links for 2008-06-01

May 31, 2008 — dougpete
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RSS in Plain English | Common Craft – Explanations In Plain English

May 31, 2008 — dougpete

Thanks for the private email asking about RSS. Here’s a Common Craft explanation.

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RSS as a Killer App

May 31, 2008 — dougpete

I’ve been following this for quite some time now, generating my own RSS feeds first through Notepad and then inside Dreamweaver just to avoid missing tags. I finally got serious and bought a copy of FeedForAll to ease the process and to force my feeds to adhere strictly to standards.

Is RSS the next Killer App? Over a million resources seem to think so.

Any credible website, news agency, podcast host, blog host, … provide this service. From a news aggregation perspective, you’re lost without it. Imagine how difficult it is to find resources without the power of RSS. Twitter, Del.icio.us, GEC Computers in the Classroom all let me take control and broadcast much of what I’m doing on a regular basis for those who care to know.

I’m a big fan of Flock and so have those and others open in the “My World” window. I get to see them and more everytime I load the browser.

I’ve used PicLens as an add-on/extension to both Firefox and Flock for some time. Not all sites support PicLens yet but certainly the big ones do. It’s great when you find a site that does because browsing through images is so much faster, efficient, and quite frankly more enjoyable. I’ve always been impressed when I get to a site that is enabled for PicLens. Browsing for media through Yahoo or Google or YouTube or Facebook has never been more enjoyable.

Currently, on display, we have the GECDSB Student Photography Exhibition. This exhibition takes over the entire Gibson Gallery in Amherstburg. There’s some incredible student artwork on display. I spent a morning with my wife and daughter mounting all of the images and they were judged by a panel the next day. Once the ribbons were put on display, my daughter went back and took two camera’s worth of images for me. I like to create an online gallery so that the students can see their work through their favourite browser and it just nicely supports their efforts.

This was the first time in a long time that I had a big collection of images on a single topic so I thought that I’d find out just what PicLens means when it says that a site is PicLens enabled. Will it require some masterful coding? So, I’m off to the PicLens website and I find that there indeed is a link for those who want to enable their website. Hey, this is great. Based on a technology called “Media RSS“, an extension of the RSS standard specifically designed for a website to broadcast information about the media on it.

On the page, there are really detailed instructions about how the feed is used and how PicLens interprets it including some same code.

                <item>
                    <title>Z.jpg</title>
                    <link>pl_images/Z.jpg</link>
                    <media:thumbnail url="pl_thumbs/Z.jpg"/>
                    <media:content url="pl_images/Z.jpg"/>
                </item>

It is very intuitive if you’ve ever worked in Dreamweaver or Notepad so I fire up Dreamweaver and grab another coffee and settle in for a copy and paste marathon.

Then, something fortuitous happened. I don’t know why; I can’t explain it; it just happened. I think I hit the spacebar or tapped my mouse wheel or something because the page scrolled. Guess what I would have missed…

You got it. PicLens has a Publisher utility. Who knew? It was off the screen!

Point and click at a couple of folders and voila. Literally, in minutes, the Publisher had created a local file and I’m experiencing the WOW of PicLens’ “3D immersive technology”. You’ve got to love this!

So, I throw the whole folder on the webserver and … nothing.

Back to square one. Works locally, doesn’t work remotely. Locally…remotely…locally…remotely ARGH!

Then I look at the RSS feed like I’m some sort of braniac in RSS coding. Was actually looking for some sort of absolute addressing or a non-enclosed tag or something. Darn it, it’s perfect.

Then, from the deep recesses of my mind, I harken back to when I first experimented with RSS. We don’t serve up anything with an .RSS extension. We do with an .XML extension though. 3 seconds to rename the file and, oh yeah. I’m deliriously happy again.

The page is live, both with a traditional and a PicLens 3D gallery here.

In a corporate, locked down desktop situation, you’ll not be able to install the extension but on your personal computer, go for it. Versions of PicLens are available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari on this page.

Please take a moment to enjoy the student photography. It really is impressive.

Then, take your image browsing to a next level using the built in searching ability.

Then, consider creating your own gallery the next time you have photos to show off. Your enlightened website visitors will appreciate it.

RSS really IS a Killer App!

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Posted in Computers, Education, Read/Write Web. 3 Comments »

Wireless

May 27, 2008 — dougpete

Why yes. Yes, I’ve gone wireless. Why do you ask?

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“I Don’t Get It”

May 26, 2008 — dougpete

I had yet another opportunity to hear that question when Twitter was introduced to a group last Friday.

The person had just created a Twitter account and nothing was happening.

I had to explain yet again the value of hard work. Like most things worth while, you have to work at it. In this case, you have the opportunity to follow people in one of two modes. Follow the entire timeline and get dizzy, or grow your own Professional Learning Network. How do you make it grow? Follow good people. You’ll read good things.

But, it’s got to be more than that. You need to give back. You need to direct the conversation; you need to lend assistance; heck, you just need to throw out a little tidbit. What you know may be old hat, but it may be the newest thing for someone else.

Just like getting the most from a good face to face Professional Development event involves rolling up your sleeves and getting involved, so does professional learning through Twitter. Seldom will you benefit from being a passive participant.

Find someone you respect and see who they’re following. Once you have hand picked your personal starting points, use a service like http://whoshouldifollow.com or http://toptweet.com/ or http://twemes.com/ or http://atanswerme.com/ or …

You can start simply by being the answer to someone’s question.

There’s a lot of intelligence out there and with a little work you can make it work for you.

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But for technology…

May 22, 2008 — dougpete

I over read a conversation this morning. Now there’s a Blog starter that’s only available to Twitter users!

The conversation was “Remember when Amazon was a bookstore?”

The comment rattled around in my head all day today.

Recently, I had cause to return to Stratford, Ontario. This is a place where I spend a great deal of my youth. On Downey Street is the YMCA and it was there that I received my Royal Life Saving Society’s Award of Merit and my RLSS and Red Cross Instructor’s certification. Later, I became an examiner for the RLSS. I spent a lot of time wet and had every plan to make that my life’s work. Then, I got hooked on Mathematics and Computer Science. No Speedo needed for these endeavours! It was technology that made the life change for me.

I think that it was undoubtedly the best thing for me and I enjoy every minute of it. I was flexible enough to go with the times and it worked for me.

There have been many such moments other than “Remember when Doug was a Lifeguard”.

Remember when IBM made personal computers?

Remember when an online community meant joining Compuserve? Heck, do you actually remember Compuserve?

Remember when local networking meant subscribing to a local BBS like PCBoard, Wildcat!, or CNET? Extra credit if you remember Essex Wildcat!, Bay Street Bulls, Card Guppies, Pyramid of Cheops, …

Remember when Altavista was the number one search engine?

Remember parallel printer ports on laptops?

Remember when computers weren’t so personal?

Remember when computer mouses had balls?

Remember how electronic report cards made everyone computer literate?

Remember when being online and connected meant “I have to create a webpage”?

There are lots of good things to remember and reminisce about. Technology has made a major impact on all of our lives. There have been lots of successful endeavours that have been made possible by technology. There have been lots of failures by those people and companies too rigid to recognize the change and go with the flow.

What do YOU remember?

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Posted in Computers, Just Rambling. 2 Comments »

Another Case for Internet Literacy

May 21, 2008 — dougpete

One of the favourite haunts among the online communities is, of course, Facebook. Everyone has a Facebook account, right?

I’ve got a Facebook account. It was a great way for my son to share his Australia / New Zealand pictures with all those who wished to follow his adventures.

I’m online daily in the evening playing games with friend online. if you’re looking for a bad Scrabulous, Scramble, Word Twist, or Text Twirl player to raise your self-esteem, be my friend and join me in a match.

It’s a great environment provided you keep your eyes open.

Like so many online communities though, you’ll find some of the busiest pages that you’ll ever find at a website. There are links everywhere. Therein lies some of the issues. Most web developers make links that are most used very apparent and the others less so. Facebook applications seem to take a different tack. More often than not, the prominent link which jumps out at you is the one that you are least likely to want to use.

For example, there are cute little applications where you can give virtual gifts to your friends. It seems to me that the default should be to pick your friend and then give it to them. You may actually get a virtual gift notice but before you get to the actual gift, you have to join the application members. The default, more often than not, is to send one of these gifts to all of your friends first rather than seeing what you got given to you and then you deciding to reciprocate.

This misdirection is disturbing.

It goes to reinforce the notion of a need for internet and online literacy. Users and potential users need to know up front just what is capable of happening. It drives home the need for us to be educating our students about how to navigate, how to read and interpret what’s on a computer screen, and above all, being good and wise electronic citizens.

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A World Without Twitter

May 20, 2008 — dougpete

It looks like I’m going to be early for work this morning.

One of my morning rituals is to sit down and read what happened on Twitter overnight. You see, I’ve got into the habit of leaving the computer on with Twhirl running. While I sleep, those I follow stream their updates. Since some of the good folks that I follow are from Australia, there’s never a shortage of learning to take place before the first coffee.

Unfortunately, Twitter went down for maintenance and has yet to return. So, i’ve got all this time on my hands.

Figure I’ll write a blog post instead.

It’s not as personally interesting, but such is life.

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An Amherstburg Tradition

May 11, 2008 — dougpete

What better way to spend Mothers’ Day? Every year, the carnival comes to town and sets up in the park.

What better way for a quality Mother/Child bonding experience than to give in to the whining and spending the afternoon there. I’m told by my wife that that’s not quite how it’s supposed to work. The father is to enjoy the bonding experience so that the mother can enjoy the peace and quiet. D’oh!

Speaking of D’oh!, ever wonder what the “Carnie Code” is? Is it a way to get free rides on the midway? Check it out at: http://www.sideshowworld.com/atsCarnyCode1.html

Or, back off the URL to read all about sideshows in general. http://www.sideshowworld.com/ See pictures of the two headed snake, check out Lobster Boy or just read about the Other Side of the Midway.

And, a tribute to Mothers.

Another Amherstburg tradition? It always rains and it appears that this year will be no different!

Happy Mothers’ Day!

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A happy ending

May 10, 2008 — dougpete

This story made a lot of the major news services yesterday.

Woman Helps Cops Find Men Who Stole Her Laptop

Newer Macintosh computers have this terrific feature. Instead of going out and buying a web cam, plugging it into the USB port, struggling with software installation and scoffing at “Plug and Play” ease, there’s a camera built right into the top of the computer.

It’s a great feature when you’re doing a video conferencing session. Turn the camera on and it just works.

But, a word of warning to potentional thieves. Once that little green light goes on, you’d better be smiling.

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