Mac Podcasting Software

Podcast Maker Is Another Mac Tool
While I hope folks will at least give hacking RSS feeds a try, Podcast Maker is another tool for Mac podcast creation. If RSS is giving you fits, Podcast Maker is close to a drag and drop solution. Of course it has a free 30 day evaluation period!

Cindy Chavez for Mayor

Cindy Chavez For Mayor of San Jose
In the coming election I urge my friends and members of the University Community to vote for Cindy Chavez for Mayor of San Jose. In my opinion she has repeatedly proved to be a friend of working people and members of the campus community. She supported us in getting the traffic light at the corner of 9th and San Fernando and I think she will be a great mayor for our city.

Staff union reaches tentative agreement with CSU

Tentative Agreement Reached with CSU - 15% package over three years

E-mail from Union HQ (Posted on union Web Site here) -- The CSUEU bargaining team is pleased to announce that we reached a Tentative Agreement with the CSU late on Friday, October 27. We plan to make the entire tentative agreement after November 8, and ratification packets will be sent to members shortly thereafter.

The short story is that the economic package totals 15% over three years (divided between GSI, SSI, and Market Salary increases) with no take-aways in benefits. The SSI cap will be moved upwards by 5% each year over the next three years, making step increases available to nearly two thousand employees who have been frozen at the top of their SSI maximum range. There will be some parking fee increases on some campuses where employees have not been paying the same fees as students. However, no increases will go into effect on any campus until after parking fees are implemented for faculty. The increase is limited to $3, $6, and $9 respectively over the next three years on affected campuses. On campuses where students pay more than staff, the CSU had been demanding that staff pay increases of $10 per month the first year, $15 per month the second year, and then increases to whatever fees students are paying in the third year. CSUEU was able to hold the CSU to a much more gradual increase. We will also be addressing a few campuses in the first year of the contract after this one.

More information about the Tentative Agreement will be coming soon.

Update from Vera
In the previous version of this post I just posted what I received in an e-mail from headquarters. It seems that may have not been 100 percent accurate. Vera, who is on the negotiating team, sent this out, "We have a "Conceptual Agreement" with the CSU. We have not TA'd the contract as of yet. The bargaining team will meet again up in Sacramento on November 8th to clear up some items still outstanding."

Thanks Vera!

More Clark Hall Safety Concerns

Why do we have to file grievances to get safe working, teaching and learning conditions? Why is safety not just something that happens by default at SJSU? After many complaints I just filed a grievace cosidering what I feel are unsafe conditions in the Academic Success Center in Clark Hall. I am frustrated issues have not been properly addressed by San Jose State University, including the following:

• Lack of visible and appropriate sineage regarding exit routes for emergency egress from the stage area of Clark Hall.
• Lack of training by a knowledgeable party for appropriate emergency evacuation procedures from the Clark Hall, ASC.
• Lack of appropriate sineage for the glass doors in Clark Hall.
• Difficult procedures for unlocking the glass doors in Clark Hall.

I do not understand how this facility was able to be opened without these issues being addressed in the first place.

SJSU J&MC Ad Students GM Competition Finalists

SJSU Advertising Students Named Finalists In Chevy Competition
FROM PRESS RELEASE - Today, three SJSU advertising students will learn if their idea will  become the basis for a $2 million Super Bowl commercial. The School of  Journalism and Mass Communications team is a finalist in the Chevy Super  Bowl College Ad Challenge. The competition asked students nationwide to  submit concepts for a 30-second Chevrolet commercial by October 13. SJSU  team members Anna Pogosova, LouLou Quintela and Kelly Sherman learned last  Tuesday they were among five teams of finalists. All five teams spent the  weekend in Detroit refining their concept with assistance from ad agency  executives. The teams are now presenting their concepts to Chevrolet  executives, who will select a winner by day's end. CBS, the Super Bowl's  broadcaster, taped the entire process including the moment SJSU's team was  named a finalist, an announcement made on campus during class. The network  plans to produce a reality program based on the competition. The SJSU team  advisor, Assistant Professor Lilly Buchwitz, also went to Detroit. Other  finalists hail from Elon University, Savannah College of Art and Design,  Washington University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. For  more, see: http://www.edventurepartners.com/

There and back again

I am home from LA
It was a short trip, less than 36 hours total. Some people make trips like this all the time and for them it is routine. For me it was a bit disorienting. I do not like flying in airliners. It is not the flying that bothers me, it is the security. When you fly you agree to submit to it. I do, but I resent it. I feel as though I am a prisoner in some kind of police state. That is the bargain we make in order to fly. Given my druthers, I rather drive if I can. But, this trip I couldn't. It is too bad we could not have had this meeting in Second Life! Considering how much it costs to fly so many folks to attend meetings like this, the economics of virtual meetings in virtual worlds just is inescapable.

From a hotel near LA

I am at a meeting in Manhattan Beach, near LA. It is warm here, very warm for almost November. The Santa Ana winds have been blowing off the desert bringing both northern and southern California amazing clear and warm weather. That same amazing warm weather is giving added life to the fire season.

I started a new novel today. It is Snow Crash, by Neal Stephensen. This book was the inspiration to a very popular virtual world called Second Life. Snow Crash is in the genre "cyberpunk." Snow Crash happens in a future world where American society is crumbling. The way some lucky folks in Snow Crash escape the spreading societal decay is through a virtual world called "the Metaverse." It is the core idea of this Metaverse that is at the heart and the inspiration of Second Life.

So, I am going to the source code, the Zen of Second Life, by exploring the book that inspired it. That is what I am doing in the middle of autumn in a hotel near LA, as the Santa Ana winds blow outside.

Podcast: Uhrmacher, Kemp, Text 100, Second Life

Podcast: 48:05 duration, 44 MB MP3 - Posted October 25, 2006
Audio, recorded October 24, 2006.
To listen to audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

Kemp-Uhrmacher Skype conversation in and about Second Life
This is the presentation SJSU Educator Jeremy Kemp did last night with Aaron Uhrmacher, Senior Account Executive at Text 100. Kemp was in the class, Uhrmacher was in another part of the country. Despite being thousands of miles apart, they both presented to the class in real time side by side on the screen from within the virtual world called Second Life. The tool Uhrmacher used to talk to the class was Skype. It was a wonderful immersive experience.

Listening Notes
I will be the first to admit, the audio here is lacking in parts. It is much better than the first podcast I did of a Skype conversation. Sometimes I learn as much by what goes wrong as by what goes right. Next time I will have a wireless mic on the speaker. Please, the audio is worth the fuss I think! The presentation was great. Kemp and Uhrmacher were superb. I used Ecamm's Skype Call Recorder to capture the conversation, Quicktime Pro to convert it to WAV, Levelator to bring up the low points and to moderate the peaks and Audacity to do final prep and, with the LAME encoder, to convert it to MP3.

Next Podcast: Student Reaction
In the next podcast we will listen to a conversation by the students about the Second Life Presentation.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, Skype, Web 2.0, Aaron Uhrmacher, jmc163, Text100, Text 100, Second Life, SecondLife, Jeremy Kemp , j-school

Today I went to San Francisco

Today I went to San Francisco State University
It was a rare clear and warm day in San Francisco. I took photos of University employees who are union members for a project we are working on. On the way home I went south through Daly City on Skyline and stopped where I found a spectacular view of the ocean.

Kemp presented on Second Life

An inspiring presentation by Kemp
If the greatest asset we have at San Jose State University is our people, then Jeremy Kemp is one of SJSU's greatest technology assets. The presentation he did last night with Aaron Uhrmacher, senior account executive at Text 100, was mind blowing. Kemp was in class. Uhrmacher was in another part of the country. They both presented to the class from within the virtual world called Second Life, where they were standing side by side on the screen. It was an immersive experience and I learned a lot from Kemp both about Second Life and about teaching. I captured the audio from the Kemp-Uhrmacher Skype conversation and that will be released as a podcast very soon.

Podcast: Greene on Video

Podcast: 1:09:16 duration, 63.4 MB MP3 - Posted October 23, 2006
Audio, recorded October 17, 2006.
To listen to high quality audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

Steve Greene Talks About Video
Journalism 163 discussion
This is last week's discussion by Journalism Professor Steve Greene about video production. This is the second podcast I produced entirely in Windows on my new MacPro and is the first time I used Levelator, a new tool by Gigavox for adjusting audio levels on Podcasts.

Tuesday's class is not to be missed!

Machinima: Text 100 in Second Life



Tuesday's class is not to be missed!

This is a big one folks! Prepare to have your mind bent, prepare for a journey into a new Metaverse! Jeremy Kemp is going to be presenting on Second Life and it is planned that he will be joined by Aaron Uhrmacher. Aaron Uhrmacher is senior account executive at Text 100 the first PR agency to establish a presence in Second Life.

Here is to better days!

A better day than yesterday!
What a weird unplanned weekend. It started Saturday with Madison's birthday. I went for a bike ride later Saturday. Sue and I went to dinner that night. I went for another ride on Sunday and hooked up with some friends in our bike club. When I came home from the ride Sue was working in the yard. I showered, then she showered. My shower was fine, hers ended very badly. She is doing much better this evening. She is still sore, but better. The glass is cleaned up. The bathroom is back together (no more shower doors!) Life goes on. Life is like that, I guess.

After the crash

Susie update
Sue is doing well considering the number of lacerations she had from the broken glass. She is bandaged up. The broken glass is picked up and I am working on fixing the bathroom. I guess that bathroom remodel is going to go higher on our to do list.

Suddenly standing in shattered glass

A glass shower door fell on Sue as she was exiting the shower this afternoon. Suddenly she was standing in a tub of broken glass. I heard it fall and her calling for help. I came in and threw down towels so she could escape. She was cut on her hands and feet and needed to go to the hospital for stitches. She is in bandages. It's a real mess.

Podcast: Students talk about their podcasts

Podcast: 24:32 duration, 22.47 MB MP3 - Posted October 20, 2006
Audio, recorded October 17, 2006.
To listen to high quality audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

Great Ideas for Podcasts!
Journalism 163 Mid-term discussion
Students in Journalism 163 discuss the mid-term assignment, which is to do a podcast. In this in-class conversation they are talking about the ideas they have for their podcasts. The students discuss the format of their podcasts, the subjects of their podcasts and who their audiences are.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school, jmc163

Lunch at Mac's Cafe

Camera Phone Post: Lunch at Mac's Cafe
We had a great lunch. It was a lot of fun. I always enjoy having an opportunity to eat here.

I am in training this week

I am in training at Apple
My training continues through the end of the week. This training is on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It is part of the Apple certification track. I applied for, and was funded for, this training through a lottery grant. In my opinion we should be trained on all the software we support. We should not have to apply for training and hope we get funded for it through a lottery grant. As it is now, we staff members still have to provide technical support to faculty and students whether we are funded and are trained or not. I think the cost of not training our support staff is higher than the cost of training them. It is my opinion that trained employees are more productive and more likely to do the job right than employees who are not trained. So, training is good. Some folks say we can't afford training. I say we can't afford the mistakes being untrained leads to.

University Staff Pay vs. Inflation

I am at Apple

Camera Phone Post: I am at Apple today
This is the think different script. It is on the entry to the training center.

Podcast: JACC sesssion on podcasting

Podcast: 42.54 duration, 39.2 MB MP3 - Posted October 16, 2006
Audio, recorded October 14, 2006.
To listen to high quality audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

My Podcast Session at JACC
This is the session I did at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges Northern California Conference at SJSU on October 14. The topic is Journalism is a Conversation, Podcasting and Journalism. In the audience are students from junior colleges and from SJSU.

Update: Tue Oct 17 06:53:53 PDT 2006

• Here is the PowerPoint that was shown along with the presentation. Note: the videos included in the original version have been removed from this PowerPoint download to simplify download.
• Correction (1) - In the audio you will hear me use the term "horse and buggy" what I meant to say and what was displayed in the PowerPoint was "horseless carriage."
• Correction (2) The person's named in the credits were individuals whose input to me through conversations helped me put together this presentation. They were not involved directly with production of this podcast or the associated PowerPoint.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school, Web 2.0

RSS for lifelong learning

Today I am going to be presenting in EDIT188
The presentation is on lifelong learning and how RSS and podcasting is a tool for enhancing lifelong learning. The power point is here.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University

Blogging from JACC; Lance Williams Keynote

Today is JACC
I am at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges Norcal Convention at SJSU. Right now I am in the Music Building listening to San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lance Williams deliver the keynote. He is talking about the Balco Drug Use coverup story and why we need a Federal Shield law for reporters. The book, Game of Shadows, co-written by Williams and  Mark Fainanu-Wada has attracted worldwide attention, and an 18-month prison sentence for the writers for refusing to name confidential sources. His keynote concentrated more on the story than it did on the Shield Law

Podcast Academy

Podcasting at Boston University
This link is to a great set of recordings about podcasting in higher education. I dream that we would do a lot more innovative stuff like this at our university.

Podcast: Conversation with Steve Greene

Podcast: 27:04 duration, 24.7 MB MP3 - Posted October 09, 2006
Raw audio, recorded October 06, 2006.
To listen to high quality audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

After a casual lunch Steve Sloan and Professor Steve Greene discuss "new journalism"
Included in this discussion is the ethics of anonymous blogging as it relates to journalism, objectivity verses transparency and how new journalism may in fact be very much like very old journalism from 100 years ago.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, j-school, Web 2.0, jmc163

Heck of a place to park

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, sjsu, San Jose State University

Camera Phones for a Safer Campus

Camera Phone Post: Great tool for safer conditions
Unsafe work or study conditions can be documented very easily with camera phones. The problem with just verbally reporting problems is that often by the time the person investigating the issue gets to the scene, the problem has gone away. Some problems are very dependent on specific conditions. Camera phones provide a time stamped record of an unsafe condition, such as the trip hazard shown here.

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, sjsu, San Jose State University

Absolute Geek Heaven

This is my first post from the Mac Pro
A couple of days ago my new computer came in. This is the fastest computer I have ever used. It has the equivalent of four Xeon processors. This puppy totally rocks. I am in absolute geek heaven.

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, macpro, Xeon

Storm Light

Podcast: Conversation with David Weinberger

Podcast: 33:28 duration, 61.82 MB MP3 - Posted October 04, 2006 Raw audio, recorded October 03, 2006.
To listen to high quality audio, click here –> MP3 File Here

One of the two books for our Journalism 163 class is The Cluetrain Manifesto. David Weinberger is one of the co-authors of Cluetrain along with Chris Locke, Doc Searls, and Rick Levine. In this podcast Weinberger is speaking to our class via Skype. According to Wikipedia, Weinberger is a technologist and commentator, his work focuses on how the Internet is changing human relationships, communication, and society.

As per Wikipedia he is a philosopher by training, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Weinberger taught college from 1980-1986, was a gag writer for the comic strip "Inside Woody Allen" from 1976 to 1983. He became a marketing consultant and executive at several high tech companies, and currently serves as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. He is also an avid blogger. He was an advisor to Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

He is currently working on a book dealing with evaluating the authoritativeness (in his term, the "authority") of knowledge sources; among other things, Wikipedia. He speaks a bit about this in this podcast.

I am sorry for the poor audio in this podcast. I did not want to try any untested technology (for me) in class, so this was recorded right off the speakers. All opinions given, as always, are those of the speakers.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca, Skype, Web 2.0, David Weinberger, jmc163, Cluetrain

Changes coming to campus e-mail

This message is to announce the Campus E-mail Advisory Committee appointed by the Office of the President to achieve the goal of a centralized campus e-mail solution that meets the following minimal criteria:
1. Reduce e-mail domain names
2. Provide a complete and accurate university e-mail directory
3. Provide electronic calendar functions
4. Assure sufficient mailbox size
5. Increase reliability and dependability of the e-mail system
6. Provide Instant Message functions (lesser priority)

This committee is a diverse group representing faculty, staff and students. It is co-chaired by Mary Jo Gorney-Moreno, AVP, Academic Technology and Don Baker, IAVP, University Computing and Telecommunications.

The committee’s first action to improve electronic communications will be to issue standardized addresses for the campus that route to your existing mailboxes. Standardized addresses will allow the campus and the public to interact with the university as if it were one entity while minimizing any changes to your existing systems. The standardized address will be treated as your official address and will be published in the ePhoneBook. Timing of the rollout will be sensitive to the needs of the academic and administrative campus members. More details from the implementation team will follow as the rollout approaches.

Current data in the HSJPRD production database (accessed via MySJSU) will be used to determine the affected members of the campus community. Names and current
e-mail addresses will be determined by your preferred name in the database. Please ensure that the database contains your preferred name and current e-mail address.

NOTE: Visit http://my.sjsu.edu to access your personal information by November 10, 2006. Once logged in, navigate to Self Service-Campus Personal Information to view and/or update your information. Contact the CMS Help Desk, cmshelp@sjsu.edu, for more information or assistance in updating your information.

Campus Movie Fest Wrapping Up

Camera Phone Post: Student Film Makers Race Deadline
Today was the deadline for Campus Movie Fest. This was very cool with two teams from our Journalism 163 class and one involving students from the Help Desk making films. I think this was a wonderful project for our university to get involved in and it has been a lot of fun to watch!

Log on to Monday

Camera Phone Post: Time to log on to a new week
I saw this on a billboard while riding my bike to work. It seemed appropriate for a Monday morning. Even more so, the user name was "Steve".