Mr. Gatchel has over 30 years experience in fields of computing and engineering. His consulting firm, established in 1995, has successfully completed many projects in telecommunications, manufacturing, defense, and sofware industies. His interest in Linux began over 3 years ago and his firm now offers Linux-based consulting services to clients interested in using this powerful new approach to computing. Mr. Gatchel holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering from The University of Texas at Arlingtion and a Master of Science Degree from Pennsylvania State University in Engineering Mechanics. Mr. Gatchel is a founding member of the Society of Design and Process Science. He is currently on the Industry Advisory Board for the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Southern Methodist University.
What is Linux?
The answer to this question is not as simple as it might seem at first. The World of Linux is vast. It involves and international community that has produced a great body of what is commonly known as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).In this segment we will give a brief overview of Linux, it's history and where it is today.
The Linux Desktop
The Linux desktop environment is just emerging as a viable option to other proprietary systems. This segment looks the all aspects of the desktop, how it has evolved and where it is going. It also shows some of the great accomplishments of desktop environments and how they can be used make it a possible alternative to current commercial offerings and how it can work cooperatively with these systems.
Office Suites
The most popular of often used of all software categories, Linux has an assortment of full desktop office suites. We will show you some of the more popular ones and describe the advantage and disadvantages of each.
Applications! Applications! Everywhere applications!
Linux has more applications than you can shake a stick at. The one you need is probably there but how do you find it? How do you install it? As always, in the Linux world, the answer is not always so straight forward. We will give you a road map through the jungle.
Linux in Education
Freely available source code and documentation benefits education and simply makes sense when you think about it. Educators go to the source when possible for information. Going to the source makes the best sense with software as well. I will discuss the problems with commercial software from an IT perspective. This deals with the general loss of control and decision making that has happened in the past 15 years.
Studied Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at LSU. Worked in Unix for 15 years, 1/2 as developer, 1/2 as administrator. Formed consulting company providing consulting services for Fortune 500 companies, emphasizing solutions using Open Source Software. Downloaded first copy of Linux in 1993 and has been "hooked" ever since.
Introducing LTSP: Reduce Cost and Enhance Computing
Linux cannot run entire schools... yet, but it can be used in some very specific ways that are useful to schools. For example, how about a free library automation program to run your school's library. In this segment we explore the possibilities for your school.
Mr. Von Niederhausern has over 5 years of intense experience with Linux. He is co-founder and principle developer of the popular Linux portal: Linux4SmallBiz.com. His industry work includes 5 years in telecommunications where he developed and maintained corporate-wide provsioning applications and created numerous complex data management systems. Mr. Von Niederhausern graduated Cum Laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and is certified LPIC-1 by the Linux Professional Institute.
Internet Browsing, Web Authoring and Email
The internet has become essential to all most all organizations and many individuals. Any system has to be able to interface to the internet in many ways. Fortunately, the web actually started on Unix (which Linux is patterned after) so this is a real stonghold for Linux and other Open Source Software.
Publishing & Scholarly Works
Throughout high school and college, students pend a great deal of effort creating scholarly works which may be ultimately published. The document are complex because they often include things ordinary documents don't, e.g., references, bibliography, table of contents, numbered sections, figures, graphs, charts,heading, footnotes, equations, etc. Linux has some unique and powerful solutions for creating and publishing this class of document. It's the kind of technology that can help students all through their high school and college days.
Linux Data Management Systems
The second most popular category after office suites is database systems. Linux and open source really shines here. With free offerings from simple to very powerful, it's easy to see why so many corporations, individuals are choosing open source data management (database) systems.
Software Development
Since so much software is built around Linux and open source software, it is only natural developer would create great tools to make it much easier to create sofware. We look at the vast array of tools and what you can do to build that little application that can make the difference in computing environment.
Linux "Just for Fun"
Linux is a powerful multimedia platform and continues to bring new capabilities to the average user. From movie making to animation to 2-D and 3-D graphic, Linux can give you a new perspective on computer graphic and open new vistas for schools interested in extending their graphics arts education. Let's also review the landscape of Linux games, edutainment, and other software that can make Linux a fun environment. Linux is rapidly catching up to the other proprietary platforms and even pulling ahead in some cases. Enjoy this segment---Just for Fun!
Dennis Rice earned a BSEE from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1971, and has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 30 years, with the last 6 years teaching the basics of telecommunications at DeVry University in Dallas (Irving). In telecommunications, he has traveled all across Alaska, engineering two telephone offices - one for the Alaska Pipeline and a second for the Columbian government in Leticia, Amazonas, Columbia. Travels have included Sweden, Eygpt, and Japan. He has been working with micro computers since 1978, starting on a CPM Operating System. For the last 3 years he has been teaching Linux and has developed a series of documents to assist one in learning how to utilize the Linux Operating System.
Everything about servers you were afraid to ask.
To really see the benefits of open source, you have to understand a little about servers. They aren't what you think. We'll explain and hopefully open a whole new world of computing to people who have only used single user (Home/Office PC's) systems.
Jerry is the founder of 2nd Genesis Systems (a.k.a. BillingSystems.biz). 2nd Genesis has supplied custom applications to industries ranging from trucking and warehouse companies to schools and medical hospitals. Also during this time they created Texas' only "Educational Software Showroom," built in the motif of a little red schoolhouse within the confines of the Infomart.
Currently, work is specifically in the financial services industry providing national brokerage firms with tools for the internal management of their operations. All 2nd Genesis applications require the installation of a Linux server running the Oracle database system at the client company's location. The servers are managed from Dallas via dial-up or VPN.
Jerry graduated from the University of Wisconsin and LeTourneau University with degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.
"Linux is RAD!"
(Cross-platform Rapid Application Development in Linux and
Windows)
Utilizing Borland's software development tools, a complete software application will be constructed in less than an hour, and that is portable among platforms, will be demonstrated. To educators and businesses alike, this cross-platform ability can help to preserve your Windows investment by maintaining the ability to utilize the Windows operating system while migrating other machines to the Linux platform. In addition, Borland's Delphi/Kylix development tools have been used to great success in computer science and programming classes with both the C/C++ and Pascal languages.
Waldorf College, Westmar College, B.A. Music Education, College of St. Thomas, Governor's State University, M.S. Media Communications
M.R. Hagle has been a teacher since 1979. She started using computers in the classroom in 1982. In 1998, after years of working with Apple/Macintosh and DOS/Windows sytems, she discovered Linux. Ms. Hagle first used netatalk to set up a file server to manage student accounts in a Mac lab. Since then she has used Linux for web servers, ftp servers, and sendmail. For two of those years she took discarded computers and turned them into xterminals that connected to an xserver (discarded server). Currently she has new Dell computers in a 30 station lab running Mandrake 9.0. She teaches computer animation and keyboarding.
M.R. Hagle will present a case study documenting the benefits of using Linux applications in the classroom. Several of her students will demonstrate the creation of high quality graphics and simple animations using The Gimp.