Recently in UA News Category

If you're at the UA, you may already know this. But if not, you'll be interested in knowing that the UA is going to Google Apps for Education for its students and is exploring going to the suite for the rest of us. (I really hope we do this).

Google Apps for Education is a suite of products: Google mail, Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Sites. If you're not familiar with any of these, google (verb meaning to search for information about a specific person through the Google search engine) them to learn about them. When the Google (uppercase G) rep was here on campus on April 9th, said that Google provides this for free as public service. Remember, Sergey and Larry came up "don't be evil" as Google's corporate motto early-on. They have a track record of doing trying to do good. I asked Lisa Stage in UITS for an update today and she said that exploration of using Google Aps throughout campus is being evaluated. What is it competing with? MS Exchange.

Google Aps is not just for higher ed, mind you. It is being used in more and more business environments. There is a component for Google video that can be restricted in-house, that is, within one's intranet. Lisa told me that the calendar interfaces with mobile devices like the Blackberry and iPhone. I got an iPhone in March which means I can't synch my Meeting Maker calendar to my mobile device the way I have been sync'ing it to my PalmTungsten the past 6 years. This is important to me and, personally, I do not want to go to Exchange and take on a new MS product after replacing my home PC with an iMac in January and my work PC with an iMac (May). Sorry Bill, but I am trying to exit Gatesville for Jobsville.

A couple weeks ago the Google blog posted an entry about a company deploying Google Aps. Here's a copy/paste that explains the advantage in a nutshell. Valeo is "using the Google Apps suite not just for Gmail, but also for shared calendaring, collaborating on files without attachments, private video sharing and quickly deployable internal and external sites. IT managers are refocusing the money and time saved towards core projects that help their individual businesses become more competitive." Here's a link to a short video about using Google Aps to share video across your intranet.

Abraham Deng is a UA master's degree student who is also a "Lost Boy of Sudan." UA News produced a video about him and how he is raising money to help build schools in Sudan. Check it out on YouTube.

Congratulations to everyone working on the mission. Enormously exciting and just amazing how JPL could engineer the lander to touch down safely.

Check this out. This afternoon on the LPL Phoenix website is this image captured by a "telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25." (LPL is the UA's Department of Planetary Sciences
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory)

The full story: "Camera On Mars Orbiter Snaps Phoenix During Landing"

My friend Hank shared these links for Live Briefings and replays on NASA TV: MS Media Player | Real Player
| Quicktime

Oh, and we now have 30 videos and 1 audio track on the Phoenix Mars mission iTunes U site. Miguel Young at Apple wrote that he trying to get the site some additional exposure. I keep checking iTunes U's main page - nothing yet - maybe tomorrow. I think the UA mission video specialists will be adding more as they are able to make it available.

Take a look at "UA undergrads do hands-on science" in today's Tucson & Region section of the Daily Star. [Note that if you are visiting this page after Feb. 1st, it's probably been moved off open access.]

A couple weeks ago I met with the College of Science's Gail Hurd, Glenda Gentile, and Bo Baylor. Gail spoke about how COS has an excellent program in which undergrads carry out their own research project and emerge from the experience with excellent research skills. The article focuses on the Undergrad Biology Research Program, which I think may be part of the overall COS program. Carol Bender directs the Undergrad Biology Research Program and is quoted in the article as a couple students who participated in the program.

Gail and Glenda are going to identify students and faculty and the LTC's Media Services unit will video. Our plans are to do students and possibly faculty speaking about how special this COS program is and put these videos on the coming UA YouTube enhanced channel.