As Reclaim continues to morph, I ‘ve been thinking a bit about working teams. One of the real joys—and possibly under appreciated privileges—I’ve had professionally is being part of really amazing teams, which often translates to working with great people. I was living in New York City in the late 90s, just in time to witness (many times first-hand) the NY Yankees 3-peat World Series championships in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Now it might be easy to dismiss this team given they were chock-full of money and talent (they’re the Yankees, after all), but turns out the Orioles had an even higher payroll with arguably as much talent in 1998.* And also, remember the Mets!!! Beyond the money and individual stars there was something more at play—a sense of joyful commitment to the work married with talent made them something else all together. Even the leagues of folks who hate the Yankees would crack a little with that particular team—they were hard not … [Read more...]
UMW Blogs: a Diamond in the Rough
I don’t really know how to write this post. Saying goodbye is never easy, and sunsetting a duct-taped platform that gave life to thousands of voices for over 16 years is not trivial. Out of curiosity I peeked at the aggregate numbers for UMW Blogs when we first started tracking hits in 2010 (3 years after its launch in 2007) and it’s kind of mind-boggling: UMW Blogs traffic since 2010 That’s well over 16 million users that started 20 million sessions and viewed 34 million pages that have been recorded. Not bad for a humble publishing platform for the UMW community that was born on a shared hosting account for $75 annually—let’s round-up to $90 with domain registration. In many ways UMW Blogs embodied the anarchic spirit of fast, cheap, and out-of-control technology that flew in the face of over-engineered, locked-down, and expensive systems that were increasingly third-party solutions. Not only did the existing systems provide little to no agency for the … [Read more...]
Some Welcome Love for the LAMP Stack
I, too, love LAMP. In @readtedium, @ShortFormErnie "shines a light on LAMP, the background tools that, together, turned the internet into a machine that anyone could run." cc @jimgroom @timmmmyboy @brumface https://t.co/B7Sw5vKFr1 — David D. LaCroix (@DavidDLaCroix) September 4, 2021 I really enjoyed Ernie Smith’s article “I Love Lamp” over on his Tedium.co blog, big thanks to David LaCroix for the link. He provides a succinct and fascinating history into the rise of the killer stack that has reigned for over 20 years. There has been a lot of talk about the New Hack Stack, and I’ve been fascinated with those developments for the last decade and what they could mean for Reclaim Hosting. But at the end of the day, LAMP is still very much the workhorse behind the modern web. And if you’re like WTF is LAMP, it’s the suite of open source technologies Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP that were combined to build the web servers that still … [Read more...]
Whence DTLT?
I just want to be clear that from where I am standing DTLT is not dead, and from what I understand the great Jerry Slezak (who was already there when I arrived in 2005) has recently taken over the group. he will be hiring a new staff (something that happened 3 short years ago to no dire cries of an untimely death), and from what I understand a long list of amazing faculty that have done incredible work for over 20 yeas are still there. So, needless to say, I was a bit appalled when I saw the exaggerated announcements of UMW’s death on Twitter so uncritically accepted as a foregone conclusion. And, of course, the retweets and likes almost immediately started to roll in, the eulogies were tweeted, and everyone was so god damned right. I remember more than a few folks telling me to check my ego when I decided to leave UMW, and I tried given no one person makes a group. And when a group leaves en masse as DTLT has the last couple of years, there is definitely a problem. Where exactly … [Read more...]
Leaving UMW: the 2008 Edition
While packing up the books in my house (I haven’t even started on the office yet), I found the above card from my DTLT colleagues wedged in a Captain America Mad Libs. They gave it to me back in February of 2008 on the occasion of my first remove from UMW to work at the University of Richmond, a period we affectionately refer to as my “sabbatical.” I have to admit it’s kind wild to find this as I prepare for the second remove. Things will be changing for me very soon, and that comes with it’s own excitement. But artifacts like this provide a pleasant reminder of just how important these folks have been in my personal and professional life over the last ten years. I’ll miss the salad days of DTLT. See that, I started the nostalgia before I’m even out the door … [Read more...]
DTLT: The Next Generation
This year has been one of transition—to put it lightly—at UMW’s Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies. Andy Rush announced he’ll be joining University of Northern Florida in September, which means two-thirds of the group has left (or announced their leaving) since November. And while Andy’s leaving marks the end of an era (I’ll save my real feelings for another post ), it also ushers in the possibility of a whole new generation of instructional technology at UMW. Last week I got a glimpse of what that might look like, and I am both excited and hopeful. Jessica Reingold started a week ago today in a new position DTLT created this Spring called the Entry-level Instructional Technology Specialist. The idea for this position came from UMW’s IT department which has been hiring recent college grads into entry-level positions for their Enterprise Application Services team over the last few years.* What was awesome about Jess’s hire is … [Read more...]
I’m just gonna leave this here for posterity :)
Historians reflecting on the reboot of higher ed: Harvard? Berkeley? Nope. The University of Mary Washington. (What?) (Believe it, hippies!) — Jon Udell (@judell) May 28, 2015 … [Read more...]
Resignation
It’s official, I have resigned my position at University of Mary Washington, and will be going full-time at Reclaim Hosting. It’s almost surreal, and I follow in the footsteps of the great Tim Owens—-whose hard work these last six months has made it all possible. And while I reference the opening sequence of The Prisoner above in honor of #prisoner106, my resignation was neither premature nor acrimonious, and it won’t be immediate. I will be working through September at UMW to ensure a smooth transition. What’s more, one couldn’t have asked for a better situation over the 1o years I’ve been at UMW. I had amazing colleagues in DTLT, a remarkable level of autonomy, and the best faculty and students you could imagine. I think the work I’ve done at UMW speaks for itself, and I leave feeling I was part of a group that truly made the campus a better place to teach and learn. There can be no greater professional satisfaction than that in this … [Read more...]
DTLT’s Hurley Award Winner: Martha Burtis
The Great Martha Burtis I have been remiss in mentioning that one of my favorite people this side of the Rappahannock, Martha Burtis, was awarded the 2015 Hurley Award. This award is presented to an administrative/professional faculty member who performs exceptionally meritorious service to the University; demonstrates strength of character; and maintains steadfast dedication to the University’s mission. Martha does all that and more. So when Jeff McClurken asked me to write a letter in support of Martha (he was a genius for nominating her), I knew it was going to be a long one. There’s so many good things to write, and I think of her as my mentor during these past four years of DTLT directorship. What’s more, Martha has been so central to every creative, crazy thing we’ve done at DTLT these last years—I’m thinking her about ds106 in particular, Summer of Oblivion #4life. Despite the fact that so many folks associate me with DTLT’s success because I … [Read more...]
Domain of One’s Own 2.0: the Manatee Release
Domain of One’s Own, the distributed, web-based sea cow everyone loves! In this wopping one hour and 26 minute video Martha Burtis and Tim Owens take you through two years of development on the UMW Domains project. It’s the most thorough record available of the work they’ve been doing since Summer 2012, and it traces the thinking, development, and deployment of how UMW is giving every student, faculty, and staff a domain and web hosting account of their own. We understand that an hour and 26 minutes is a very long time, so we’re breaking down the conversation according to specific topics so you can watch what might be relevant for you: 00:01:26 – 00:10:30 Domain of One’s Own 0.5: The Alpha Pilot Timeframe: Spring 2012 through Spring 2013 In the first part of the video Tim and Martha discuss the pilot of Domain of One’s Own. We start with some history. During the Fall 2012/Spring 2013 Academic year we used a dedicated server with MediaTemple … [Read more...]