have one ‘filter’ though … the Post had to have the word “favourite” in  it somewhere – preferably the title! So that will sub sort it quite a bit! So,  HERE GOES!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE POSTS
AT MY BOG BLOG

  1. Think Different or . . . Apple Commercials Through the Years” would be a favourite at anytime, simply because of the sheer imagination of Apple Commercials. A long ago summer project was to learn how to create a DVD and what better source than … Apple commercials! And I think my favourite Apple commercial is for an iPad … “Your Verse Apple iPad Commercial – What Will Your Verse Be?” Watch it and try to disagree with me!
  2. I’m Sorry Dave or . . . My Favourite Computer AI Voices in Movies and TVeasily makes my Top 10. A gimme if ever  there was one as we reference many phrases and moments almost DAILY at CHD! In other  words, Make it So,  Bogman!
  3. 1, 2, 3, . . . . or My Favourite Language Lesson of All Time!” and to this day, it is STILL my favourite language lesson of ALL TIME! My first ever TEACHING job was in Calgary,  teaching  basic computing  skills. Including BASIC as a programming language! Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code! Literally … BASIC!
  4. Open Book Exams . . . . or . . . . My Favourite Textbooks“. How can anyone LIKE a textbook much less make it a Favourite? Well, I did! I have kept many of my favourite textbooks throughout the years! Why not! They helped me get through many a tough course and … that I enjoyed them was a side bonus!
  5. CART2D2 – There is no try! Do or Do Not Young Skywalker!THIS is a favourite because CART2D2 is a favourite! We are still playing around with this to find some great uses and the next big use will be at our first IN PERSON  CHD TRAINING SESSION on May 28th! YAY! There is no try … Do or Do Not!
  6. Comparing Apples and Oranges but not actually ….. Oranges!” Recycling is HUGE at UVic and I try to recycle as much as I possibly can. And when CHD had quite literally a MOUNTAIN OF TECH show up last summer, CALL was used as a staging area for so much tech! And with so much PACKING AND CARDBOARD TOO! So any chance I get to promote recycling, I take it! And we are in the beginning  stages of a new refresh so … warm up your Blue Bins, UVic!
  7. Throwback Thursday . . . or . . . Language Quotes! (and a bit of nostalgia!)” Who doesn’t enjoy a quick quote as a comeback or as a poster in their office! I probably only have a few stored in my long term PRAM that could be ZAPPED at any moment! So quotes about computers, life and especially Languages, is right up my alley in CALL!
  8. Bold Italics Comic Sans . . . or Word Processors Through the Years” One of my first ever Computer  Science assignments, on punched cards no less, was to write a program to replace 3 words (that my Instructor had set in a paragraph (read from a mainframe!) with 3 other words. THAT WAS VERY HARD! But now, Gmail docs, Office, Pages … all have keyboard SHORTCUTS for Find and Replace! And none of them use punched cards as source code! Only shows that I correctly guessed that my future career … was NOT to be a Programmer!
  9. I Excel at PowerPoint . . . or Computer Puns and Jokes” What would any Top 10 List be without including a post about my favourite jokes and puns! I never let an opportunity to ‘pun’ go unpunished! And I am usually RESTRAINING myself too!
  10. CALL CHD JEOPARDY OPUS“. How could I create a Top 10 and NOT include Jeopardy! Okay, a bit of a cheat here as this is actually a PAGE that can be accessed anytime from any of my Posts. AND is always updated to the most recent version of JEOPARDY! In fact, the first IN PERSON CHD Training will be on Saturday, May 28th and I will have a brand new Jeopardy – Greg’s Playlist! And it will have new elements such as Fill-in-the-Blanks, Multiple Choice and even some Scavenger Hunts for prizes!

So many Posts/Pages … so little time! I am not writing at the same pace, but reserve my Posts/Pages for my remote day, unless something comes up.

It might take awhile, here’s to my next 230+ Posts and Pages and Randomness at UVic! YAY!

TTFN!

New CHD Staff Training
Coming UP
… and a new Jeopardy too!

Video Playlists at OAC – COOL!

! VIDEO PLAYLISTS!
! AT OAC !

I discovered a feature of WordPress here at OAC that can create Video Playlists in a post! I have used Photo Gallery quite a bit, once I learned how to use them, and published some of my favourite photographs I have taken at this post, Photography Gallery.

This feature allows you to build a .. Video Playlist .. as the name indicates. Very much like a YouTube Playlist, but for OAC purposes, based on media you have at your own OAC Media Library.

The Online Academic Community has some great Tutorials on Organizing Content and the using The Dashboard too!

All you have to do is have some video media (MP4/M4V work best) uploaded to your Media Library. Then in your new or already existing Post/Page, click on the “Add Media” button. Under “Actions“, click “Create video playlist“.  All the videos that are in your Media library will now appear. Click on the ones you want to be in your playlist and a Blue Checkmark will appear on each one.

Then in the bottom right hand corner, click on “Create a new video playlist“. Then click “Insert video playlist” …
et voilàyour video playlist is inserted into your Post!

You can change the order if you want by editing the Video playlist quite easily, if you want to change the order from how you  uploaded them.

If the OAC Media Library does not want to upload your video, use Handbrake to convert to either MP4 or M4V. Free software for both Mac and WIN and works like a charm for converting SO MANY FORMATS! 

A few more helpful links for creating a Video Playlist at OAC. Not all the features mentioned  will work at OAC but there are many hints and images at these sites to help create your Video Playlists at OAC. ENJOY!

  1. Tutorial: How to create a WordPress video gallery
  2. Insert an Audio or Video Playlist
  3. How to Create a Video Gallery in WordPress (Step by Step)
  4. How To Make A Playlist On YouTube (2022)

TTFN!

New CHD Staff Training
Coming UP
… and a new Jeopardy too!

CALL Dual Monitors

! CALL DUAL MONITORS !
! NOW INSTALLED !

CALL Instructor Stations #37 & #38
                            CALL Instructor Stations #37 & #38

The CALL Facility now has dual monitors on each workstation! Well, not all of them. The Instructors stations (#37 & #38) are connected to the VDP and can project to the entire room. And room is needed for laptops and materials at each station. 

The idea to install them came from a Poster Session for Linguistics, described in an earlier post! It was so successful that the monitors at HSD (in storage) that were headed to be recycled, a box of HDMI-DVI dongles and some DVI cables were found …. DUAL  MONITORS! And at absolutely no cost at all! I joke that I found a penny under a station, so my budget not only came in UNDER budget .. but showed a profit!!!!

There are combinations of Portrait and/or Landscape and relatively easy to switch around. I will survey students throughout the summer to see what combination might be preferable. 

Most students are away for the summer and fewer classes are actually scheduled so it will still look like ‘new’ equipment for September!

Thanks to colleagues T, H and G for helping me set them up! Those cable trays are heavy, awkward and filled with .. cables! LOL! And a very green mini-project, saving tech from a landfill too!

Some previous posts on recycling are “The Recycling of CALL and HSD!“,  “CALL Computer Refresh Deja Vu ….. All Over Again” and “UVIC Recycling Links“.

TTFN!

BE READY!!!!

READY!

CALL Computer Refresh Deja Vu ….. All Over Again

CALL Computer Refresh
DEJA VU …..
All over again!

CALL, & other computing classrooms, are getting new computers! Over the past few weeks, all the older iMacs have been removed, accumulated and are currently waiting to be recycled! Most of the new hardware had been put in place, but is not quite ready yet! The biggest change will be that there will no longer be dual-boot computers, running on Apple computers. Dual-Boot? What is that?  It just means that with the right kind of Hogwart’s Magic, you  can run both WINDOWS and iOS on an iMac! Just partition and install. Oh, if it could be THAT simple, but … let’s just say that those old iMacs served us very well!

It was always satisfying to hear from some students, that Windows running on one of our CALL iMacs was often FASTER than their OWN Windows laptop! But time catches up to all of us, and technology advancements are even faster!

CALL Facility Large Screens
            CALL Facility Large Screens

New dedicated Windows and Mac are strategically located at workstations for individual and/or group work starting in September! AND THEY ARE REALLY FAST COMPUTERS!!! And the new BIG SCREEN MONITORS ARE AMAZING! They were barely installed when … we were all sent home! I did a sneak peak a few posts ago, “SSShhhh . . . Clearihue’s Hidden Secrets . . . & GEMS” and at the bottom are the new monitors! SO MUCH MORE COMING!

And there is SO MUCH ROOM for individual studying, quiet workspaces, quiet group workspaces and comfy furniture too! A BRAND NEW CALL!

More details on the NEW computers will be in a future post, but looking back at how over the past ~9 years, the ‘old’ iMacs certainly don’t owe us anything. Every single iMac that was used since the last refresh in ~2012 was still working! That was a total of 52 computers! And I always like to say CALL had 104 COMPUTERS making it the largest computing classroom at UVic!

The CALL Facility CLE A025
                                                          The CALL Facility CLE A025 – Post Flood!

Some were moved to other locations AFTER ‘The Great CALL Flood of 2015‘ and continued to work for students as drop-in with newer operating systems! We did lose some keyboards and mice and kept a wary eye on the iMacs that were doused, but amazingly, the design, the curvature of the back of the iMac, helped displace the water and they survived!

And below is the last look at all the ‘old’ iMacs from CALL! Thanks for the memories … well … maybe the memory, all 8GB of onboard RAM! Colin and crew removed ALL THE HARD DRIVES IN ONE DAY! THANKS COLIN!

Oh, and the very last photo – I even included my own work iMac, so I have reconfigured my desktop, literally, for when I am on campus! The first time in MANY YEARS, at UVic that there has not been a Mac computer on my own desktop! Lots of Macs around though! And every blog has been created on my DELL laptop at home! So, WIN wins in the end … for now! 

But,  one last bit of trivia is that … we have kept a couple of the slightly newer Post-Flood CALL iMacs for testing purposes. They can run iOS up to Catalina, but since all the new Macs in CALL will be running Big Sur, they really are test iMacs in case we need to test out support for similar hardware. They too will eventually go at some point in time.

And if anyone is interested in UVic’s Sustainability News, then click here or on the image below! And ALL the UVic Featured Topics are right below it!

                                                                   UVic Sustainability
                                                                     UVic Featured Topics

Whatever CAN be recycled 
WILL be recycled!

  1. Recycling – UVic
  2. Sort-It-Out-Stations – UVic
  3. Zero Waste Program – UVic
  4. Water – UVic
  5. Energy and Climate – UVic
  6. Dining and Food – UVic
  7. Computing – UVic
  8. Green Computing – UVic
  9. UVic’s Built and Natural Environments – UVic
  10. Sustainability in Academics and Research – UVic
  11. UVic’s Waste Reduction Hub – UVic
  12. Campus Planning at UVic
  13. Campus Plan – UVic
  14. Sustainable Transportation – UVic
  15. Sustainability Champion Awards – UVic
  16. Featured Stories – UVic
  17. Campaigns – UVic
  18. Campus Sustainability Fund – UVic
  19. Resources – UVic
  20. Sustainability Videos – UVic
  21. Tips for Living a Sustainable Lifestyle – UVic
  22. Sustainability Reports – UVic
  23. Sustainability policy – UVic
  24. Campus Guides – UVic
  25. Vision and Values – UVic
  26. Green Buildings – UVic

BE SAFE EVERYONE!

Pandemic