It’s been an exciting week for me playing with edublogosphere.com!

First, I happened to see a tweet by Bud Hunt asking if edublogosphere.com was broken.

It turns out it was! When I first built the site, I really just made a fancy login for the now defunct ircatwork.com CGI IRC installation. It seems as though the ircatwork.com folks have been taken over by Mibbit. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it defeats my login script.

So, I went in search of a new solution. I can’t install CGI IRC myself because my host (affiliate link) won’t allow it. I can’t say as though I blame them, as IRC takes a bunch of server load, especially on shared hosting like I am.

From the main page for CGI IRC, I found a link to blitzed.org. I dug around a bit and found their #help channel. I dove in and found some very helpful folks. In no time flat, I created a new #edublogosphere, registered it to myself, and scored ChanOps privileges. As I began to ask around, I actually ended up in a conversation with dg, the author of CGI IRC! That was a treat for me, as I respect anyone who can write software, which I certainly cannot do.

Not only did all that work out, but they’ve said that I can request an exception for the limits imposed on the web-based interface for any time we need it (i.e. NECC, etc). Thanks, blitzed!

So I rang bluehost and changed the CNAME implementation so irc.edublogosphere.com now points to irc.blitzed.org.

Then, I used their script generator to generate a nice login script that works like a charm. Try it out, will you?

Here is a shot of the new home page.

Tagged with: blitzed • cgiirc • david leadbetter • dg • edublogosphere
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I have a pretty nice home office setup. I’ve got a 20″ iMac and a 19″ LCD Dell 1905FPS LCD monitor sitting next to it. It’s a really nice monitor and accepts two inputs. On the analog side, I’ve got my Windows XP box which hardly ever gets turned on any more. On the DVI side I’ve got my iMac plugged in as a second monitor. I used to leave the LCD off most of the time until yesterday when I got some revelation that I could actually put it to use.

Here’s what it looks like now…

Useful, eh? Here’s how I did it..

I first heard about GeekTool some time ago from Lifehacker. I remember having tried to get it to work once before but failing. My issues, I was sure, so I attacked it again. Also credit Lifehacker for the script to embed Skype contacts you’ll see below..

Once Geektool was installed, I copied and pasted the shell command as per Lifehacker’s suggestions and it popped right up. I configured the script a bit for my liking and it was good to go!

I had also thought about a plain text todo list which I’ve heard from a few folks is a good idea. I had issues making it work with TextEdit, though, since it always tried to save as an .rtf file. Through a few twitter direct messages, I learned that you can force a plain text file by adding .txt to the file name.

It still didn’t work.

Turns out I had to set the encoding as shown below…this only worked for me once I created a file in Windows notepad.exe and copied it over. I couldn’t make this work solely on the Mac side.

Ok then, once I did this, I set the Geektool up to see the file. To monitor your machine’s console log, it defaults to seeing it like this…

I did this and it worked nicely when looking at my plain text todo list. The only trouble is when I changed the text file it didn’t change on the screen. That’s no good. I had to log off and log back on for GeekTool to recognize the change. That’s not cool.

I went searching and stumbled across this thread which lead me to this post. Eureka!

Once I right clicked, went to Open With, and used Firefox, I got the local URL for my todo list! I pasted that along with a curl command, set the refresh to 30 seconds and voila!

The command looks like this –> curl file:///Users/username/Desktop/todo.txt and it automatically refreshes at the interval selected.

So now I had my solution and a darned useful second monitor! I’ve still got plenty of screen real estate left to delegate to other stuff if needed, and will do that on an as-needed basis.

Here’s what my second monitor looks like now, click for a larger version with skitch’ed details.

As you can see, I’m leaving Colloquy open on the edublogosphere IRC channel (irc.edublogosphere.com and channel #edublogosphere) just in case anyone stops by.

Any other GeekTool’ers out there that can suggest a cool uptime command or anything else I can be doing with GeekTool to be even geekier? Did you set this up yourself? Shout out in the comments!

Tagged with: colloquy • edublogosphere • geektook • lifehacker • multiple monitors • skype
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Just a note, instead of having to remember irc.cyberarmy.net you can use

irc.edublogosphere.com

I set up a CNAME through Bluehost. The change has been reflected on the edublogosphere.com login page.

It will still work if you set it up using an IRC client, nothing changes there, you can use either. The new one just looks cleaner and can be easier to remember.

That’s all, back to vacation!

Chris

Tagged with: edublogosphere • irc
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I blogged a while back about edublogosphere.com and what to do with it. There was a comment buried in the moderation screen and I didn’t get an email about it, so it was stuck for a while. When I read it, I contacted the commenter and we were off!

So, consider this the official announcement of an edublogosphere IRC chat room!

You can connect in one of many ways, through an IRC client like Colloquy or others, use the following details:

irc.cyberarmy.net
irc.edublogosphere.com
#edublogosphere

Or you can log in straight through the web at www.edublogosphere.com using CGI:IRC interface.

There is a limit of 50 people logged in through the web interface, but it is virtually limitless through IRC clients.

I think this will make for a fantastic backchannel for NECC or other conferences and is very flexibile. This is not designed to be a twitter replacement or Skype-replacement or centralized anything, just another resource.

The nice thing about this is anyone can participate without having to be a part of a pre-established network. Folks can jump in with a low barrier to initial participation.

Alec hopped in the chat with me and then a lot of people followed his tweet…

Cool, huh? Jump in and see what you think!

Update: I set up a CNAME so that folks can use irc.edublogosphere.com instead of irc.cyberarmy.net. I figure it’s easier to remember and easier to tell folks.

Tagged with: edublogosphere
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Ok so I’ve been working on this edublogosphere.com idea. A nice friendly chat room where folks can drop in when they feel like it, chatcast away and have lots of space in which to do it, and from a variety of platforms, etc.

I’m looking at IRC, since it’s such a darned established network already, and has years of goodness behind it. I’ve got one heck of a sexy web-based IRC client that I’ve been working through, and the developer (who lives in Kyev, Ukraine!!) has been great to talk with.

I don’t have the skillz to be a channel op, so I’m looking for a channel to use. Do any of you know of a channel that wouldn’t mind this type of traffic but at the same time would protect our sensibilities? I’d need one that’s safe for work, and so forth.

The cool thing is you’ll be able to interact from a traditional IRC client (colloquy, mIRC, etc) or through the web. It looks promising, open, and happy.

Now I just need a channel, any help there?

- Chris

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Perhaps I should not have used the word “centralized”. My goal is to offer a space for folks to use as a backchannel that has lots of functionality.

What I’d like to do is create a web-based IRC spot, whereas folks can drop by and chat all they like and not have to register for anything. No registration, no password, no privacy concerns, just chat. Just backchannel.

I am thinking IRC because it is an already-established network and I would merely provide a gateway. This way we can prevent all the trouble of IRC clients and frustration. Imagine if at the blogger’s cafe folks could just hit up edublogosphere.com and start chatting.

I like it because there’s no need to be someone’s contact, no need to download Skype, no need to hook up to twitter. It’s just easy, accessible, and requires no effort.

It doesn’t even require a download. Now, for those who want, they could use an IRC client just as easily, and perhaps more easily. See, flexibility.

So that’s my thinking thus far, now comes the implementation. I found ONE that I like, that’s clean enough for my taste. We’ll see if I can manage to get it installed. This is where I am stretching my knowledge, so I’ll have to learn this one on the way through it.

I’ll keep you posted!

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