I have a history of somewhat routinely tweaking or fully redesigning my theme, but it’s usually just a matter of moving some elements around, changing a colour here and there and calling it a day. With the release of WordPress 3.0, I took a slightly different approach this time. This release brings with it some [...]
August 22nd, 2010 :: design, technology :: 10 comments
I love opening files sent around work in our Windows-centric environment. In particular, when I think of the Microsoft promise to embrace standards and then see these kinds of dialogue boxes, I get shivers up and down my spine. Hey Microsoft, if you’re gonna port your crappy software over to other operating systems, the level of suck should be the same, not a little extra for good measure …
October 16th, 2009 :: technology :: 3 comments
This issue has been percolating just under my skin for a while now. I often hear it said where I work that we still haven’t figured out how to use social media and I’d guess that’s probably true of many places. I think, though, that most folks who are charged with figuring out how to [...]
September 6th, 2009 :: technology :: 3 comments
As I lurch through this summer trying to finalize the thesis proposal which will frame a large part of my life for the next year, collaborative tools for learning are never far from front of mind with me. A real interest of mine is the use of collaborative writing tools for learning in higher education. [...]
July 17th, 2009 :: technology :: 1 comment
The first move was finally made last night. It’s been long overdue and I’m happy to be on the path. I’ve taken the first step to getting Telus hands out of my pockets – and they’ve been pretty deeply in there for a long time. Complete disclosure forces me to say that I was a Telus manager for five years and my wife has now been an employee for 11. We met while working there, so not all my associations with the recursive T are bad …
June 26th, 2009 :: technology :: 2 comments
This came by way of a couple intermediaries, but it’s cool nonetheless. In the embed above, you can zoom in as deep as you want and pan and drag to see web domain trends and more. A great way of visualizing the state of the web …
April 8th, 2009 :: design, technology :: 0 comments
The web is chalk full of really good social software applications. Some help you connect with friends, share things you find on the web, create and share video, images or thoughts and many of the good ones are accessible from virtually any device, while letting you extend or build upon them through open APIs. The good services are good, usually because they do one thing really well …
March 1st, 2009 :: technology :: 3 comments
I already bookmarked and tweeted this, brought to my attention by one of my RRU cohort. However, as I thought about the educational implications for such a usable human-computer interface, the possibilities seem only limited by programming and concept …
February 13th, 2009 :: design, technology :: 0 comments
Saw this courtesy of my pointy-haired manager, somewhere in his twitter-stream, on Facebook, from ping.fm, out there. Absolutely hilarious, and not that long ago for old guys like me …
January 28th, 2009 :: technology :: 2 comments
I’ll admit that I’m really qualifying the title of this, specific to business critical applications, regardless of what sector that business is in. We now seem to be in pre-bubble-burst 2.0, big-time. How long before the social web balloon pops in favour of more realistic and sobering economics? The social part is clearly here to [...]
January 26th, 2009 :: technology :: 3 comments
This is something I’ve been pondering for a little while as I’ve finally settled on my own model for enjoyable and productive (if not slightly distractive) Twitter use. I’ve become quite accustomed to going through my Google Reader feeds, opening the articles I’m interested in within new Firefox tabs and then, at some point in the day, reading them quickly. If I find them particularly interesting, I bookmark them on delicious. The only real re-purposing I do with that feed is include the last ten on my blog homepage. I don’t refer back to them too often because those things I find of extreme importance – perhaps a reference for a paper I’m writing – will go into Zotero, the research Firefox plugin …
January 23rd, 2009 :: technology :: 2 comments
I’ll admit to being a big fence-sitter with Twitter, and micro-blogging in general. I used to see absolutely no value in it whatsoever. My knee-jerk assumption was that I simply didn’t want numerous, routine updates on the minutiae of peoples’ daily lives. However, I’ve also begun to see the bigger picture of real-time information, if it could be useful and important. From that perspective, I decided to give Twitter a whirl for a while, following a few dozen friends for a few months …
January 8th, 2009 :: technology :: 2 comments
With every issue for which the previous generation is ill-equipped to deal, the hand wringing begins anew. I recall only a few years ago, prior to the advent of the social media which now dominates the web, internet addiction was a serious issue in the late 90′s according to some. You’d think the sky was going to fall, and that addiction was to a web without a sticky, social component. Before that, TV was going to ruin young minds (OK, so maybe that has merit). Citing primarily internet addiction, The Toronto Star recently published a piece indicating students are putting Facebook before exams. Let me get this straight – college kids enjoying social distractions instead of school? I can’t believe it ….
December 16th, 2008 :: technology :: 1 comment
Telus. That’s what. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a former Telus manager and currently have my landline phone service, internet service and a family wireless plan with them. I’m not particularly happy with cellular costs in Canada, but Telus is generally the best of a bad lot of choices in Canada for telephony services. My telephony service is generally good, and my customer service poor, due in large part to limited carrier selection …
November 27th, 2008 :: technology :: 3 comments
I read with some interest this week, that the two dominant political parties are both taking a page out of Obama’s campaign book with their approach to online politicking. The governing BC Liberals open platform is going head-to-head with the BC NDP’s rapid responders to engage the clicking fingers (and hopefully, minds) of British Columbia’s voters, who may have severe election fatigue by the time May – and the next provincial vote – rolls around …
November 25th, 2008 :: reflection, technology :: 3 comments
Since I’m not the target audience, I’m not going to wade into whether I find the ad below offensive or not. The interesting thing here in my mind is twofold: the makers of Motrin clearly didn’t do enough of the right kind of testing for proof of concept they didn’t understand how to do a [...]
November 17th, 2008 :: technology :: 2 comments
This isn’t new and doesn’t pretend to answer anything, but it’s got a solid, haunting quality and certainly gives you something to think about. Does information overload scare students today? Are too many things competing for their attention? Will their education deliver what they expect? I know what I’m doing right now can be ovewhelming [...]
October 29th, 2008 :: education, technology :: 1 comment
I’d imagine most people find the benefit of Skype to be that of free long distance calls. As long as the person you’re calling is also on Skype you can save airtime or long distance charges. That’s great, but given I do very little long distance calling and use my cell mostly for family chatter, [...]
October 22nd, 2008 :: education, technology :: 5 comments
The new browser offering from Google was just launched today and its name is Chrome. Well, not so much a browser as a browser-emulated OS-type thingey. I won’t link to all the places it’s popping up on the web, since Google has. I haven’t used it much, but I will offer a few very small [...]
September 2nd, 2008 :: technology :: 3 comments
From the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford. Funny stuff.
August 28th, 2008 :: reflection, technology :: 0 comments
The answer to this question seems to be largely dependent on what you read, and it probably also depends on what you want to use open, social software for. Based on some of the mailing lists and discussion forums I read, and post-sec sites I visit, social media concepts (whether built on open source or [...]
August 26th, 2008 :: education, technology :: 7 comments
The past couple weeks have been a real education when it comes to using the web for academic research. I am at different places on each of what I’ve identified (so far) as three primary knowledge streams of the MA I’m undertaking, research being the one I’ve got a middling amount of comfort with. I [...]
August 12th, 2008 :: technology :: 2 comments
(Pretty f**king important as it turns out …) While you have to get past the swears, the slideshow below from ParisLemon came to my attention via the Technology Liberation Front. Very good stuff. | View | Upload your own
July 8th, 2008 :: technology :: 2 comments
OK, so maybe not stupid, but apparently lazy. At least according to The Atlantic‘s Nicholas Carr it does. Based on the length of the piece, his writing chops are certainly still intact …
June 18th, 2008 :: technology :: 0 comments
Came across the following via Stephen Downes, where he refers to to a response from Clive Shepherd…
June 11th, 2008 :: education, technology :: 2 comments
Found this at I Power, via UX Magazine. A scary thought to be sure, but certainly a plausable direction for big media and telecom to want to go. While there are some who ask what the future of the web looks like – and issues around accessible sites, semantic content, open source and the like [...]
June 2nd, 2008 :: technology :: 0 comments
This really does seem to be about all most web news talks about these days … Courtesy Technology Liberation Front.
May 23rd, 2008 :: technology :: 0 comments
Would you like to be extricating yourself from a relationship with this woman? This came to my attention courtesy of Boing Boing.
April 16th, 2008 :: reflection, technology :: 4 comments
People, use your heads when deciding what to ‘twitter’ about. At a basic level, I can certainly see the value of staying connected with your friends. However, when you start plugging twitter into social networks like Facebook, it’s a recipe for annoyance, plain and simple. Why do I care what you think as you watch [...]
March 27th, 2008 :: technology :: 0 comments
I don’t know what to make of Facebook. Honestly. I’ve never used MySpace and doubt I ever will. I started using LinkedIn, but found it of limited appeal because I couldn’t do anything much with it. Then I joined Facebook and used it like a madman for two or three weeks. Now I find I’m [...]
September 30th, 2007 :: technology :: 1 comment
Social networks are cool. But to get any benefit out of them, it is pretty important to spend significant and frequent chunks of time using them. I’ll admit it, I got bored with Facebook quickly and now I’m lucky if I check it twice a week. For me, in practical terms, a tool like Facebook [...]
September 29th, 2007 :: technology :: 2 comments
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