Re: [Server-devel] stability of XS 0.5
Hi All, I agree with Sameer that people should be informed in advance if there are known issues. I put a note on the release notes page and a link to this list at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Release_Notes#XS_0.5 When the documented features are working as designed we can remove it. Until then its better to warn people. Thanks, Greg S From: Sameer Verma sve...@sfsu.edu Subject: Re: [Server-devel] stability of XS 0.5 To: Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org Message-ID: 5fb387c70812180912o557b3c4bya86a82b9d66c4...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 3:42 AM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:48 AM, Sameer Verma sve...@sfsu.edu wrote: Given that we still have issues cropping up with XS 0.5, are we still going to call it stable? It's great news that you care about this. Do you have a spare (standard modernish x86) you can use to join the testing efforts? Sure! I have a Fujitsu P2120 (Transmeta Crusoe ~900MHz proc, 384MB RAM) that I've been using for testing. We use it at all the OLPC-SF meetings. XS 0.4 works fine on it right out of the box, but no such love with 0.5, hence the concern. I've been following your thread on the built-in wireless card confusion and it looks like I may have the same issue. It's much easier than with the XO, which requires special HW. If you get involved, I can organise shipping additional hw that'll be useful. We can always dig up a relatively modern P4 for testing. What additional hw would this be? I'll soon push a new 0.5.1 candidate build. You'll be CC'd so you can lend a hand. OK. I'll wait for it. OTOH, all the reported issues have been diagnosed, and all but one fixed. Not bad for a milestone release in what is a fast development schedule towards 1.0. Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate your efforts. On my recent trip to India (http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/593), I realized the immense importance of the school server in environs with no Internet backhaul. Khairat, India's first pilot, has a server, but its an old build (160 or 161, I think) and they recently lost their backhaul, so they don't use it anymore. The teacher asked for a lot of things that could be fixed easily with the current XS feature set. In other schools where they might consider getting XOs, the immense cost of backhaul will kill the effort before it gets off the ground. The XS fills that gap. This reminds me: We should explore sneakernet-like e-mail at some point, but I digress. The offline nature of content and software (wikislice, moodle, etc.) is going to be instrumental in getting XOs to poorer school districts that cannot afford backhaul connectivity.. In fact, I think the role of the school server is undersold and overshadowed by the XO's capabilities and eye candy. I'm just concerned that folks like Manoocher (http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/grassroots/2008-December/000953.html) might get misled by the stable monkier only to find out that the 0.5 ISO has issues. cheers, Sameer ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
[Server-devel] XO Future Feature Planning Minutes
Several engineers and others met on IRC on Wed. November 12 Minutes - We finished the review of proposals for XO Miniconference planned for January. Edits and updates made directly on the page. After the meeting I made some major updates to the page, combining items, reorganizing them and dropping a few more. Its not down to 9 main topics each with sub-topics. We have an estimated of 30 hours of talks! See: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XOcamp_2 Any comments or concerns on the updated version welcome in e-mail or on the page. We will refine the agenda throughout November try to reduce it and get the proposals filled in. The page needs copy edit and formatting, but if you are an owner of a talk, please filling in agendas and presentations now. The best prepared proposals will have the best chance to make the final agenda. Next meeting Wed. November 19, 2PM US ET on IRC freenode.net #olpc-meeting channel. Agenda: 10 minutes - Update on January camp and reminder to fill in details on proposals. 40 minutes - Start work on reviewing and prioritizing the Feature Roadmap http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Feature_roadmap. Focus on criteria for prioritizing items for inclusion in 9.1. Describe mechanics of how we track and edit the requirements. Assign people to ensure all serious ideas have a feature to track them. 10 - Set agenda for next week and assign action items. Comments, questions and more meeting participants welcome! Thanks, Greg S ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] What's cooking in the XS pot this week (2008-10--01)
Hi Martin, Thanks for the update! Its great to see all the items planned for or in 0.5: http://dev.laptop.org/query?status=assignedstatus=closedstatus=newstatus=reopenedorder=prioritycol=idcol=summarycol=statuscol=typecol=prioritycol=componentmilestone=xs-0.5 On your question of who is waiting for XS 0.5, I know of at least two deployments that are building labs and testing configurations with XS software: Paraguay Birmingham Both will need a stable XS that they can use ASAP. Whether they will go with XS 0.5 or not depends on what 0.5 includes, when 0.6 will be available and what it includes. AFAIK Moodle is not a must have item for either deployment. A stable and scalable eJabber is critical as are basic XS features like: - Caching - Filtering (is DanGuardian built in and shipped with the XS ?) - NAT Birmingham may start using XOs and an XS in schools in mid-Novemeber. Paraguay will probably start later but we should lock down their version ASAP as they want lead time to really flush out all issue in the lab. They may both use the backup and restore feature if they have enough disk on the server (of course they will use it whether they like it or not as you can't turn it off :-). I think there other deployments that will want to use a school server before the end of 2008. Two other features which may tip the balance for deployments are upgrade of XO images and activities via school server cache (Peru). Spending a little more time to make sure that XS 0.5 is very stable and well documented is a good idea. However, we should start to be more precise about the features and dates for each release we plan to deliver before the end of CY 08. Thanks, Greg S Martin Langhoff wrote: Overall, XS 0.5 is looking shaping up nicely... and late. The F9 port took quite a bit more time to get finished off, perhaps because I tried too hard to get it work relatively well, and uncovered a whole lot of problems with it -- it was a good thing to do as we now have fixes for all of them (mostly thanks to an very responsive Fedora community), but it sure took time. Luckily, nobody is waiting for 0.5 -- not that we know of! do mention it if a delay of 0.5 impacts on your deployment -- so we'll take a bit more time to finish off the Moodle bits, SOTP and mapping out the ejabberd configuration. The idea is that XS-0.5 and later XS-0.6 should be the preferred pairing for XO-8.2, still uses the same interfaces as 0.4, but it does a whole lot more. Good nice features built on top of what we have will come with XS-0.6. This week and next I am working on Moodle from various a Moodle conferences -- my email traffic moves a bit to the moodle.org forums, unfortunately I can't CC those easily here. I might post a summary with links to interesting threads - but I'd recommend that people subscribe to 'Using Moodle' 'General Developer Forum', which is effectively 'moodle-dev' :-) Some notes from last week: - My week was focused on getting Moodle on the XS. Some progress around installation, configuration and themes, still a lot to go. (Was a short week anyway, I ran away for a long weekend sailing :-) ) - Douglas Bagnall spent quite a bit of the week trying to work out what resources ejabberd uses in various circumstances. Things did not always go his way, but he is getting there. At other times he fixed some remaining issues related to the leap from Fedoras 7 to 9, and in spare moments he worked on bug #8610 (Theme music for the XS) which might be opened as a competition once 8.2 is out of the way. On Friday he helped the Wellington testers update the XO pool to build 764, which had handily been announced just a few minutes before. cheers, martin ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] new package: xs-activation
Hi Martin et al, 0 for 3. Looks like I struck out on that round :-( In Baseball, three strikes and you are out, except for the case when the catcher drops the ball on the third strike. Then the batter has a chance to run for first base, although they are almost always thrown out at first. (see second paragraph at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikeout#Rules). I'm going to make my 3rd strike run, furinige :-) On: They expressed strong interest in lease management You asked this earlier and I believe I've already replied. All I am saying is that we should put the lease management assumption in the Readme. It can say the activation is good for the same lease time as you would get with USB activation [URL] or the activation is good for 999 days then the Xo must be re-activated or whatever the lease duration and policy is. I think the reader will want to know that. It's a suggested edit to the document. Not a question for my own edification. Throw me out at fast because I'm diving for the base! (www.eteamz.com/ashbaseball/images/GregSmith2.jpg and http://mvn.com/mlb-transactions/files/gregsmithvelocity.jpg) not really me :-) Thanks, Greg S *** Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 09:50:39 +1200 From: Martin Langhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Server-devel] new package: xs-activation To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: XS Devel server-devel@lists.laptop.org Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:56 AM, Greg Smith - On Can you put this feature on the roadmap: I see that it has Trac #1504 but I don't see this very useful Readme (or Specification) that Douglas wrote linked anywhere. Can we include that somewhere off the roadmap? No. We are working towards a release so we won't be doing user-friendly docs yet. Instead I give you this promise: a feature list is a release goal for xs-0.5, and I will put together a mini user guide for the XS right after xs0.5 is released. - On users, can someone run this design by the technical leads in Peru and Ethiopia and get their input and sign off? That will be an exercise in frustration. This is one little step -- no, I will not ask for review for every little step. They expressed strong interest in lease management You asked this earlier and I believe I've already replied. Unfortunately, the answer is no, this does not do lease management. Erik has given you a similar answer AFAICS. cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] new package: xs-activation
Hi Martin and Erik, Thanks for the replies. - On work flow for this, I think there is a little more detail needed. e.g. you need a wireless AP setup, right? Anything else? Any special name or ESSID needed on AP? You may be able to explain the stuff around the XO by linking to the relevant XS setup documentation. - On Can you put this feature on the roadmap: I see that it has Trac #1504 but I don't see this very useful Readme (or Specification) that Douglas wrote linked anywhere. Can we include that somewhere off the roadmap? The nice thing is that this will become the documentation so Douglas is way ahead of the curve already :-) - On users, can someone run this design by the technical leads in Peru and Ethiopia and get their input and sign off? We sometimes have a hard time coordinating communication with the users so let's exchange one round of e-mail to be clear on who gathers this input before we all hit them with slightly different e-mails at the same time. FYI on Peru, I put everything I heard from them (albeit second hand) here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0#Peru They expressed strong interest in lease management (AKA how long an XO is activated for how it gets deactivated and reactivated when needed etc). Can we include any details about how this feature interacts with that? It may be that this works exactly the same as activating from USB stick so n/a for lease management changes but my impression is that Peru will want to know. Thanks, Greg S Erik Garrison wrote: On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 11:18:31AM +1200, Martin Langhoff wrote: A couple of notes related to it. On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Greg Smith Can you put this feature on the roadmap: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Roadmap It's already there - we're using Trac's status overview searches, have a look :-) What happens is that - paraphrasing your email... someone prepping XOs before distribution to the field opens XO and turns it on. That is all they have to do. Who is the lead customer for this feature? Peru, Ethiopia. They've been asking for it, we discussed this in the last 2 phone meetings :-) It would be be immediately practical in a warehouse setting, where managing a key with a bunch of activation leases is a pain. Now to get wireless installation/upgrade ready for use in the warehouses... all we need is a signed 'nandcast' boot image. Erik ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: possible issues with WriteNew
Hi Tarun, Not sure I fully understand that but it doesn't seem like a critical issue to me. The workflow I think we should support if we can is: - Open write - Add text and images - Exit write (Keep first or just exit) - Open Browse - Click insert image link in EduBlog - Pick Write document off the Journal and insert it in to Blog post Is that right. Sounds like you are saying that the work flow of Open Write document from journal will not get you to EduBlog. If that is the only problem, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, I've noticed a few issues we could have with the new image supporting Write. Since the XO defaults to open up Journal files of that format in the original Write, kids who use Journal to open up files could get confused when they are working. I think resolving this means changes to the mime handlers for files, which would need root access to alter. I'm wondering if this is a major issue, or if we can avoid worrying about it for the time being. Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] not up for Friday meeting about the XS
Hi Guys, I'm OK with reschedule. How about next week at the same time? Hope you feel better soon. Thanks, Greg S Bryan Berry wrote: Hey guys, I am still not feeling well and not sure I can make tomorrow's meeting. Can we postpone it until next week? ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Testing EduBlog
Hi Tarun, Thanks. I think Pablo is the primary driver of requirements and priorities now. As long as he appreciates that we only have one more week of coding time, we should try to do whatever he needs to get us to Beta and real blog posts from real schools. You have done a super job! Way above and beyond the call of duty and beyond all expectations. The Abiword conversion thing is really tough but its a huge win if it allows uploading images from Write to EduBlog. We changed the requirements. So you didn't miss the deadline, we missed the requirements. Feel free to use that one in the future if you have another paid programming job :-) Have a good trip back and thanks a lot for your hard work. Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, FYI presentation will be in 1CC at 12:30 - 1:30 US ET Friday so please don't mess with the server for that hour. We won't touch the server until after the demo is all done. Especially since this abiword stuff affects the whole server and is therefore potentially dangerous. Send over any presentation or demo stuff you have done already (we will use it eventually) but top priority is doing what Pablo needs to start the beta. If all goes perfectly well, we should be ready by Wednesday, Friday if there are minor glitches. Sorry for missing the August 1st target, I did not foresee this Write issue in 656. Marcel made good progress in getting abiword installed and there are now a few dependencies to resolve. I am mostly trying to perfect the UI with Pablo's suggestions and we can test both areas of work after abiword is installed. I like your idea of using the mockup/backup for the demo. I just tested the version at: http://edublog.venango.org/test/EduBlog/mockup/ui/student_sp.php and it is working. In the event something goes wrong with that, the older version at: http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php is also still up. == Also, I'm flying back Friday night and will be offline until Monday. == Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Testing EduBlog
Hi Tarun et al, The presentation went well and there were applause when I posted some pictures and text to blogger.com! Scott and Michael raised the question of why we didn't build it as a .xo only project with no need for server. I explained the constraints of time and image in Uruguay and they understood that. There were less convinced that it should be a web app instead of built in to Write but on further discussion I think they understood that the dynamic nature of EduBlog (that teachers can change and control where the students post to and what they see e.g. frog blog) makes it hard to build in to Write. Scott raised some future ideas (e.g. a blackboard activity for the teachers XO) and we talked about collaboration in a general sense. Good discussion which may lead to some valuable thinking re: 9.1.0. In short, it was a great demo! I'll help write up a 1 hour PPT we can deliver in late August to wrap up. You can prepare the final report for SJ instead if you prefer. I just hope we have some new posts from kids to show off within the next two weeks ... Thanks, Greg S Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:49:01 +0100 From: Tarun Pondicherry [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Testing EduBlog To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Pablo Flores [EMAIL PROTECTED], server-devel@lists.laptop.org, marcel r [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Hi Greg, FYI presentation will be in 1CC at 12:30 - 1:30 US ET Friday so please don't mess with the server for that hour. We won't touch the server until after the demo is all done. Especially since this abiword stuff affects the whole server and is therefore potentially dangerous. Send over any presentation or demo stuff you have done already (we will use it eventually) but top priority is doing what Pablo needs to start the beta. If all goes perfectly well, we should be ready by Wednesday, Friday if there are minor glitches. Sorry for missing the August 1st target, I did not foresee this Write issue in 656. Marcel made good progress in getting abiword installed and there are now a few dependencies to resolve. I am mostly trying to perfect the UI with Pablo's suggestions and we can test both areas of work after abiword is installed. I like your idea of using the mockup/backup for the demo. I just tested the version at: http://edublog.venango.org/test/EduBlog/mockup/ui/student_sp.php and it is working. In the event something goes wrong with that, the older version at: http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php is also still up. == Also, I'm flying back Friday night and will be offline until Monday. == Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] reinstall to 164 or possible to upgrade 163? (Bryan Berry)
Hi Bryan, How did we miss the timing on this? Did you know that 164 was about to go out for testing? Let us know how we can communicate better to stay in synch with you. Martin, Can you add the upgrade instructions from this exchange to the 164 release notes? Thanks, Greg S ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: Looking for comments/bugs
Hi Tarun, Thanks for the status and hard work. I believe that you can put something on the journal from write in two ways: - just close write - choose Keep then one of RTF, TXT or HTML are you saying that neither of those types of journal entries can be inserted in to the EduBlog GUI? Sounds like Pablo got an image to upload. I wonder what he did that is different... I hope we don't have to build and distribute a new write at this stage. I appreciate that you have the skills to do this but it sounds hard to me. Let's work around it if we can! Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, 4 - pick what you created from the journal/file picker and upload it to the blog. This does not work yet. All available info made it seem like copy and paste would work and odt files and xhtml generation would work, but none of it actually does =(. It will be at least a couple days to get Write upload working, but I'm working toward this full speed! but I need to the URLs and logins (leave the password out). The shorter the URL the better so maybe we will need a home page but leave that for later. Add the links to the doc and I think we are ready for alpha test. I added the links to the wiki page. If its not too hard, I think the new write with name changed and in .xo format may be useful. If you can make and post that too, I think we may need it. I plan to first try to get write files uploaded, then patch Write. Let me know if the other way around is better for you. BTW, one thing I noticed is that the sessions are still timing out because many people are accessing from the same username. It would be good if we can set up all the users first before the Beta test and ensure that the sessions don't timeout before starting the Beta test. Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog Question
Hi Walter, I lost the context of your comment. I assume you are talking about the request for a workflow that passes the edit focus from one kid to the next to the teacher. Let me know if this doesn't answer your question. We did evaluate the Journalism activity. You can see early Edublog ideas on the talk page at that URL which were put there after an exchange with some Journalism people. The original idea for the project came from Pablo who envisioned it as part of the journalism project. He wrote a Knights Challenge document which is available at the link Original requirements definition: Blogs Knight Challenge from: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Blog_Educativo_Plan_del_Proyecto When I noted that they are already blogging from Uruguay (e.g. http://cardal-ceibal.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-10-25T09%3A47%3A00-07%3A00max-results=7) and asked why that or Wikis aren't sufficient. He mentioned these things: * The need for good connectivity * Children getting confused with some options * The number of steps involved in creating a post * Difficulty in collaborating on a post * Difficulty with monitoring and viewing posts before being published from: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_Blogger_Project#Problems_with_Current_Blogging_Systems (Spanish original with more detail at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Blog_Educativo#Desaf.C3.ADos_para_un_sistema_educativo_de_blogging) So it was clear that we wanted to make blogging easier and include the ability of the teacher to review before posting. We evaluated Drupal, Moodle, Wikis, Wordpress and other options. None quite fit or it would take to long to implement modify them for our purposes and we weren't sure of good community support. So we decided to create a simple web interface with some basic teacher review options. Add to that end APIs that post to many tools, starting with Moodle and blogger.com and you have EduBlog! In the end it was easier to create the simple front end inside Moodle as we knew we would get great support from Martin :-) The details of the work flow for multiple editors and review cycles is not done yet. I'm not sure if that will happen w/XO and collaboration or if we are close enough or if we need to build a more complete workflow into EduBlog in the future. That's all tbd. For now I hope we solve 4 out of 5 of the top problems mentioned and maybe we can solve the collaborating on post problem too, depending on what the beta test results. The other goals of the project are: - See what it takes to build an educational/XO specific web app that runs on the XS - See if we could build a relationship between real teachers and volunteer programmers by addressing specific requests from the teachers - See what we can learn from running a bi-lingual and bi-cultural (in many senses) project HTHs. There's more history and background at the links of above if you dig deep enough. Thanks, Greg S Walter Bender wrote: Maybe I am missing some subtly here, but isn't the functionality you are describing just as readily accomplished with a wiki? Also, in case you haven't seen it, I recommend Jack Driscoll's discussion in the OLPC wiki on journalism (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Learning_activities/Journalism). Most of it is applicable to any public writing exercise and is generally agnostic about the details of the tool itself. The important thing is to have a structure that affords editing: peer-to-peer and teacher-to-student (editor-to-journalist). -walter ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog Beta Server
Hi Tony, You are King (or Raja :-) Thanks a lot! BTW a teacher in Uruguay created some art work for us. I attached them here (let me know if they don't come through). You can put them on the home page or where ever they seem to fit, if you have time. I can't wait to try out the new implementation once Tarun gets (gits :-) it installed. Really great work. Thanks, Greg S Tony Pearson wrote: Greg, The EduBlog beta server is up and running. I created a home page here: http://edublog.venango.org/ I used some royalty-free icons from iStockPhoto. On the upper left, I have the following links Launch Moodle with EduBlog -- links to http://edublog.venango.org/ EduBlog/moodle Learn more about Educational Blogger Project -- links to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_Blogger_Porject On right center, I display the current release levels: Server Details: XS-163 (2.6.23.1-21.fc7) Apache 2.2.6 PHP 5.2.4 PostgreSQL 8.2.5 Moodle 1.9.1+ More info -- links to phpinfo.php which gives out all the PHP values On the bottom right, I have: Moodle Administration -- links to http://edublog.venango.org/ EduBlog/moodle/admin Item 1: Currently, I am the only admin, and it is in manual accounts mode, so only the eight of us on the EduBlog team have moodle accounts created for us. I could not figure out how to change this to email self-registration and not sure at this stage if we want to open it up for others? I have registered the site with moodle.org and reCaptcha, so we have the private/public keys ready for self-registration if you know how to activate that. Please advise. Item 2: The moodle screens are sparese text only and do not seem to be using any css style sheets or graphics. I am not sure if this is from Tarun's customization of 1.9.1+ version, or this is the new look of Moodle, or if something is wrong with Moodle's interaction with PostgreSQL. If PostgreSQL is the problem we can switch over to MySQL. Item 3: If you want the main page to point to some of Tarun's mock-up screens, we can certainly do that. Item 4: I have cron.php running every 10 minutes. Thanks Tony Pearson http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Az990tony inline: ninios_compu.jpginline: maestra_5.jpginline: ninias_compu.jpg___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: Teacher Review Options
Hi Tarun, Great progress! On this: In that case I'm confused why there needed to be two options for the student post to local blog and post to internet blog when we did the mockups. I thought those were just two different blog choices. Since we didn't have the local blog at that time I thought you were just showing a second blog choice. I think its OK if you refresh and change the screen if a kid changes which blog he wants to send the content to. My only concern is if they write the blog post then clik on something that changes the page and they lose all their work. We want to avoid them losing what they type in the HTML input field no matter what. The need to click on the extreme left of the upload icon was seen on FF3 on XP for me. You are making great progress! Since you sound caught up, let me raise a fresh point :-) Pablo and the teachers were very concerned that the kids be able to write the blog posts offline. Then put them in to edublog when they are connected to it or the Internet. I said he can write text and images in the XO Write tool then copy and paste in later. That seemed to work for me. However, now that you are talking about a local blog I'm wondering if there is another option. Let me know what you think is best in that area. Also on the local Blog concept. If you don't hide it, what would it contain? Is it only the posts from that kid or is it a full local version of the non-local blog? I think/hope we will have the new server online Monday. Do you, Marcel or Said have any idea how much time it will take to upload your latest code to that and start using it for beta test if we get it online w/ XS-163 by Monday? Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, That was my intention originally but I'm not sure its critical at this stage. I think its all right if the teacher can choose from many available blogs and just show one or two to the kids at a time. There is a select box at the top that shows all the different blogs (Comes with Moodle). The page needs to be reloaded if a different blog is selected. If the kids can choose from a menu of many blogs (frog, cricket, turtle, etc) that was my original intention but it may also be confusing. BTW I never meant to make a distinction between internal and external blogs in the first place. I think it would be helpful to know if the post will go public or just within the school or other restricted access network. In that case I'm confused why there needed to be two options for the student post to local blog and post to internet blog when we did the mockups. For a development point of view, we need to post to a local blog before publishing to Blogger (if needed we can hide the local blog and delete from it as posts are uploaded). This is incase errors occur during posting to Blogger and it needs to be reposted. If you only have the option to post to two different blogs, they could be totally different. e.g. internal blog has homework submissions and external has pictures of what the kids do for fun. They would have to click on the jump to xyz blog to change. This lets the teacher's custom text change and resets options. We can look into a more AJAX approach in the next version. For the time being, I think we need to reload the page when they choose a new blog. Are you thinking that internal blog and external blog have the same content? Yes. All content goes to the local blog. From there it gets pushed out by the teacher or automatically as students post depending on how it is set up. If we hide those local blogs, then the system is just like what you described. I've already coded the approval feature for locally run blogs as well. Can I leave that in there? I think I understand what you envision now. I'll modify it to reflect that. On the review of current site, I have some HTML tweaks (e.g. image upload hot area is not exactly on t he image so its hard to hit) Just got a dev XO, so I should be able to fix that soon. (If the issue is with another browser, let me know). I am using that same editor in the Moodle version, so any input on that is very useful. We also have the option of 5 other standard editors for more advanced users (comes with the choosen branch of Moodle). Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: Teacher Review Options
Hi Tarun, That was my intention originally but I'm not sure its critical at this stage. I think its all right if the teacher can choose from many available blogs and just show one or two to the kids at a time. If the kids can choose from a menu of many blogs (frog, cricket, turtle, etc) that was my original intention but it may also be confusing. BTW I never meant to make a distinction between internal and external blogs in the first place. I think it would be helpful to know if the post will go public or just within the school or other restricted access network. If you only have the option to post to two different blogs, they could be totally different. e.g. internal blog has homework submissions and external has pictures of what the kids do for fun. Are you thinking that internal blog and external blog have the same content? The only blog post distinction I was thinking of was: post directly without teacher approval needed and send to teacher for approval before post. HTHs. On the review of current site, I have some HTML tweaks (e.g. image upload hot area is not exactly on t he image so its hard to hit) is that kind of comments relevant/useful or should I ask people to hold tweaks like that until next week when we hope to have new version posted on the new server? Just trying to set the right expectation before I send out this URL for review: http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, Do the kids need to choose between different external blogs? So far, I've seen this as one local blog (OU Blog course1blog) tied to one remote blog (Blogger uruguay-xo-test). Will course1blog need the option to post to more than one remoteblog at the same time and let kids select that information? Thanks, Tarun Greg Smith wrote: Hi Tarun, That sounds OK in general but I have a few comments and clarifications. Make sure the kids know if their post is going to the teacher or directly to the blog. I think the internal vs. external or local vs. remote designations were meant to separate blogs which are on the local school server and only visible from within the school network vs. blogs that are on the internet and visible from anywhere on the internet. We can get rid of that concept and assume that the blog name will be familiar to the kids and they will know which posts go to the internet. The other separation is between blog posts which must be edited/approved by the teacher vs. those that get posted to the blog directly without further edit. That is what the teacher can select and what I hope the kids see from their blog entry page. Also, we still want the option to post to more than one blog (e.g. post to frog blog on Moodle or to turtle blog on blogger.com or to grade 1 blog on blogger etc.). The teacher should have the ability to enable one or the other blog for the kids. HTHs. Let me know if that input is not clear or doesn't answer your questions. Once we get a look at it (hopefully next week) I think it will become more clear. Thanks, Greg S ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: Teacher Review Options
Hi Tarun, That sounds OK in general but I have a few comments and clarifications. Make sure the kids know if their post is going to the teacher or directly to the blog. I think the internal vs. external or local vs. remote designations were meant to separate blogs which are on the local school server and only visible from within the school network vs. blogs that are on the internet and visible from anywhere on the internet. We can get rid of that concept and assume that the blog name will be familiar to the kids and they will know which posts go to the internet. The other separation is between blog posts which must be edited/approved by the teacher vs. those that get posted to the blog directly without further edit. That is what the teacher can select and what I hope the kids see from their blog entry page. Also, we still want the option to post to more than one blog (e.g. post to frog blog on Moodle or to turtle blog on blogger.com or to grade 1 blog on blogger etc.). The teacher should have the ability to enable one or the other blog for the kids. HTHs. Let me know if that input is not clear or doesn't answer your questions. Once we get a look at it (hopefully next week) I think it will become more clear. Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, I think we should separate the teacher approval from remote blogging features to make the system more flexible. It will make it easier to implement and I think easier to use. It will also allow people to use remote blogging and teacher approval independently. What I suggest is the following: On the teacher's create blog page - Under the teacher approval section, two checkbox options enable teacher approval and enable direct posting. Under the remote blogging options section, a checkbox to send posts directly to the remote site or store them locally when students post On the student's create post page - A selectbox asking what to do with the post (send to teacher or post to blog or both depending on the checkboxes the teacher selected under the teacher approval section) When a student posts, sending to teacher will publish it locally so only people with edit privileges can view the post (that student and the teacher). Clicking post will post the blog locally and if the teacher has send posts directly selected, it will also be published remotely. The teachers blog view page will have the options to post locally (approve) or remotely (publish to remote blog) as needed. The difference from the original idea is that students no longer can select between send to local blog and send to remote blog. The teacher will have that preset. Let me know what you think. Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog: Requesting input on design of Preview and Remote Blog Admin Pages
Hi Tarun, I'm OK with client side in this pass. The only concerns are that the teacher and potentially other students should have the chance to edit the post. As long as the teacher can pick it up and review it too, doing the preview off a local file on XO is OK. We need to nail down the work flow of student to teacher back to student too. I'd like to add in an option of student to teacher to other student if we can figure that out. Probably another featuere creep idea. On the admin page, I was thinking that the main thing is to allow people to add blogs. That is, they go to a blog site (e.g. blogger.com or moodle etc.), create a blog and then add for use in Edublog. Then the teacher can choose from a list of pre-configured blogs to use with their class. That's the only thing that comes to mind on the admin page. We may be able to get rid of that page entirely by just allowng teachers to setup up blogs and enter them on their own page... Let me know if that doesn't answer your question. I'm going to send this out for another round of review: http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php How is the Moodle/ou Blog integration going? I spoke to SJ last week and he wants to get some real blog posts from real teachers online for demonstration ASAP. I think the gating factor is the teacher page and the ability to add a blog. Let me know when you think we can finish that. I told SJ that you are working on integration with Moodle which will bring us a whole collection of user auth and teacher - student associations capabilities. Is that right? Let me know what else is on the critical path as we start the last few weeks of the project. I'll gather as much comment as I can on the existing student page. Just give me a sense of when we will have the next set of functionality available for review. Hopefully Tony's server will come online this week and we can move the project and beta test to that with the moodle piece integrated... Thanks, Greg S Tarun Pondicherry wrote: Hi Greg, Martin, Marcel, With the preview feature, is it better to do it all on the client side (clicking preview brings up a Browse compatible popup with the post) or push the blog out to the ou blog db but set the permissions so that only the creator can see it? (May only be possible for internal and some external sites). The first is easier to implement and we can also use a custom stylesheet to mimic the actual look on the blog site. I think the first method (client side) is the way to go for this version. What do you guys think? We also need to decide on the exact options to give users for the admin page. Basically, the image storage is separated from the blog storage on most systems. (Blogger uses Picassa, OU Blog uses Moodle file storage). We can give users the options to set the image storage independently from the Blog storage. We can also tie each blog to a default file storage system. Which do you think is better? I personally think the flexibility is better, but worry if it makes it too complicated for users. So far, the tinyMCE theme is completed except for IE support (http://olpc.betarun.com/dev/ui/student_sp.php) and I'll upload the OU blog work once the server is online. I still can't find a working patch for getting tinyMCE into Moodle 1.9, so I stuffed it in there myself and it seems to work. I hope thats okay for now since Moodle 2.0 will have the integration on tinyMCE taken care of. Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
[Server-devel] EDuBlog XS Beta/Development Server
Hi Tony, I think we should finalize the Fedora + XS server and get it shipped to Glen by the end of next week. My list of SW is: PostGreSQL Moodle XS Apache 2.0 PHP Networking should be setup to plug and play at Glen's hosting site. If we can get an image on CD too that let us boot and install it back to default config (preferably without overwriting new stuff but not critical) that would be helpful too. Tarun, Marcel et al, Let me know if there is any other SW needed. Can you also fill in the version numbers and let's document this server HW and SW here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_Blogger_Project#Beta_Server_Hardwa re_and_Software_Details Debian is a stretch goal. I want to make sure we get it to the hosting site in time to have a full week of config/debug before you go back on the road (June 30?). If we have enough info and can make it dual boot to Debian that's the stretch goal, but must hit the install in PA date of June 23. I don't think we need to share data between the two distros so it can be a completely different image/partition for Debian. Marcel will be lead sys admin so he will need user/pass access. Tarun needs SU access too and I could us a login. Please don't send any passwords on this list. I'll open a separate thread with Glen to work out the logistics. I hope that's doable. Let me know if you have any questions, concerns or need more info. I wonder if we need a terminal server? I hope we can run it without that but if its needed and Glen will host it, I can look for one (probably need to buy it :-(. Lastly, we need to pick a domain name. Root name is one of these: totaluruguay.com, venango.org or olpcuruguay.com. We can pick a third level name. Yama, Can you pick a good name that will resonate with kids in Uruguay? Also, does EduBlog sound good in Spanish and can kids say it easily? We can call it the code name but once you use a name it sticks so if needed, we should change it now and only once. BTW please use [EMAIL PROTECTED] for me as of Wed. June 18th. I'll subscribe that to the list so you can reach via server-devel too. Thanks, Greg Smith ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog v0.1 Available for Comment!
Hi Tarun, Which blog do you mean on this? The blog link takes the kid to the sitewide standard Moodle blog page. I don't want to over design this. I think it needs more user testing but here are the options I can see. If there's one blog (call it frog blog) then it should be trivial: Enter text, click post on link that says: post to frog blog or send frog blog post to teacher. If there are two blogs one internal and on external also trivial: Enter text, click post to frog blog internal or post to frog blog external plus teacher or no teacher as configured. If there are many blogs (frog blog, class blog and student blog) it could be: - Radio button, drop down or multiple links to choose right blog and the same links as above. In all cases it there should be a link next to the blog name to see the current blog. Make sure that if they start typing then click that link then click back they don't lose their text! One challenge is that after you post, if you made a mistake you can't easily take it down. Do the APIs have an option to delete? E.g. see: http://cardal-ceibal.blogspot.com/ where he accidentally posted then had to re-post. Those are my thoughts but let's get it working in a primitive way and then get feedback. We can have an option for many blogs then recommend that the teacher only enable one or two at a time so its up to them. Let's nail the 1 or 2 blog case and just be ready to add many more if needed. Also, I don't think the teacher should have to configure a customized student page for each kid. Better if they set it once and then their whole class sees the same thing. However, that makes it hard to have a blog for each kid... Maybe same config for all with option to show 1 or 2 kid specific blogs and you just set that option for all (stretch goal for sure :-) Lastly, after post it would be nice to redirect to the blog site to see your post. If there is latency that may not be easy. If the API can come back and say posted then you redirect or then you show a link that may be better. HTHs. Not sure about Moodle home blog page but if that's the way Moodle does it and no kids or teachers complain its OK with me. Let me get the hosted XS online ASAP so we can see that and try it out. Thanks, Greg S -Original Message- From: Tarun Pondicherry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:46 AM To: Greg Smith (gregmsmi) Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org Subject: Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog v0.1 Available for Comment! Hi Greg, Here's my thinking. An admin (probably a teacher) sets up a bunch of blogs on blogger.com and in moodle. Makes sense, will have that mock up done in the next couple days. Martin may have some ideas on this, but this is what I am thinking for now. The blog link takes the kid to the sitewide standard Moodle blog page. That page at the bottom will have all the where to post options. This can post to ou blog if there are course specific blogs with ou blog or to Blogger.com. What do you think? Also, the confusion I have with blog specific info is that we don't know where the kid wants to post until after they select it in the client side GUI. How do we determine that? Thanks, Tarun ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] EduBlog Revised Project Plan (Tarun Pondicherry)
Hi All, Thanks for the comments and great progress! I'll try to respond to all open items in one pass. - On group edit. Thanks to Alex for the link and sanity check on collaboration support in Browse. I think we should let it go for this first implementation. When Browse does collaborate at OS/sugar level we can just use that. Here is one fall back idea. Assume one editor at a time. Add an additional post status of available for edit. Add a link to the available for edit to all students default blog post page. Clicking an available to edit link goes to the edit page for the post. Then you can tweak it and re-submit. This would only be available for posts not sent to a blog yet. Teacher page can take a submitted post and flag it to allow that serial editing. Let me know if that makes sense and how hard it is. If its possible we can run it by some teachers. Best case, we call it a stretch goal. - On full featured formatting and options vs. simple. Power user access is done by just going to the blog and doing it there. We should start super-simple and see what else people want. Super simple to me is: enter text, add image and post. If Tarun wants to include more formatting and make it hidden for default that's OK, but simple, clean and elegant is the primary goal. - On auth. User name entered once then cookie sounds good. Zero auth (aka no user or pass) is even better but enter once should be fine for now. That's my take but I'll try to get more feedback too. We need to discuss security, especially if its hosted on the Internet. Within a school I think we could say that EduBlog URLs are only accessible from LAN. If EduBlog is over the Internet, how do we prevent other people from using it? My goal is that it be as secure as the blog being posted to. E.g. blogger.com. How do we get that level of protection with user name and cookie only? Also, how do we prevent sniffing of passwords between XO and EduBlog? - On Debian and Uruguay XS config. We got a first pass of info from Latu. They have MySQL right now :-( I have to talk to Pablo some more and see if they will install Moodle + PostGreSQL once we can prove demand for this app. In any case, first pass is Fedora + Moodle + XS build served via Internet. I'd like to hear more comments on how we get to zero touch Moodle install for EduBlog. The teachers in Peru are actively discussing how to install and use Moodle. See: http://www.innovavirtual.org/moodleperu/mod/forum/view.php?id=1088 Bottom line for me is to see an update on Yuri's Lora by the end of August :-) http://cardal-ceibal.blogspot.com/2007/10/prueba-de-segundo-ao_8330.html We're on the right track, thanks for all the great work. Thanks, Greg S ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Problems installing XS on new system for
Hi All, We have a disconnect about the target OS! Its my fault for not having tighter synch with tech leads in Uruguay. Sorry. I'm forking a private thread and I'll get it ironed out ASAP. Please hold the XS bring up until I can nail down the correct target XS. If Uruguay is on a non-standard OS we may have to build this app for more than one flavor of Linux :-( The fundamental web app design is still applicable so we can continue with the design of that. I'm just glad we caught it early. I'll come back as soon as I get it squared away. Thanks, Greg S *** Edublog != Ceibal. If this was Ceibal, I suspect you'd be installing Debian ;-) cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Edublog notes (was: Re: The road towards xs-0.3 - update)
Hi Martin, You're right we are closer than I thought on first read. Thanks for the added comments. I want to minimize the scope but I see feature creep coming so we better plan for it in advance. Here are some comments on these: - understand a simple level of identity roles (provided by XS facilities, as we've discussed) GS - Agreed. - let users blog, tag, etc - let users mark entries as draft/public/etc - show user's blogs locally GS - On these three: I want the blog hosted elsewhere. There will only be two states for a blog post: draft (AKA stored local or maybe on XS) and Posted (AKA done and sent to blog or sent to teacher for approval). Maybe that's three, Draft, Posted, and Pending approval. Once Posted all posts will only available on the hosted blog. Perhaps a list of URLs to previous posts can be stored for the user but the actual blog posts themselves are only saved at blog hosted site. - allow teachers to approve something for publication GS - Definitely a core requirement. - push queued entries to a remote blog GS - Good point about queuing. We need the right algorithm for retries if connectivity is intermittent. On these: 1 - the school is super-connected to the internet, and everybody publishes _directly_. In that case, we don't need the software - let's just use blogger.com GS - We still need the EduBlog SW in this case. The kids can't easily use blogger.com as it stands now. Problems reported are: User/pass, too many steps to post, can't find URL and no teacher approval/edit. All flagged as critical problems by the user. Good BW and target blogger.com is the use case which first initiated the project. 2 - the school has spotty or no connectivity, and perhaps you want to run a local school blog, not visible for all the world to see. _Some_ entries are tagged public to the world and those get pushed to blogger.com/drupal/moodle GS - This is the secondary use case but clearly a critical need. The intention is to treat it exactly the same as the first but with the target blog being local to XS or LAN. Great comments, thanks! I want to find a minimum achievable set of features that still meets a critical need. Like all successful SW it will live long beyond my time on it so now is the time to architect it for extensibility. I see we need a really good DB data design. I'm not sure that the current team has that experience. If anyone out there wants to help with that let me know ASAP. The replication/queuing posts problem will be a tough one too. Is there any core XS work planned to handle queuing HTTP or other traffic aimed at the WAN? I'd like to pass the buck on that :-) but if nothing is planned we can try something basic like try three times then wait an hour and repeat. I hope we come out of this project with a recipe and key decision points for build any XS hosted Web App... Thanks, Greg S ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Edublog notes (was: Re: The road towards xs-0.3 - update)
Hi Martin, Thanks a lot for the review. I copied your reply to the Uruguay edublog volunteer list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I will use that list to work with end users and for internal project tracking. That said, anyone can join. It's Spanish and English and occasionally I post in Spanglish :-) Tarun is traveling to India this week. Hopefully he or an engineer in Montevideo can reply in a few days and we will work out the technical details and server related software questions here. A few preliminary questions. 1 - I'm not clear on what you are saying here: DB - assume Postgres 8.x series, support mySQL Is it PostGres or MySQL? (btw we already brought up a box w/MySQL, so hopefully it will be easy to copy tables and queries over). 2 - Should we have our own table in a single DB that is shared by Moodle and all other apps or do need our own DB. I think the DB will be used for storing who posted what blog where, pending blogs and all that kid of persistent data. Tarun may have other comments on what he needs in the DB. We'll do no user auth or identity tracking until we know your high level plan. Fall back in case that's not cooked by August is cookies or worst case no identity and everyone looks the same. 3 - We will bring up another XS and will put it on the internet. This will be our primary pre-production server (e.g. we may use it for final beta test). Let me know if anyone has any concerns about that. Tony who worked on Nepal early on will image it and ship it to a co-lo and we'll manage it from there. Tony needs the recommended specs: HW - memory, capacity disk drives, USB ports, NICs, etc. SW - Moodle, Squid, etc. Anything beyond what you get with the XS image (e.g. do we need to install Apache and PHP). I'm not sure how we will track the F7 dependencies, but I hope the sys admins can think about that (still accepting more volunteers too ;-). Tony has notes from the first time, so he says its no problem to take Wad's (or Martin's now) latest build and go from there. The HW and SW specs answer may be RTFM so don't hesitate to send a link. I'm asking to get the latest thinking. I'll update the wiki as needed once I'm sure I have the right info. Also, does anyone have the HW specs of the XS boxes deployed in Uruguay? I'll ask elsewhere if no one on this list has it. Thanks, Greg S -Original Message- From: Martin Langhoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 11:04 PM To: Greg Smith (gregmsmi) Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org Subject: Edublog notes (was: Re: The road towards xs-0.3 - update) On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Greg Smith (gregmsmi) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On the school server plan, keep us posted on identity scheme. I'm moving ahead with EduBlog project. One intern (Tarun) is on board and a probably a few volunteer programmers in Montevideo. I hope we can send much more details on the design proposal and get your comment and buy in soon. Current thinking (Spanish and English below) is at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Blog_Educativo_Plan_del_Proyecto Comments and questions welcome. Here's my notes Blogging proj review Good blueprint :-) My notes are complementary to what you have there. Most are general webapp XS-fication rules :-) we should polish a bit and move to a wikipage * Don't count on an admin UI. I am trying to minimise those - and no special admin UI is a goal here. Technical options must be automatically preset (perhaps with the country customisation of the XS), less technical options are under the control of teachers. * Users can just go to school (resolves to homepage of the XS - we should have that localised - escuela - too) and click on the blog link :-) * Keep track of dependencies - be conscious of whether F7 has the modules/libraries you need or they need to be packaged, and whether the current XS build has them. * Webserver - assume apache for the time being, but we may change this later. Not a big problem hopefully - * DB - assume Postgres 8.x series, support mySQL. This is what we have right now, performance is on par w mySQL and has an excellenttrack record where it comes to data preservation in the face of power loss and kernel panics. Bonus points if you can support Pg 8.3 (which changes some CAST semantics - ouch) * Languages: XS will have mod_php and mod_python, as well as libs to make both languages usable. If you can, stick to those. * Avoid daemons and heavy cronjobs - if you have cronjobs, make them check whether there's a job for them to do in the cheapest way possible. Blog sync notes: When you are working on the sync of blog entries, I would suggest to keep a queue of actions/blogs/comments that need to be sync'd from the XS to the external blog. Assuming the XS-to-internet connection is unreliable, high latency and low bandwidth, that queue can drive the proces with minimum traffic, and simple retry strategies. The remote end should make the retries safe because the XS could be retrying actions
Re: [Server-devel] Collaboration between schools
Hi John et al, One minor clarification. I think you mean L3 (IP) VPN (virtual private network) not VLAN (virtual LAN). Let me know if that is not right as you can send an IP packet from one VLAN to another but not from one VPN to another (except in special cases). BTW sounds like people have spent a lot of time at customers lately. If you have time a brief write up of what is important (or not) at each customer would be very helpful. e.g. Peru - Inter-school collaboration not important, managing school servers is a challenge (need GUI?), off the shelf HW is not good fo XS and need customer box, XO updates are a problem, what build of XO and XS they are on etc. You can post that to the wiki (e.g. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Uruguay and http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Peru) or just send it to the list and I'll copy it over. If you can also bring back a technical contact we can use that to come up with a list of questions which you can run by the customers. Then we can put customer names next to each item on the roadmap and in general verify the priorities of the roadmap with the customers. I don't mean to pile on the work. Just want to make sure we use your unique position of having direct contact with implementers to focus the development. Thanks, Greg S ** I learned more about the network built by the MED in Peru for their schools. Each school is in its own VLAN, and cannot route to the other schools, only to the Internet and to MED servers. They have good economic reasons for encouraging this, but it means that inter-school collaboration will have to happen through data pushed to an MED server (and won't be real-time activity collaboration). wad ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Mesh connectivity from regular WiFi gear (Martin Langhoff)
Hi All, FYI I don't know what is supposed to work but they have tested a bunch in Nepal. I believe that a DLINK DWL2100AP was the first choice in Nepal. Looks like they last tested Lantech WL54G BR with pretty good results. See: http://blog.olenepal.org/ latest post. You may want to check with Bryan, Sulochan or Dev Mohanty ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) for the final word. I added DLINK DWL2100AP to the wiki link below. Initially Bryan recommended a DLINK DWL2100AP to the people in Cambodia. I'm not sure what they ended up with but you can try pinging them too. Main contact there was: matt wolstencroft [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think the Cambodia discussion was logged under RT ticket: 8321 although I can't seem to access RT right now to confirm. There was discussion of openWRT firmware, lazyWDS and other gritty details on that thread with Michail Bletsas providing the input from OLPC. HTHs. Greg S Message: 6 Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:32:59 -0400 From: Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Mesh connectivity from regular WiFi gear To: Martin Langhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: server-devel server-devel@lists.laptop.org Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Also, do we have wikipage of tested APs? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Wireless_Access_Point_Compatibility This page just reports results for standard use, not in the context of a school-server scenario, which would merit additional testing. -walter ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Drupal on OLPC? (Martin Langhoff)
Hi Martin et al, Thanks for the comments and direction. I'm still working on options for the Uruguay requirement (BTW now rewritten, verified with tech lead in Montevideo and posted in wiki at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Requiremientos_Para_XO). We want any new work to be available in all deployments. Unless the XS base install works for teachers and students out of the box, we need to go where the most development support is available. Looks like you suggest current Moodle and MediaWiki plus possible added code (may be outside XS scope, e.g. client side or system level) unless we get great traction with Drupal team. If we get that traction how we do we make the solution broadly available? If we focus on Moodle and Media Wiki do we work directly with those projects or look for some maintainer/lead developer support from OLPC? On the drupal front, perhaps we can have a model where XS code can be added like activities are added to XO. E.g. core activities plus downloadable additions via well defined install. The great thing about this project is that we get direct user feedback from a real XO deployment! So Uruguayan technicians, teachers and students are part of the design from the start. For now, we will try all options until we find a viable design and developers interested in pursuing it. Any additional input on where to focus efforts re: developer recruitment and target software is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Greg S I do think Moodle i very strong in all course or student-group content and activity mgmt, and getting better all the time. It's patchy in the general content for everyone, where MediaWiki shines, and we will also have MW there to host partial Wikipedia content. There has to be a strong case for a 3rd system that overlaps so much with those 2 -- each additional system is a significant burden, as we will have to customise it quite a bit. Having said that, I _like_ Drupal, and it can be used usefully, but we are entering diminishing returns region (from a core OLPC team POV), so if the Drupal community can help get this in shape, that would be great. IOWs it won't be a priority for me. cheers, m ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
