Edu_RSS
Blogs Are a God-Awful Mess
A web of unlikely associations connects the 50 most-linked blogs. Plus: The ABCs of cigarette packs. In Bruce Sterling's blog Beyond the Beyond. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 9:45 p.m..
Paul Albright - Final Report of UNESCO Forum on Open Educational Resources in HE - UNESCO
The final report of the UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Discussion Forum has been released. "Open course content, whether full course materials or course elements, constitutes an important resource to higher education institutions, teaching staff and learners. However, if there is little or no awareness of availability, open course content cannot be exploited, and even with awareness of availability, there are challenges and barriers to its effective use." [
Link] [Tags:
OLDaily on February 14, 2006 at 7:45 p.m..
On Freedom and Compassion
We cannot be free unless we are free in our hearts, and we cannot be free in our hearts unless the very value of freedom becomes one with who we are, until the very value of freedom is one that guides us, not only through adherence to the limits set out by law and custom, but in our lives, our feelings for each other. [
Comment] From
OLDaily on February 14, 2006 at 7:45 p.m..
Opera Offers Weekly Builds
Get your steamin' hot browser updates. Plus: Songbird player makes web music junkies smile. In Monkey Bites. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 3:45 p.m..
Webmonkey Mailbox: IE7
Readers react to a review of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview. In Webmonkey. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 3:45 p.m..
Gadget Lab: Fido Treat Launcher
Think of a spring-loaded squirt gun that pops out doggie biscuits. Plus: A stamp-pad printer that stifles your creativity and GPS that drives you batty. From Wired magazine. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 3:45 p.m..
A First in U.S.: Chipped Beef
Two workers at a surveillance equipment company volunteer to have silicon chips embedded in their arms in order to test the technology. In a burst of egalitarianism, their boss gets chipped, too. They're believed to be the first living people to be chipped in the United States. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 12:46 p.m..
Even a Geek Needs Lovin'
Hackers, nerds and bloggers seek romance on the web with help from dating sites that minister to those who find tech a turn-on. By Rachel Metz. From
Wired News on February 14, 2006 at 11:46 a.m..
Cheney jokes
The Wall Street Journal aggregates the late night jokes about Cheney shooting a friend in the face. The most trenchant, not surprisingly (and in my opinion): The Daily Show. [Tags: dick_cheney jon_stewart humor]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Rebecca on Yahoo on China
Rebecca MacKinnon blogs about Yahoo!'s new guidelines for dealing with totalitarian states. [Tags: rebecca_mackinnon yahoo china politics]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Bush's PR budget
The Bush administration spent at least $1.6 billion on public relations and advertising campaigns over 30 months, said a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. —Arizona Star I believe when the government does it, it's called "propaganda."... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Israeli announces anti-Jewish cartoon contest
From Boomka: Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the "Muhammad cartoon-gate" events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves! "We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!" said Sandy "No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!" In the incomprehensible mix of social norms, religious precep From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Blogosphere changes shape
If I read Dave "Technorati" Sifry's latest State of the Blogosphere post correctly — and when it comes to numbers, the chances of my going right is nil — rather than being shaped like a hockey stick, the blogosphere is shaped like an alert python that's just eaten some big bloggers. There used to be a head of the tail that consisted of bloggers with lots of links going into them and a tail as long all get-out consisting of bloggers with a few links. Now, there's still a head, but there are fewer bloggers and more mainstream media in... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Fleishman interviews Varsavsky on Fon: It's all about the telefons
Martin Varsavsky, Fon's fearless leader, and Glenn Fleishman finally got to talk together. Glenn has a long post about it. This is, from my point of view, the definitive interview, at least so far. Glenn's take-away: "Fon today seems much more about telephony to me than it did yesterday." (Disclosure: I'm on Fon's board of advisors.) [Tags: fon martin_varsavsky glenn_fleishman wifi]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 10:48 a.m..
Blurring the Line Between Subscription and A La Carte Music
Many online music projections focus on when/whether music "rental" subscription services, like Rhapsody, will overtake a la carte download services, like iTunes Music Store. I wonder how much these types will blur together.Why not pay a subcription for unlimited on-demand streams and a fixed amount of downloads per month? The streams help you decide each month what you want to keep forever. Of course, this would work best if the a la carte prices were reduced. It might be worth doing so if it meant keeping people from unsubscribing.Or how about getting to stre From
A Copyfighter's Musings on February 14, 2006 at 10:47 a.m..
This feed has been discontinued, please unsubscribe. [2006-02-14]
This feed has been discontinued and you should unsubscribe. The feed reader you are using does not support standard HTTP mechanisms for announcing that a feed has been discontinued so you will receive this message until you manually unsubscribe. Please contact the provider of your feed reader and encourage them to support the use of HTTP 410 response codes. Your feed reader identified itself as "Edu_RSS/0.2 libwww-perl/5.79" From
Seb Schmoller's Fortnightly Mailing Home Page on February 14, 2006 at 2:49 a.m..
Read these now
Rutledge on anti-design piffle circulated by people who should know better. Kottke compares New York Times and blog rankings. Dan Benjamin finds he can write more as himself. How Greg Storey quit worrying and learned to love Google's new Chinese search engine. 8 February 2006 From
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report on February 14, 2006 at 2:49 a.m..
Squirming the attorney general
Tim Grieve at Salon has a good report on Alberto Gonzales' attempts to avoid telling the truth. When Gonzales was confirmed, he was asked if the president has the right to wiretap Americans with warrants. Gonzales said it was a "hypothetical" question, even though he knew that that was exactly what Bush was doing. Gonzales replied by saying it was hypothetical that the wiretaps are illegal, thus avoiding the plain sense of the question. But, says Grieve, Republican Lindsey Graham continued to press the issue: Graham went after both prongs of the administration's defense of the warran From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Shel on Demo
Until recently, if you wanted Shel Israel's you-are-there (well, more like you-weren't-there) reports on conferences, you had to pay Conferenza. Now Conferenza is a blog, and Shel is liveblogging Demo. [Tags: demo shel_israel conferenza conferences]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
[berkman] Britt Blaser
Britt Blaser is giving a Berkman Tuesday lunch talk. Britt's bio is difficult to summarize — from fighter pilot to a force behind the development of interesting software by the Howard Dean campaign. (He's blogged what he intends to say.) Today he's talking about The Open Resource Group's ORGware, i.e., "Dean Done Right." ORGware is a "mall" of software that is useful for citizens engaging in democracy. It has blogs, wikis, a little project management, etc. The aim isn't to come up with new tools but to make them so easy and so flexible that it's a "mall" for From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Jeneane's beta
Jeneane blogs about what beta means these days. I, too, remember when beta was a term used in the product development process and was Greek to the marketing department. But, as Jeneane says, the walls between customers and companies are tumbling, and the moment of publication/shipment is getting all fuzzified...usefully. [Tags: jeneane sessum beta marketing software]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
WSJ on FON, disclosure, and my friends
[I'm posting this reluctantly. Ultimately I decided I don't want the WSJ article to be googled without a response.] The Wall Street Journal today ran an article by Rebecca Buckman that raises an interesting question but fails to generate an interesting answer. Disclosure: The article talks about Fon. I'm on its board of advisors. It mentions me. More important, the article impugns the integrity of some of the most ethical and good-hearted people I know. The interesting question Rebecca raises is whether "influential" (her word, not mine) people on the Web can advise a company an From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
WIPO morning
The US delegation to WIPO is pushing for a "webcasting" extension that would require you to get permission before you could reproduce content that has been "webcast," even if that content is in the public domain. "Webcast" means that some combination of "images or sounds" have been made "accessible to the public...at substantially the same time." If you find that disturbingly vague, join the club. Then pick up the club and let's see if we can beat this thing into the ground. (More info here. A list of more info here.) Making this enforceable would require strong DRM and the... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Bush body language
As Dan Walter points out at Trippi's site, enlarge the photo of the Clintons to get a sense of how the Bushes feel about them. I'm sure the feeling is mutual. [Tags: george_bush clinton politics joe_trippi dan_walter]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Wanted: Open Source Gartner
Jeneane wonders whether there's a more reasonably priced source for the sort of info industry analysts offer: The major analyst firms either need to offer a price/platform for indies and new media folks, OR new media folks need to start indie analyst groups of their own, offering their findings at a price that's at least sort of affordable, which is not $3K for a report. Or even better, a wikipedia version of research and analysis compilations. It's an interesting question because the analyst companies sell their authority as much as their data — believe them when they say From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Robert Frost: The Silken Tent
Last night, at the end of her lecture, Miriam Udel Lambert read a sonnet by Robert Frost that I found moving and beautiful: The Silken Tentby Robert Frost She is as in a field a silken tentAt midday when a sunny summer breezeHas dried the dew and all its ropes relentSo that in guys it gently sways at easeAnd its supporting central cedar pole,That is its pinnacle to heavenwardAnd signifies the sureness of the soul,Seems to owe naught to any single cord,But strictly held by none, is loosely boundBy countless silken ties of love and thoughtTo everyone on earth the... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Best designs of the year
Once again, Joho has been ignored by those who choose the Netdiver Best of the Year design awards. I am forced to conclude that Netdiver has a bias against orange. [Tags: netdiver awards design orange]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Hacking hacking
Remember when hackers were people who were able to circumvent the safeguards of a system to get it to do what they wanted and were sometimes played by the adolescent Angelina Jolie? The Boston Globe today on the front page promises to show us how to "hack" our iPods and other devices. The article, by Hiawatha Bray, continues the trend of weakening the term "hack" so that it means tips 'n' tricks. For example, the article suggests two ways to "hack" Windows XP: Use the text-to-speech capability built into the system and manage the programs that automatically start up by... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Syrian bloggers on The Cartoons
Global Voices runs a round-up of Syrian bloggers upset about the violent reaction to the cartoons. As usual, there's an amazing spread of voices and places at GV this morning, including a report from Bahrain that discusses, among other things, bloggers' reaction to the much-televised ritual in which bloodied men march through the streets. And there's a post called "African women's voices this week," voices I'm guessing a lot of us don't hear enough of. [Tags: global_voices globalvoices syria cartoons africa bahrain]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Get Human
WickedIndie.com, my daughter's production company — three Emerson College students — created a humorous video for Paul English's GetHuman project. (GetHuman lists tips 'n' tricks — um, I mean hacks — for reaching human beings at various companies.) Since I am one of the two Actors in it, this is a rare chance to see me exhibiting my finely honed thespian abilities, assuming one discounts the constant faking of my way through life. [Tags: leah_weinberger film gethuman paul_english]... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Fleishman on Fon: Call for questions
Glenn Fleishman is going to be interviewing Martin Varsavsky, the founder of Fon, tomorrow morning and is soliciting questions. This should be a helpful, vigorous and clarifying interview.(Disclosure: I'm on Fon's board of advisors.) [Tags: glenn_fleishman martin_varsavsky fon wifi] I think the interviewed just happened.... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Standard phone trees
Paul English at GetHuman in his blog muses that we should come up with a standard phone tree, such as: 0 for operator, 1 for customer service, 2 for sales, 3 for billing questions, etc. Then I would never have to listen to the stupid "Your call is important to us" nonsense. The * key might always mean go back and the # key might always mean confirm. Or something like that. He proposes a company that conforms to this to-be-invented phone tree could play a little musical sequence at the beginning of the call to let us know that... From
Joho the Blog on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Offline Shopping Cart Piracy
James DeLong really knows how to put things in perspective, so long as you set aside the tortured economic reasoning (e.g., how are the shopping carts suddenly non-rivalrous?). Shopping cart theft is clearly a serious problem. In various lectures,
JZ has pointed out that shopping cart theft costs retailers 800 million dollars per year - I can't find an article supports that figure right now, but Wikipedia
A Copyfighter's Musings on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Thinking Through Copyright Hypos That are a Little too Clever
This weekend, I
gave a silly, sarcastic response to James DeLong's
analogy between the case for DRM and shopping cart anti-theft devices, and, more generally, copyright and property rights. But this sort of comparison is actually worthy of a more substantive analysis, to see precisely where it goes wrong.Luckily, I don't have to write one up myself. Lawrence Solum
A Copyfighter's Musings on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
How Far Does the Intuition Pump Go
Another way to criticize an intuition pump, like DeLong's discussed
below, is to argue that it proves too much. The point of the comparison to shopping carts is to make us think that whatever intuitions apply to one case should apply to the other. So, if our intuitions say that stealing a shopping cart is wrong, using a copyrighted work without permission is also wrong - in both cases, we're taking something away from the rightful owner.But what about libraries? Libraries provide free acc From
A Copyfighter's Musings on February 14, 2006 at 2:48 a.m..
Catching Up
Just a few random thoughts and links to get down: So the whole MySpace et. al. thing is just mushrooming and it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Here's
the latest from the Christian Science Monitor: This winter, teenagers at a Chicago high school used their Xanga websites to post obscene and threatening comments about a teacher, in one case suggesting her neck be "slit like a ... chicken." Oy. I've also read an increasing number of stories connecting mu From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Paper Schmaper
I thought the responses to my "
Caring About the Content" post were incredibly thought provoking as were a couple of e-mails that I got on the subject. I love the stories of students who are invested in their blog work in different ways from traditional mediums. And today,
Clarence Fisher makes the case even more clearly: Along these same lines was the fact that many kids listed the fact that no one else gets a chance to read a w From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Growth of the Blogosphere
Nothing in the
latest Technorati statistics to suggest whether or not the content being created on blogs is becoming more useful or interesting or valuable, but there's no doubt that the blog engine continues to run at a pretty high RPM. Some of the findings: Technorati now tracks over 27.2 Million blogs The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5 and a half months It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day 13.7 million bloggers ar From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Quote of the Day
Maybe instead of working on our weaknesses, we should be enhancing and exploiting our strengths? What if the price for working on weakness (and who even decides what is and isn't a "weakness"?) is less chance to be f'n amazing? --
Kathy Sierra And maybe instead of standardizing mediocrity by making sure all of our kids can pass the same test, as educators we ought to think about ways to enhance their unique strengths so they can all achieve their ind From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Reinvention Chapter 2—"I Quit"
After 21 years in public education, after teaching English, supervising teachers, integrating technology, advising the yearbook, starting a student environmental group, coaching softball, basketball, soccer and gymnastics, running student counseling groups, chairing sabbatical committees, ed tech committees, professional development committees, serving on hiring committees, being public information officer, mentoring new teachers and goodness knows what else, today I notified my superintendent that as of May 15 I would be leaving the district for parts somewhat unknown. To put it simply, I From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Thanks
Just a short note of thanks to everyone for the amazing outpouring of good wishes. Between the comments, the e-mails, the Skype calls and even a couple of regular old phone calls, I haven't had much time to do anything of substance. (Hey wait a minute...that IS substance!) Right now, it feels like much is possible. I'll fend reality off as long as I can. Thanks. From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Wiki Work--Volunteers?
I'll be travelling a bit the next week, heading to Savannah, Georgia for a
Saturday blog building workshop and then on Sunday to Bolton, U.K., just outside of Manchester to work on a very cool wiki project with 50 area students.
Wikiville is the brainchild of
John Bidder, and the idea is that eventually the site will become a place where students from around the world will be able to add stories and essays about the places th From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Can't Control This
From today's New York Times comes
a story about China's attempt to control the explosion of blogs in the country: Although Mr. Anti — who is also an employee of the Beijing bureau of The New York Times — had his site closed, any Chinese Web surfer can choose from scores of other online commentators who are equally provocative, and more are coming online all the time. Microsoft alone carries an estimated 3.3 million b From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Passionate Work
I've been linking to
Kathy Sierra more and more, but maybe that's because of my recent life decisions. It's funny, but the one answer I find myself giving more than any other when people ask me why in the world I would give up my job is "I'm following my passion." And my passion is learning. Call me weird...I LOVE blogs and wikis and Skype and RSS and Delicious. I love these tools because I am continually learning when I use them. It's just my reality. So anyway, here's today's Kathy quo From
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Building Blogs
Just a short post between planes. Yesterday's
blog workshop in Savannah was too much fun for me. I had a group of 18 e-learning types from colleges around the country and they made the day a real conversation about the technologies rather than your typical old training session. We tried to answer the question "Does the Web change everything when it comes to education?" We learned and made blogs and wikis, created
Bloglines accounts and started aggregating, and took a look at
weblogged News on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Live by the mockup, die by the mockup
Luke Wroblewski has written an article on the role of mockups. To quote: Mockup… The term itself brings to mind the duality inherent in this omnipresent design artifact. It's both a direct representation of a product experience and a shallow... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Alphabetized links are random links
Jared Spool has written about the issues with alphabetic lists of links. To quote: The moral of the story: Unless you can be absolutely sure that users will know the exact terms in your list, alphabetical order is just random... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Can Flash be considered accessible content?
accessible.ie has published an article on the usability of Flash. To quote: In 2000, Macromedia became aware of its obligation to make their flash player more accessible to all users and developed an accessibility development kit for Flash 5. This... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Seven accessibility mistakes (Part 2)
Christian Heilmann has written the second part of an article on accessibility mistakes. To quote: This week we'll wrap up with four more scenarios to avoid and how. If budgets or client relationships constrain you, these ideas might at least... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Open Publish 2006: call for speakers
We are pleased to announce that the sixth annual Open Publish conference Call for Papers is now open. While the event will continue to discuss topics such as content management and single-source publishing, this year will deliberately focus less on... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Surveys to assess search experience
Lou Rosenfeld has posted a blog entry on using surveys to assess search. To quote: A colleague asks: I'm looking for a list of survey questions that can be used to help assess users' search experiences. I need guidance on... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Global Intranets: the myth of the single entry point
Jane McConnell has written a blog entry about problems with a single entry point on global intranets. To quote: When a global organisation decides to impose a single home page for all employees worldwide, and that home page will be... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Launch of Improving Intranet Search report
I'm excited to announce the launch of the Improving Intranet Search report, the latest of the best-practice guides released by Step Two Designs. Organisations are now recognising that search is a critical business tool, on their intranet as well as... From
Column Two on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Performancing Blog Editor for Firefox
There is a new Blog Editor called
Performancing available as Firefox Extension. Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browse and lets you post to your blog easiy. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog. This is what it looks like: I From
owrede_log on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Webmontag in Frankfurt
Only a couple of hours left fo everyone to decide wether or not he/she should go the the
Webmontag event in Frankfurt today. There are around 60 people that have announced to attend this meetup. There are also a number of presentators. So it seems to become a very informative and lively evening.Related: From
owrede_log on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Anthracite Web Mining Desktop
This tool is used to enable some kind of visual programming with apple script components Metafy's Anthracite Web Mining Desktop toolkit gives you the tools you need to build powerful data processing systems with an easy-to-use visual interface that makes complex manipulations quickly possible. Anthracite is built for people who need to transform internet sources and/or large data sets into integrated information quickly and easily without scripting.Related: From
owrede_log on February 14, 2006 at 2:47 a.m..
Social Software and the real world.
Charming article on the use and benefits of wikis in corporate environments, including some considerations on whether to argue for open source or proprietary solutions.What I did miss is the focus on implementation issues. Outside of very innovative environments it proves rather laborious to even overcome the
second level digital divide (PDF). Too many users have no idea what a webpage is. Think about them clicking on the edit-button. Believe me - after implementing some wikis and blogs in such environments - From
thomas n. burg | randgänge on February 14, 2006 at 2:46 a.m..
Caretaker
Lilia (Hi great you are here again) is back bloggin' along with her (sometimes) longish compositions ;-) What I found intriguing from reading her excerpt is the (not outspoken) connex to what happens if you leave users in online environments alone without guidance and leadership. Too many have hoped and still believe that a one-time implementation of an virtual (onlie) organization will save the world. The opposite is true. It is hard work to be successful no matter if onland or online. No matter if it's from day-to-day or for a longer period of time. Being serious and sustainable From
thomas n. burg | randgänge on February 14, 2006 at 2:46 a.m..
How to Almost Live on Blogging
It's easier than ever to earn money blogging. But it's not a recipe for quitting your day job, says the author of a new book on keyword advertising. Wired News interview by Joanna Glasner. From
Wired News on February 13, 2006 at 11:45 p.m..
New Microchips Shun Transistors
A nifty new chip, made using magnetic patterning, will pack high density and processing power into its devices. Computers using the technology would boot up almost instantly, eliminating waiting time. By John Hudson. From
Wired News on February 13, 2006 at 11:45 p.m..
My First Screen Kiss
On the streets of Japan, people are smooching their cell phones in public. Commentary by Momus. From
Wired News on February 13, 2006 at 11:45 p.m..
Riddle Me This, Cupid
A popular free online dating site lets suitors woo each other by writing long Cosmo-style quizzes that other singles try to pass. By Ryan Singel. From
Wired News on February 13, 2006 at 11:45 p.m..