Episode 9 – The Community Conundrum
08-04-2010 in Tightwad Tech by admin
20 Responses to Episode 9 – The Community Conundrum
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The Tightwad Tech is a podcast by and for those in the education field who face ever-growing demands and ever-shrinking budgets. We discuss the strategic implementation of free and open source software as well as the creative deployment of hardware.
In this show, aimed at making desktop Linux approachable and understandable to the average computer enthusiast, a panel of Linux experts and Linux newbies discuss the the joys and pitfalls of Everyday Linux.
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I know I might be going retro here, but the use of a forum so that their is that resource of tightwad techs helping other tightwad techs regarding pricing decisions, server configs, user torture methods…err I mean politics. As far as IRC, I've sat in two channels and not a word has been uttered in the two weeks I idled before disconnecting. As for your podcast thing, google offers free voicemail service :0.
Then you’ve been sitting in the wrong IRC channels.
I actually like the blog and comment format you have now. Forums and items like that need a huge active userbase to be worth wile, and like you said most programs you mention have their own. The blog and comment format is the same format that Cnet and other news outlets use.
I think what is missing is comments from you in response to our comments.
@Bjorn We do try to comment when appropriate, but the reality is that we just don’t always have anything to say. Maybe we use up all our words while we’re recording.
-Mark
These things are all like nuclear fission. You have to keep adding energy until you get critical mass and then it is self sustaining.
As far as 'forums' sites like groupsite have taken them to a next level. But, they are still kind of old hat. It does bring to mind an idea for a whole episode of 'social media' for non-profits, etc.
I don't really have an opinion on the forms/facebook/other debate, but I did want to check in to let you know that I listen and love the show. I'm the security and linux guy (yes, I know those aren't really similar jobs) at a medium-sized Uni and I love to hear about the tools that you guys use and suggest.
I have a small request… in a future show, could you discuss some of the other podcasts that you guys like to listen to? I've become a bit of a podcast addict while I drive, and I'm always looking for new ones to try out.
Thanks!
K
I’m sort of an old IRC guy, minus the old (I’m 22). IRC still has a place and is still used by lots of people.
One idea I just had about your asynchronous-but-in-time-podcast-comments notion would be for you to have an IRC channel (which could be embedded in a web page with mibbit) with a bot idling there that you could tell to start recording comments when you start your cast — and then when you tell it to stop, it could dump it all to a file, or send it in an HTTP request to a script on your site, or call you up and read them to you using a text-to-speech engine … just kidding with that last one.
I’ve done a little IRC bot scripting with mIRC and PHP before (that is, I’ve written bots in each language), so it seems doable to me.
Or maybe I’m not clear on what exactly you’re looking for.
I love the IRC idea! Is there a tightwad channel on IRC now?
There’s not an IRC channel, but there is a chat room attached to the Web site. Once you log in, you’ll see a “Chat” option in the navigation bar at the tome of the screen. Clicking that will log you into the chat room. It’s very IRC-ish. I love IRC, but the problem is finding a good Web-based IRC client. While a geek will go out and download an IRC client and connect, that’s a bit much to ask the average teacher to do. Plus we’d like to keep things as integrated into the Web community as possible. So, find us a good, free, preferably Open Source Web-based IRC client and I’ll certainly give it a hard look.
Hi Mark -
Just for fun I have created an IRC channel on efnet. Join #TightwadTech.
Here are a couple of free web IRC clients that look good.
http://cgiirc.org/
CGI:IRC is a Perl/CGI program that lets you access IRC from a web browser, it is designed to be flexible and has many uses such as an IRC gateway for an IRC network, a chat-room for a website or to access IRC when stuck behind a restrictive firewall.
See the features page for more information on the features or try the demo.
CGI:IRC works on the iPhone!
As you can see to the right CGI:IRC works fine on the iPhone (although I can’t try it, being in the UK). The only issue is typing hides the other text, I don’t think there is a way around this as it’s how the iPhone’s interface works.
http://www.mibbit.com/
“IRC so easy, your Mom could use it!” CNET Webware
Thanks – Pete
I forgot that efnet does not support nickserv, so I created #TightwadTech on freenode.
Jump on in and lets test it out.
I’ve seen and used both of these tools, and am underwhelmed. Mibbit is probably the best of the two, but for the no-ads version, it’s fairly pricey- between $10 and $100 a month depending on what you choose. Not Tightwad Approved.
GCI:IRC is…clunky at best.
I think the asthetic of AjaxChat (what we’re using now) is better, it ties in with our BuddyPress installation very nicely, and it only cost me $10 (I think; I don’t really remember) to remove the adds forever. It’s not perfect, for certain, and I’m not sure how well it’ll scale since it uses the MySQL database as its back-end, but I think it’s pretty good, and very similar to IRC in a lot of ways.
OK good to know, thanks. This kind of info exchange is invaluable as it saves everybody else the research time only to discover that a solution isn’t good.
I’ll give the site chat a whirl and see if anybody is out there.
Thanks again – Pete
There’s also PJIRC, which is a Java applet.
My issue with the current setup is that it’s not as convenient for me. I’d much rather be able to open my IRC client and have it join a Tightwad channel while it also joins all the other channels I idle. As it is, I have to pull up this site, make sure i’m logged in, and click the Chat button, which then opens a window which has only a SINGLE purpose. I have to do all that to get to it, and once I get there, (1) i can’t do anything else with that window, (2) there’s rarely anyone there since the only ones there would be those who explicitly visit the site AND manage to find the chat link (which isn’t as obvious as it could or probably should be).
It might be easier for those who’ve never used IRC, but there’s nothing/no one to keep them there. With an IRC channel, some of us would probably idle there along with the other channels we’re in, which would help visitors think there’s activity, and possibly increase actual activity since those of us who idle there might actually be around when some website visitor pokes their head in.
Ok, let’s talk about the IRC thing just a bit. Clearly you’re a power user, but the overwhelming majority of people in the world (and I suspect in our audience) are not. Even a lot of geeks aren’t daily IRC users. I really like IRC and have used it since I had a 2400 baud modem. However, if we’re to have a chat room at all, it’s critical that it have a good Web interface. So far I’ve not found a good, solid, attractive, modern IRC Web client. I’ve looked at PJIRC in the past, and it’s…well, ugly.
Most people, even the geeks, aren’t going to fire up an IRC client and log into the Tightwad Tech chat room. For the most part, when/if people join our chat room, it’ll be for a live broadcast, or to ask a question. Yes, it would be good if we had some of our “resident experts” in the room when that happened, and yes allowing them to use an IRC client would make that easier on them, but at what cost?
IRC is blocked at many, maybe most, corporate and education-institution firewalls. So, even if there were a good Web client, much of our intended audience wouldn’t be able to use it. Yes, we have the uber-geek listeners, and we love them all, but we also have principals, superintendents and classroom teachers within our community. Choosing IRC is likely to cut many of them out of the conversation entirely.
Like I said before, I’m not attacking IRC, or saying it’s a bad thing. What I’m saying is that I haven’t found a better solution yet than the Ajax-based chat room we have now. I’m open to suggestions and have checked out everything mentioned so far, and will continue to do so.
Thanks for your input Garrett!
Given all that, I really think an embedded Mibbit widget would be the best thing — except that it would have ads.
Pros: it’s IRC (more likely to get activity from the existing IRC ecosystem); it would probably get around firewall blocks; it’s easy to use; it’s not ugly.
Cons: Ad-supported.
Aside from that, I just found another AJAX IRC client: http://qwebirc.org/
What do you think of that one?
Due to intense, overwhelming listener feedback (that means you Garrett) I’ve decided to give GCI:IRC a go. It’s ugly, but it checks all the other boxes. It can be access behind a firewall because the Tightwad Tech server does the actual calls to the IRC server. So, the official Tightwad Tech IRC channel is now #TightwadTech on freenode.net, or you can click the (now much larger) chat button at the top of the home page.
Cool, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to do it just because I want it.
also, it’s CGI (Common Gateway Interface).
did you look at the one I linked to above?
surely CGI:IRC’s code could be modified to be more visually attractive.
As I read it, the qWebIRC has to be compiled on the server, and my hosting company doen’t allow me that level of access.
oh, i didn’t notice that.