Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Summer in the city

Youths kicking soccer ball

Summer photo fun
One of my favorite things to do for a break at work is to grab one of my oldest cameras and wander downtown and shoot some black and white film. You never know what will happen, what you will see when you open your eyes.

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Monday, July 30, 2007

Solidarity with Israeli academic colleagues

A matter of conscience
On May 30 British University lecturers voted to force their union into a long debate by boycotting work with Israeli universities.

Delegates at the first conference of the new University and College Union (UCU) in Bournemouth, England voted by 158 to 99 for "a comprehensive and consistent boycott" of all Israeli academic institutions, as called for by Palestinian trade unions in response to what they are calling Israel's "40-year occupation" of Palestinian land.

Today the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) announced that over 10,000 academics from nearly every level of academia, 32 Nobel Laureates, 53 university and foundation presidents have signed a public declaration demanding that the boycott effort be immediately overturned. SPME said it will deliver to the UCU the Statement as an expression of outrage against the boycott, and as an act of solidarity with their Israeli academic colleagues.

Even though I am not British, Israeli or Jewish, even though I consider myself a liberal and a labor activist, I am proud to say that I am one of the signers of that petition and that I have joined SPME.

I agree with Dr. Edward Beck, President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and Professor of Psychology, Walden University who said: “The decision by the UCU to promote a boycott is a disgraceful anti-intellectual act that replaces factual discourse with a one-sided political agenda, and turns morality and the notion of freedom on their head. It says more about the boycott proponents than those to be boycotted. All of those who believe in academic freedom must speak forcefully to prevent a minority of extremists in the UCU to politicize, control and shut down the free exchange of ideas, where any group, whether based upon religion or national origin is singled out for exclusion. In moving this boycott proposal forward, members of the UCU are, in fact, separating themselves from the international academic community, and deeply undermining their credibility in the process.”

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Sunday, July 29, 2007

About bikes at SJSU

Student Cyclist at SJSU

I don't think the University appreciates the risk
I am a member of, and a former member of the board of directors of, an almost 1000 member bicycle club called the Almaden Cycling Touring Club (ACTC). Our club has what we call "The Academy" where we teach new members how to ride safer and how to wear the appropriate gear, like properly fitted bike helmets. You cannot go on an ACTC bicycle ride without a helmet. Many of our members are bicycle commuters and bicycle tourists and ride tens of thousands of miles a year. Bicycling is dangerous. Despite being an experienced cyclist who actually taught in our academy one of our members, Bill Bliss, was killed a few years ago by motorists. We have a member of our club die while riding about every year or two. Cycling deaths in our area happen much more frequently. It is not just cars that threaten cyclists.

Take for example the recent death of Deborah Johnson, a 54-year old Palo Alto business consultant, who was riding with a group of friends on Sand Hill Road last Sunday when she fell and struck her head. There was no car involved and Johnson was wearing a helmet.

Most bicyclists at SJSU do not wear helmets or other appropriate safety gear. Most bicyclists on the SJSU campus do not know how to ride in ways that reduce the risk of accident. I do not see a need for the university to change the rules and allow people to ride bicycles through the campus core. But, if we do change the rules, we need to assure cyclists are wearing appropriately fitted cycling safety gear and that they have been appropriately trained.

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Spirit of Washington Dinner Train

Train on trestle

Part 3 of 3
I am a die hard train buff. This is the last of my three part coverage of the Spirit of Washington on June 8, 2007. This is the train on its former route between Renton and Woodinville, Washington. This provides an overview of all three short videos with special coverage of the return of the day's lunch charter and the dinner train on the spectacular trestle near Bellevue. This also features the Oriskany Strings song, The Train Don't Run Here Anymore.

[This video also available here on YouTube]

Friday, July 27, 2007

Why I did not buy an iPhone

iPod Battery Movie

Here is why I did not buy a sexy iPhone
When it comes to batteries, it is just like an iPod! Here is a battery for my unsexy Treo! Note: I do not approve of vandalism.

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In Defense of LimeWire

In an Email not marked confidential one of our campus techs sent this to the campus community:

Beyond the hypothetical risk of P2P software like Skype, apparently LimeWire is a real security problem. Fortunately nothing on my hard disk is as sensitive as those in the Pentagon, but I imagine some information (like student records or the president's correspondence) shouldn't be shared with the world at large.

Gen. Clark: Sensitive Gov't. Documents Exposed by LimeWire
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
July 26, 2007, 10:01 PM

In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gen. Wesley Clark - the former supreme commander of NATO forces and US presidential candidate, speaking as a board member of and advisor to security software company Tiversa - cited a study by his company revealing that in a period of two hours' search time on the P2P file-sharing system LimeWire, over 200 classified US Government documents were discovered.
...
Later, Clark stated, Tiversa engineers located the entire Pentagon backbone network security infrastructure diagram, which apparently came as part of a package that included a letter from the US Office of Management and Budget warning of the dangers of using LimeWire and other P2P file sharing programs on computers where sensitive or secret documents are stored. The material, it was discovered, was copied from the computer of a single Pentagon contractor, who happened to be a LimeWire user. She didn't share those files intentionally; instead, her local file system was exposed through LimeWire.

The following is my reply to that list: In my opinion it is NOT the existence of LimeWire that is the security issue, it is people who are trusted with secure data that may be either overriding the default security settings in Lime Wire and/or are putting that confidential data into directories that are shared that is the issue. According to a related article in cnet, "Particularly with early versions of file-trading software, new users sometimes accidentally shared the entire contents of their hard drives with the rest of the network. As a result, private information ranging from credit card transactions to banking passwords could be exposed. After pressure from Congress, most file-sharing programs have installed some warning to people to make it clear which directories are being shared, however."

Not using p2p file sharing software does not insure the security of confidential data. For example; I had my laptop stolen last November in a house burglary. The thieves also stole credit cards and bank records. I lost plenty of my own confidential data. Even though I do not often use p2p file sharing software, my personal information was compromised. Physical access is root access to almost all computers.

In the new media class I teach, p2p software is a critical tool for my students to accomplish their academic goals. Using shared p2p file sharing software is an important way students can share legitimate and legal creative commons licensed content they are creating.

University employees need to be aware of their responsibilities to protect confidential data and not blame p2p technology for their own failure to do so. University owned computers containing confidential data should NOT be used for p2p file sharing when doing so is NOT university business. I do NOT think protecting confidential information is taken seriously enough at our school, but the problem in my opinion is not the existence of p2p software, the problem is the lack of training and the lack of focus on the protection of confidential information. The problem, in my opinion, is user error.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Lunch with Kemp

Jeremy Kemp

Today I had lunch with Jeremy Kemp of SJSU
Last May I had the pleasure of spending some time with Dr. Daniel Livingstone from the School of Computing at the University of Paisley in Scotland. Dr. Livingstone came to SJSU to deliver a talk on Immersive and Web-based Virtual Learning Environments: Bridging the Gap with Sloodle. I picked him up at SFO and drove him to San Jose. Livingstone and our own Jeremy Kemp had just received a first-year grant of £80,000 from Britain's Eduserv Foundation to develop their Sloodle project (Moodle in Second Life.)

This is big stuff! In my opinion Second Life is where the Internet is headed. Yes, at this stage it is geeky and kinda on-the-edge stuff now, but give this technology ten years. Remember personal computers themselves were once considered geeky and on-the-edge stuff. From what I see all the signs are there for growth in this technology: from Moore's Law to the cost of oil. In my opinion, the world is going to move in a direction of decreasing the movement of people and increasing virtualization in engaging, dynamic and compelling ways. We are going to be moving electrons more and people less.

Is this profound for education? I think so. Kemp has been traveling around the world, he is spending several days a month presenting about this technology (while flying the flag for SJSU.)

Is it a big thing that one of the early innovators in this technology comes from San Jose State University? What do you think? Today I met Jeremy for lunch. What a treat! Someday I will be saying I knew Jeremy Kemp when...

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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Duke iPhone Network Issue Resolved

Update on Duke iPhone Problem
Duke University News and Communications has issued an information release about the reported problems with iPhones on the network at Duke University. (Testing of iPhones at SJSU by our help hesk staff at SJSU had found no similar problems on our campus.) According to Duke, "By now many of you have read news accounts around iPhones and Duke’s wireless network. Some of the reports incorrectly made it sound as if our entire wireless network had collapsed. Others made it sound as if the iPhone could not work correctly on our wireless network. Still others seem to imply that Duke’s network was deficient in some way because the problem had not been encountered more broadly." The release went on to report the problem was found to be caused by network infrastructure issues at Duke. The information release said, "Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue. Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and there have been no recurrences of the problem since."

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Preferred Parking at SJSU

Camera Phone Post: Contractors get preference
Employees at SJSU, even President Kassing, have to park in lots and parking spaces around campus. Contractors, however, get special sidewalk parking permits to park on the sidewalks on campus. According to one employee who works with a contractor, even contractors who carry no equipment and just walk in the building and sit at a desk are able to park right on the sidewalk outside of the building where they work. Hey, that is the life!

Fun weekly bike rides

Riders on top of Kennedy

Mellow Bicycle Rides
Every week I lead one of three weekly Whine and Dine Bicycle Rides. The rides start in April and run until September. They are very fun and social. We go out for burritos and wine after every ride and, if it is warm, the evening often stretches to after 10:30pm. Also, we have been doing some special weekend rides, like the one at last weekend's Russian River Rally. It is very fun! If you are interested, you are invited to attend.

[Click Here to See More Whine and Dine Photos]

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

iPhone Security Problems?

Security on the iPhone
According to CNET, "Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators have announced at least two exploits that take advantage of the way the Apple iPhone opens a specially crafted Web page in Safari. Exact details of the vulnerability exploited will have to wait until a presentation at the end of next week's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas":

In a preliminary draft of the Black Hat presentation, ISE researchers Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Joshua Mason note that there are "serious problems with the design and implementation of security on the iPhone," and they single out the fact that most processes run with administrative privileges.

The article continues:

A second exploit developed by the researchers... (could be used to) turn on the microphone to eavesdrop remotely on conversations within the room.

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Manufacturer Attacks Vista

PC manufacturer attacks Microsoft Vista OS
Acer president Gianfranco Lanci became the first major PC manufacturer to openly attack Microsoft over the Windows Vista operating system on Monday, July 23rd. According to PC World Lanci was quoted in the Financial Times Deutschland. He is quoted citing numerous problems with the new operating system:

Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in the history of PC manufacturing. He added the situation didn't look likely to change in the next six months.

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RRR Weekend 2007

Mylo and Kevin at Graton, CA

A fun Russian River Rally
These are photos from the Russian River Rally (RRR) the weekend on July 21 - 22, 2007 at Casini Ranch near Duncan Mills, CA. Nancy Kenny and Pat and Mylo Stenstrom organized this wonderful event. They did a fantastic job. These are vacation photos of the weekend. I hope you like them!

[Photos, some without captions, of entire event]

[Photos just of Whine and Dine ride at RRR]

Monday, July 23, 2007

Chairs, boat and clouds

Chairs, boat and clouds

A nice day on the coast
Yesterday Sue and I drove along the coast. It was a very nice day to see the sea. I really liked how the shapes of the clouds, the chairs and the boat played with each other along Tomales Bay.

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About upcoming version of SPSS

What I know so far about new SPSS 16 features:
  • SPSS 16 will have a new Java interface that will be compatable with Windows XP and Vista equipped PCs as well as Intel processor equipped Macs that meet the "hardware requirements" for this software. Please note I am being vague here to CYA.
  • Apple and PC versions of will be at the same level, but some functionality that is dependent on Microsoft Windows technology will not be available on the Mac version. It is not clear SPSS 16 will be able to, or be certified to, run on the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" that has not yet been released by Apple.
  • Data files should remain backward compatable with previous versions. This new version will have more Unicode functions and a Unicode mode, so folks working and sharing information with downlevel (pre SPSS 16) users will need to be sure that data files are not saved in a format that includes these features.
  • SPSS 16 output and modules will not be backward compatable. The new Java interface makes this even harder to achieve.
  • SPSS 16 will support R algorithms. R is an open-source language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is similar to the S language and environment. There are some important differences, but much code written for S runs unaltered under R.
  • SPSS 16 will reportedly feature powerful statistics, including a new Neural Networks add-on module, a new Partial Least Squares algorithm, a new Cox Regression for Complex Samples module, support for algorithms written in R and improvements to Generalized Linear Models and General Estimating Equations.
  • SPSS 16 will reportedly feature Unicode support, import/export of Excel 2007 data, and an improved data editor.
  • SPSS 16.0 will reportedly have improved programmability (more Python access.)
  • SPSS 16 will reportedly feature more integration with SPSS’s other products (Predictive Enterprise Services).
  • The next version of Amos will be Amos 16 to bring Amos version numbers in line with SPSS.
All for now!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Andrew Unplugged

Andrew Venegas writes, "A virus infected my main computer, wiped it out completely, and quickly spread to my laptop, connected on the same network." Mac users should not be smug either. Security by obscurity is a lousy plan for "protecting" your digital assets. Microsoft has a good page with basic security tips. It is wise for Mac users to pay heed as well!

Budget impasse threatens funding

State Budget impasse threatens funding for employee compensation
The faculty and staff employees unions are joining with CSU Administrators to urge the legislature to not cut the CSU budget. According to the staff employees union the possible budget cuts "would undermine improved working relationships between the CSU and unions representing its employees."

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Social Media Measuring

On measuring social media
Jeremiah Owyang is my latest and one of the best bloggers I have subscribed to. This post is about the effectiveness of measuring social media:

Curt Hopkins writes me, he questions if we should ever be effective in measuring social media. Is it an art? Can ‘human’ activity truly be measured. As you know, I’ve been focusing a lot of thought on social media measurement, I believe that whoever has the measurement has the authority, and when the TV resources shift to web, they will be a key driving force...

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Thirteen Years

Sue and I

Thirteen year honeymoon
Tomorrow Susie and I will celebrate thirteen years together. On Sunday we celebrated by going out to brunch at La Foret, the restaurant in New Almaden where we got married in 1994. A lot has changed over those years including us. When we got married we had three boys in our home and three cats. Now we have three cats, two of which are not the same. We have grandkids now and more on the way.

We have new friends and old friends. One of my oldest friends came to visit us this weekend. Ken Compton, whom I have known for about 25 years came over this weekend. We met at the train club and then on Saturday we hosted the train club over here. Ken and I had a blast hanging out and sharing memories of the many times we went chasing trains. When my train buddies came over we had a big slide show showing photos from my trip north last month. That was a lot of fun.

Ken and I also share a passion for photography. We went to a camera store together, Kamera Korner, one of the last camera stores in San Jose. Ken bought a lens there.

Ken left Sunday morning right before Sue and I went to brunch.

Sue and I had a great time at La Foret. It is amazing how many of the people who were there when we were married there are still there.

On the way home from La Foret we saw a small herd of deer on the road. They were right next to the car. I handed my Nikon to Sue and she fired a couple of shots right out the window. It was very cool. There was even a young buck who was accompanying the does as they walked down to the creek that flows through there.


Deer in New Almaden

Ken Compton

[More Photos Here]

Friday, July 13, 2007

Social Media Club Event Rocked!

Jeremiah Owyang's Blog

Your Assignment: Jeremiah Owyang's Blog
Last night I went to the Social Media Club's meeting at NBC 11 in San Jose. The event's focus was on Business Blogging. The panel of speakers at the meeting were:

  • Tony Bove - author, journalist, publisher, blogger, musician, consultant, technophile, Wordpress Guru, blogger
  • Elisa Camahort - Blogher co-founder, author, marketing executive, consultant, vegan, blogger
  • Jeremiah Owyang - PodTech web strategist, innovator, consultant, Ustreamer, blogger
  • Lisa Padilla - BlogTalkRadio VP Marketing, podcaster, technophile, narrowcaster, blogger

All of the speakers were impressive. Mike McGrath moderated the panel. He did a great job. Two of my former students were there. Kyle Hansen and Jessica Drnek are interns this summer at NBC11. They are working on NBC11's Hometown Project, a website that breaks down the neighborhoods of their broadcast area. (According to Drnek, the skills they got through the class professor Cynthia McCune and I taught and the emerging technology club at SJSU helped them land these internships.) The panel was great and after the panel I was able to spend a good amount of time speaking to other meeting attendees and presenters including McGrath (who turned me on to Infotopia), Elisa Camahort and Jeremiah Owyang. Owyang works at Podtech with another former student and friend, Robert Scoble.

Owyang turned me on to Ustream, a technology I am planning to explore for my class and to investigate for possible pedagogical applications in higher education. I will get back to this blog on that. Meantime, you have to check out Owyang's blog! It is great. He covers his subject well and I was especially impressed with his citizen journalism category. I urge folks to check it out!

[Owyang's Post With Video Here]

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Road Trip 2007

Photos on Flickr

Our Roadtrip, on Flickr
Here is the Flickr collection of photos from our road trip last month. The trip focused on visiting family, friends and chasing trains. After seeing these, I am ready to go again!

Mouse without a table

Logitech Air Mouse

A new way to control your computer
This cool new gadget from Logitech could be very useful for faculty using their computer in the classroom. According to a recent press release:

“The MX Air mouse offers a radically new way for people to control their PC entertainment,” said Rory Dooley, Logitech senior vice president and general manager of the Control Devices business unit. “It’s for anyone who has listened to music on their PC and been frustrated by having to return to the desk to change songs or volume. It’s for people who want to share vacation photos with friends and family without being tied to the desk. It’s for any of the millions of people using the Internet to browse and watch videos on sites such as YouTube or Grouper. And it’s for people with a living-room computer or media PC who want to navigate their media content on their terms.”

With this you no longer have to be on a flat surface, or any surface, to use a mouse. You can use this is thin air.

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

EnACT/ATI Summer Institute is here but I am not there

EnACT/ATI Summer Institute at SJSU
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, the mission of EnACT (Ensuring Access through Collaboration and Technology) is to support students with disabilities within the California State University in attaining their postsecondary educational goals. The EnACT/ATI Summer Institute is being held at San Jose State University. It started Monday, July 9 to Thursday, July 12. This morning I had breakfast with Abbe Altman of the CSU Center for Distributed Learning and a number of other folks from CSU campuses throughout the state. I really wish I could be at EnACT/ATI Summer Institute since it is so close, but I cannot as we are in the middle of an important search for a staff member to fill a vacancy at our help desk. I expect we will be hit with requests for services from faculty, staff and students for support in making their instructional materials accessible. The information being taught in the sessions at the conference would be very helpful in accomplishing that. The moral of the story, we need to find a way to record these sessions and make this information available for people who cannot attend the sessions. My suggestion, a podcast, perhaps something based a The Podcast Academy model.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Podcasting in education's value?

Podcasting Has No 'Inherent' Pedagogic Value
According to Paul McCloskey of Campus Technology, "A bevy of recent studies on students' experience listening to recorded lectures via podcasts confirms what many lecturers already know: that the pedagogical value of podcasts depends almost entirely on student motivation and the learning "context" of the application."

Ashley Deal, a researcher in the Office of Technology for Education & the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University is quoted here as having said, "Podcasting does not contain any inherent value. It is only valuable inasmuch as it helps the instructor and students reach their educational goals, by facilitating thoughtful, engaging learning activities that are designed to work in support of those goals."

According to the article, Deal's conclusions are the result of a comprehensive survey of the latest academic studies on the impact of podcasting on learning and teaching. There is a white paper on the subject available from the article.

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Monday, July 09, 2007

Post deleted

Opposing plan to change SJSU Bike Policy

Student Cyclist at SJSU

Why do we need bikes to be ridden across campus?
There is a proposal to change Presidential Directive 90-01, the bike policy at SJSU, I am a bicyclist and I am against such a change. In my opinion it is not necessary to change this policy. In my opinion, the policy as currently constituted meets the needs of the university. In fact, in my opinion the need today may be even greater than it was then to have such a policy to protect the safety of both pedestrians and cyclists.

If you go to this page on the Website of the Parking Traffic and Transit Advisory Committee at SJSU, you can view all the related proposals. On this page you can read a story that ran in the Spartan Daily on the subject.

A question of safety
I was the president of the staff employees union at the time the old rule was passed and was on the Campuswide Safety Advisory Committee (CSAC) that recommended to the university president Gail Fullerton that bicycle riding, not bicycles themselves, be banned from the campus core. This was after several people were struck by speeding bicyclists in and around the campus.

Why is this policy needed even more now?
Most folks riding bikes on campus are not trained cyclists using appropriate safety gear and practicing appropriate riding safety. In my opinion the old policy is even more needed more now because there are more people on campus and the casual cyclists are more distracted by things like cell phones and iPods that did not exist when the old bicycle policy was drafted. A large number of these casual cyclists do not use safety devices like bicycle helmets or use bells and other devices to alert pedestrians to their presence. Even if the cyclists do attempt to be heard, many students now have iPods and phone headsets and are less aware of their surroundings than ever before. Despite this many cyclists, and I use that term now to mean anybody riding a bike on campus, ride at an unsafe speed through crowds and often do not warn folks on campus of their presence. I have seen, and photographed, folks riding track bikes on campus. These are hard core racing bikes that only have one gear, a fast gear, and do not have brakes. Track bikes are designed to be ridden on bicycle racing tracks, like the San Jose Velodrome in Hellyer Park.

What about students, faculty and staff who are disabled?
According to the Spartan Daily Temesgen Atzbaha, Associated Students director of campus climate affairs and member of the Parking, Traffic and Transportation Committee, said the current bicycle policy is "unclear and that the new policy would make rules easier to understand." That is all well and good, in my opinion, but it does not meet the needs of folks who are most likely to be impacted, literally, if bicycles are ridden on campus. Disabled members of the campus community may not hear or see the approach of a bicyclist and/or may not be able to get out of a bicyclists way or may even go into their path.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
In my opinion the old policy was adequate. To be clear, the old policy did not ban bicycles on campus. The old policy identified bicycle corridors on campus where bicycles could be ridden, they could be walked in the campus core. This way bicycles could be brought close enough to be safely walked the remaining short distance needed to reach anywhere a bike could need to go at SJSU. What I think we need is more, not less, enforcement of the bicycle policy (and remember I am a bicyclist!) If the policy isn't broken, why "fix" it?

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Saturday, July 07, 2007

Is Apple blowing it again?

Is Apple Repeating 1989?
Scoble writes this post about iPhone dev camp this weekend
at Adobe Systems in San Francisco:

Here are 300 developers who WANT to help Apple make its iPhone even better. Yet Apple’s secrecy and lack of care for developers demonstrates itself by not showing up.

Apple should remember 1989. It had a massive lead with the Macintosh. It ended up with, what, five percent market share.

One more reason why I am taking a wait and see attitude with the iPhone.

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Adobe Photoshop Meetup July 10

Bryan O'Neil Hughes said:

This month we welcome Uwe Steinmueller and Mike Chambers to bring us up to speed on how to make fine prints from Photoshop. Both our presenters are well known pundits of printing perfection. We will get the latest in color space travel and workflow methodology. Bring your questions and your curiosity to the Adobe Photoshop Users Group this July, 10th.
We'll have pizza and drinks at 6:30, and the meeting will start at 7:00. Please note that is not the third Thursday of the month, as the meetings usually were. We will meet in the Park Conference Room of Adobe Systems' East Tower, 321 Park Avenue, San Jose.
To park underneath the Adobe building, use the Almaden Avenue entrance, under the East Tower. If the security guard at the parking entrance asks for an Adobe contact, use Bryan O'Neil Hughes's name. He's our contact there (as well as the Photoshop Product Manager). Please feel free to forward this email to anyone you know who might be interested. If they would like to be on our email list, have them respond to: dan@weinberg-clark.com. See you there, Dan Clark and Tom Upton

Host: Bryan O'Neil Hughes, Location: Adobe San Jose, 321 Park Ave., San Jose, CA 95110 US, When: Tuesday, July 10, 6:30PM, To RSVP: Phone: 408-921-8142

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New Non-iPhone

Nikon F Camera and Treo 680

I love my new non-iPhone
I know it is about as sexy as a Pentium II, but my new Treo 680 is a great tool for getting work done. That is why I have it, not for taking content away from my computer to play with when I am not at a keyboard, it is great for creating content to take back to the computer. I can take notes in the field when I am shooting. The raised letter keyboard is fine for text input like Mobblogging, IM and E-mail. It has a web browser, which leaves much to be desired, but I will seldom use and a camera that is good enough for taking quick pictures and posting to my blogs or Flickr. If I want to take serious pictures, that is why I have serious cameras. I know it is not sexy, but for how I use it, my Treo rocks!

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Thursday, July 05, 2007

Fourth of July with Friends

Fireworks in Santa Clara

Fourth of July 2007 Party
Yesterday we went to our friends Tyler and Mary's house where we had wine and great food with them and other friends [photos.] That was a lot of fun. After the movie we went to a nearby park and saw an impressive fireworks show. I shot video of the fireworks and edited it into the film you see here. This film is also posted on YouTube.

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

San Jose Light and Dark

San Jose morning light

Morning Light
In downtown San Jose, on my way to work yesterday, I saw this interesting morning play of light and dark and shapes and shadows.

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EnACT/ATI Summer Institute at SJSU next week

EnACT/ATI Summer Institute
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, the mission of EnACT (Ensuring Access through Collaboration and Technology) is to support students with disabilities within the California State University in attaining their postsecondary educational goals. Recognizing that faculty play a pivotal role in the success of all students including students with disabilities, EnACT is designed to provide faculty within the CSU system the skills, support and training necessary to ensure that students with disabilities are provided a high quality postsecondary education.

The EnACT/ATI Summer Institute will be held at San Jose State University Monday, July 9 to Thursday, July 12. The actual Institute will be 3 days in length.

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Who is blogging SJSU: Greylin Fairweather

Greylin Fairweather is a graduate student and builder at SJSU's School of Library and Information Science virtual campus in Second Life. According to the description of the blog Fairweather said, "When I'm not there, you'll probably find me in my Star Trek themed club, Cardancia. See you on the grid! :)"

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SJSU and Second Life

Dr. Ken Haycock, Professor and Director of the School of Library and Information Science at the San Jose State University sent in this great post to BCTLA News about Second Life at SJSU. This site is a news page for members of the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians' Association. Their are some great and innovative things going on at San Jose State University and Haycock's post is a fine example of that.

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

He got it! (or maybe two)

Robert Scoble on Cover of Mercury News

Robert Scoble got it (for his son or his wife?)
What a surprise to see Robert Scoble on the cover of Saturday's Mercury News. The former "voice of Microsoft" was on the cover of the Saturday paper. First he said Marayam was getting it, now I think his son got it, OR he got two and we know what Maryam is getting for her birthday! Robert is swearing by, and sticking with, his Nokia N95.

As for me
I am waiting for my new Treo, which is almost free after the rebate. For what I save I can afford a backup battery and a charger and a leather case and still pocket some cash! I like being able to swap batteries and I have three iPods (including an 80GB) already. When I want a camera I use a real camera. When I want to mobblog, 640x480 is good enough for what I post or for pic messaging. I can always go back and post high res shots from my Nikon D2Hs or scanned film later.

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