-
“Just as the goal of college is to teach capabilities, not specific skills; the goal of knowledge management is to facilitate knowledge development and transfer, not solely to apply knowledge to the product pipeline.”
Monthly Archives: September 2007
links for 2007-09-28
-
“Dipnote (how the State Department refers to a diplomatic note, the way govts formally communicate) takes readers behind the scenes at the Dep and to “provide you with a window into the world of the people responsible for our foreign policy,â€
-
“Denver Post’s article commenting and community site. It’s called Neighbors. We’re publishing city- and town-specific news / community information (Denver Neighbors and Boulder Neighbors are two of the locations)”
-
“CMU Researchers in collaboration with scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center, have built a low-cost robotic device that enables any digital camera to produce breathtaking gigapixel (billions of pixels) panoramas, called GigaPans. See gigapan.org.”
-
This is new this summer fromt he Denver Post — but I think it’s missing a lot of opportunities to build community and keep people connected. I’ll write more about that.
-
“Journalists hoping to find authentic, firsthand content being posted from inside Burma are likely to face a number of challenges including: finding which social networking and content sharing services being used by people inside the country…”
One Laptop Per Child: Why Media Folks Should Care
 |
| Laptop.org |
| Don’t know what to do with a computer that looks like this? Don’t worry — you’re not the target market. |
Lately I’ve been learning more about, and getting quite intrigued by, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. Yesterday I listened to an IT Conversations podcast talk by Michael Evans, VP of corporate development for Redhat, one of the leading producers of Linux and open-source technology. That really tied together for me why this project is so compelling.
Originally I’d thought this project was interesting but rather frivolous. I mean, when millions of kids are dying around the world every year from malnutrition, dirty water, preventable diseases, and toxic environments — let alone the lack of energy and communication infrastructure in many populous parts of the developing world — a laptop sounds a bit like like Disneyland.
But now I think I get it. Here’s what I find so compelling and significant about OLPC…
links for 2007-09-27
-
“natl Energy Research Database (NERD) is a free online research library for renewable & conventional energy. Compiles academic studies, technical reports and research articles from the government and non-profit groups into a single, searchable database.”
links for 2007-09-25
-
“This rejection of absolute truth and authority by protestantism has slowly brought about the wholesale rejection of truth and morality by modern man.” Hmmmm, sounds like what a lot of mainstream journalists say about online media.
-
Survivor debut’s low ratings “Surprised me, because I wasn’t aware that Survivor was debuting last week. For those who use the mass need the mass to promote their wares, and what happens when the mass breaks apart?”
-
“BlueLithium can reach 119 million users or 68 % of the U.S. Net population and drive them to editorial content and screens addressing specific disease conditions. This enables pharmas to locate and meet their targets for qualified trial candidates.”
-
“Danger in introversion: We don’t notice the world changing around us until it’s too late. Introversion means a fatal lack of communication in a communications business, and a refusal to make fresh connections or form new alliances.”
-
New research from Jupiter: “More online consumers are consistently more receptive to behaviorally targeted ads than to contextual advertising, outperforming contextual by as much as 22 percent in some categories.”
-
“A number of UK bloggers, including the Tory London Mayoral Candidate Boris Johnson, had their blogs taken down by their ISP Friday following threats of legal action by Uzbek billionaire and major Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov.”
-
“Google has launched its own version of Del.icio.us; a social bookmarking service called Google Shared Stuff that allows users to share their favourite links with friends. Add a browser button to bookmark any page, label it, then display it.”
-
“Funny if it’s true – from the E&P article, is sounds as if the SF Chronicle is installing touch-screen PCs in coffee shops that people will only be able to use to access the SFGate site. Trying to rebuild their old print distribution/gateway monopoly.”
-
“Sure, many people subscribe to print news, but as we’ve discussed before, they’re really only paying for delivery, not the content. Users do pay for delivery online, just not to the newspaper company. They pay their broadband provider.”
-
“In my open letter to Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times, I say he is too worried about decorum at the expense of free speech. Put the breaks on the tend to attack free speech via condemning its speakers when we don’t like what we hear.”
-
“The browser-based Google Talk gadget now allows you to create multi-user chat rooms. To open such a room, click on “Group Chat†button at the top of any normal conversation; you can then invite several people”
-
Oh my God, one of the best interviews I’ve heard in a long time. If you care about info access, structured information, and transparency in government do NOT mis this one!
links for 2007-09-22
-
“Keeping a journal was a joke for me, even though I knew that every “good” writer kept one. It wasn’t until I started blogging–with the real audience that’s reading–that I understood the power of blogging everything.”
-
“We’re all probably a little discouraged that our blog gets about 2 views a day…and one of those views is when we preview our blog after a new post. But here’s one solution to get more readers and I encourage everyone in our class to try this…”
-
Online Learning: MS Astronomy: “This seems to be as effective as traditional classes. I wish the class included a few lectures. Most of the learning is writing the essay and project. You can decide on your own way to tackle the course.”
links for 2007-09-21
Yikes! iPhone Bills Look Scary!
Earlier, when I mentioned that I’m finally going to get some kind of smart phone, David Brazeal suggested that I might want to get an iPhone. I’ve seen them — they’re sleek, they’re cool, they even came down in price. But for me, I need to make sure the billing isn’t a nightmare. In the past, I’ve found that’s been the biggest hassle of cell-phone ownership.
I took a second to see if anyone had posted about their iPhone bills online. Oh yeah, they have — and this makes me really nervous:
And then this….
Of course, since then AT&T simplified its iPhone billing…
But I still really want to see one of those bills for myself. I’m worried not just about the detail, but about “surprise” charges that might be hard to spot and time-consuming to contest.
I Need a Smart Phone, or Something….
 |
| My trusty Tracfone just ain’t cutting it… |
It’s getting embarrassing. Mobile content is increasingly part of what I cover in my media consulting work and blogging, yet I have the most bare-bones, behind-the-times cell phone imaginable. It’s an ultra-basic Nokia, and my carrier is the pre-paid service Tracfone. No web browser, and not much else. Currently I really only use it when traveling, although I’m starting to use it with Jott.
But I hate waste, and I’m starting to find little reason to pay for a landline plus cell phone (even a pre-padi one). I’m not really a phone person, and I barely use either one. But I need to have some kind of phone, because, well, that’s just life. So why not just pay for one that does all the main things I need?
Plus, I’m absolutely terrible about listening to voice mail. I generally do so only about once a week. Now that I’m managing all my tasks via e-mail, I find myself just wishing that my voice mail could automatically be routed to my e-mail as an audio attachment. There are services like CallWave and K7 which do that, and SimulScribe offers a message transcription service. Trouble is, these services don’t work with landline voice mail — only mobile providers.
I’ve resisted getting a regular cell phone not just because I generally hate talking on the phone, but because I’m very wary of mobile providers and their billing practices. Those bills are some of the ugliest, most cryptic documents I’ve seen, and somehow you keep getting charged for indecipherable and poorly documents services. My goal right now is to reduce stress, and just thinking about cell phone bills is a stressor.
But I know ultimately if I make a good choice, it’ll be good for me. I’m just starting my search, so if you have recommendations for phones, providers, and deals, please comment below. Here’s what I want:
MUST HAVE
- Easy-to-understand bills without a lot of unexpected charges
- Easy-to-understand, reasonably priced plan for calls, text messaging, and web/data access
- Intuitive user interface for all basic functions
- Good coverage throughout US, especially in Colorado
- A decent web browser, e-mail interface, and feed reader
- Must synch with Mac iCal (and generally be Mac-happy)
- A keyboard that won’t tie my fingers in knots
- Decent camera (for still and video/audio, at least short movies)
- Good battery life
- Screen that’s easily readable in sunlight
- Reasonably priced optional data plan for my laptop (tether the phone as a broadband modem)
- Customer service that doesn’t make me want to become an axe murderer.
Ideas? Tips? Please comment! Thanks.
Jott: Auto-Transcription as Entertainment
 |
| RBerteig, via Flickr (CC license) |
| Cattle eater? Huh? |
I’m trying out Jott, a free service that transforms short (30-seconds or less) phone messages into text, sent by e-mail or SMS to you or whoever you choose. This fits in with my overall strategy of managing all my tasks through e-mail. (Yes, GTDinbox is still rocking my world.)
I’m using it not only to send reminder notes to myself when I’m away from my computer, but also to send quick messages to my husband. As I was cooking lunch a short while ago, I grabbed my phone to send him a reminder to get a couple boxes of cat litter.
Here’s what he received:
“Hey dude, we are out of cattle eater and that we need some. Could you pick some up today and bring it over, two or three baskets of it. Thanks.”
Well, needless to say, the local Safeway probably doesn’t carry much “cattle eater,” and certainly not in baskets. But he did figure it out and we both had a good laugh. Such is life when you rely on automated transcription as a communication tool. I’ve had fun with this before, especially with Babelfish.
I’ve heard that some people use Jott as a microblogging tool. That is, you can jot to an e-mail address, and several popular blogging tools allow you to post by e-mail. I was thinking of trying that too, just to see how it work. So if you see any requests for “cattle eater” or other cryptic items here, you’ll know what’s up.
What are your favorite Jotts or other autotranslations gone awry? Please comment below.