If you could build your own DH lab, what would you stock it with? Anything from AV equipment to software to computer hardware is fair game. I'm envisioning a place where graduate students (mainly) and others would have the space and tools to experiment, learn, and do research and/or produce media.
Aside: I notice there's not a category in DHAnswers for these sorts of infrastructure questions.
Replying to @Michael Widner's post:
Hi, Michael,
From off the top of my head, some things from my experience as a grad student in a DH lab:
1. A row of guest computers set up with a virtual server package like MAMP, plus some of the key CMSs (definitely Wordpress, but Omeka and Drupal would also be nice). Although you probably have a real server (and made even a separate development server) for your lab's sites, offering these tools is a good way to teach students how to work on websites locally and also offers a safe space to experiment with mySQL, PHP, and other elements of web development without fear of breaking anything public
2. The Adobe Design Suite and video editing software like Final Cut Pro (both difficult purchases for graduate students, and freeware alternatives like GIMP are incomplete alternatives)
3. An area set aside for Skype conferences with collaborators (most laptops have webcams now, but a good microphone and a quite space to talk apart from the main office area can be helpful)
4. Camtasia or other screen-recording software that captures simultaneous audio (for creating online course assignments, DH tool demos, etc.)
5. A way to record talks from formal guest lectures to training meetings (an old handheld video camera with a tripod can be fine for this)
6. A dedicated whiteboard (can be pretty small) to discuss small coding and design issues, where questions and answers can be left up for several days without needing to be erased for other staff
7. A double-monitor station for design work
8. If possible, a dedicated computer set up (with appropriate speakers, dongles, and projector) for presentations
9. An online ticketing system (e.g. Basecamp or Lighthouse) to help students learn how projects are broken down and scheduled
You also might be interested in some of the responses to this earlier query "Help Us Design a DH Workspace." http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/help-us-design-a-dh-workspace
Replying to @Amanda Visconti's post:
Thanks Amanda. Those are all good ideas. I've read some complaints about Final Cut Pro X. I have an older version right now, but am considering upgrading. Do you have any experience with it? My impression is that the complaints are from professionals who don't want their workflow changed, but that it wouldn't bother novices.
Replying to @JenniferServenti's post:
Thanks Jennifer. Most of that thread is about arranging tables and whiteboards and such: very useful, but not applicable to my case, unfortunately.
Replying to @Michael Widner's post:
I'm not a Final Cut expert, but I've been using it to do pretty basic things (splicing, adjusting audio, adding text overlays) for lecture and demo videos without a hitch. Working with a simple consumer-aimed thing like iMovie before moving on to Final Cut certainly helped me understand the more advanced software better, so perhaps that's a better (and cheaper?) initial tool for graduate students.
Some other things you might consider adding:
1. A friendly FTP GUI (Fetch or Filezilla).
2. This isn't exactly software, but you might provide encouragement to get familiar with the command line by, for example, keeping the Terminal icon in the Mac dock, posting simple commands students can emulate (e.g. you just transferred that file in Fetch, here's how to do the same thing way quicker via the command line; or better yet, here's how to customize your command prompt with custom greetings and colors as a way to feel like it's your own tool).
3. A good text editor (anything that does some color coding and handles closing tags; I love TextWrangler and also use Oxygen for TEI work).
4. A GitHub GUI (GitHub for Mac is great, and a Windows version came out recently) and a GitHub account. Not only a valuable tool, but a good way to keep earlier versions of work safe when people are trying new things.
Would be interested to hear back as your space develops. Have fun!
Replying to @Michael Widner's post:
Even though I haven't set up a DH lab, I have managed a public cluster and so wanted to throw in a few words for considering this aspect of things. From that perspective, one part of the answer to your question has to be, "Nothing you can't support." By 'support' I don't mean that you have trained ninjas (or pirates or vampires, depending on where you fall in that religious war) for every application, but that you have funding, licensing, data, upgrade, and security management capabilities for everything that goes in. On that last note, I must say that when I was managing a public cluster, there's no way I would have gone with Lincoln's idea of allowing lab users to install their own software. That has huge potential to bork a system inside of 30 seconds. By the same token, providing support for users installing whatever on their own machines is a great idea. Teach a DHer to fish and all that.
One management tool and approach you might consider is Deep Freeze or one of its ilk. That software resets a computer to a default stat at a desired interval. I did not use it in my cluster management work, but I know entities on campus at my institution do.
There are similar programs for doing centralized patch management, but not all software plays nicely with this approach. You'll need to decide whether you mind doing manual, one-by-one updates on the machines or whether everything must be tractable from an MCP.
Finally, despite some opposition to smartboards, I'd recommend one (or similar device or software overlay), if only because some of the people you are working with will likely sooner or later need to know intimately their features, benefits, and advantages.
[EDITED to make smartboard ref a proper link, and to add paragraph spacing]
Replying to @triplingual's post:
To me more generous to Lincoln's intent, I should add that the notion of what you can support should include maintaining the ability to be accommodating when a critical mass of users would like something installed on all the workstations.
Replying to @Amanda Visconti's post:
An update to #1 on my list: MAMP Pro 3 (http://www.mamp.info/en/mamp-pro/) now lets you spin up a number of CMS sites (most importantly, Wordpress and Drupal) with a few clicks. Another option is to set up Vagrant (http://www.vagrantup.com/) to quickly and easily set up dev environments (including CMSs) that don't affect the host computer and can be ported to a live site easily (because Vagrant uses virtual machines, it's easier to make your dev and live environments exactly the same as to all those finicky server details like what version of PHP you're running, than it is with MAMP). Vagrant's site has user-friendly documentation, and it would be pretty easy for someone to create a several-step "here's how to create your own Drupal or WP site on this lab machine" flyer.
Old thread, I know, but another suggestion is the R language and the R Studio IDE.
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