Edu_RSS
New Pro Bloggers Association: I’m on the Board!
This week I've been writing and speaking about the nascent field of professional blogging – that is, the practice of being a consulting blogger-for hire, or operating a weblog with a functioning revenue model that goes beyond Google Ads. This is a field that interests me greatly, and I'm working to making it a bigger part of my diverse career. So I joined forces with a highly energetic and creative group of 20 like-minded entrepreneurial bloggers, and we've formed the Professional Bloggers Association (PBA). Today, I am pleased to announce that I was just elected to this From
Contentious Weblog on January 19, 2005 at 10:55 p.m..
E-mail Cholesterol
"E-mail," business writer Mark Suskino has written, "is the cholesterol of modern management." Teachers have to be managers, too, to some degree, and not just in the classroom. We collect and comment on so many documents that our lives are riddled with as much paperwork as a tax attorney's desk.... From
PEDABLOGUE on January 19, 2005 at 10:52 p.m..
Feed Changes that Send Ripples
It's a bit scary when I make a change/edit/?improvement to our
Feed2JS (Feed to JavaScript) code, as any glitches or gotchas might show up on the hundreds? thousands? 3? of sites using it (I am basing some large numbers on the 20,000 files that built up in the cache directory). My apologies for hiccups the last few hours as I tried to redo/undo some recent changes, detailed on the
Feed2JS updates. I will ley readers know that I test all updates on a different site/host (actually runni From
cogdogblog on January 19, 2005 at 10:48 p.m..
Portal software: passing fad or real value?
Janus Boye has written an article looking at the value of portal software. To quote: In fact, I question the whole concept of portal software. Based on a series of issues I have found with portal applications while working on... From
Column Two on January 19, 2005 at 10:47 p.m..
Designing for Usability (Canberra, Sydney)
We've just announced a brand-new workshop titled Designing for Usability. This goes beyond the "Fundamentals" workshop we've been running, and offers an in-depth look how to design sites (and systems) that meet user and business needs. The workshop will be... From
Column Two on January 19, 2005 at 10:47 p.m..
Usability without Users (Melbourne)
The second new usability workshop we are launching is called Usability without Users, to be run in Melbourne on 10 May 2005. To quote: A range of techniques are available to help you to identify potential usability issues, including: usability... From
Column Two on January 19, 2005 at 10:47 p.m..
A step toward solving comment spam?
Rumors have been flying on various weblogs all week, but today it's official: Google, along with Yahoo and MSN, is going to start supporting the attribute rel="nofollow" on links in an attempt to fight spam. Except it won't work. From
kuro5hin.org on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
Smithsonian Global Sound Collection to Libraries Worldwide
You won't find this in your CD store, a collection of more than 30,000 tracks containing "animal sounds, beer-drinking at an African homestead, calypso, classical violin instruction, drama, poetry, sounds of the deep ocean, the office, the ionosphere, a frog being eaten by a snake and great performances of traditional music from virtually everywhere in the world." It is the Smithsonian Global Sound and it is being published online to be made available to libraries throughout the world. This will probably be a subscription service; it is using the same software as the Alexander Street
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
Are Extensible Programming Languages Coming?
The
reaction on the oXML list (where I heard about it) to this Slashdot article was brusk, but then again, Slashdot folk haven't taken kindly to the proposal, either. But I think there's something to it: a programming language written in XML that can be accessed through intuitive interfaces corresponding to your favorite source code editor. As
Wilson writes, "next-generation programming systems will store source code as XML, rather than as flat t From
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
RSS 1.1: RDF Site Summary
The new proposal is published and open for discussion. "RSS 1.1 is a content syndication format intended to update and replace the popular RSS 1.0. It is an application of the W3C's RDF and XML languages. It has better internationalization support, utilizes more up-to-date facilities of its constituent languages than RSS 1.0, and fixes a number of other issues with the RSS 1.0 specification. RSS 1.1 is as extensible as RSS 1.0 and can even make use of its extension modules." By Various Authors, January 18, 2005 [
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
ContentGuard Talks DRM Futures
The Register cuts and pastes an article from Faultline and comes up with a one-sided puff piece that describes the history of ContentGuard's attempt to monopolize digital rights expression, fails to even mention ODRL by name, and doesn't ask what happens to open source when royalties are applied to the use of DRM. By Faultline, The Register, January 19, 2004 [
Refer][
Research][
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
President Discusses No Child Left Behind and High School Initiatives
George Bush outlines, in very broad strokes, educational policy for the new administration (which resembles that of his previous term, not surprisingly). The speech stresses two major points: raising the bar for achievement, and requiring that schools demonstrates results in return for federal funding. Without discussing the merits of the policy, let me stress the urgency of education for the United States by citing this report,
Mapping the Future, from the CIA: "The number of US engineering graduates peaked in 1985 and is presently From
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
Picasa 2.0
Google is giving away for free a photo album application called Picasa. "Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC." It's such a good idea, and as Steve Yelvington
points out, it "could promote broad use of standards developed by the newspaper industry and have a profound effect on the searchability of images on the Web." By Various Authors, Google, January 19, 2005 [
Refer][
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
Preventing Comment Spam
It's official. As I suggested yesterday, the 'nofollow' tag has been endorsed, not only by Google, but also by Yahoo and MSN search, along with a host of blogging software companies (listed in this article). The discussion lists expressed in general scepticism about the possible reduction in comment spam, but enthusiastic about the way a new standard was created through this sort of community consensus. By Various Authors, Google, January 19, 2004 [
Refer][
OLDaily on January 19, 2005 at 10:45 p.m..
Symantec WinFax Pro 10.03
I wouldn't bother you with this, but I'd like to get it off my chest: I spent too much of yesterday trying to install Symantec WinFux WinFax Pro 10.03 which, upon looking to the Web for help, I discovered is the biggest piece of unstable dog crap software ever to reach a double digit rev number. Thank you. I feel better. Now I only wish I could figure out how to use my scanner to prepare multi-page faxes.... From
Joho the Blog on January 19, 2005 at 3:49 p.m..
Will Citizen Journalists Want to Be Paid?
In
commenting on an
item I wrote yesterday, Barb Iverson brought up an important issue: "When the citizen bloggers get over the initial excitement of seeing their work online, and begin to realize it takes time and that they are part of the audience draw, won't they think about getting paid for their work? Are you thinking about micropayments for the best as time goes on?"The idea of identifying your best From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on January 19, 2005 at 2:54 p.m..
Making Photos Searchable
Google is giving away a remarkably slick consumer-level photo organizer called
Picasa 2.0 that could promote broad use of standards developed by the newspaper industry and have a profound effect on the searchability of images on the Web.Compared with searching text, images are difficult. Companies such as IBM long have struggled to develop reliable image-based searching by analyzing the images themselves, but it turns out there's a much simpler way -- and that's what Google is promoting through From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on January 19, 2005 at 2:54 p.m..
He Writes a Blog
Salam Pax generated an incredible amount of press as he began blogging shortly before the United States went to war in Iraq. From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on January 19, 2005 at 1:54 p.m..
Google Offers a No-Endorsement Link Solution
Google has enabled a much-requested
feature to allow people to link to sites without endorsement. Robert Scoble
explains it best: "Last year a carpet store in Redmond (Washington) ripped off a lot of people. The store is now out of business, but back when it was happening I wanted to link to the store but couldn't. Why not? Because one link from my blog would have automatically put the store at the top of the search pa From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on January 19, 2005 at 1:54 p.m..
Cali INDUCE Bill
News of Senator Murray's California INDUCE-like bill is
making the rounds. Murray says that the MPAA/RIAA/et al had nothing to do with it. Uh huh. It seems like the RIAA/MPAA/whichever organization is behind this is throwing a million darts, hoping just one sticks. Congress, Supreme Court, the states - doesn't matter which o From
A Copyfighter's Musings on January 19, 2005 at 1:48 p.m..
Can I Hear You?
Considering how ubiquitous mobile phones are these days, you would expect an avalanche of new premium voice services, but in fact, outside of music-related offerings, relatively few new services are focused purely on sound.In the Netherlands,
Niuz was just launched, an audio service that gives access to read-out-loud articles from the newspapers
Volkskrant and
Algemeen Dagblad, as well as the latest press agency news and a number of trade publications.Working wit From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on January 19, 2005 at 12:54 p.m..
Word Geekery Grab Bag
I remain an incorrigible word geek. Here are some items related to this theme that have caught my interest lately... TOP OF THIS LIST: Stupid Attractors. The attractor is key concept of the mathematics of systems. Three types of attractors are generally defined: finite, periodic, and strange. I posit a fourth type – the stupid attractor. Rather than create a meaningful pattern, here the "solutions" that converge are random bits of cosmic jetsam and annoying dunces. Examples of stupid attractors include shopping malls just before Christmas, or the IMAX theater just outside of the Grand C From
Contentious Weblog on January 19, 2005 at 11:55 a.m..
Gates on DRM
Larry Lessig seems more impressed with Bill Gates' clarification — in an excellent Gizmodo interivew — of his "You're all a bunch of freaking communists!" remarks. Gates says that we need DRM so that artists and scientists will create and innovate, and to ensure privacy of stuff like medical records. E.g.: Gates: ...Take medical records: is it your position that rights management for medical records is evil? ... We remind people that, like if there's a medical record that has somebody's AIDS status in it, we have software--which is identical software--that says, From
Joho the Blog on January 19, 2005 at 11:48 a.m..
MiscLinks
ThereIsNoCrisis is a social security resource worth noting. It maintains -- guess what? -- that the Bush administration is trumping up the Social Security crisis. Metaphilm has a bunch of whacky film interpretations. For example, did you know that in The Fight Club, Edward Norton plays grown-up Calvin and Brad Pitt plays grown-up Hobbes? Social, Security... From
Joho the Blog on January 19, 2005 at 11:48 a.m..
The deep structure of code
It's been a while since I've written code in Java. But this week I updated my installation of Eclipse, dusted off an old Java program, and saw that ancient artifact in a whole new way. Now, I've never been an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) kind of guy. It's always been emacs for me, and in InfoWorld circles I'm not alone in that preference. Both
Chad Dickerson and
Maggie B From Jon's Radio on January 19, 2005 at 11:46 a.m..
Ferries and blogs
A stray trackback brought me and my giant ego to Julie Leung's site, a blog I hadn't visited recently enough. In the course of the current post, she talks about how the ferry ride to Seattle is calming. I felt the same way reading the spread of posts on her page. In her blog we seem to hear the mix of her public and personal curiosity that buoys her while she's ferried to and from the city. After a few days in which the blogosphere has felt more like a colliseum, it was good to join Julie in the space... From
Joho the Blog on January 19, 2005 at 9:48 a.m..
Aussie students invent tsunami warning software
Two students from the University of Technology in Sydney are reported to have developed a desktop application to warn of impending tsunamis. Marcus Schappi and Christian Kent were apparently inspired to create their ‘Tsunami Warning Widget’ after reading an article by tech writer and author, Robert X. Cringely. Schappi explained that there are two parts to the warning system. The first is a PHP based web application that pulls data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tsunami warning bulletin and converts the information into an RSS feed. From
RSS Blog on January 19, 2005 at 8:56 a.m..
FBI Tosses Carnivore to the Dogs
The bureau abandons its controversial, customized snooping software in favor of ISP-initiated internet wiretaps and commercial applications designed to sift through e-mail and other online communications. From
Wired News on January 19, 2005 at 6:46 a.m..
Getaway: Not the Perfect Crime
Sony's crime-and-punishment game boasts a cinematic story, a realistic map of London -- and some glaring gameplay flaws. Chris Kohler reviews The Getaway: Black Monday. From
Wired News on January 19, 2005 at 6:46 a.m..
No Magic for Older Moms
Over-50 mothers are increasingly common. But are they genetic moms? Not likely, experts say. By Kristen Philipkoski. From
Wired News on January 19, 2005 at 6:46 a.m..
Casinos, Malls Won't Fly
There's a lot of fancy talk about the possibilities for all that additional room in the new Airbus A380. But, as with the 747 before it, extra passengers -- rather than piano bars -- will fill the space. By Ryan Singel. From
Wired News on January 19, 2005 at 6:46 a.m..
IOSN Releases FOSS Primer
The International Open Source Network has recently release a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) primer. The primer covers the use of FOSS in K-12 schools and universities and could be helpful to administrators, teachers and staff in understanding how... From
Couros Blog - Frequent Rants from an Ed. Tech'er on January 19, 2005 at 3:55 a.m..
Software to remotely control PCs by cell phones
You could soon be able to remotely control your PC using your mobile phone thanks to new software from Toshiba.Toshiba has developed software to remotely operate a PC using a mobile phone over a cellular network. The software, called Ubiquitous Viewer, is installed on the mobile phone and on a client computer running Windows and re-creates the desktop of a PC or notebook PC on the mobile phone's screen. That allows the user, for example, to read e-mails and edit documents held on computer. From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 3:54 a.m..
Blogging, Journalism and Credibility Webcast
Jon Dube
points to a group of bloggers and journalists who are gathering at Harvard on Jan. 21 and 22 for a conference on how journalism is being transformed by blogging, entitled "Blogging, Journalism and Credibility: Battleground and Common Ground." The invitation-only conference is being organized by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, the American Library Association's Office of Information Technology and From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 3:54 a.m..
UK to Tax TV Phones?
In UK, the TV licensing authority is looking to charge mobile handset owners if their phone can receive live TV broadcasts As the law stands the owner of any device which is capable of receiving live transmissions will need to purchase a licence for it. At present 3G networks like 3 only transmit video clips but there are moves towards launching handsets capable of receiving (and recording) live TV. From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 3:54 a.m..
It's Official: Google moves to block Comment Spam
A post to the Google Weblog has confirmed earlier rumours that it has adopted the rel="nofollow” tag that will see the effectiveness of comment spam diminish as it is adopted by major blogging tools. When Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on links, in this case from the comment section of blogs, those links won’t get any credit when they rank websites in their search results, and the spammers will have lost their main incentive to spam blogs. On board include SixApart, SixApart LiveJour From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 3:54 a.m..
[no title]
Recordings Made Way Too Hard The little secret of digital video recorders is that while they allow you to amass a large collection of movies and TV shows quickly, you still have to find time to watch the material you recorded so effortlessly. For all their merits, these things can't add an extra two hours to each day to help you catch up on this backlog of video.
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
Future of News: A Distributed Look
A Slashdot reader notes that the Net gives news consumers some advantages over traditional media, "as the user has more control over what to view and when to view it. But how does the future of this utopia look?" An
engaging discussion, looking at matters such as the echo-chamber effect and Darwinistic traits in the news process, ensues. (Slashdot general advice: set your comment filter to 2 for mostly higher quality remarks). Note, this thread doesn't delve much into th From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
CBS: One dollar per show for on demand TV
It's time to punch a hole in the belief that over-the-air television is free. The Los Angeles Times reports on how broadcasters are searching for ways to have
the public pay for their so-called free television. In the wake of ad-skipping made possible through DVRs, the networks want to know whether viewers can be persuaded to help pay for programming that they're now getting free. (Continued at
The Pomo Blogunmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
BitTorrent's still here.
To nobody's surprise, Bit Torrent trading has rolled on despite the recent
MPAA/RIAA crackdowns and the
closure of several of the most popular Torrent sites. P2P site
Slyck notes the closures simply shifted the Torrent piracy around a bit, to other websites. Of course the primary trading still goes on via IRC and Newsgroups, areas against which the entertainment industry has yet to launch serious offensives. From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
Video on the (major media) home page
Fox.com joins ABC.com with promotional video clips that automatically play when you punch up the home page. A good use of video for network TV sites, but ABC.com's clip now starts with an ad. An ad before a promo? From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
Samsung flexible LCD
So Samsung has made a 5-inch flexible LCD panel out of plastic (most LCDs are made of glass) that weighs a scant 0.8 ounces and has a resolution of 400 x 300. Samsung is looking to roll out (pun intended) the first flexible displays by 2007, with the first applications expected to be for notebook computers and portable consumer electronics. From
unmediated on January 19, 2005 at 2:55 a.m..
The Open Park Project
Here's how the
Open Park Project describes itself: The Open Park Project (Open Park) is a Washington D.C. based non-profit organization and recognized tax exempt charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Our mission is to provide: A 21st century community service - offering public Internet access on the National Mall, as well as more From
EDUCAUSE Blogs - on January 19, 2005 at 1:00 a.m..
The Explaining Voice
Sometimes students think literature written during the English Renaissance was written in "old English," a natural mistake for beginners given the sometimes daunting difficulties of making sense of the language. In fact, Renaissance English is early modern English. Our contemporary English is much more like Shakespeare's English than Shakespeare's English ... From
Gardner Writes on January 19, 2005 at 12:00 a.m..
Thinking differently about site mapping and navigation
D. Keith Robinson has written an article that presents a different perspective on site mapping and navigation. To quote: Think about this, for many sites most people enter a site via some page other than the homepage. (That is if... From
Column Two on January 18, 2005 at 11:47 p.m..