Tag Archives: Software

Keeping Up With The Web 2.J0nes’

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I’ve been busy … and I notice that when I am busy, my “I’ve gotta blog this!” threshold increases to the point that very few things become “blog-worthy” to me. However, after looking at a recent article in Wired titled “Web 2.0 Cracks Start To Show” and then coming across the comical “Web Two Point Oh!” create-your-own-Web-2.0-company generator, a couple of ideas started to form.

Although I’ve embraced and promoted many of the ideals of Web 2.0, I’ve generally been avoiding the term. I’m not sure why, but I have been. Perhaps, it’s about the rapid change that it causes. Think about it. In the past couple of years I’ve:
– moved from Moveable Type to WordPress, while toying with Drupal, Elgg, Manilla, and using services such as Edublogs, Blogger, Blogs.com …
– shared photos and information on Flickr, Shutterbook, Yahoo 360, Hi5, MySpace …
– tried and adopted social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us, Furl, Spurl, Jots, Memestream, Stumbleupon …
– documented/published my personal library holdings through services such as LibraryThing and Delicious Monster …
– organized my life and data through services such as RememberTheMilk and gDisk …
– participated and setup various Wikis for courses using MediaWiki and PBWiki, as well as participated with online sharing apps such as Writely, Writeboard …
– moved to and from many distros of Linux including Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Knoppix, LiveLamp …
– attempted several recording hacks for recording podcast conversations via Skype with the EdTech Posse …
– experimented with soooooo much more … I am sure I have many lost accounts, and failed attempts at social-ness sprawled all over the Web 2.0-osphere.

So yea … I’ve been busy. Has Web 2.0 made my life easier? Definitely not. Only, much more complicated. Does Web 2.0 have the potential to make my life better? Yes, I still think so.

The Wired article reports the potential cracks in Web 2.0, most of the things we already know and cringe about, such as wikispam, splogs, googlebombing, abuse of Google Adsense. The article goes on to blame most of these issues primarily on “human nature, and less with the qualities of bottom-up, online media.” But several other “cracks” come to mind, such as:

– Redundant/similar services: I never thought I’d say it, but choice CAN be a bad thing. I think this is sort of what Dean was getting at in one of his latest podcasts, and I have to agree. For instance, I could never commit myself to one social bookmark manager … I’ve tried them all … and for me, because of two many choices, in this case, I’ve also abandoned them all.
– Rapid /Redesign: In some cases, just when I get to know a particular program/service, the design changes, or new features emerge.
– Keeping Up With The Hacks: In other cases, when the necessary features in a program aren’t available soon enough, someone writes a hack that gives the additionally functionality. This is great, however, trying to keep up with this all can be tough. I’ve long given up trying to keep up with all the Google Maps hacks, for instance.
– Updates: Keeping a “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” lifestyle can be difficult when you have to update all of your server-installed components. For instance, I probably have a dozen WordPress blogs which I haven’t fully updated or applied the latest spam filters. Updating software, keeping everything up-to-date, and keeping everything secure is very time-consuming.
– Forking: Whether it’s software forking or content forking, the results can be confusing, and frustrating. For instance, we’ve recently adopted Etomite as our in-house web content manager. It’s been good, and we’re happy so far. However, our developers have just recently noticed a fork of Etomite called MODx CMS which may be a solution to some of Etomite’s shortfalls, but still remains light in other areas. So, do we make the migration? And if so, what impact does that make on our developers and users? And of course, who is to say that something entirely better does not come around the corner two minutes later. Change is good, but utterly exhausting to implement and manage.

As I click through the “Web Two Point Oh!” generator I mentioned above, I humour myself in thinking that a lot of these generated terms and companies actually make sense. For me, although Web 2.0 is radically different in it’s approach than it’s predecessor/co-exister, what seems to be familiar is the rapid influx of companies and products, often reminiscent of the dot com era. Will we see the same type of bust in interest, development and revenue? I doubt if, this time, it will be anything close to the previous disaster. However, if anything busts, it may simply break at the level of human interest, cognition and more so, attention.

It’s still interesting to read the article by Goldhaber titled “The Attention Economy and the Net“. In the article, the author posits “Attention, at least the kind we care about, is an intrinsically scarce resource”. He continues, “Information Economy” is inaccurate, and that the Internet economy’s greatest commodity is in fact, attention. With the rapid development that Web 2.0 pushes forth, the many new services/products/forks developed each day, and the the confusion that this may bring, I would have to agree.

Or maybe it’s because I am on “this” side of Web 2.0. I am not simply a user looking for “the good enough” or the “it works” solution. For some reason, I am bent on finding the best-of-breed solutions, the products or services that supercede all … the Ginsu of all tools. Yet, sometimes I long for those days when I simply used what worked … when PowerPoint was simply a tool, and using it was not a contradictory gesture to my position on proprietary software. And I guess that’s the difference. It’s all about perspective, and perhaps those that are the most confused, are simply those who need to be.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Officially Released

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OpenOffice.org 2.0 (formerly known as OpenOffice) has been officially released today.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the productivity suite that individuals, governments, and corporations around the world have been expecting for the last two years. Easy to use and fluidly interoperable with every major office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.0 realises the potential of open source.

With new features, advanced XML capabilities and native support for the OASIS Standard OpenDocument format, OpenOffice.org 2.0 gives users around the globe the tools to be engaged and productive members of their society.

Download OpenOffice.org here.

Edubuntu Released

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I’ve been waiting on this for a while now, and thanks to Peter Rock for giving me the heads up. The first release of Edubuntu, an educational version of Ubuntu Linux, is now available for download.

Edubuntu is a flavour of the [WWW] Ubuntu operating system, which is optimised for classroom use. It has been developed in collaboration with teachers and technologists around the world. The aim of Edubuntu is that an educator with limited technical knowledge and skill should be able to set up a computer lab, or establish an on-line learning environment, in an hour or less, and then administer that environment without having to become a fully-fledged Linux geek. This is our first step towards that goal.

Ubuntu is one of my favorite distributions of Linux, and I have great expectations for this educationalized version. If you are looking for an excuse to try Linux for the classroom, do yourself a favour and download/install Edubuntu. It may be one of the easiest steps into the Linux environment.

List Of Web Applications

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There’s been several web applications mentioned recently in the blogosphere. Rick Schwier notes that Writeboard is useful for creating collaborative content. Writely and Jotspot Live look like similar services. SynchroEdit looks promising as well as it’s an open source synchronous editing tool which acts similarly to the previously mentioned. So many to choose from.

There’s the useful Web Applications List which features many other web-based applications. Many of these may be familiar, and some are sure to be new to most readers.

I didn’t noticed Ning on the list, a new online service focused on building social applications. Alan Levine has a useful description of the Ning service.

So many tools, coming out so quickly, with so many commonalities. How about someone develop a tool that helps my brain actually keep this stuff in order?

Etomite Content Manager System – Screencast

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Our Faculty of Education, University of Regina, will soon release its new website (still under development). The site is being developed with the Etomite Content Management system, and the tremendous support of the Centre for Academic Technologies (especially Trevor Cunningham). Etomite is an open-source CMS with lots of great features.

To give you an idea of how Etomite functions and was implemented in this instance, I put together a short screencast. As for putting together a screencast, previously, I have used Camtasia ($) or Wink (freeware) to create screencasts, but since neither was available for my Mac, I stumbled across a program called Snapz Pro X.

This was the first time I used this screencast software, but it was very easy to use and the quality seemed to be decent. However, I soon noticed that the audio began to lag a bit over the duration of the screencast (less than 6 minutes). Additionally, I had a few problems with the video in .mov format, but these (mostly) seemed to disappear once I exported as MP4. I noticed that if I played the video straight-through, it worked well. However, if I scrubbed forward or backward at all, I got some strange decay in the video quality (in Quicktime). And for some reason, even when I recoded the original video, the screencast will not work in open source players like MPlayer or VLC. This is quite annoying.

If you would like, check out the produced screencast. If you have questions re: Etomite or Snapz Pro X, please feel free to comment/contact me.

So in summary, a HUGE thumbs up for Etomite, but as far as Snapz Pro X, there is great potential, but there seems to be a few issues. I’ll keep you posted.

LibraryThing & Delicious Monster

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I am big fan and loyal user of Delicious Library, a great app. that allows individuals to easily scan and organize personal libraries of their books, CD’s, DVD’s, games, etc. The application also scans the Amazon database and retrieves item information and thumbnails.

Now I have discovered LibraryThing. LibraryThing allows you to catalog your library (books only it seems) online. The service also uses the Amazon database, and therefore retrieves item records. And LibraryThing is socially oriented as you can share your library with the rest of the world.

Hmmmm … so what is needed to develop an even better, single library application?

Take the following features of Delicious Library:
– library items scanable by iSight or barcode scanner
– the ability to “sign out” items to other individuals
– items extend beyond printed books (e.g., DVD’s, CD’s, Games, eBooks, etc.)

And take the following features of LibraryThing:
– socially oriented
– publishable to the Internet
– use of tags

Wait a minute! I just noticed that LibraryThing did have an option to import from Delicious Library … it’s just seems to be down for the moment (technical problems). Wow, this is going to be a lot of fun.

eBay To Purchase Skype For 2.6 Billion (USD)

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BBC news reports that rumours have been confirmed in that eBay is set to purchase Internet telephony leader Skype. eBay plans to pay half in cash, half in stock, and create “an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine.”

So why would the world’s largest eCommerce site want to get into VoIP? Well, in part, “using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, computer users can talk to each other via a headset or microphone and speakers.” And of course, to purchase a market leader in a greatly emerging business sector may not be such a bad idea either.

Software Freedom Day: How Can You Help?

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This is a reminder about an important upcoming event on September 10/05, and a request to my readers, especially those who are teachers or professors.

Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software. Over 200 teams are registered so far, and they have plans to celebrate Free Software at schools, universities, parks, and many other public places.

Although SFD is on Saturday, it would be wonderful if more educators were to promote this event through classroom discussion (anytime). The SFD website lists many examples of what institutions and individuals are doing to promote free software in their own communities.

While, I’ve always had issues with one-day events (e.g., how effective is Buy Nothing Day?), I certainly think that this can at least help those who have little or no knowledge regarding free and open source software to take another look at the tools they use, and what alternatives are available.

Want To File For Aid Online? Windows Users Only!

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Peter Rock points to this interesting article featured on MSNBC regarding FEMA‘s website. Apparently, if you are not using MS Internet Explorer 6 or later, Katrina survivors will not be able to file for aid. Of course, IE 6 is not available for Mac or Linux.

My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother’s home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane’s eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possessions. I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.

To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance. I don’t want to be political about this, but this smacks of a serious leadership failure that the use of the Internet is reserved for only the Windows community.

Indiana Likes Open Source

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eSchoolNews Online reports a large desktop Linux implementation project in Indiana.

Taking a huge step toward its goal of a computer for every high school student, Indiana will introduce 1,600 new desktop computers running Linux-based operating systems and software in its classrooms this fall. The program could be the largest such undertaking involving open-source software ever carried out in U.S. schools.

And as many administers have already figured out, it’s not purely about cost:

Though the cost is a primary concern for Indiana state officials, Laura Taylor, director of Indiana’s Office of Learning Resources, said it is not the only issue to be considered. “This model is really about scalability, sustainability, and repeatability,” said Taylor. “It’s not just about cost, but cost needs to be considered if this is something that’s going to be replicated in multiple classrooms. But cost means little if it doesn’t work.”

Not much to say other than “viva la revolution!”