First on google is http://tuxyproject.com/en/2009/11/basic-samba-setup-on-kubuntu-9-10-for-sharing-files-over-a-network/. Let’s see.

Hm, cannot invoke Lin from Win.

sudo mount the_image.iso /media/mount_dir -t iso9660 -o loop

sudo umount /media/mount_dir

ISO/NRG/IMG/etc

Using FuseIso as described at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FuseIso

I also bypassed router by setting the dns directly at wicd.

God laughs when men make plans so I receive a message that sums as “/dev/disk/by-uuid doe not exist” and face a black command prompt window. I don’t want to stay up all night so I turn off the @$@#$ thing and go to bed.

Next day, I try to boot (it’s another day, isn’t it?) but no luck. So, I boot using a live cd (any live should do, I used a KUbuntu 9.10 RC I had handy). The message I receive comes from grub so I assume my /boot is ok and the problematic part is  the root (/). The message says it has uuid problems so I decide to edit the grub file(s) and use good old /dev/sdxX instead. I mount the /boot disk (I have a separate partition for /boot)

sudo mkdir /foo1
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /foo1

I search for menu.lst but I am running grub2 so I go for grub.cfg. First of all I keep a copy of the orifinal

sudo cp /boot/grub/grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg.orig

then I open kate and edit it

sudo kate /boot/grub.grub.cfg

I decided to erase all menuentry except the most recent one since this should be a “get-me-out-of-the-panic-room” cfg.

and change references to the uuid with a /dev/sdxX

root=UUID=a6ceb207-272e-425b-8447-a4942c618135
root=/dev/sda3

Save, restart and … phew. everything ok.

I restore the original grub.cfg; it is not meant to be edited directly, anyway. I edit /etc/default/grub,  enable the line

GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

by removing the remark and rebuild grub.cfg

sudo update-grub2

I definitely want to use uuid instead but I don’t have the time to repair and restore it right now. so I stick with my /dev/sdxX and thank God I am using Linux and have many alternatives to pick from.

which is edit In order to prevent this from happening again I

1. when viewing categories that are not final (ie they have subcategories) I should see a “list” of the subcategories and no items
2. when viewing a final category (ie it has items) I should see a grid (4×3) of item thumbs
3. for the time being, all my categories obey either to (1) or to (2). I don’t have mixed situations
4. when selecting a date at the calendar I should display similar to (2)
5. the element arrangement of K2 does not fit my needs; I need image, then title, then date, then category

In order to fulfil (1) I setup the Press category to display subcategories and I zeroed all item counts at Category Item Layout. All not-final-categories should set their “Inherit parameteroptions from category” to Press.

In order to fulfil (2) I setup the Newspapers category to display subcategories and I zeroed all item counts at Category Item Layout, except one: at Secondary I set # to 12, columns to 4 and image to XSmall . I setup the Magazines category the same way. Today they are the same but it is highly possible to split at the future. All final-categories should set their “Inherit parameter options from category” to either Newspaper or Magazine.

In order to fulfil (2) and (5), with respect to thumbs, I created my own template named “miniview”. I created the /httpdocs/templates/mytemplate/html/com_k2/templates/miniview directory which contains the files that generate the final html.

Problem: calendar (4) uses the generic layout. That falls outside the miniview template. Unfortunatelly, there is no easy way to fix this. So I replaced /httpdocs/templates/hellenicpress.gr/html/com_k2/templates/generic.php with one that I injected code from the /httpdocs/templates/mytemplate/html/com_k2/templates/miniview/category_item.php. That means that whenever category_item.php changes, generic.php should change accordingly.

Problem: when I click on a date on the calendar, I get 10 entries. The restriction is at /httpdocs/components/com_k2/models/itemlist.php, the limit parameter. This takes value from a globla list-size value. I hardcoded its value to 999.

[teacher]

In order to enroll students manually, I have to

• select the course
• click on the “Assign roles” link found at the “Administration” block
• click on the Student role, because I want to enroll persons as students
• select from the “potential users” and add to the “existing users” the students I want
• click “Assign roles in Course: XXX”

Grades

Now, how close to a classic greek gradebook can we approach using moodle?

Setup

[admin]

As an administrator I have a full menu named Grades at my disposal. I will explore it.

At the General Setting page I see the option “Grade export display type”. This allows me to declare my grades as “Real”  (and below declare that I use 1 decimal point).

A quick tour didn’t reveal much; I guess I have to RTFM :(

Massive input

All students on one course

[teacher]

I want to input many grades for many students, at once. Being in a course, I go Administration -> Grades -> (Choose an action) View/Grader Report. Now press “Turn editing on” at the top right. This allows to edit/insert grades at assignment level or overall for the course (“Course total”). Pressing Update will save the edits and recalculate the Overall average.

All students on one assignment

[teacher]

Another approach is to massively grade an assignment. In order to do that, I go to Grader Report again and click on the assignment name. That will bring me to the assignment submissions page. I check “Allow quick grading”, if not already checked, and press “Save preferences”. Now I can select grades and write comments at one postback.

Advanced issues

Being at the Grader Report and having editing on (“Turn editing on”), I can:

• click the notebook right below the course name (tooltip: Edit The Course Name). Here I can change grade options. Most notable ones are the “Grade to pass”, “Hidden” and “Hidden until”
• click the notebook right below an assignment (tooltip: Edit assignment The Assignment Name). Here I can refine change grade options, as noted above, at assignment level.
• click on the button at the right of the course name. That will cycle grade view to Aggregate Only mode, Grades Only mode and Full View mode.

View the grades

[student]

Course grade + assignments

Being in any course, select Grades and then Choose an action -> User Report. That will list grades for the specific course along with assignments’ grades.

All courses

Being in any course, select Grades and then Choose an action -> Overview Report. That will list all courses along with their respective grade.

That is the closest I came to a grade sheet. I should investigate and see if there is more.

1. teach some command line net utilies (ping, tracert etc) and give assignments on each
2. present Winshark tool and give assignments regarding its use
3. have some exercises related to the theoretical counterpart of the course that will be examined at a national level

My needs are (I will mark them with an F as I fulfill them or as H if I half-fill them :) )

1. (F) a brief description of the course
2. (F) some kind of list where I will lay the assignments. That is my virtual workshop.
3. (F) the ability to describe (in rich, html format) each assignment (eg layout the theoretical grounds) and ask for student work
4. a place where I could “pin” text like assignment rules, behavior rules, grading explanation etc. (like a board)
5. the ability to receive the assignment. These are files (text, image, spreadsheet etc) [or not? what else can I ask for?].
6. (F) [low priority] Chat between the students in order to interact in real time on subjects regarding the assignment work flow.
7. Online evaluation via tests (the more test kind, the better)
8. Grade each exercise, grade each test and give visibility to the students. [Is it possible to replace my spreadsheet grade catalogs?]
9. (F) I don’t really know which week we will be in the classroom (strikes, festivities etc) so I need flexibility here.

My role is Course creator. If  I have to work under another role, I will point it clear. Let’s login and go!

Create the course

At the front page I click “Add a new Course”. That will get me to an empty “Edit course settings” page.
I can write the course description (need #1) at the Summary textarea, which is html-aware. Why it is a plain textarea instead of an html editor?
Now, I should decide the Format. My needs point to Weekly or Topics (I am selecting from the default stack). As I have need #9, I will end up moving weeks again and again, so I pick Topics. Or, even better, I will install Collapsed Topics as described at the Process Off-springs and select that instead. I also declare 18 topics (don’t ask me why).
I am leaving everything else at their default values as they make perfect sense, at least for the time being. My need #2 is considered fulfilled.

Setting up course content

I am in the course and I press Turn Editing On (which is available at the Administration menu and at the top right as a button). I click on Topic 1 and it expands.

General

Now, I click at the Edit summary button in order to give the summary of the topic. The summary should be rather short because it will become the title of the topic. I am giving “Command line tools (win)” (brief enough?).

Assignments

Now, I want this topic to have some assignments regarding net command line tools (ipconfig, ping, tracert, etc).
First of all, I go “Add a resource” -> “Compose a web page” since I want to write the theoretical ground for the command.I am really missing an html editor, now. I have to write every line break, every font edit, :’( . Am I missing something here? As it turned out, I did miss something. HTML editor is enabled for compatible browsers – it seems Chrome isn’t.

Now it’s time to create the attached assignment. I go “Add an activity”, select “Upload a single file” (for the first assignment I want student to upload a single file), give a title at the “Assignment name”, write down the assignment at the “Description”, define availability at “Available from” and “Due date”, don’t “Prevent late submissions” (I give grade penalty on late submissions), “Allow resubmitting” and “Save and return to course”.

I can also “Add an activity” -> “Chat” and add a chatroom for a specific assignment. My ipconfig course involves a communition between students in order to see each other’s ip address and use tat information. So I name the chatroom “IP addresses”, write a brief “Introduction text” and set the room open hours. This one will be always open so I don’t “Publish any chat times”, I “Never delete messages” and allow everyone to see past sessions. That fulfills need #6. I guess that I can use a forum instead of a chat if I want richer communication between the students but I pass on it, for the time being, as a chat serves me well.

Repeat this for every command. I think that need #3 is fulfilled.

Topic references

I also want to have a brief description of the command line usage (how it opens, what is a switch, what is an option, common switches etc), so students can reference it.

Tests

This one deserves its own entry.

Grades

123

More stuff

I upload useful files using the “Administration” -> “Files” link. I can upload up to 2 MB (that’s a limit I set during course creation/editing). But when I masquerade as a student, I don’t see any link that will let me to download it. ?!?!?

Process off-springs

Adding a new Course Format

Specifically, I will install Collapsed Topics.
I download the version needed (this time: the one for 1.9), unzip the zip int othe course/format folder and … that’s it. Visit the course settings page and see the new course format in the list.

[admin]

• Go Users -> Accounts -> Add a new user. 
• Fill the form
  Here it declares the password rules. Good.
  Enable Advanced settings so you can enable AJAX and Javascript

Create the course (first try)

Setup the teacher

[admin]
The user type is named “role” at Moodle. There is no role declaration at the user profile. So I go at Permissions -> Assign System Roles, click on a role and use the following screen in order to declare my user as a Course Teacher. I can assign multiple roles to a user (and I don’t know how this can be useful :)

Create the course (second try)

Setup the course

Now I am entering the course. I can use the list box at the right and switch to other roles therefore simulating the course usage.
At the left is the administrator toolbox.
I can turn editing on and edit the page outline and / or setup the components (aka blocks).

Blocks

I can add a block using the combo at the bottom right.
Each block has setup buttons on it, while editing is on:

• assign roles – I pressume it controls the visibility of the block depending on the role.
• hide – there but not visible. Difference from “delete”? I don’t miss the setup.
• delete – profound
• move right / left – move it to the other side of the screen
• move up / down – profound
• show / hide XXX block – set the startup status if the block

1. Windows XP Pro SP3
2. XAMPP 7.1 setup

• Apache 2.2.11
• MySQL 5.1.33-community
• php 5.2.9

Preparation

• I want the moodle requirements plus an installation guide in order to proceed. I go Support -> Documentation -> Administrator Documetnation. [This is rich!!! I have to keep it simple because it can easily step all over me. Try to focus on the needs, please.]. Both documents are in Installing Moodle.
• As instructed, I create a database. The database is named moodle, collation utf8_general_ci. I also create a user, having all prvileges gor the moodle schema.
  I am also instructed to create a directory to store content outside web site. As I am running non-server OS (WinXP Pro) and I don’t know how to fine tune directory access, I will place this directory inside moodle installation (ok, shame on me and everything).
• I extract the moodle-weekly-19.zip and then copy the contents of the created moodle directory into xampp/htdocs/moodle
• Open http://localhost/moodle. A wizard begins.
  I select English as my installation language.
  I pass PHP settings (all green :).
  I place moodledata inside moodle (as promised).
  I see that moodle uses the mdl_ prefix so it can coexist in a single database.
  At Server Checks I have two warnings: one regarding curl and one regarding openssl. A questionmark ballon will open advise pages for both curl and openssl. You should open them on new window/tab or you will have to read the advise and then restart the isntallation process. I edit the php.ini, restart Apache and … all green here.
  When ready to start database isntallation (after license agreement) I select Unattendent operation – on a past installation I didn’t and I had to agree toooo many times :(
  Wait for a while (well, 4 minutes) and I setup the admin. Giving a password is a bit @$#@$. First it wants at least one number. Then at least one capital letter. Then at least one non-alphanumeric. It would be good if I had the restrictions displayed the first time it rejected my password.
  No more interesting things – installation done after a while.
• This really (really) needs a theme. Yack!

Add greek language