Edu_RSS
Head Back
Or it will be in less than a day. Mind, on the other hand, is all over the place. This was the last day of EDUCAUSE. In the morning I convened a session on alternatives to illegal file-sharing. Russ from Penn State described their experience with full-on Napster accounts for students ... From
Gardner Writes on October 22, 2004 at 10:01 p.m..
Meet Brian Lamb
It was such a pleasure spending some time with Brian at EDUCAUSE. Now it's your turn. Do take a look at his "Abject Learning" blog, and also check out his charming and evocative reflections on his first time as a blogger. Mon sembable! Mon frere! But never a hypocrite lecteur. ... From
Gardner Writes on October 22, 2004 at 10:01 p.m..
A Bug in the RSS Feed
In the new site design, the RSS feed is supposed to display a “read more” link at the end of a paragraph rather than cutting off mid-sentence. It doesn’t yet. What this means is that you will occasionally get an RSS feed that looks like a complete thought but is… From
e-Literate on October 22, 2004 at 8:56 p.m..
Read this and smile
Some times computer people take themselves too serious. A couple of definitions to help lighten the mood. MODEM - what ya did when the grass and weeds got too tall SCREEN - helps keep the skeeters off the porch HACKER... From
Teaching and Developing Online. on October 22, 2004 at 7:56 p.m..
Course Management Systems and the Reinvention of Instruction
There is so much to say but not enough time to say it. Many educators are attracted to teaching because they like to wax eloquently about subjects they are passionate about. The problem is that there is never enough time during a semester to cover all you want to cover. Once again, technology potentially comes to the rescue with the Course Management System (CMS). From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 7:54 p.m..
E-Books: Challenges and Opportunities
-books are commonly perceived as offering great potential for learner support but also as struggling to compete with print due to poor on-screen presentation, restrictive licencing and limited range of titles offered. The experience of a group of Irish university libraries shows that, with the right combination of product and subjects, e-books can thrive among students and faculty, while librarians can create more dynamic, relevant and flexible collections than for print. Subscription management is demanding for libraries, however, and licencing issues remain highly problematic, representing a From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 7:53 p.m..
Managing Virtual Teams in a Virtual University - Students' Experiences
Traffic congestion, parking problems, and rising transportation costs are forcing people to use electronic medium to communicate and stay in touch with each other. Decreasing costs, increasing speed and reliability of IT has enabled people to use this medium. Mergers and acquisitions across borders have emerged as a growing trend. The business is becoming global in scale and perspective. The developments have encompassed every business activity- education being no exception. From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 7:53 p.m..
Clark Aldrich's Six Criteria of an Educational Simulation
"The more I build, evaluate, and discuss educational simulations, the more I realize we need to establish some better terms. Specifically, there are six criteria that are emerging as critical, and ultimately not just to simulations but all educational experiences. Three criteria, linear, systems, and cyclical, describe content. And three, simulation, game, and pedagogy, describe delivery." From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 7:53 p.m..
E-Learning Styles
E-learning is a different way of learning from the traditional workshop approach. Many people, including training and learning managers, express concerns about how e-learning will meet the needs of their learners. From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 7:53 p.m..
[PT] Ben Saunders
Ben Saunders talks about his solo trip to the north Pole. "I'm not a scientist, I'm not an -ologist. I just drag heavy things around." 72-days alone. The fourth person to have done this. When he go there, he says that there was nothing there, not even a pole. He said he'd known that, of course, but he still kind of expected there to be something, anything, there. When he was made it to the pole, he called three people ... and had to leave messages. Why does he do this? He's exploring the limits of technology and human potential.... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 7:49 p.m..
[PT] Spencer Wells
Spencer Wells wants to know how humans populated the earth. His research shows that the deepest, earliest split is in the African lineage. Hence, our common ancestor was African. And it looks like the split occurred only 60,000 years (2,000 generations) ago. So, how did we populate the earth in that time, he asks. The route went from Africa to Australia, he believes. He goes to India to try to find the missing genetic marker — one found in Australian aborigines. He found it: M130, from 50,000 years ago. About 5% of Indians have it. Why did we leave Africa... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 7:49 p.m..
Nothing wrong
Q: How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?A: None. There From
Open Artifact on October 22, 2004 at 6:59 p.m..
Less Than Lethal Weapon Proves Lethal
Modern police departments have been deploying modified paintball guns like the ones provided by Pepperball, Inc. to help police officers balance the American people's First Amendment right of free assembly against the demands of politicians. The "less than lethal" designation of these weapons was highlighted recently by the shooting death of Victoria Snelgrove, a baseball fan, by Pepperball equipped police near Fenway Park in Boston. From
kuro5hin.org on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 p.m..
Geodaten
R. Gissing: Geodatenpolitik in Österreich: Herausforderung für Politik und öffentliche Verwaltung (2003)
http://213.47.127.15/corp/archiv/papers/2003/CORP2003_Gissing.pdf Zitat: Es bedarf des unmissverständlich geäußerten politischen Willens, dass die Bereithaltung öffentlicher Geodaten im allgemeinen und staatlichen Interesse erfolgt und dass die dafür notwendigen gesetzlichen, organisatorischen und wirtschaftlichen Voraussetzungen From
Archivalia on October 22, 2004 at 5:54 p.m..
[PT] Alexis Rockman
Alexis Rockman (more here (thanks Shannon) ) an artist who studies how culture sees nature. "There are very few boundaries between dead, alive, food, pet, and so on." He provides commentary on images of his paintings.... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 5:49 p.m..
This week in security news
The U.S. government's drive for homeland security has produced a boom in antiterror technologies--as well as industry confusion and privacy concerns. From
CNET News.com on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
This week in election news
As the final week of campaigning in the presidential election nears, the battle for ballots is heating up on the Internet. From
CNET News.com on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
The Handle System
A
comment in my discussion area yesterday noted that, for the Koper link, "they actually use the Handle system and state explicitly to point instead to
http://hdl.handle.net/1820/238" (or
hdl:1820/238, though most browsers don't support that notation). The idea of the handle system is that, instead of pointing directly to a link, you point to a handle proxy server, which will redirect you to the link. This is exactly how Persis From
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
The Buntine Oration: Learning Networks - 0
In the first of a series, Albert Ip discusses the first paragraph of my paper and gets the message exactly right. Describing four of his students who, learning as they went, built an Apple II network from scratch, Ip observes, "The line between a teacher and a student is thin, very thin indeed. I think I learnt more from the Apple II local area network project than my students." P.S. Ip's blog is deliberately named. A glance at the
Random Walk entry in Wikipedia is well work a read. By Albert Ip, Randon Walk in E-Learning, October 21 From
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
Metadata for the Masses
Nice brief discussion of the idea of ethnoclassification - classifications systems evolving through undirected use by a population, rather than stipulated from above by a standards body. The path analogy is especially apt. By Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path, October 19, 2004 [
Refer][
Research][
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
First Principles of Instruction
First rate paper arguing, first, that there are general principles underlying all instructional theory, and second, that learning suffers if these principles are not followed. The second part remains speculation, but the first part is examined in some detail through the lens of a variety of models and theories. Essentially, the idea is that learning involves four stages: activation, demonstration, application and integration, and that these stages centre around a central problem. Don't miss this essay. I don't know when it came out, but it was just mentioned in WWWEDU and is still li From
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
Describe This
According to the announcement, Describe This is "a service designed for the automatic extraction of metadata from online resources. The site offers an easy to use interface where you can indicate the resource to analyze and how to download the results as XML, XHTML or RDF files." I tested it on my own website and on David Merrill's PDF (see below) and it worked for both, though certain desirable metadata (such as DC:creator) were missing. It can automatically analyze and generate metadata registers for the following formats: HTML and XHTML, Dublin Core/RDF, Dublin Core/XML, Dublin Core/HT From
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
A Learning Framework
This contribution to ITForum is a keeper as author Donald Clark outlines Clark Aldrich's book "Simulations and the Future of Learning" and his recent article "Six Criteria of an Educational Simulation." He writes, "when building a learning package or program, it helps to think of a wider framework than simply shoveling the content (subject matter) to the learners. That is, one has to start thinking of the context that will support the learning of it." Clark rounds out his post with a number of useful links well worth following. By Donald Clark, ITForum, October 21, 2004 [
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
Australia 2004
The complete summary of my Australian trip. This page contains links to audio recordings of my talks, collections of photos, and other resources. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, October 22, 2004 [
Refer][
Research][
Reflect] From
OLDaily on October 22, 2004 at 5:45 p.m..
A message to Michael
Just got off the phone with a friend who's also a friend of
Michael Powell, who I insulted in today's first post (below). Our mutual friend would like us to talk.I've met Michael, and still have his business card here. We had a nice conversation at the time (a few years back, at a PC Forum), and he's clearly a good guy. So, with those grounds for conversation established, let's proceed.Michael, it's about language. The vocabularies we use to describe a subject are essentially metaphorical: b From
unmediated on October 22, 2004 at 4:57 p.m..
SMS Summit
Several groups of activist technologists who develop and deploy political tools joined in a nonpartisan gathering September 30 - October 2 to discuss the political use and relevance of SMS.
The SmsSummit Wiki is loaded with information accumulated before, during, and after the meeting, including a
Proceedings section and a
set of u From unmediated on October 22, 2004 at 4:57 p.m..
Categories of eLearning
One of the biggest challenges in discussing elearning arises from different understandings of the field. Most often, we attach our experiences and career to our conversations, presenting an image of elearning that reflects what we have encountered. For an instructional designer, elearning often means courses or learning materials directed at meeting an objective within the larger scope of program development. A corporate trainer may view elearning as a combination of courses and knowledge management. No one perspective is symbolic of the whole industry. From
eLearnopedia on October 22, 2004 at 4:53 p.m..
[PT] Brian Fagan
Brian Fagan gives a talk that spans several hundred thousands of years, spending some special time on what we can learn about dealing with the climate from 2,000 years of Egyptian history. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is a crime how little we know about how other people see the world and put the world together."... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 4:49 p.m..
*$@&$^ Spammers
I'm getting a ton of spam comments and it's taking too much time to delete them all. So, I'm gonna turn off comments and turn on discuss for awhile. You
need to be a member to discuss. I'll put the easier comments back up on Monday. I hate this... From
weblogged News on October 22, 2004 at 4:48 p.m..
Who owns subscription data?
As
Bloglines continues to grow, its subscription data becomes more interesting. Yesterday, while demonstrating the application to some folks, I showed how you can navigate from a feed to the
list of subscribers to that feed. Only those subscribers who agree to make their data public are shown. So in my case, for example, there are only 755 public subscribers out of 2337 total subscribers. But that's more than enough transparency to do some useful data mining. ... From
Jon's Radio on October 22, 2004 at 4:47 p.m..
2004 US Senate Outlook
With all the hoopla over Bush and Kerry, some of you may not have been paying close attention to the other races going on in this loaded US political season. I've read a good dozen or so Senate outlooks, and my blurry eyes and spinning brain kept getting lost in all the numbers and losing track of who, ultimately, was likely to control the Senate on November third. So I made my very own Senate outlook to figure it out (or add further confusion, depending on what you think of my predictions). The bad news is, we probably won't know who controls the Senate on November third. The good n From
kuro5hin.org on October 22, 2004 at 4:45 p.m..
A Blogger's Endorsement
PR blogger Steve Rubel has endorsed John Kerry for U.S. president. He made the
pronouncement yesterday, in what I suspect will become a trend among bloggers to make their views known and to influence others.Do you care who a blogger on (predominantly) non-political topics endorses publicly? While I doubt Rubel will influence many of his readers -- if any -- I can certainly envision other bloggers who do cover politics and current affairs and who have loyal audiences influencing their readers. Why sh From
Poynter E-Media Tidbits on October 22, 2004 at 3:55 p.m..
Slides from IDT Futures session
Here are the slides we used today in the special session presented by the IDT Futures Group today. Wish you could have been there, and the presentation will appear as a chapter in the Educational Media and Technology Yearbook next... From
Rick's Café Canadien on October 22, 2004 at 3:55 p.m..
Aesthetics of Instructional Design
Fascinating session on why we don't talk about the aesthetics of instructional design by Patrick Parrish. This will become an article in a special issue of Educational Technology in the near future. Be on the lookout for it. Parrish is... From
Rick's Café Canadien on October 22, 2004 at 3:54 p.m..
[PT] Richard Alley
As someone on the chat says, Richard Alley is "brilliant and twitchy." More kindly, he's an animated speaker. He shows photos of his ice-drilling expedition to Greenland. Is there global warming? Yes. He runs through the evidence. The biggest cause is fossil guels: The typical US driver buys 100 pounds of gasoline per week. We're burning fossil fuels a million times faster than nature created them. Global warming is a natural trend but we're making it much worse. Most of the effects of global warming are negative for humans, he says. Some high-latitude economies will do better. From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 3:48 p.m..
Google Alerts Drops RSS, Adds News
As far as I can tell,
Google Alerts, has dropped its RSS feed option from the standing searches I used to be able to create. Now they just allow e-mail updates. The good news is that it now seems to be including
Google News in its search which it didn't before. More good news is that you can create more than five alerts. So how am I still going to collect my alerts into my
Bloglines account? Simple...I just changed the e-mail on my Google Alert account to one of the B From
weblogged News on October 22, 2004 at 3:48 p.m..
weekend reading
Next week, guest on this channel:
Professor William Fisher of Harvard, to discuss his new, and IMHO, extremely important book. Be prepared. Those Harvard profs like to cold-call on people. From
Lessig Blog on October 22, 2004 at 3:45 p.m..
Firefox smashes funding target
The campaign to get fans of the open-source browser to pay for a full-page ad in The New York Times reaches its goal in three days. From
CNET News.com on October 22, 2004 at 3:45 p.m..
XM Radio's wearable device rumor
What do you get when you cross a satellite, walkman, ipod, and tivo? Now if this could upload and
spot beam back to peers... A radio industry executive said the device was believed to be a satellite-radio receiver with headphones that also had a hard drive enabling users to download XM content.
link (Via
unmediated on October 22, 2004 at 2:57 p.m..
Guessing if a link leads to a weblog or not?
Technical weblog research question: I have a list of links and I'd like to find out which of them lead to weblogs. Is there a way of doing this automatically? Things that I thought about: guessing from url - would work for weblogs hosted in most popular platforms check if there is RSS/Atom feed - would exclude weblogs without feeds and include general sites with RSS feeds match url against database of any weblog indexing site - would include only subset of weblogs and you have to get the database first ... Do you have any suggestio From
Mathemagenic on October 22, 2004 at 2:53 p.m..
PsycARTICLES
In this database you can search for information found in 50 peer reviewed academic journals and APA books from 2000 forward. Annotations are available free. Some of these have lengthy abstracts. Full text of the articles can be purchases. From
Minneapolis Public Library - the LIST on October 22, 2004 at 1:57 p.m..
Global Amphibian Assessment
An assessment of the world's amphibians, all 5,743 of them, indicates that things are not going well for for them.Fully one third are threatened with extinction. This site gives an account of each species' biology, habitat, range, population statistics, conservation status, threats to its welfare and management plans. Most entries include an extensive bibliography. Easy to search. Produced by ICUN and NatureServe. From
Minneapolis Public Library - the LIST on October 22, 2004 at 1:57 p.m..
How To Visualize Ideas With Images
by Juan C. Dürsteler Presentations are becoming increasingly visual and less textual. Converting every concept into an image is the challenge and, at the same time, the solution. Presentations with visual support, typically running under PowerPoint, have become ubiquitous. All of us have been at some time in need of making one of them and they are, increasingly, a part of our daily work. Did I said with visual support? Surprisingly a good deal of the presentations we have to suffer are basically long strings of sentences and phrases that the presenter just recites, maybe with some collateral From
MasterViews on October 22, 2004 at 1:52 p.m..
The Commercialization of Weblogs
Jason Kottke takes up the issue of advertising inside blogs and the apparent commercialization of a publishing movement that had initially appeared as being not only advertising-free, but in many ways also openly against traditional, intrusive ad practices. He writes: Lots of interesting observations to be made about the commercialization of weblogs... a) the quick uptake of advertising on blogs, the increasingly false perception of blogs as inherently unbiased by commercial interests (and therefore preferable to "big media"), b) the continuing shift from blogging as a hobby to blogging for a From
Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings on October 22, 2004 at 1:52 p.m..
[PT] Janine Benyus
Janine Benyus talks about biomimicry: the conscious imitation of nature's genius. She's going to give us "12 big ideas from biology" about how life sustains life. I'm sure not to get them all. 1. self-assembly 2. chemistry in water 3. solar transformations 4. the power of shape - from efficient fans to color without pigments to cldean without detergents 5. materials as systems 6. natural selection as an innovation engine 7. material recycling 8. ecosystems that greow folds - seware plants that mimic marshes 9. energy-savvy movement and transport 10. 11. sensing and responding - From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 1:49 p.m..
[PT] Tom Daniel
Tom Daniel's talks's title is "Bugs, Brains and Borgs: Reverse Engineering Moving Systems. It's a great presentation, but too rich to encapsulate via love-blogging. He shows how complex and messy systems are. E.g., he shows footage of a hawk moth that hovers and sucks nectar from flowers at night and the flowers are moving. That's a lot of data to process. He shows a single cell in a moth brain that's excited if the visual field moves to the right and not if the world moves the left. [He credits the grad students who did the research — always nice... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 1:49 p.m..
"Open peer review always improves quality"
During the annual blog discussion Trey and I seem to keep doing at AECT these words slipped out. One of the participants thought it was useful. I guess I should add one caveat in hindsight -- "open peer review always improves quality IF you actually care what other people think about you." From
autounfocus on October 22, 2004 at 1:45 p.m..
SmartDraw 7 Released
I've been using the new
SmartDraw 7 Suite, and like what I see. I purchased SmartDraw
last year when I was looking for a cheaper
MS Visio replacement, as I create a lot of diagrams and flowcharts in my business. Version 7 is a significant improvement and the SmartDraw Suite is $200 less than Visio Professional. Like Visio, files can be converted to other formats. SmartDraw allows conversion to JPG, GIF, EPS, PDF, etc. From
jarche.com - Improving Organizational Performance on October 22, 2004 at 12:56 p.m..
e-Portfolio Conference: Reflection Is Not a Mirror, It's a Lens
"Join us on November 19 for an interactive, one-day conference about e-Portfolios and explore one of the most challenging aspects of e-Portfolios: Reflection. Presentations by e-Portfolio experts, including students, faculty and other professionals, will address the role of reflection as... From
ERADC Blog on October 22, 2004 at 12:55 p.m..
Laptop Desk
Ian Kahn just gave me a Laptop Desk from LapWorks. It's a plastic platform that unfolds on your lap to support your laptop and provide a mousing platform. You can also fold it and use it on a desk to tilt your laptop forward to a comfortable typing angle. Simple idea and it's making blogging from the Camden Opera House much more comfortable. Tthanks, Ian!... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 12:49 p.m..
A new shirt at Red Seat
The Red Seat's got a new shirt to commemorate Wednesday's victory over the Yanks: The Witching Hour. Looks great, and I love that it's black. Also, here's a photo of me sporting my Red Seat Building Character shirt on Wednesday night at work. I'm not smiling so much because this was before the game had begun and I was still very nervous. From
megnut on October 22, 2004 at 12:45 p.m..
IBM unveils low-cost blades
Express version of BladeCenter chassis accommodates up to 14 dual-processor servers but costs under $1,000 instead of about $2,800. From
CNET News.com on October 22, 2004 at 12:45 p.m..
What Every Press Release Needs (Online Media Outreach, Part 4)
When a press release includes no contact information, it sends a clear message to journalists: "We don't want to answer any questions." To journalists, this indicates ineptitude, uncooperativeness, or possibly a desire to conceal -- all of which make the organization publishing the release look bad... (NOTE: This is part 4 of a 10-part series.) From
Contentious Weblog on October 22, 2004 at 11:57 a.m..
[PT] Michael Hawley
The impossibly talented Michael Hawley talks about Bhutan. He shows pictures of kids and says "These kids are from one of the poorest countries on the planet but there's a sense of health and wholeness about them." Remarkable photos. (Michael is affiliated with FriendlyPlanet.org) He talks about how he came to produce The World's Largest Book, a collection of photos of Bhutan. [It's on Amazon.] Great works, in both senses.... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 11:49 a.m..
[PT] ze Frank
Too funny. Punctuation as vengeance. How to write spam. How to dance properly. How to make a dancing puppet. When office supplies attack. Toilet-paper fashion. Haikus for a newly-neutered dogs. Too funny.... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 11:49 a.m..
[PT] First session Q&A
Since the theme of the morning is "Happiness," I ask: I like happiness as much as the next person, but in the Bill Joy sense — a little act can destroy all life — aren't we doomed. ze Frank: I'll handle this one. I've done a lot of research on happiness in single-cell animals. And, in that sense, no, we're not doomed. Q: What about these emalis I'm getting from Nigeria? ze Frank: They're all real. What you have to do is haggle with them. Q: In taking the two kids out of Bhutan for the tour with the giant... From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 11:49 a.m..
[PT] Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen from Worldchanging.com says that we're doomed — too many people, etc. — but that there is in fact another world already here. He points to Jim Moore's Second Super Power, Howard Dean, Linus Torvalds, wikipedia, Creative Commons, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula is rengotiating the relationship between the developed and underdeveloped worlds, Alex says. Brazil is giving broadband to poor areas and seeing rapid economic improvement. He also points to the Internet Bookmobile, a merry-go-round that pumps water as kids play, a rollable water jug, and a flower t From
Joho the Blog on October 22, 2004 at 10:49 a.m..
Two Tools for the Teacher's Toolbox
My "Teacher's Toolbox" workshop concluded yesterday on what I would consider a pretty good note. We didn't get to Wikis or Webnote or Flikr, but we did dig in pretty deep to
Bloglines and
Furl. As I told the group when we finished, at the very least I wanted them to leave with an understanding of what RSS can bring to teacher practice and student learning. I think I accomplished that. We'll see if they keep using the tools, but I've already decided to send them an e-mail every day for a couple of weeks From
weblogged News on October 22, 2004 at 10:48 a.m..
Jornada Weblogs en la Empresa
El próximo 4 de noviembre tendrá lugar en Vitoria la Jornada Weblogs en la Empresa organizada por Enpresa Digitala. Intentaremos convencer a los directivos de que hay (por lo menos) 10 razones por las cuales su empresa deberÃa tener un... From
eCuaderno v.2.0 on October 22, 2004 at 9:53 a.m..
Ofertas de empleo en Google España
Google ofrece empleos para su oficina en España: Public Relations Specialists y Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google Print. VÃa Dirson: Google busca empleados por toda Europa.... From
eCuaderno v.2.0 on October 22, 2004 at 8:53 a.m..
Candidates Sound Off on Tech - Staci D. Kramer, wired
Those who didn't hear enough about technology in the presidential debates now have a handy cheat sheet of responses from both leading candidates to 12 questions posed by the Computing Technology Industry Association earlier this month. President Bush's From
Techno-News Blog on October 22, 2004 at 8:50 a.m..
Toe-to-Toe Over Peer-to-Peer - Michael Grebb, Wired
Amid the recent collapse of talks over the Induce Act in Congress, record labels are closing in on deals to enable several new peer-to-peer services to emerge -- with the sanction of major record labels that have so far derided P2P as a haven for pirac From
Techno-News Blog on October 22, 2004 at 8:50 a.m..
Using Personas to Create User Documentation
Personas can be used in aiding many domains of design. Here Steve Calde of Cooper Design writes about how
technical writers can use personas. Using personas to guide your user-documentation creation-process helps you: Determine the primary and secondary audiences for your documentsPrioritize technical writing tasks by giving you a tool for identifying which aspects of the product are most important to your readersWrite documentation in From
elearningpost on October 22, 2004 at 8:47 a.m..
RSS Bandwith Discussions
A recent misunderstanding with Microsoft's feeds using excessive bandwith has prompted discussions focused on users need to improve the handling of RSS feeds. Here is a quote "One developer said newsreader developers should be encouraged to support features of RSS that allow greater control over the timing of feed retrieval. Another developer brought up the importance of having more sophisticated traffic management tools." From
RSS Blog on October 22, 2004 at 8:01 a.m..
Inkompetente, fehlerhafte Erhebung von Studiengebühren in Gießen
Nachdem die Uni Gießen meinen Widerspruch gegen das festgestellte Studienguthaben, welches mich ab diesem Semester gebührenpflichtig machen würde, über ein halbes Jahr nicht bearbeitet hat, blieb mir nichts anderes übrig als selber noch einmal nachzufragen, da bis Ende dieser Woche alle Studierenden rückgemeldet sein müssen. Als ich am Montag deswegen in der Uni ankam, fühlte ich mich auf der Suche nach der AG Stugug (Studienguthabengesetz) fatal an den Anfang der Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy erinnert. Das Büro in dem man di From
PlasticThinking: Moe's Blog. on October 22, 2004 at 7:52 a.m..
Sparklines
On a little strip of an image that tells you about a conversation From
Monkeymagic on October 22, 2004 at 6:53 a.m..
Architects, Information and Editing
Just read this article on the relations and similarities of
journalism and information architecture. Interestingly the historic outline draws a line from an editor to an architect when it comes to non-linear media. Actually I don't see that this clear as an editor doesn't decide on layout, doesn't he. But who then does it in the printed world. A link in this article lead me to a manifesto of IA. What I found very intersting is the focus on processes and social contexts. we are obviously in times where context mat From
thomas n. burg | randgänge on October 22, 2004 at 6:46 a.m..
Anti-Cloning Treaty Divides U.N.
Two competing resolutions are put before members of the United Nations as they debate the contentious issue of whether to ban cloning or to allow human embryos to be used for research. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Candidates Sound Off on Tech
A computer industry group asks President Bush and Sen. John Kerry a dozen questions so voters can compare the presidential contenders' tech plans. By Staci D. Kramer. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Raise the Roof: Power Source
Solar panels are a good source of home energy, but they can be an eyesore. Manufacturers want to make solar more popular by gussying up panels and integrating them into roofing materials. John Gartner reports from San Francisco. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
On the Trail of the Analemma
How do you photograph the sun's yearly figure-eight path in the sky? With a huge amount of patience, say the small handful of photographers who have managed the tricky feat. By Amit Asaravala. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Indian Mounds Mystify Excavators
Vast man-made mounds are nearly all that remain of an ancient city now called Cahokia, built along the banks of the Mississippi. In its heyday around A.D. 1050, the city was a bustling metropolis. Michelle Delio reports from Collinsville, Illinois. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Contraception Controversy
Advances in medical science should lead to improvements in birth control methods -- but current debates remain hung up on teenagers' sex lives. Adult women and men looking for better options shouldn't be left out in the cold. Commentary by Gina Lynn. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Pumping Up the Power of the IPod
Replacement batteries for older iPods give the gizmos a new lease on life. Newer Technology's high-capacity battery can double the life of an original iPod, granting an amazing 22 hours of continuous play. By Leander Kahney. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
Chips Coming to a Brain Near You
Researchers working with slices of rat brains come up with a microchip that mimics the part of the brain responsible for creating memories. They hope to create a prosthesis for the human brain within 15 years. By Lakshmi Sandhana. From
Wired News on October 22, 2004 at 6:45 a.m..
EDUCAUSE: the crescendo continues
Thursday is nearly Friday here and already Friday back home. I have to get up at oh-no-thirty to be at the conference center for the speaker's breakfast so I can get materials and meet speakers for the session I'm convening. So this will have to be quick, with details to ... From
Gardner Writes on October 22, 2004 at 4:02 a.m..
Ed tech: What do students want?
U.S. students who want to share their thoughts on the state of educational technology in the nation's schools have until Nov. 12 to participate in Speak Up Day 2004, an online survey that aims to give K-12 students a say in how schools use technology and the internet. From
DEC Daily News on October 22, 2004 at 3:51 a.m..
Friday, October 22, 2004
With the wedding fast approaching, Emily and I still need to pick out music for the reception. From
RHPT.com on October 22, 2004 at 2:51 a.m..
Granny D signing off
Well, the debate was fun, but frightening, of course. There were so many times when I felt like a fool--not finding my words or letting some golden opportunities just slide by. But it was wonderful to be finally looking him in the eye and speaking the truth right at him.... From
Lessig Blog on October 22, 2004 at 12:45 a.m..
Kerry/Bush on IT
CompTIA lists IT policy questions. The Computing Technology Industry Association has posted an IT survey both presidential candidates (or at least their campaigns) have responded to. The answers, designed to give the group's 20,000 members a political "cheat-sheet", give slightly mor.. From
unmediated on October 21, 2004 at 11:57 p.m..
Merholz on Metadata for the Masses
Great Peter Merholz piece,
Metadata for the Masses, continuing the folksonomy/ethnoclassification thread We're beginning to see ethnoclassification in action on the social bookmarks site Del.icio.us, and the photo sharing site Flickr.The primary benefit of free tagging is that we know the classification makes sense to users. It can also reveal terms that "experts" might have overlooked. "Cameraphone" and "moblog" are newborn words that are already among Flickr's From
unmediated on October 21, 2004 at 11:57 p.m..
FeedMesh
FeedMesh is a group working to establish a "peering network" for decentralized web update notifications and content distribution. FeedFragments is a related proposal for handling RSS/Atom content in a fragmented way, allowing aggregators to retrieve only the information they do not already have using standard HTTP features.
...More (wiki.oreillynet.com) From
unmediated on October 21, 2004 at 11:57 p.m..
RIAA p2p application
"At a panel held Wednesday by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, at least one record industry representative predicted that such
sanctioned P2P services will start to proliferate in the next several months," says Wired News, going on to quote RIAA senior vp of government relations and legislative counsel as saying:"We are going to see three or four of these in the very, very near future."Glazier said the new services will be "consumer-friendly and enable the portability that digital music consumers deman From
unmediated on October 21, 2004 at 11:57 p.m..