I attacked a USB drive to my work computer

Well maybe you should consider not attacking your work computer like that!

After randomly trying for about the sixth time to hope that sticking the AirPort card in again would fix it...it did. So I am back with wireless (thank goodness, as this hotel is wifi, not ethernet!)

Kalshane--I'm going to mark your post and try more things tomorrow. (And if I can make my printer work -- I may try to make my coworker's printer (it's the same same sort of printer as mine) work.

I love Firefox. I have it customized just about where I like it. Here are my extensions:

Forecastfox
Greasemonkey (I use scripts on other websites including gmail and bloglines)
Adblock Plus and Adblock FiltersetG Updater
Gmail Manager (which I like a lot better than Gmail notifier)
Google Calendar Notifier
dragdropupload
Google Browser Sync
Scrapbook (which is so awesome, I paid the creater $$ for this extension)
Tab Mix Plub
Free Download Manager plugin
Flashgot
Unwrap Text

Ok, I googled and I'll ask here.

I want to set the kids in my class up with blogging, with either an aggregate classroom account or individual accounts (not sure which yet).

I need some sort of client for Macs. What I'd love is something that requires me (as opposed to the kids) to approve the postings before they get posted. I don't know if that's possible.

Does anybody know stuff about blogging clients?

Hmmm. I'd say you could make an LJ community, set yourself as the moderator, and hook them all up with individual accounts, but you'd only get control on the LJ community, not their individual blogs.

That's a cool idea, though. Let me do some research. Do you have a school webserver you could maybe set up as your own blogging server, if nothing out there quite fits your specific needs?

ETA: I'm about to try installing it on my own server to be sure, but it looks like WordPress can probably let you at least set up a single blog for the classroom, with you as an administrator. You can install it on your own server, or make a free one hosted by wordpress.

Gaggle will give out filtered blogs to students - I gather that if anything pings the filter, the blog is temporarily blocked and sent to an administrator for approval (you). That might be the best solution for individual blogs. Or, wordpress can perhaps be configured to do it if you can host it on a server yourself; I'll get back to you on that.

Well, Wordpress is definitely designed for a single blog (it's really nice though - I've been playing with it my copy at [link] if you want to take a gander). You could install multiple copies of it in many different directories on a server, probably, if you want multiple blogs administered by you, but that's a huge PITA.

What you really want, I think, is a mini-LJ type place, only you have god powers of deletion. So that there can be a central community journal, and also individual accounts, and one sign-in works for commenting everywhere, posting on the main journal, and so forth. I think there is software out there to do that - can you still install the livejournal software on a server of your own? I don't even know.

DIY Linux-based automatic cat feeder: [link]

...I found an old CD Rom drive and power supply. The thought struck me that I could use the ejecting tray of the CD Rom as a solenoid to push the trigger mechanism of some sort of physical contraption. But then I had a bootstrapping problem – what can I use to push the eject button of the CD Rom on schedule?

After some more thought, I realized that I could just use my spare (working) computer as the basis of the cat feeder. It’s also my home’s Subversion source control server – a rare mix of server workloads indeed! It has a CD Rom drive, so I could just use software to open and close it.

The computer runs Ubuntu Linux, so a crontab entry controls the scheduling. The script calls eject /mnt/cdrom to open the CD Rom, delays, and eject –t /mnt/cdrom to close it again. It actually does this twice, as I found it made the portions more consistent.

Since it’s a full fledged Ubuntu system on my wireless network, it allowed for an obscene show of technology. I was able to use my JasJar PDA phone to SSH into the box, and feed the cats on demand just by running the script.

Hmmm. I'd say you could make an LJ community, set yourself as the moderator, and hook them all up with individual accounts, but you'd only get control on the LJ community, not their individual blogs.

Exactly.

Even more than power of deletion, I'd like to have to ok everything that gets posted, comments or entries.

DIY Linux-based automatic cat feeder:

Absolutely fantastic.

Even more than power of deletion, I'd like to have to ok everything that gets posted, comments or entries.

In that case, I think a single blog with strong moderation is the way to go, rather than having each student have their own -- most of the big blog engines (if you can install something) or sites (if you can't) should allow you to do it.

I can't remember what/where you're teaching, but if you have any kind of course management system (Blackboard, etc.), there may be a blog tool built into that; if there is, you'll have the enrollment and the access control you need built in.

And if you do have both of those choices, consider whether or not you want their work to be visible to the public, as there are pluses and minuses to both.