WolfBlogs (http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/ is a service provided by the NCSU Libraries to support the personal and curricular activities of the NC State community. All you need to get started is your NC State Unity ID and password. After registering for the WolfBlogs service, click on the "create one" link on the main menu. This will take you to the "Create Weblog" screen, which requires you to input a name, description, and URL for your blog, which will then be created.

Blogs have been around for several years now. (See: Blogs and Wikis Tech Talk: November, 2004) Now, you can have your own blog hosted by the NCSU Library. Of course, if you want a more personal blog, you can go to sites like Blogger.

I'm posting the articles found in this newsletter to a new blog TechTalk so you can see how well it works for you. Some of the advantages of changing this newsletter to a blog format are:

• You will be able to subscribe to it via RSS (See: Using RSS) and get the articles as they are posted rather than waiting until you receive the announcement that this month's issues are posted.
• You can comment on articles.
• You can see other people's comments.
• You can search by category.

For the time being, I think I'll try posting to both and let you see which format you prefer - please let me know which and why. IF we decide to convert Tech Talk to a blog format would you like to get a message at the end of each month with a brief description of what has been posted during the month?

How could an Extension Agent use this?

• Your newsletter.
• Club happenings.
• Weekly or daily agricultural test plot observations
• Leadership thoughts (i.e. Lead 2020)
• Share nutritional recipes and advice.

Why Mac over Windows?

The issue with Windows is support. We are an IT unit with only eight IT professionals. Three people are assigned to administer and support county systems and networks for around 1000 extension personnel in 80 or so locations across the state. Every person in our group has past experience supporting Windows PCs. We know for a fact it's a high touch endeavor. Because we can't physically go to your offices to provide support at the time that it's needed, anything we do has to be supportable from a distance. With a support ratio of 3:1000, it also has to be very scalable.

So far we really like Macs and Apple OS X. We have enough confidence that we can support 1000 or so Macs to continue testing. Our comfort with supporting Apple OS X is partly because of our experience with Unix and Linux and partly because we know of other organizations who are successfully doing so with support ratios similar to ours. Still we have more testing to do before we make any decisions.

Other factors make Apple appealing. The operating system is easy to learn about and use. Apple offers a great array of multimedia tools built right in, as well as imaging and remote support tools. In Windows the latter are an afterthought.

EIT is fortunate to have computer support people with an exceptional ability to find workable solutions within any number of constraints. We hope we can make this work, because it would offer more flexibility and functionality to your offices. That's our bottom line.

For more information on the EIT Macintosh Project, visit the Macintosh Project Wiki.