Folder Builder

Have you ever needed to create a lot of folders, but didn’t want to spend all that time creating and naming them? I’ve had the occasional need. The most recent was when I was working with a group of students and wanted them to each save what they were working on in their own folders. It turned out that their teacher hadn’t established individual folders for each student within the classroom folder. This added a considerable amount of time to what I was trying to do with the class.

It occurred to me that if I had a list of the folders I’d like to create, I could feed the list to a program and have it automatically create the folders. A list of student names is easy to obtain, and once fed to a program, it would take less than a second to create a folder for every name on the list.

I wrote a program I call Folder Builder, which does just what I’ve described. Drag and drop a file onto it that contains a list of folders to be created, select a destination for the folders, and viola! The list can be anything you want, not necessarily a bunch of student names. If you’d like to try out Folder Builder, you can download it at http://papertrailsoftware.com/foldermaker/index.htm.

It’s all about something called Campbell’s Law, which basically says that students’ scores will rise when you devote your resources to doing well on a particular test, even though students may not actually know more. If you’re a teacher, you already knew that, too! After months of preparing students to do well on a high-stakes test, just try asking them to solve problems in a way that isn’t on the test and see what you get.

My favorite quote from the article: “… to see whether NCLB is really boosting achievement, we can’t rely on high-stakes state tests. We need to look at scores on a test for which students don’t get prepped.” Or maybe it was this one, a quote of Susan Neuman, former Bush education official: “Villifying teachers and saying we are going to shame them was not the right approach …”

After January 2, you should be able to find the online edition at http://www.nea.org/neatoday/index.html.

Disc Size

I got it all cleaned up and began thinking about a better way to keep track of the amount of space being used without having to remember to go check it periodically. I decided to write a little program that would automatically give me a report whenever I logged in. The result is Disc Size. Whenever it runs, it has a look at each drive on the system and reports (among other things) the amount of space used and available. To run it automatically, I just placed a shortcut in my startup folder. If you’d like to give the program a try, you can download it at http://papertrailsoftware.com/discsize/.

Trenching For a New Water Line

Back in September after fixing a pipe that a tree root broke, I wrote in a post, “I have to wonder how many more spots there are along the system of pipes under my back lawn that are slowly being pulled apart …” (by roots). Well, the next installment arrived, only this time it was much more serious than a broken sprinkler pipe. It was the supply line to my house from the water meter. Amazingly, our water pressure seemed OK, and there was no evidence of a wet or spongy lawn, but our bill for last month was $800! Usage was 168,000 gallons for the month! That’s like filling up three 25 x 50 foot swimming pools, 6 feet deep!

I knew this day would arrive eventually, but I wasn’t prepared for it. We’re the seventh or eighth house on our cul-de-sac to replace our main water line. I’ve been told that the plastic line they used 20 years ago wasn’t very good. The truth in that statement is evident, as one-by-one, main lines are failing in the neighborhood.

The best fix is to run a completely new line. There’s no sense trying to find where it’s leaking and just fix the leak. Soon it will leak again in another spot. My neighbor found that out. I was lucky to get ahold of Mario, a contractor I’ve used in the past. He’s very talented and very reasonable. He’s done several of these jobs and is careful not to tear up the yard more than absolutely necessary. He even tunnels under sidewalks instead of breaking them. (I’ve read a few horror stories online about contractors who come in and rip and tear, fix the leak, and then leave the mess for the owner to clean up.) In addition to replacing the line, Mario replaced the shut-off valve, the sprinkler valves, and the anti-siphon valve. Might as well, since most of the plumbing was all torn up anyway. Mario did a nice job of putting the yard back together, as shown below.

If you’re in the Las Vegas area and need someone to do this kind of work, contact me. I’ll get you in touch with him.

Together Again

The Bushes That Broke the Original

To understand the scope of the problem, you must realize that Success Net is part of a district-wide adopted elementary math program, and there are 208 elementary schools in our district, each with between 100 and 200 machines. The majority of these are used by students and teachers, hopefully for curriculum-related endeavors such as reinforcing math concepts using the aforementioned software. The technicians concluded that someone at each school would have to go to each affected machine, temporarily disable the anti-virus program, and reinstall the older version of Shockwave.

For the past 12 years, the someone who will be doing that at my two schools has been me–an ECS. That’s fine. I’m an Educational Computing Strategist, and that falls within my abilities and my job description. ECS is the label our district has given me and about 220 others who do my job. We have two jobs, really: to provide instructional technology to teachers and students, and to serve as level 1 technical support at our schools.

So, okay, I’ll get that done. I think the folks at user support do a pretty good job, and if they say they can’t find a way, then they can’t find a way, and I’ll just spend the time and do it. It’s only about 265 machines between my two schools that I’ll have to go around and perform those steps on. No, not quite that many. A few, maybe 30, are used by administrators and office staff, and I’m not going to worry about them. At least not for the current problem.

It should only take, um let me see, a huge chunk of my time! Time I won’t be spending on my other responsibilities, but, still, okay. I’m the one with the necessary rights to do the job, and I understand what I need to do without anyone having to talk me through it, provide me a handout, or send me to a training. Imagine if we asked the teachers to fix this problem on their own classroom machines and the ones in the common learning areas, as well! Imagine if the Shockwave update has also broken some other program that might be used in our 102 middle and high schools, or our 27 other facilities that provide special services to students who aren’t placed in “regular” settings.

But what about next year? When problems like this come up, who will be there for the teachers and students next year? You see, like many other parts of the country, we’re undergoing a budget crisis. The ECS position is being seriously looked at as one of many positions to cut in order to save money. The district believes it will save $18 million by sending ECSs back to the classroom. I have to wonder if, in the long run, it will cost them more than that by eliminating us.

If we’re all back in classrooms and User Support says,

“You’ll have to have your ECS …. no, wait! …. I forgot …. you don’t have an ECS anymore, do you? … um … sorry, we can’t help you. We don’t have any people left, either. Budget cuts. Well, actually we have a couple, but you’ll have to wait a few weeks until they can make it to your side of town. Try to find a computer in your building that’s still working and just use that one.”

Substitute any software title in the above for one of your choice. They all seem to break sooner or later and require timely human intervention: Fast ForWord, Lexia, AIMS Web, Accelerated Reader, Accelerated Math, Star Math, Dibels, Destination Math, Fastt Math, Study Island, eWalk, and several other titles in use that I can’t think of at the moment. Even the operating itself, whether Windows or Mac, is subject to damage when an update goes wrong. (Sometimes that requires that a machine be reimaged, a process where the machine’s hard drive is wiped out and then receives a fresh, uncorrupted load of the operating system and other software. That’s part of my job, too.)

My district has a huge investment in these programs and the machines that run them, and many have become important components of plans to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). I hope the administration dwelling in the stratosphere know what we’ll be in for when stuff starts falling apart. Further, I hope our building administrators understand that a former ECS who has again become a classroom teacher has a full-time job planning, reflecting on his/her teaching, doing reports, grading, conferencing, meeting individual instructional needs, maintaining discipline, pulling duty, going to meetings, doing the bulletin boards, and probably a hundred other things I don’t remember that happen in an elementary classroom on a recurring basis.

I know my building administrators may not have a lot of power to affect the upcoming decisions about who is in which job next year, and I’m sure they’ve begun to ponder what they’ll have to do to try and keep as many of their instructional programs intact as possible. I know they have many other possible scenarios that should be bothering them by now, for example, “How will I get all the stuff done if my Literacy Specialist is cut”, or “Who will service my ELL (English Language Learner) students if I lose my ELL specialist?” But the e-tools problem is just such a nice example of how quickly an innocent automatic upgrade can quickly affect every machine in the district that uses a particular program, rendering it useless for a given task or program, or even useless, period!

A few weeks ago it was Fast ForWord on the Macs, requiring every Mac to be reconfigured by human hands in order to use the program again.  Again, victims of an automatic update. Now, it’s e-Tools. What an impossible job it would be for user support to send technicians out to all these schools and touch all the machines that use this program. It will also be impossible for a bunch of former ECS’s, now classroom teachers, to deal with problems of this magnitude and do justice to their students.

Let’s hope our leaders decide not to save $18 million, only to have to spend much more to recover from a foolish decision!

Ingredients

1^st Phase

turkey carcass & scraps, salt, water, tall boiler

2^nd Phase

bay leaves, basil, thyme, chili pepper, fresh ground pepper, parsley, marjoram, crushed garlic cloves, brown rice, carrots, celery, sun dried tomatoes

3^rd Phase

Onion, noodles, grated zucchini, potatoes, turkey, recovered from 1^st phase, green chilies, mushrooms, corn, diced red/yellow/orange sweet pepper(s)

Cooking

1^st Phase

1. Throw turkey carcass & scraps and salt in the boiler and fill with water until the carcass is at least covered. Fill with as much water as you think you can get away with, but remember that you’ll need room in the boiler later on for the rest of the ingredients. (When you remove the carcass later, there’ll be some extra room again, but keep in mind that the rice and noodles will swell. Don’t get too carried away with the salt!
2. Boil the carcass until the meat falls away from the bones. While it’s boiling, make room in the refrigerator for the boiler.
3. Drain the broth through a colander. Sift through what remains in the colander, throwing away the skin, gristle, and bones. Place the meat that remains in the colander into the refrigerator for later.
4. Refrigerate the broth in the boiler until the grease has solidified at the top (probably overnight.) When the grease is solid, skim it off. The remaining broth will be quite gelatinous until it’s re-warmed.

2^nd Phase

1. Add ingredients for 2^nd phase to the broth. These ingredients are separated into 2^nd and 3^rd phases based on how much longer it takes to cook them until soft. Quantities are by guess and by gosh, which is what makes it interesting. Adjust ingredients to suit. Omit or add anything you’d like. Move ingredients back and forth in the columns if you discover something needs more/less cooking than something else.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat until it is just barely simmering.
3. Stir occasionally.
4. When the rice begins to soften, begin the 3^rd phase.

3^rd Phase

1. Add ingredients for 3^rd phase. Again, quantities are personal preference.
2. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat until it is just barely simmering.
3. Stir occasionally.
4. When the potatoes and noodles are soft, remove the soup from the heat.
5. Add cool water to make up for any additional volume of broth you want to have. This also helps cool it faster.
6. Package and freeze in serving-sized portions when the soup has cooled enough to easily handle.

Enjoy.

Old cordless drill turned into a new 12-volt drill.

Cheap cordless drills seem to last longer than the batteries that come with them. The problem is, a replacement battery is usually more than half the price of a new (cheap) drill. As far as I’m concerned, I might as well buy a new drill, which usually comes with two new batteries. The batteries usually last for 12 to 18 months. This presents a problem, though. I now have a small collection of cordless drills and no way to power and use them.

One solution is to find an alternate power supply, like I’ve shown in the picture. Shown is an old 12-volt Sears drill, perfect for running from a 12-volt autotive battery. I gutted the old battery and soldered a two-conductor cable to the battery shell’s connectors. On the other end of the cable, I attached battery clips. I now have a drill I can carry in my vehicle and power directly from the vehicle battery.

My next challenge is to figure out how to re-power my 18-volt drill.

Maybe it’s time to quit buying the cheapies and invest in a professional-grade tool.

The root grew around the pipe, finally breaking it.

It always amazes me how powerful tree roots can be. They can heave up sidewalks and driveways and break water and sewer lines. It’s also amazing to see to what lengths they’ll go to find water.  Here in Southern Nevada, growing downward isn’t usually an option for tree roots because of the hard soil, so they typically stay near the surface and compete with lawn and other plants for their water. The center tap root usually wanders around in the hole the tree was planted in, looking for a way down. It changes direction several times in its quest, resulting in a gnarly ball, then it gives up and heads sideways like the rest of the roots.

Traditional tree diagrams usually show the root system as a near reflection of the canopy, with the limits of the roots roughly coinciding with the tree’s drip line. Maybe in ideal soil and climate conditions, but certainly not here in the desert. This weekend, my back yard developed an underground gusher as a tree root 20 feet beyond the edge of my apricot tree’s canopy finally succeeded in breaking a section of sprinkler pipe. The root had made nearly a full twist around the pipe, and as it continued to grow, it pulled the pipe on both sides of a joint in opposite directions, finally breaking the joint. I know that’s not as impressive as heaving a section of concrete upward 8 or 10 inches, but it was unexpected, since the damage was so far away from the tree.

As it grew, the root developed a perfect impression of the pipe.

Looking at the root without the pipe, it’s evident the two have been close companions for years. There’s a perfect impression of the pipe in the root. If you look closely, it’s not too difficult to even see where the pipe joint was. I have to wonder how many more spots there are along the system of pipes under my back lawn that are slowly being pulled apart by their thirsty companions.

Looking around the Internet lately, that recommendation is down around 10 seconds, with the break-even point actually being around 6 or 7 seconds. One reason for shorter recommended idle times is due to the increased efficiency with which modern, fuel-injected motors start. The Green Lantern section of the Slate website (http://www.slate.com/id/2192187/) provides an interesting article on this notion, written by Brendan E. Koerner, entitled “Is an Idle Car the Devil’s Workshop?” The estimated annual savings of this tactic (about $34 a year according to the article) is a little disappointing, but the notion of such a short break-even point is intriguing.