My god, it's Full of Macs!

Come down to C196.01 on the Concourse level of the Mina Rees Library to check out the Mac Media Lab.

Be sure to bring external media (hard drive, DVDs, flash drive, online storage, etc) if you want to save anything.  The accounts on the Mac Pros will let you save, but they are guest accounts, so when you log out, they will be deleted.

Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client is a great alternative to M$ Entourage and Apple Mail.  Thunderbird is Free Software and it offers user friendly support for OpenPGP, so you can easily send and receive encrypted emails with it.  It doesn’t support “Exchange” as such but it does support IMAP, so you can set up your GC email account very easily.

Until today, I hadn’t tried setting up directory services.  It took a little playing around – but it worked:

1. In Thunderbird, go to the “Tools” menu and choose “Account Settings”
2. On the left hand side, choose “Composition and Addressing”
3. Under “Addressing”, select the radio button next to “Use a different LDAP server”
4. Click the “Edit Directories” button.
5. Click “Add” and create a new entry with the following information:

• Name: GC LDAP
• Hostname: r1.gc.cuny.edu
• Base DN: dc=gc, dc=cuny, dc=edu
• Port number: 389
• Bind DN: gc\YourUserName

To finish, click “OK” and then click “OK” again and then select the entry you created “GC LDAP” from the drop down menu and click “OK” to close the “Account Settings” window.

Now when you create a new message, Thunderbird will autocomplete the names (GC addresses) as you type.  You can also look up users in the “Contacts” tab of your new message window.

Imagine if every time you printed something, your printer was hiding a secret code on the document that could be used to trace it back to you.  Yes, it sounds like the beginning of a dystopian science fiction short, but it’s actually the reality of printer codes.  The US Government has convinced the manufacturers of certain color printers to encode each page that is printed with dots that can be used by the secret service to track the origin of the document.  Ostensibly, this is to prevent currency fraud, i.e, making your own money.  But as the EFF reports:

“…there are no laws to stop the Secret Service from using printer codes to secretly trace the origin of non-currency documents; only the privacy policy of your printer manufacturer currently protects you (if indeed such a policy exists). And no law regulates what sort of documents the Secret Service or any other domestic or foreign government agency is permitted to request for identification, not to mention how such a forensics tool could be developed and implemented in printers in the first place.”

What can you do?  Buy and use printers that do not encode secret information on the pages you print.  And if you have a printer that does this, label it so users know what it’s doing.  You can find a list of them here.

Christopher asks a few questions about my previous post on the Open Source software that was included on the Macs. They’re great questions requiring longer answers, so I’ll address them here in a new post rather than in the comments.

“Are you also interested in free but not open source mac apps?“

Unless  it can be run for any purpose, studied to see how it works, adapted to your needs, improved, changed and distributed with or without changes then I don’t consider it to be Free Software.  Free Software is software that respects these essential user freedoms. If there is a Free Software option or an Open Source software option, I always choose to include it.  Freeware, software that you don’t have to pay for but that is not Free, can also be useful but we should ask: why isn’t it Free?  Richard Stallman has published a great essay on the implications of all this specific language, you can read it here.

“Can you give more information about why you chose the particular apps that you did?“

The applications that are included on my Mac image come from a few sources.  Some are what I consider to be, based on my research and personal experience, the best in class for that function.  In other cases, they came from user requests.  Others are chosen because they provide the user with the most freedom.  For example, applications like R and Latex were included in the image because they were requested by students who were using the Macs.  OpenOffice (NeoOffice) and Firefox have grown in popularity not only because of the features they offer, but most importantly because of the freedoms they offer to users.  Power and reliability are not my primary concern when it comes to including software on the image, instead I’m interested in software that does not restrict or control users.  The Mac OS is chained down with enough restrictions on freedom, from the End User License Agreements to the DRM in the media.  Including as much Free Software as possible on our Mac OS X computers is an act of resistance.  It’s free software and it gives you freedom!

“Also I noticed you have a few browsers (Firefox, Camino, Shiira, presumably Safari), why so many?“

I can think of three reasons off the top of my head, there are probably others:

1. A web site will appear differently in each of these browsers.  It’s important when you create content online that you know what it will look like to users on different operating systems and with different browsers.  After checking it on multiple Mac browsers, I suggest looking at it on a Windows PC, and for Windows users, the reverse is also suggested.  A web designer should always think outside of their own screen.  It’s amazing how often you’ll find a site that fits the designers screen size perfectly…but looks odd on every other computer.
2. Distinct from the issue of appearance, many web sites are still being designed and tested with IE only and may work with one of the Mac OS X browsers but not the others.  One example is the CUNY Portal, which works in Firefox but not in Safari.
3. Freedom of choice.  Some users may prefer to use one browser over another, and by providing them with all of the currently available options, I let them make that decision.

“Can NeoOffice deal with .docx files?“

NeoOffice has experimental support for opening and saving the .docx file format.  However, Micro$oft offers a stand alone converter that can be used to change these to .doc files.  I would suggest that all users create files in open, accessible formats that are readable by users on any operating system.  A user shouldn’t have to own a particular piece of software in order to open your file.

Here is the Open Source and Free Software I’ve added to the image on our Macs at the Graduate Center.  Every time I build a new image, I add more Free Software. I also devote dock space to it.    You’ll find on the Macs that all the software on the right hand side of the dock is Open Source or Free, the left had side is proprietary.

Adium (1.2.7)
Aquamacs (22)
BibDesk (1.3.17)
Burn (1.72u)
Camino (1.6.3)
Excalibur (4.0.6)
Firefox (3.0.6)
LaTeXiT (1.15.0)
NeoOffice (2.2.4)
R (5166)
Seashore (0.1.9)
Shiira (2.2)
TeXShop (2.14-svn)
The Unarchiver (1.6.1)
VLC (0.8.6f)

Have a suggestion for something you would like to see included? Please drop me a note in the comments. (Note: the version number listed is installed on the public Macs in the Library and Student Areas, it may not be the most recent, but is updated whenever possible.)

If you’ve set up Entourage on your Mac to get your GC email, you might not have access to the Contacts that are also offered by our Exchange servers.  If you notice that Entourage doesn’t autocomplete names when you type them, this is why.

To get these services working, you’ll need to add our LDAP server to your Entourage account configuration.  Here’s how:

1. In Entourage go to the “Tools” menu and choose “Accounts”

2. Double-click to open your Exchange account settings

3. Click on the “Advanced” tab

4. In the “LDAP Server” field, type: r1.gc.cuny.edu

5. Check the box “This server requires me to log on”

6. Click “OK” and you should have access to directory contacts in Entourage!

Some of the technology that we use to manage Macs for the university can be used to customize your personal Mac as well.  Ever wanted to customize the settings for the guest account without getting involved in anything called “Parental Controls”?   It’s always been possible to do this with lots of fancy command line typing – but there’s a much easier way – here’s how:

1. Download the Mac OS X Server Admin Tools.

2. From within your user account, run the installer.

3. Once the package of tools is installed, open up Workgroup Manager.  You’ll be prompted to sign in:

• Address: 127.0.0.1 [this refers to the local computer]
• User Name: [your Mac Admin account name]
• Password: [your Mac Admin account password]

4. Click “Connect.”  You’ll be notified that you’re “..working in a directory node that is not visible to the network” – that’s OK, it just means that you are working on your local computer, instead of a remote server.  That’s what we want, so click “OK.”

5. Now you’ll see a list of the user account on your computer.  If you’ve turned on your “Guest” account in the System Preferences, it will be listed as well.  Click on it to select it.

6. With the guest account selected, along the top of the window, you’ll see a tab that says “Preferences.”  Click on that.  Again, it will warn you that you’re only managing preferences locally, which is a good thing…click “OK.”

7. Now you see what look like your system preferences.  If you click on Dock, then click “Manage: Always” – you will see a list of the default items that show up for the guest account dock.  You can drag and drop to add or rearrange items from this list.

8. Make some changes, click “Apply Now” and close Workgroup Manager.

9. Try logging into the guest account, you’ll see that the dock has changed to reflect the preferences you set!

Workgroup manager can be used to manage any local account on your computer, including your own.  This is a great tool if you want to set up an account for a new user on your Mac – you can create the account and set all the preferences without even logging into their account.

From April 20 – through May 3, the Mac Media Lab will be open for testing.
Come try out the technology, help us find bugs and give feedback on the lab before the official opening.

IF YOU WANT TO SAVE DATA, YOU MUST BRING MEDIA (hard drive, DVDs, flash drive, your laptop/firewire cable, etc.)

During the testing period, the lab will be open during Library hours:

M-F 9:00-11:00
Sat 10:00-8:00
Sun noon-8:00

C 196.01, C Level of the Mina Rees Library
The CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave

Join our group for the Mac Media Lab here and/or over on closed, proprietary, information mining facebook.

We took a look a the iPhone app for Blackboard today – but it seems to require version 9.  As CUNY has only just updated to version 8, it may be a while before that app is of any use here.

In the meantime, check it out here:  iPhone app for Bb

After testing, we’ve discovered that the newest Citrix client works with Mac OS X version 10.4 and 10.5.  You can download the newest client here:

Citrix Client for Mac OS X (Version 10.00.603 – Universal Binary)

There are older clients available from the Citrix web site.  You can download them here.