OpenDNS
I'm wading deep into unfamiliar water here, so take my assessment with a grain of salt because I'm not sure I'm describing it totally accurately. But this strikes me as a Big Deal that needs to be disseminated as far and wide as possible, and quickly. Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
Sneakernet SVN
Over the past three months I've gotten myself used to checking all my projects into a pair of Subversion repositories, one for personal projects and another for all my client work. In both cases I'm the only person using them, so neither are your typical SVN use case scenarios, but I'm still finding my system enormously handy for a few reasons: Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
Anchor Buttons
I can't be the only one bored to tears of simple border and background colour styling for button formatting. Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
Zoom
Somehow over the last year or two we've landed in a situation where most browsers now default to full page zoom instead of traditional text-resizing. Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
Shutter
Here's an idea. Take a great product with one glaringly flawed feature, put together an application that exploits the awfulness of that feature in a few brilliantly simple ways, and then sell it for a few bucks. Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
WDN09
It's that time again, but things are a little different. Web Directions North returns for another year of conferencing and skiing in early February, but it's now taking place in Denver, Colorado. And I'm not involved. Well I am, kind of, but... Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
New in Chalkwork
The pixel factory sitting on my desktop has been busy this fall. I have not one but three new Chalkwork sets to announce today (discounting the weekend heads-up on Twitter, of course). Read more...
mezzoblue, Today, 12:20am
What Not To Build
Longer article posted in my Half an Hour blog. My sort of environmental scan is a bit different from what you'll get from consultants and venture capitalists. Don't ask me what companies are developing what products, how industry stocks are performing, or where all the 'smart money' is going. I don't know and I don't care. What I can tell you, though, is what technologies are working, what technologies are flopping, and what technologies are fads. So, here is my advice on what not to build. Actually, it's a bit more than that: it's a list of what not to build, a list of some things that people are working on now, some fads to avoid, and some indication of what's out there for the taking, if you can get your act together in a hurry. And what lies beyond that? The domain of real innovation and progress. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, January 5, 2009 [Tags: Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:39pm
A Quickly Created Chatroom...
Neat. No login, no muss, no fuss. Create a chatroom by clicking on a button, share the resulting URL with your friends. The chatroom disappears a few hours after you've finished using it. Doug Dickinson, Dougmuses, January 5, 2009 [Tags: Chatrooms] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:32pm
Should Higher Education Course Materials Be Free to All? Leo Pollak in the IPPR's Public Policy Research
Seb Schmoller links to Leo Pollak, who argues in favour of open education. "Without intellectual property, a significant amount of innovation still occurs and welfare may actually be higher than with intellectual property." Schmoller, though, also cites Michael Feldstein, who argues that "access to course materials is not the same as access to education." Maybe not, but is this enough to make us open education sceptics, as Feldstein suggests? I take up the case in the comments, and Feldstein replies. Seb Schmoller, Fortnightly Mailing, January 5, 2009 [Tags: Patents, Open Content, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:28pm
Cobalt - Edusim (Downloadable Software)
This - and not closed worlds like Second Life - is the way forward for 3D software: "Cobalt is a free and open source metaverse browser and construction toolkit for accessing, creating, and publishing hyperlinked multi-user virtual worlds. Powered by Croquet technology, Cobalt uses peer-based messaging to eliminate the need for virtual world servers and makes it very simple to create and securely share deeply collaborative virtual worlds that run on all major software operating systems." Paul Hamilton, Free Resources from the Net for (Special) Education, January 5, 2009 [Tags: Operating Systems, Second Life, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:22pm
12 Steps to Economic Recovery
The very first sentence in the very first step in this Forbes article is, "Admit our mistakes." The author then proceeds to recommend exactly the same sort of thinking that led to the downturn in the first place (a far more sobering - and sober - reflection can be found in the New York Times article by Michael Lewis and David Einhorn, as well as this column from Paul Krugman). After a paean to tax breaks, cuts to medicare and welfare, drill baby drill, and xenophobia, Rich Karlgaard addresses education: "we'll have to break the teachers unions." As though underpaying teachers will really solve any sort of economic (or educational) problem. Isn't this sort of vindictive, partisan, narrow-minded... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:18pm
So Many People, So Little Time
Valdis Krebs, on why he follows so few people on Twitter: "or the time invested, I want maximum return. I use the redundancy of connections, between the many social circles I am interested in, to my advantage. I follow a select group of people that give me the same access as following someone in every group. Follow the few to reach the many!" Valdis Krebs, T N T - The Network Thinker, January 5, 2009 [Tags: Twitter] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 1:06pm
Taiwan OCW (TOCW) Launches, Provides Interesting Credit Option
Part of what I did when I visited Taiwan in 2007 was to tour with a group of international representatives organized by Lucifer Chu to some local universities, introducing their administrations to the concept of open courseware. Luc Chu's work has been paying off, and in some interesting ways: "if high school graduates who apply to enter the school can pass the September exam on the subject they have been self-learning when their freshman semester begins, they will... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 12:51pm
The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills
The core of Jay Matthews's objection to "21st Centruty Skills" is actually found in a previous column: "it never explained how teachers are going to find the time to introduce all these skills to students who, at the moment, are still struggling with plain old reading, writing and math." But it never occurs to him that the reason students are struggling with reading, writing and math is that they don't have these "21st century skills." We should stop trying to cram facts into students' heads, and instead give them the means and motivations to learn through practice and reflection. But the crank from the Post isn't interested in that. Related: Will Richardson responds to Matthews. And Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 12:02pm
Crystal Ball Gazing at the Coming Year in Tech Law
Michael Geist offers one of the best forecasts I've seen as his month by month report for 2009 combines stone-sober forecasting with an imaginative flair. What to expect? Secret agreements, government reports, hearings, protests, and a November election. See also Phil Muncaster with some additional thoughts on the coming year, including e-discovery, social computing, and mobile ECM. Michael Geist, Weblog, January 5, 2009 [Tags: none] [Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 9:51am
2008 Access Statistics
Late December, 2007, I set up an access log function. And then forgot about it. It is now 55 million lines long and more than 500 megabytes. I have to delete it. But not before parsing it to find out what people were reading last year. Note that this list under-reports hits on posts, because most reads from OLDaily are directly to the article in question, and not via the website. Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 8:54am
Not a Test
It's a new year, so it's time for a slight change of direction. You may have noticed your feed reader of choice just barfed up a few dozen posts from these here parts. I'm hoping that little bit of necessary unpleasantness will be one time only. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20pm
Link: American English vs. British English for Web Content (on useit.com)
Pretty much confirms what I've long suspected; there are reasons to choose on spelling over the others. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: StateStats (on statestats.appspot.com)
Interesting demographic breakdown of search terms. US-only, at the moment. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Now Boarding
Before committing this past Friday evening to a flight down the west coast, I spent a bit of time preparing to try out something that I'd been curious about for a while. Could I get through US immigration and airport security both without a paper boarding pass? Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Photo: House Industries
House did a showing at Subliminal Projects gallery in Echo Park (LA). Had to go, but was it worth the drive?
What you're seeing here on Flickr is the bulk of it. It took hardly even 10 minutes to get through. All in all, you're not missing much if you can't make it. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Create A Style Toolkit, Save Time and Mental Energy (on feeds.feedburner.com)
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: The State of the Web 2008 (on webdirections.org)
John Allsopp and Web Directions are conducting a survey of common web design and testing practices. This will be good to know, I suggest you take it. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
From Twitter:
delving into XML, REST, PHP's curl, and Tylenol. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: 20 signs you don’t want that web design project (on zeldman.com)
A sampling of Zeldman's true life horror stories. I can relate to far too many. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Tactile Silicon Case for the iPhone 3G (on yankodesign.com)
The iPhone as a highly-usable phone for the blind? Incredible. Too bad it's only a concept for now. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: iPhone Vector Pack: A Bumper Pack of iPhone UI Elements for Photoshop (on feeds.feedburner.com)
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: HTTP errors (on flickr.com)
Illustrated common HTTP errors. Brilliant. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Rewriting Twitter for web best practices (on niallkennedy.com)
This is a great read even if you don't care about Twitter. The best practices are tips we'd all be well-served to keep in mind. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
From Twitter:
You mean I don't have to feel ashamed to use MyFonts anymore? http://new.myfonts.com/ is a lovely—albeit way overdue—redesign. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: get crafty, people! swissmiss alpenglow project (on feeds.feedburner.com)
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Next-Gen Dashboards Teach Leadfoots How to Hypermile (on feeds.wired.com)
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
From Twitter:
you mean strtotime("1 month ago") actually *works*? Instant favourite PHP function. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Gerd Arntz Web Archive (on gerdarntz.org)
Gerd Arntz was designing icons before there were computers. Fascinating archive of his work. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Authenticating the Google Reader API
Last week I finally got around to doing something I've long intended: I moved all my RSS feeds into Google Reader and finally said goodbye to Bloglines. More interesting things have been coming from Google's direction lately, and though there's a public beta of a new version of Bloglines it's been feeling stagnant. The final tipping points for me were the ASP errors the mobile version's byte-trimming service has been issuing up for the past few weeks. So I switched, and after a very brief learning curve, I'm glad I did. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: iPhone GUI PSD (on teehanlax.com)
A bit old, but still a great resource for iPhone design projects. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: From the Department of Badly Chosen Defaults (on joelonsoftware.com)
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Yahoo! Query Language (on developer.yahoo.com)
Wow, this seriously ups the API ante. Google, your move. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: How Very Fortunate - 2009 Calendar (on redblackbrown.com)
Stunningly well-designed letterpress desk calendar. A steal at $20. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
Link: Web Stencil Kit (on designcommission.com)
Paper prototyping just got a lot easier. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am
From Twitter:
Using the canvas element brings back memories of hand-coding 3D scenes in POVRay in the late 90's. Which I hated doing then, too. Read more...
mezzoblue, Jan 4, 12:20am