Since my trip to Las Vegas back in March I am one of the lucky few Zune HD owners in the Netherlands. I especially love the Zune software and the way it handles podcasts and syncs them to the device. A lot of podcasts are already available in the Zune marketplace and other podcasts can always be added by using the URL. Unforunately some podcasts only seem to be available through iTunes which leaves Zune owners with the option of manually syncing the podcast or just ignoring it at all. Since podcasts in iTunes also use a direct feed there had to be an easier way to solve the problem and this weekend I finally had time to find it. iTunes is still necessary to get the URL, but syncing can be done automatically from within the Zune software.

De afgelopen twee dagen was ik op de conferentie SISLink 2010 “Schakelen in de keten”. Op deze conferentie waren zowel leveranciers als gebruikers van studentinformatiesystemen aanwezig. Er werden vooral veel ervaringen uitgewisseld en als mede-ontwikkelaar van het My Timetable building block voor de TU Delft mocht ik dan ook een presentatie van een uur afleveren. Mijn presentatie is te vinden op slideshare:

A few days ago we delivered version 1.1 of the My Timetable Blackboard module to the Delft University of Technology. The module is now compatible with Blackboard 9.1 and some minor problems have been solved. The new version will be available on Blackboard soon.

Enige tijd geleden schreef ik al een blogje over een manier om Osiris wat efficienter te kunnen gebruiken, helaas heeft de TU hier tot op heden nog niets mee gedaan. Ondertussen spelen er ook een aantal andere problemen.

On the 25th of May Microsoft and the Hogeschool voor Kunsten Utrecht organized the XNA Gaming Event 2010 at the HKU faculty in Hilversum. Around 170 students participated in a day filled with interesting lectures, showcasing of games and interesting discussions. Guest lectures were done by Rob Miles, Alex Ries and Mark Overmars. As an MSP I had the pleasant job of looking after Rob Miles during his stay. 

Sinds de invoer van Osiris bij de TU Delft wordt er geklaagd over de onhandigheid en tijd/aantal kliks die het kost om op bepaalde pagina’s te komen. Vandaag kreeg ik van Robin van den Berg een tip die werkt als een workaround voor dat probleem. Hierdoor is het mogelijk om dingen als laatste tentamenresultaten en de inschrijfpagina voor tentamens met 1 klik te bereiken.

This week a new issue of the W.I.S.V. ‘Christiaan Huygens’ MaCHazine is released. Together with Marco i wrote an article about our My Timetable project which i would like to share with you: Back in August 2009 the Delft University of Technology switched to a new application for building and maintaining schedules. This application, called Syllabus+, provided the schedule makers with an easy way of scheduling activities more efficiently across the whole campus. A new interface came with the system which is now known as roosters.tudelft.nl/timetables.tudelft.nl. During the first weeks some startup problems occurred, but when all the problems were solved the system worked fine. Unfortunately ‘worked fine’ does not mean it works the way you want it too. While O&S was happy with all the new features, students were left with an interface not suiting their needs.

At the start of the first semester the TU Delft started using a new system for all timetables. From the schedulers point of view this system was a big improvement, but unfortunately the interface for students (http://timetables.tudelft.nl/) lacked some features students would like to have. Back in October i started working on an alternative interface system together with Maarten van der Beek, Marco Krikke and Mike Noordermeer. Our target was to make a system that would work intuitive, integrate with blackboard and save preferences for later visits. Furthermore exporting to digital calendars was a big must-have. Yesterday we started doing the final tests on the system, we are still looking for testers. Send us a mail at roostercie@ch.tudelft.nl if you are interested. Meanwhile here is an overview of the new interface i would like to share with you.