A Passion For 'Puters – Page 13 – The Intersection Of Libraries, Computers and Web Trivialities. @webgoddess@libraryland.social

Before the session, I talked to a guy who uses his iPad to manage a lab – insight teacher’s Assistant. Worth a look for our PCC lab.
The presentation started with handouts with the step-by-step directions to restrict software in Group Policy. Beth gave an overview of group policy (which we don’t use enough) and the Group Policy Management Console. She continued with policy precedence. Local to site to domain to org unit. Whitelist or blacklist? Whitelist by directory is coming up. Not a bad idea for the PCC. Computer or user? Hash or software path?
Best practices – if a user can write to a dir, apps shouldn’t run from that dir. If an app can run from a dir, users shouldn’t be able to write to it. Users are local users, not admins. Tips on installing and updating adobe and flash (win update elevates and doesn’t need help). Look for custom install kits. Tips for using virtual machines for gp testing – put the vm in the correct org unit and apply just to that machine until you are happy, then elevate the policy to the whole ou (organizational unit).
Apps usually run from program files, startup folder, windows. Allow windows folder, disallow cmd and regedit – etc – to give more flexibility.
Demos of group policies being applied.
Turn off auto run and push a local hosts policy – if you do nothing else…
Reg entry to turn off IPv6 – might be available through GP. Or cmd line it as a login script through GP. Set the GP to disallow using proxy settings – helpful!!
Mbps.org provides a regularly updated host file that helps to keep staff from malware sites.
Create a folder and share on the server, download host file from Mbps, create GPO – disable DNS client service (in XP) then deploy – TEST.

conference Libraries

Library Issues Round Table

Whoops – this should have been posted a long time ago…

We started with discussion of Overdrive and how we all use it. Next up was ILS (Integrated Library System – circulation, cataloging and web OPAC, among other things) versions and many discussions of what ILS we use with lots of complaints about the vendors in the space. Travis Reddick, of MORENet, got lots of props for being a very helpful dude to work with in the networking area of MORENet. There were a lot of comments about hosted ILSs and web-based ILSs.
Next up was a discussion about tech support at the library and how far we go to help patrons as we try to do the rest of our work.

conference

Connections conf day 1 wrapup

Post author By Robin
Post date March 18, 2011
No Comments on Connections conf day 1 wrapup

At the start of a very long day, I awoke to the sight of some cute ducks on my patio. I blogged pretty heavily about my sessions yesterday, so I won’t go into detail about that. Around the sessions, though, I did a lot of chatting with other library types about a lot of different things that they are doing. I did sort of crap out in the afternoon and ended up skipping a session to hang in my room and do some requested web updates for work. I was getting burned out on all the socializing, if you can imagine…
The library round table in the evening was great (big kudos to Lee Cushing for suggesting it). There were a lot of folks, including some relevant Morenet folks, who had a lot to say. Again, I blogged about that (though now I’m wondering if I posted it – if not, it will show up soon).

Web 2.0

Network backup from Morenet

Post author By Robin
Post date March 18, 2011
1 Comment on Network backup from Morenet

This session will be about something I’m very interested in – network backups. Since a lot of this will be kind of specific, I plan to do a lot of summarizing. He started with network storage, which I don’t need. The network backup, though, I do. They have set it up so that it’s not going across the general Internet. This is nice! Beyond that, it’s all encrypted, both in transit and on the server. Dedups and compression are done before the data leaves the library. Nice! Agentless backups mean that only one backup client necessary. All major OSs are supported, databases are supported. Cost is per GB stored, client included in service. Client statistical mode-we can figure backup size precisely before committed to the service. Data is stored outside MO. Pricing info should be available in a couple of weeks.

conference E-Books

Overdrive and MOLib2go

It started with Kyle presenting an overview of Overdrive. One question was about the customization options for a library’s OD site. Kyle said it’s pretty customizable. Another question was about using the OD software on public computers. There was discussion of how various libraries manage that. Kara followed with a discussion of the MOLib2go service. The first question was about the benefits of joining the consortium -getting access to all the books purchased by all the 22 libraries in the consortium. She followed up with stats about MOLib2go’s books. She also mentioned the #hcod issue – MOLib 2 go is boycotting Harper Collins books for now. That started some discussion, to put it mildly.
She mentioned the links to Project Gutenburg from our homepage.we then had much more discussion of #hcod. Strong opinions abound.
Mike talked about training and demo’d My Help and talked about flyers and other resources that he’ll make use of Webjunction to post those for staff.