Teaching

pptx attachment on drupal

I posted my slides on my web as a pptx file a few weeks ago. Suddenly after that, students gave some comment that when they downloaded the file, the file came as .zip. Even though the file on the server is not zipped and is name exactly as .pptx. Of course, I have tested my upload, but only on Firefox, which definitely has no problem. From the student comment, I tried it on IE and managed to duplicate the error. My first thought is that it must be something about the MIME type. The problem is I don't know the correct mime type of the pptx file.

Googling around leads me to this post on Drupal website. In short, I have to add these lines to /etc/mime.types so that Apache sends the appropriate MIME type to IE7. I wonder why IE bothers to change the file extension after all.

application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12                docm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document     docx
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template     dotx
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12              potm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template       potx
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12             ppam
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12             ppsm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow      ppsx
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12          pptm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation   pptx
application/vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12                  xlam
application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12               xlsb
application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12                  xlsm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet       xlsx
application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12               xltm
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template xltx

LDAP authentication

Just set up LDAP authentication. Now, anybody who has an account on CP department can authenticate to my website. All student are encouraged to log in before posting any comment in the forums.

Slide for ICE Data Structure

For my ICE students, the slides of today class and the last week is available on the Data Structure page.

Finally I might be able to buy a cheaper phone

One of my key requirements for a phone is that it must be able to set an alarm based on specific day of week. For example, I should be able to set up an alarm such that it reminds me at 15:50 on every workday (Mon. -- Fri.). The reason behind this is that in the period of last several years, I spent most of my time at Chulalongkorn University which forbid me to park a car inside the campus. This is understandable because the space is very limited. The alternative choice would be that I have to park at roadside. Now, officially, the parking is available only from 9:00 till 16:00 and the law enforcer are quite active and punctual in the recent years. The result is that I have to move my car away before 16:00. Now, university understand this quite well and permit non-faculty car to park inside the campus after 16:00. So, the job of almost all students at 16:00 are that they have to relocate their car to the campus. Due to the nature of the work, we, the Ph.D. student, are quite obsessed with the work such that we usually forgot to move the car. This result in a ticket with 200-400 baht fine.

That is why alarm clock is a must. However, on sat and sun, we can park the car inside the campus for the entire day because most faculty members are not there. Thus, I would like to turn the alarm off. This also applies to the wake up alarm.

It turns out that there day-customizable alarm feature is not available in a cheap phone I were trying to buy, thus I have to pay extra money for that.

Now, my need is gone. Since I was employed as a faculty member, I am entitled for a parking sticker. Today, I drove pass the security at the entrance and I finally realized I no longer need the alarm now. I simply turned it off and suddenly feel a satisfaction that, finally, after all these years, I no longer have to worry about my parking space at all.

First ICE class

Today is my first chance to lecture for an ICE students (the international course). It turned out to be a very good one!!! Much better than I expected, the students were very involved with the class. They responded to most of my questions. They were willing to come in front of the class and did some assignment I placed upon them. To the very most of my surprise, they even ask that I should keep teaching well beyond the end of the class.

These are more than I hoped for. Well, my dear students, if by any chance you are reading this article, I would like to share with you that I am very happy with this class and I am looking forward to any another chance that we might meet again.

My First Lecturer Day

Today I have just signed a contract with Dept. of Computer Engineering. Now, I am officially a full time lecturer at Chulalongkorn University. My former adviser came and said to me that he once heard a following quote.

You are considered being successful in your academic career when your grand student got her Ph.D.

And he said that he is going to email to his adviser (Jean Ponce) that, by the above standard, he should be happy now and once my first Ph.D. student graduates, my adviser will consider himself being a successful teacher. Well, it is a long way until my grand student got her Ph.D.

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