Here at UCS we’ve been getting complaints about too many sources of information. People are concerned with missing something critical. A common question is, “How am I supposed to keep track of all these different blogs, forums, wikis, and so on?”

The short answer is, you don’t really need to. As long as you’re reading your email, you’re fine.

Here’s the long answer: though official policy hasn’t been set yet, we’re still using email to send any information that is really critical. All these blogs, forums, wikis, and so on are alternatives, designed to give you additional information if you want it, or for specific uses by smaller groups of people.
The blogs are mostly designed for personal communication; some of us write about topics that affect campus, but mostly that’s because we deal with those things as part of our own personal jobs. I would hope that my posts are useful enough so people interested in blogging at WOU will visit my blog regularly; but you aren’t required to. The resource is just there in case you want to take advantage of it.
Speaking for myself, if I post something on my blog that is really vital for people to see, I’ll include a mention of it in the weekly FAQ email (or, as you’ve seen in the last few weeks, I’ll send out a reminder to check blogs even if there is no FAQ for that week.) Other UCS people are also sending out messages on the allfacstaff and/or students email lists, to inform you when they post a blog entry with important information. That way, it’s not your job to check fifteen blogs every day just in case there is something important in one of them.
Of course, if you choose not to read your email list messages, and you miss something, that’s your responsibility. This is just me talking here; it’s not the official UCS policy. We’re meeting you more than halfway by using email for everything critical; you only have to worry about one source of information, so I think it’s only fair that you take advantage of that source.

So, I suppose I should explain what has been keeping me so busy that I haven’t had time to write FAQ’s or update this blog every day.

Warning: this is all geeky stuff. But read on if you’re interested anyway! I’ve tried to explain the stuff in English, as non-technically as possible.

Mostly it’s been systems programming, but that really means several different tasks at the moment, most of which have to do with our LDAP database.
What is an LDAP database, you may ask? Basically, it is the database that stores things like usernames, passwords, email addresses, program settings, etc. The acronym stands for “Lightweight Directory Access Protocol”, and LDAP databases can store all sorts of information besides user settings. For instance, in Messenger Express and the new Communications express, your address books are stored in the LDAP database1.
The advantage of this sort of thing is centralization. Since LDAP is a standardized and widely supported protocol, many different systems and programming languages can use it. For instance, since your email username and password is stored in the LDAP database, other systems like the forums server or the domain migration questionnaire can use that same password.
Which brings me to the project that had me busy all last week: developing a standard way for all our Oracle web/database applications2, of which there are many on our servers. (For instance, the faculty/staff and student directory searches, the domain migration questionnaire, the policy display system, the online application for admissions… I’d have to go on way too long if I were to list them all.) Many of them require usernames and passwords, and now they can easily be converted to use your email login, so you won’t have as many passwords to remember. Of course, most of them haven’t actually been converted to the new method yet, but that’s coming.
This week, I’ve been working on a better way to create web pages. Anyone who has used our website template knows that it requires some finicky editing to start a new page; you have to get the title right, the random images, all those meta tags, and so on. If someone gets part of this stuff wrong, it isn’t always easy to notice, but it does affect things.
What I’m working on is a web form that will let you enter a title, choose some images, and put in keywords and other details. A web page will then be created for you in the folder you want, with all those finicky details taken care of, ready for you to edit by whatever means you normally use. Naturally, not everybody is allowed to create web pages; the system will use LDAP to verify your login and determine what folders you have access to. This is a long project, though, and won’t be finished for some time; I’m shooting for late summer.
Aside from that, I’ve been doing some programming related to the domain migration, and moving people’s email address books as they get transferred from Messenger Express to Communications Express. (If your email has already been migrated but you don’t see your address book(s), please let me know!) If you don’t know what migration I’m talking about, refer to this post on Joe’s blog. (Just the first part, not the part about supporting Outlook, though you may find that good news too.)
Anyway, that’s all the time I have today. If there’s an FAQ tomorrow, it will be short.

1 Technically, “LDAP database” is a misnomer; LDAP is really just the way we access the database to read information out of it, or change what’s in there. When I say “LDAP Database” I really mean “the database that we use LDAP to access”, but of course the distinction is probably only of interest to geeks like me.

There will be no FAQ this week either. My jury duty got canceled at the last moment (too bad, because I was curious about how it would go) but I still was too busy today with systems programming.