Ubuntu and Microsoft AD Authentication

My school district has had iMacs and Windows-based PCs operating on the same network for a couple of years. This coexistence of operating systems was primarily made possible by the addition of an Apple X-Serve to our fleet of servers. This allowed us to control system updates like we do with the Windows Update Server, prevent Microsoft Office for Mac from asking for user information from every person that uses the computer, install network printers, and even manage minor things like which applications appear by default in the dock (going to the applications folder to find Firefox is just plain silly).

But this week, I have had a new challenge placed before me. A student wrote to our high school librarian advocating the use of Linux on "a few" student desktop computers, which of course got passed on to me. I have toyed with this idea on and off for several years, but this email in particular caused me to search my office and the server room high and low for that Ubuntu 9.10 desktop OS disk I knew we had around there somewhere (which would keep me from having to download it...again). A little while later and I had a test platform running Ubuntu Karmic Koala and ready for my experiment - can I get it to authenticate against Microsoft Active Directory just like our iMacs?

I did some quick Google searches, sifted through the information for older Ubuntu releases, and finally settled on the Likewise Open package. I used the directions found here to install the Likewise packages from the repositories. I had some difficulty getting either the GUI version of CLI version to join the computer to the domain, until I realized that I had not installed all of the packages I needed. I installed "likewise-open", "likewise-open5", and "likewise-open5-gui". Once all of those packages were installed then viola the computer literally leaped onto the domain and started allowed network logins to access it.

There are two more things I want to do before releasing Ubuntu desktops to students: 1. create an AD security group that has Sudoers rights and 2. map to the network user's home directories upon login. I've read articles and how-to's for both of these issues so far and I will report back once I am successful.

Looks like my district may be well on it's way to having three desktop operating systems sharing the same network.

Image Credit: www.argazkiak.org/photo/ubuntu-910/

Review: Asus Eee PC T91MT

I recently purchased an Asus Eee PC T91MT convertible tablet netbook. I was doing research for a netbook project for my district (see post) and I ran across this little gem on the Asus website. I was intrigued by the possibilities of a convertible tablet netbook but was unable to get one on demo, so I purchased three for field testing with different people in our district (it might be important to note that our district is heavily invested in tablet PC technology). I took one and gave the other two to other people attending the recent Texas Computer in Education Association conference in Austin, Texas. We were to put them through their paces to see if they were suitable for classroom use. The first thing we noticed was the undersized keyboard. While the 8.9" screen is adequate - it doesn't have the keyboard size to make it possible to input text via the keyboard on an extended basis. Of course, we didn't get the device strictly for it's netbook properties, but we also put the tablet functions quickly to work. The netbook handles Windows 7 Professional reasonably well, but struggles when you get more than two programs open at once. It worked great for taking notes during sessions and checking email - the size was spot on and the solid state drive made it more rugged for portable use.

The touch screen is a bit different than the one on the Toshiba Portege series of convertible notebooks/tablet PCs. It can be manipulated by either a stylus or your finger. Not only that, it's multi-touch. Unfortunately, Microsoft's OneNote gets a bit confused by the multi-touch functionality and you have to be careful while writing on the tablet.

One thing of note about this netbook: It does not fit into Microsoft's netbook standard therefore it is being shipped with Windows 7 Home Edition, not Starter Edition. We upgraded ours using our Microsoft School Licensing Agreement to Windows 7 Professional so we could join them to the domain.

In the end, all three of us like the netbooks, but the smaller keyboard and higher price (about $150 more than the 1005HA) as well as the sluggishness under a load kept us from using it for our netbook project. Nevertheless, they are great for meetings and days that require a long battery life (4-5 hours). I don't regret the decision to purchase these netbooks.

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35983122@N08/3545859496/

Review: Asus Eee PC 1005HA-VU1X

My district recently decided to purchase some netbooks in order to fill a gap in needs at our intermediate campus. I have been following netbooks for the past several years and even purchased the original Asus Eee PC when it first came out. After quite a bit of diliberation, it was settled that we would purchase the Asus Eee PC 1005HA-VU1X. Our criteria for selection consisted on screen size, hard drive size, RAM, and perhaps most important - price. We considered a locally branded companion netbook, Acer Aspire One, Toshiba's netbook, and several Asus models. We choose the 1005HA because it fit the preferred 10.1" screen, 160GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM (upgradeable to 2 GB) and all that for the cheapest price.

The first item of business once they showed up was to get the first one out of the box and begin the process of creating a image that meets our district standard. The image creation process was a dream. I used an external USB CD/DVD-ROM drive to load Windows XP Professional (it came with XP Home Edition) per our Microsoft School Licensing Agreement. Then I inserted the included drivers CD and in less than an hour I had a fully functioning, bloatware free netbook. After a couple of days of loading programs, we attempted to capture the image using FOG. Unfortunately, FOG doesn't include the Atheros network driver needed by the Eee, so we fell back to using Symantec's Ghost. Counter space limited us to imaging only seven netbooks at a time, but in less than a day our technicians had them all ready to go.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with this netbook. It is small enough to be ultra-portable, yet had a nice size screen and just after a few minutes at the keyboard I was back up to my full typing speed (which is not very fast, but I was clicking along just as good as at my full size keyboard on my desktop). It is very responsive to commands and seems to handle 2-3 simultaneous programs as well as most other standard portable computers.

Edit: fixed a typo

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32685996@N08/3948311908/

I am a blogger...

Last week, Mark Cockrell wrote a very nice article on his views of blogging in education, entitled "I don't want to be a blogger". There are many points he makes about blogging that I might be forced to agree with (and especially with some points made in the comments). However, Mark's idea seems to pigeon hole everyone that calls themselves a blogger into a realm that they are something less than a writer - especially if they endorse utilizing blogging with students as a form of writing. To me blogging is not about the writing, it's about the sharing of ideas, the creation of discussion with other people interested in the same things as me. Of course people come to my blog to read - even read things that I have written, but even those boring peer-reviewed academic journals utilize charts and graphs to clarify points and show information. To me, blogging is a form of writing that utilizes the abilities of modern technology to incorporate video, pictures, charts, graphs, and yes even text...text that is written...by a blogger.

Should blogging be the only method of teaching writing to students? NO! Of course not, that would be foolish, but to not expose students to as many different types of writing as possible would be as equally foolish. In essence, Mark takes offense to the term blogger because it seems to depict something less than what bloggers really are, which are writers. In my mind, blogging is more than writing - it is conveying information through every possible channel available by the current technologies in an ongoing discussion with peers (i.e., no teachers, no students, everyone is a learner). It doesn't matter whether that information is text, video, or graphics.

Mark, my brother, I will accept your epithet of writer, but I will still call myself a blogger.