Using Wiki’s for Education

Scott Prader, a fellow Academic Technology staffer, passed this great PDF article on to us recently. The topic is how a WIKI can be used to transform teaching and learning. Check it out.

Using Wikis in Education

Getting Ubuntu 6.06 Server working under Ms Virtual Server with VM Additions

VM Additions allow yor linux clients to be monitored and shutdown cleanly by the host machine, but support is a little thin. Microsoft has create general use kernel modules that seem to work with most Linux distros, but here are the specific steps for using Ubuntu.

Mount the VMAdditions as a cdrom device, then copy the files into home directory
In Server Admin:

Select the VMAdditionsForLinux that you downloaded from MS as the cdrom iso for your linux guest.

In Linux:

mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom
mkdir ~/VMAdditions
cp *.* ~/VMAdditions/

Get the kernel sources and build tools

apt-get install linux-source
apt-get install build-essential libncurses5 libncurses5-dev libqt3-mt-dev bin86 gawk linux-kernel-devel ncurses-dev
tar –bzip2 -xvf linux-source-2.6.15.tar.bz2
rm -f /usr/src/linux
ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15 /usr/src/linux
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Install the additions

~/VMAdditions vmadd-install.run kernel-module
~/VMAdditions vmadd-install.run timesync
~/VMAdditions/vmadd-install.run heartbeat
~/VMAdditions vmadd-install.run shutdown

That should do it!

Moving a DotNetNuke Website to Godaddy

As you may have discovered, unless you just want to use the standard DNN install that Godaddy offers, things get tricky.

I had a client that had us build a complete DNN site with custom modules and data on our test servers. The whole time I figured that moving the site to the clients site would be easy, but then I realized that most hosts do not give direct access to the database and setting permissions can be complicated. So here is the fastest solution I found after a few days of work.

1. Prep your Site: Login to your original site and go into the Site Settings. Add portal aliases for the new location of you site which will be new-www.[your domain].com/site. Also modify your /etc/hosts (mac/linux) or WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (win) file so that you point new-www.[your domain].com to your godaddy ip address.

2. Download and Install the Backup/Restore module from XP Idea and request a trial key. You will then copy the key file they give you into the [dnn root]/bin directory. This module is only $70 and allows you to make a live backup of both the database and the files with just a few clicks. Great product!

3. Add the module to a page in your existing site and click the backup link. It will take to to a waiting screen while the backup is made. Then return you back to this screen so you can download the file.

4. Download the file to your local computer an unzip. Save this directory for later

5. Set Up the Standard DNN install on Godaddy: Go into the Content->Hosting Metropolis page in your godaddy account and add the standard DotNetNuke install. You will need to specify a subdirectory for DNN to install into (use “site” for now) and a username/password set (These will be overwritten by the restore). The main reason we do this is to establish the SQL database and set up the standard directory security entries.

6. Set up the Web Config File: Open the web.config file that godaddy made for you and look for the two lines near the top that specify the connection string to the database. Copy these into the web.config file in the backup directory you downloaded earlier.

7. Connect to your godaddy account over FTP (new-www.[your domain].com) and delete everything inside the /site directory. Then put the entire contents of your backup (with the modified web.config) into /site

8. Using Internet Explorer (safari and firefox will NOT work), navigate to new-www.[your domain].com/site/DesktopModules/RemotePortalBackupRestore/RestoreDatabase.aspx

9. The database will restore and you will be taken to your new site! Now you can request the actual DNS change to point at the Godaddy server.

Optional: Add a redirection so that www.[domain].com will point to www.[domain].com/site: Create a new file called default.asp in the root of your godaddy acount with the following code:

<%
DIM sTarget

sTarget = "/site"
Response.Redirect sTarget

%>