This September, ITS unveiled its new website, a blog entitled Technology of the Month.

The website features a description and step-by-step guide to a different computer technology every month, with an accompanying message board for comments, revisions, and questions.

The site is the brainchild of Associate Vice President for Information Technology Services Ganesan Ravishanker and the other ITS directors: Director of User Services Joanne Agostinelli, Director of Administrative Systems Steven Machuga, Director of Academic Computing Services Mike Roy and Assistant Director of Technology Support Services James Taft. Ravishanker leads the group, who together decide what technology will be featured each month.

The blog functions independently of Ravishanker’s original blog, which discusses a wider range of technological issues on campus.

Although the new blog’s name implies that it will cover the newest and most cutting-edge technological developments, this is not the case. Rather, the website looks to highlight existing technologies and make students, faculty and staff more aware of their functions.

“Wesleyan has so many applications and technology that don’t get through to people because of the sheer volume,” Ravishanker said. “We devised this as a way to take one technology at a time, get other people’s views, and hopefully have it stick in people’s minds.”

According to Ravishanker, many community members have asked to see more of a focus on new technology. Machuga, however, defends the blog’s original design, as stated on the homepage.

“We don’t [want] that to be its purpose. It’s more about cool stuff that is proven but under-utilized,” Machuga said.

Ben Wu ’08 agreed, emphasizing the blog’s target audience.

“I think the site is mostly directed toward the less technologically inclined,” Wu said.

The first featured technology, duplex printing, was focused for faculty and staff, partially because students had not yet received any official notice of the website’s existence. The post advocated duplex printing, or printing on both sides of paper, as a more efficient and environmentally friendly method, and explained how to use it on both PCs and Macs.

Administrative Assistant for the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences Virginia Harris agreed with the website’s purpose, but was not impressed by the first feature.

“The first month was not helpful because the information about duplexing was not new to us,” Harris said. “The committee that produces it might want to reach out to administrative personnel about their thoughts on useful topics.”

RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary,” was October’s featured technology, and has a wider intended audience.

“RSS is the technology that allows blogs (web diaries and commentaries) to be distributed throughout the web, and also is an increasingly popular way for information stored in various databases to be discovered both by websites and the people who read them,” reads the website.

“Pretty much any site you go to has RSS feeds. Google’s personalized homepage is essentially an RSS feed. The Argus [website] has two RSS feeds,” Ravishanker said.

Future topics for the site, according to Ravishanker, may include spam filters and features in the e-portfolio of which many people are not aware.

“So far the articles have been written by the ITS directors, but we plan to include more folks from throughout ITS,” Roy said.

ITS hopes the website will be a helpful tool for the entire University. Machuga stressed that it can help those with hectic schedules learn new technological tools at their own pace.

“We want to continue to refine the message—short, simple technology tips that busy people can apply to their lives,” Machuga said.

Ultimately, the ITS directors hope that the new blog will be a beneficial addition to the lives of students, faculty and staff.

“It is part of a desire to reach out to the community,” Machuga said. “I think we feel like a part of the community and want everyone to know about this stuff.”