Upper Iowa University – Travis Hunt

Wow, what a busy August. Haven’t had much time to blog, but thought I’d give you a quick update. My August mainly consisted of working in our new Liberal Arts building. A building that we can definitely be proud of. Setting it up with computers was definitely a challenge. Carrying in about 100 computers, 100 monitors, and 100 accessories gets pretty taxing on a 100 degree heat index day. Then, we get the joy of crawling on the floor and hooking everything up in the same heat – with a hard hat on and jeans. I have a lot of respect for construction guys after going through the past month! I also decided that construction work isn’t for me.

Setting up that many computers is a huge task – the physical effort, then making sure everything is consistent and that it works, and making it look as nice as possible takes a lot of hours. I was at work until one in the morning on a Saturday! Then, on top of that there are plenty of calls and emails to go through once I got back to the office. I was in the office a total of like 2 hours in the entire month of August. Pretty crazy stuff.

Now, I’m playing catch up. I won’t bore you with any more of my work, but just wanted to say hi since it has been awhile!

Next week I’ll give you a tech tip – and if you’re a video gamer, you’ll want to check back in for that!

So, last year at this time I was somewhat addicted to my bicycle. I rode many miles last summer, just for fun. I never really rode my bike before that (with the exception of when I was a lot younger) – and I was really enjoying it, and getting into shape too. Shortly after I met my lady friend (is it OK to call her that? Haha) we decided we wanted to ride on RAGBRAI. Thankfully, Team Peacock wasn’t opposed to having 2 additional 1-day riders on board!

So, we decided to ride – last Friday from Waterloo to Manchester. The day started rough – but only because I had to wake up a lot earlier than usual, so we could depart Waterloo around 7:00 am. When we left Fayette, it was not raining. However, the closer we got to Waterloo the darker the sky was getting. As we unloaded our bikes and prepared to head on our 62+ mile trip, rain drops started to fall. We rode into our first town of Gilbertville and we were on our way. No turning back now!

Not even a mile out of town, we encountered our first “BIKER DOWN!” A boy in his early teens had a flat tire, and he fell flat onto the concrete. People assisted him quickly, and it was tough to see him in pain, but we had to keep moving. Luckily he had plenty of support on hand. We continued on our journey, and the rain kept getting heavier and HEAVIER. Soon, the rain was absolutely drenching. It reminded me of a line from my favorite movie – Forrest Gump.

“One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. “ –Forrest Gump

Luckily, it didn’t take 4 months for the rain to stop. Only about 4 hours actually. The first 40 miles of the trip were… dare I say… easier than expected?? It was cold, but my legs, butt, and spirits were high as we rolled into the meeting town of Quasqueton. After we arrived at the UIU tent in town, I made sure to find a blanket, and tried to get warm. We decided to wait for the rain to end before we would venture out again. Luckily, the rain stopped after about an hour of down time. The ride wasn’t bad at all to get to Winthrop – then there was a never-ending road between Winthrop and Manchester. There were hills, and the wind was blowing right in our faces. It was definitely a fight to the finish.

Then, since I knew the area well, I was VERY sure that Manchester was just a few miles away… which it was. However, someone decided it was a good idea to make the RAGBRAI route go ALL THE WAY AROUND MANCHESTER, so we eneded up coming in from the north side of town, as opposed to the south side. Talk about discouraging. But, we continued on – and I felt such a great sense of accomplishment as I entered into Manchester. Their theme had something to do with sports – so they had people cheering on the side of the road. I felt like I was in a race or something, so that was pretty cool.

It wasn’t until we stopped that I realized that I was a little sore. But, I’m proud to say I did it, I didn’t die, and the next day I wasn’t sore at all!

Finally, a HUGE thank you to those that supported Team Peacock. I was a scholarship recipient when I was a student, and it means a lot that I was able to help raise money for this same cause. Also, thank you to my family for all the support, whether it was through donations or bike upgrades, I couldn’t have done it without you. And finally, to Upper Iowa, who was more than generous in making sure Jenna and I had jerseys, food and drink, and a warm place to be in the cold rain. Thank you!

Hopefully it works out that I can go again next year!

What a busy summer! Can’t believe it is almost August. Definitely a busy time for IT – considering we have over 100 new computers on their way to campus, and we need to set them ALL up before class starts.

With such a busy summer, it’s nice to look back a month ago at my favorite part of summer – VACATION! This year I went on my second annual MLB baseball tour! One of my high school friends and I have started a new tradition where we travel to major league baseball games for an entire week, and also hit some tourist attractions along the way. This year we stopped at Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Minneapolis.

We had fantastic weather all week – no rain, comfortable temperatures – couldn’t beat it!

At our first stop in Milwaukee – we were very happy to arrive on BOBBLE HEAD DAY! So, we walked in with our super cool bobble heads and sat along the first base line. Pretty solid seats I would say. Then, our trip started with a BANG. First pitch, first swing – HOMERUN BREWERS! Not a bad way to start, huh?

While we were in Milwaukee, we also toured the Miller Brewery. I always find brewery tours to be pretty interesting, because they each add their own twist to their brews.

From Milwaukee, we traveled south to Chicago. It was time to check out our favorite team, the Cubs. Of course, they lost. They don’t call them the loveable losers for nothing!

Our next day would be a day of MASS TRAVEL. We would go from Chicago to St Louis to watch the Cardinals play… THEN go all the way to Kansas City after the game. Who came up with this brutal schedule? (That would be me, BTW) But, it was a lot of fun, and our seats were absolutely AMAZING. We were 5 rows behind the Cardinals dugout in the Diamond Club. It’s a great feeling to sit down in a padded seat, and get asked if we wanted anything to eat or drink. Then we were handed a menu. Vacation is so tough!

Kansas City was our next stop, and probably my favorite spot on our tour this year. Traffic is never an issue there, and you can do quite a few fun things. We checked out the College Basketball Experience, which is basicly a fully interactive museum. It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever gone to, and deserves a blog to itself. Here’s me throwing one down on a 9 foot hoop. That’s what’s up!

We also were lucky to run into a sound test for Saving Abel while walking the streets of KC. Then we toured the Boulevard Brewery. Much smaller operation than Miller, but much nicer! (The beverages are better too) Then it was off to the game. Kansas City won, so home teams were now 3-1 on the trip (for those of you that were curious)

Finally we checked out the Twins in Minneapolis. Such a nice new stadium. Got to meet up with another of our friends that lives up there, and also my uncle Tom.

Exhausted, our trip had concluded after that. I didn’t even cover a quarter of what we did, but that’s a good start. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Now, back in Iowa, I am focused on this Friday… when I will be joining Team Peacock on RAGBRAI. A very special thank you to all of the people that donated money to me! I was able to DOUBLE my fundraising goal due to your generosity. Also, a HUGE thank you to my parents, who hooked me up with some new road slick tires for my bike. I’ll be riding on air! And of course, thank you to the fine people at UIU, for letting me squeeze into the route for a day as I ride from Waterloo to Manchester!

Stay cool, and dry. Which seems hard to do lately…

Finally back to blogging after a week of vacation, and a very busy work week last week! It’s time for the July tech tip! I have plenty to type about in the coming weeks: my vacation, Office 2010 impressions, RAGBRAI, and technology in the new buildings here on campus.

So, let’s start with July’s tech tip! Today is for the new students and also faculty members. I will provide some links to great deals for new software and equipment!

First, if you’ve been on an Upper Iowa campus, you know that we predominantly use Dell computers. If you are a student, faculty or staff member of UIU, you can check out www.dell.com/uiu for discounted prices on new computers!

For the Mac lovers, check out Apple’s education store at www.apple.com . For a limited time, you get a FREE iPod Touch with the order of an Apple computer. Again, this is for faculty, staff, and students. I did this two years ago, and it’s a great deal!

How about some software for your new computer? Check out www.theultimatesteal.com if you are a student and purchase the new Office 2010 suite for only $80. There are other deals on that site for upgrades to Windows 7 as well. Keep in mind that this software is only for the Windows operating system. Faculty and staff should contact me directly if you would like to purchase Office for a discounted rate.

And finally, if you are looking for great prices on pretty much ANY electronic, check out my favorite place to shop online: www.newegg.com

Hope that points you in the right direction. Now… go spend some money! Have a great weekend!

Today is an especially exciting Friday for me! I will be on a week-long vacation next week before we hit the 4^th of July holiday! Vacations are always exciting, but I have a little more to be excited about this time as I will be heading across the Midwest going to Major League Baseball games. Me and a high school friend will be going to Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Minneapolis (in that order.) We will hit a new city every day. We did this last year as well, but the Milwaukee Brewers were not in town, so we didn’t go to Milwaukee.

I’ll make sure to tell you a little about my trip, and share some pictures when I return. So, to the loyal followers, you won’t see an update from me next week.

On the ‘tech’ side of things, I have been using Microsoft Office 2010 since Tuesday of this week. It’s safe to say I am really enjoying the new look and features of the suite and I’m excited to share some of my findings with you. Lots to talk about, but not much time, I’ve got to go pack!

Have a great weekend and 4^th of July holiday! U-S-A, U-S-A!

I swear Fayette will turn into a rain forest soon. We have had VERY muggy conditions, and lots of rain lately. More rain in the forecast for the next several days too!

It was a busy week in the technology world – the new iPhone is just around the corner, Microsoft Office 2010 has been released and the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is now complete. In my blog this week, I’ll give you some information about Office 2010, and I’ll save the E3 talk for next week.

Before I get into some new features, let’s cover the basics. Microsoft Office often gets confused with Microsoft Windows. Windows is an operating system, and Office is a software package. The two are not really related, other than needing Windows to run Office 2007 or 2010. Currently on campus and at our centers we are running Office 2007.  The Office Suite includes things like Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There are many other applications in the suite, but those are the most commonly used ones.

There are many new features in the new suite – some of them are highlighted in this link http://www.beingmanan.com/wp/2009/05/office-2010-new-features The feature to remove a background from an image looks VERY helpful. I’m glad I have PhotoShop to do this myself, but it would be nice to do it right within Office.

I’m looking forward to playing around with Office 2010 after I get it installed (hopefully next week.) I would expect UIU to be running Office 2010 by this time next year – but of course that’s not my decision.

I will definitely provide further insight and impressions of Office 2010 at a later date…

Hey students! If you want Office 2010 for dirt cheap – check out this site – www.theultimatesteal.com

Have a great weekend!

Sometimes it can be pretty frustrating to try to open up a file and then realize that it will not open, because you do not have the correct software. Or, say you want to convert a PDF to a Word document. Maybe a .wav file to an .mp3. Zamzar is here to help.

Difficulty: Super Easy
System: ANY
Total Approximate Time: a few minutes

Zamzar is a very popular file conversion site. www.zamzar.com This FREE service allows you to convert files up to 100MB in size. Let’s say you want to change the file from a PDF to a Word document. Just browse to the PDF, select the format to convert to, and then enter your email address. When the document is ready, Zamzar will send you an email with a link to the document to download. It’s very easy to use. Just make sure you check your Junk Mail, in case the email from Zamzar ends up there.

Very simple, very useful.

Wow, what a busy start to the summer! I’m a little behind on my blogging, but staying busy with lots of other things. Graduations, weddings, work – you name it, and I have it going on in May. But finally, it’s time for a short blog.

I’m looking forward to the end of the work day today, as my co-worker Kevin and I will be riding our motorcycles across the countryside to Gunder, Iowa. It has been almost a year since I’ve had the world famous Gunderburger. If you haven’t heard about, seen, or tasted the Gunderburger, you need to do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s the most delicious ONE POUND of fresh ground beef you would ask for. Here’s a link to the Irish Shanti – home of the Gunderburger.

And of course, a picture… and no, they do not force you to wear the ridiculous cheeseburger hat.

Next week I will give you the June edition of Travis’ Tech Tip. If there is anything you would like me to feature, please leave me a comment.

I’ll have more on my busy summer in the coming postings. Thanks for reading! Later be…

Half way through May, and commencement is complete. *sigh* But, I can’t breathe easy yet, because this starts the busiest time of the year for the IT department on campus. We have a LOT of work ahead of us as we prepare for students to arrive in the fall. More on that later…

But, I promised a ‘behind the scenes’ look at commencement.

First, we start out with 2 laptops, which pretty much run the show.

1 laptop runs the teleprompter software and 1 runs the video on the large projection screen that OCM creates.

There are many wires, which can be seen in this picture. I get my fair share of crawling around on the floor to get this done.

After the wires are run, we test to make sure the teleprompter monitors are working.

As you can see, the text is upside down and backwards. This will be fixed with the mirrors that are placed above the monitors.

We then test the height/visibility of the teleprompter. Matt Cowley is shown above testing.

Here is what the screen looks like while looking into the mirror/glass from the podium.

After we have it set to our liking we attend the practice sessions. Our Registrar, Holly Streeter is seen here asking us to adjust the teleprompter.

As you can see, there is a lot of fine tuning involved in the technology for the commencement ceremony. And this was only the teleprompter part. In this picture you see the lift that I got to ride up to the ceiling on to mount the projector with the assistance of our awesome Facilities Management workers. After that is focused and aligned we’re ready to go.

Listening to the radio at work is something that I do every single day. Being the music lover that I am, I love to have a wide variety of music to listen to at any given moment. Rather than sit here and debate on CD/mp3s vs local radio or satellite radio – I’ll go ahead and give you my choice at work: Internet Radio.

I won’t even list out a platform or difficulty for this tech tip. You just go to a website and you’re off and running. I often hear people say – “Yeah, I’m listening to Pandora.” Well, I’m here to tell you today that Pandora is pretty worthless compared to my personal favorite – Slacker.

www.slacker.com

Slacker radio is much superior to Pandora. They work essentially the same way, but Slacker has premade stations already made to your liking. With Pandora, you type in an artist you like, and you get similar artists. Well, what if I’m listening to a Pandora station with all country artists, and I want to hear some rock? I have to go through and make an ENTIRE station again. That’s terrible. With Slacker, you can just select a genre and you are on your way.

Slacker is setup the same way as Pandora in other ways – you can favorite or ban a song, and create your own station. You can also browse stations that other people have made. One of my personal favorites is ‘One Hit Wonders.’ Everything from ‘Mmm Bop’ to ‘Tubthumper.’ Certainly brings back memories!

Slacker is easy to pick up and play – no hassle. Just sign up for an account and you’re off and running.

Even better – grab the App for your phone! They have iPhone/iPod touch, Android, BlackBerry AND Windows Mobile apps. You can truly listen and take your stations anywhere. Oh, and have access to premade stations. Can’t beat that!

Check it out today! Next week I’ll show you some behind the scenes work at the commencement. Congratulations to those that are graduating, and best of luck in the future!

From one UIU graduate to another: Be Peacock Proud!