By Stephen Downes
March 11, 2004
Publishing And Delivering Video On The Web
With Flash
I'm so busy today, trying to repair
my referrer system, recover from a cold, learn French,
upgrade DLORN, wrap up my DRM paper, see through the
completion of eduSource DRM, exercise, write two papers and
a column by the end of the month (and a presentation for
Monday, and two more for next week), unpack from my Toronto
trip, head for Quebec City tomorrow... so today's issue is
a little short, OK. I have good stuff ready, so I'll try to
catch up from the hotel tomorrow.
For now, lifted
straight from Edu_RSS (via Kolabora): "Publishing and
deployment issues to consider for your Flash project. Is it
intended for a small audience on a corporate network or a
vast audience on the Internet? The following resources
discuss the capabilities of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and
Flash Comm." Hm. I would learn this and use it if I had the
time and the software. Note, contents are on the upper
left, very small. By Various Authord, Macromedia, March,
2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
More Firefox Search Plugins
If you
use Firefox as your web browser (and you should), you may
have seen the search field in the upper right. You can add your own search engines to this list
by placing the search file and image to the searchplugins
directory of Firefox. Brilliant. You can get an Edu_RSS
search plugin here: search file and image. These are still in test mode, but
won't break anything. Anyhow, this link is to a nifty
little script offered by Jon Udell that enables one-click
installation. By Jon Udell, March 11, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
The Dunbar Number as a Limit to Group
Sizes
What is the ideal size for an online
group? According to this item, somewhere in the range of
45-50 people. It's an interesting article, looking at group
size in primates, weblog analyses, Ultima Online guild
sizes, and more. "Anything more than this (45-50) and the
group has to spend too much time "grooming" to keep group
cohesion, rather then focusing on why the people want to
spend the effort on that group in the first place -- say to
deliver a software product, learn a technology, promote a
meme, or have fun playing a game. Anything less than this
and you risk losing critical mass because you don't have
requisite variety." By Christopher Allen, Life With
Alacrity, March 10, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
Online Communities 'are old-skool' says Amy
Jo
George Siemens picked up this item citing Amy
Jo Kim, known for a book about online communities,
suggesting that the wave of the future is centered around
social networks, buddy lists and blogs. Of course, this is
a change only if you felt previously that online
communities were top-down creations, which while
characteristic of some accounts (such as hers) is not
universally believed. Still, there is a bit of a shift
happening, though I would characterize it as being from
centralized to decentralized communities. But we need to
remember, the majority of people online do not have access
to web servers, which means they will continue to rely on
the larger online communities, such as LiveJournal, to take
part in the new decentralized internet. By David Wilcox,
Designing for Civil Society, March 11, 2004
[Refer][Research][Reflect]
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