Tips & Tricks Brownbag series

Greetings!Last week, we touched on Zimbra, a powerful collaboration tool.  We’ll revisit that topic in an upcoming talk, but Monday we’re going to look at a different collaboration tool — Waterfall Glen, the MCS MUD.MUDs (typically expanded as Multi User Dungeon or Multi User Domain), have traditionally been used for online gaming., and they’ve been around for a long time.  However, MCS has been using one as a social and collaborative tool since the early to mid 90s, long before I arrived here.  Some groups use this more than others, but it’s a useful tool for maintaining a virtual presence in your group when your physical presence isn’t possible.I expect this talk to be a two-parter.  In Monday’s talk, we’ll briefly introduce the basics including configuring your client, getting connected, speaking to others (publicly and privately), moving about in the environment, and some general features.The following Monday, we’re going to take a more in-depth power-user look at some of the advanced things you can do, including creating objects, writing programs, and any issues that come up from the first session.The first session is geared towards users of all levels.  The second session (on July 23) will be geared towards those who are either reasonably comfortable with the MUD, or are comfortable with coding practices.Upcoming talks will focus on other forms of collaboration.  A tentative schedule appears at the bottom of this announcement.  Hope to see you there.If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed, please let me know.  It’s my intention for these things to be less of a “sit-and-stare while someone talks”, and more of a discussion between users and one or two gurus in a given topic.7/16: Waterfall Glen basics7/23: Waterfall Glen advanced7/30: Leveraging Argonne’s Jabber serverTopics for August to be announced, give us feedback on what you’d like to see.