Qmaster Distributed Processing Setup

I set up a cluster of Macs using Qmaster today but ran in to a problem during setup: Batch Monitor would only say "waiting" when a Compressor job was submitted to it. The problem was that there was not a file share that was accessible to all the service nodes in the cluster. Once I changed the default file share on the cluster controller to one that was accessible - voila! - the batch began processing.

Qmaster

Opus X

The folks from Radford also talked about a project called Opus X. In the upcoming fall semester they plan to digitize their library's entire CD collection and share it via iTunes. This raises a number of traditional copyright issues (which their lawyers looked at closely and gave their approval to the project) but also provides wide, efficient access to their collection for students in their music classes.

nmc2006

iPods in the classroom

Hello from the NMC 2006 conference in Cleveland. I attended an interesting lecture by two professors at Radford University about using iTunes and iPods in the context of a music history class. Every student in the class next semester will be required to own an iPod and will get content downloaded from the library to it. The professors have created a simple multiple choice quiz that the students can take on the iPod while listening to the assigned music. The professors claimed that the students retained more information about the class material because they were able to listen to the assignments more frequently and at their convenience.

nmc2006