RSS Rocks!

RSS is awesome!
Sage Lewis of sagerock.com explain why RSS is Awesome!

Saying goodbye to a friend

Good party on a sad day
Yesterday was a sad day at the help desk as we said goodbye to Colin. Colin has worked for the university about seven years, mostly at the library. The last six months he worked at the help desk. We lost a really good one! We had a huge party for him Friday night.

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

Presentation on RSS

My class presentation on RSS
A slight reschedule. We are going to have the session on Second Life the following week. This Tuesday we will be talking about RSS! Here is the related PowerPoint presentation on the subject.

Friday Funnies: Supermarket 2.0

Supermarket 2.0
This video plays on the concepts of Web 2.0 and puts them in the context of grocery shopping.

Quiet Campus

Quiet Times
The campus can be a place of extremes. One day you have a mad rush of students and faculty, the next day the only folks on campus are the staff and the people who wander in from the community. Both the bustle and the quiet are good, I am glad we have both. Too much of one or the other would be too much.

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

Whine and Dine Season

Whine and dine season is here!
It is April and that means the 2007 Whine and Dine rides have started. Yesterday's ride was great fun. A lot of old friends showed up for the ride as well as some new friends. There is a blog for the rides. Everyone is invited. These are great bicycle rides.

Technorati Tags: Cycling, ssloansjca

Strike Averted

Faculty Strike Averted - Bee Says
According to the Sacramento Bee, Administrators and faculty at California State University announced a tentative contract agreement Tuesday, eliminating the prospect of faculty strikes scheduled to start next week.

The agreement marks the beginning of the end for a negotiation process that stretched nearly two years. The deal, if ratified, would raise the average salary of a tenure-track faculty member from $74,000 to $90,749 over four years, CSU officials said. The average salary for a full-time, full professor with tenure will go from $86,000 to $105,465.

Camera Phone Post: Night at SJSU

Balmy night in San Jose
Students at night using computers outside campus buildings. Wireless networking made it possible. Using my camera phone I was able to get the photo posted to the Internet before I reached my car as I walked out of Tuesday night's class.

Vlogging Presentation

Presentation at CATS 2007
At the recent Community of Academic Technology Staff (CATS) conference in Fullerton I did a presentation on video blogging (aka vlogging.) I recorded the presentation and a copy of that is here in MP3 format. Sadly a problematic mic caused a lot of hiss in the recording and I did my best to filter that out. (Note to self: never trust untested equipment.)

The PowerPoint from the session is here. I had a lot of videos in the PowerPoint. I have removed those from this web version of the PowerPoint and replaced them with hyperlinks to the vlog posts. I will be presenting this presentation at this evenings Journalism 163 class. I am including direct links below for reference.

List of video blog posts from presentation:

• STEM Post - Slide 8
• Story of the Swami - Slide 11
• Train vlog entry - Slide 14
• FreeVlog Sample - Slide 16
• Education Vlogger - Slide 18
• SJSU Journalism 163 Post - Slide 19

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, CSU, CATS, CATS2007, Fullerton, CSU Fullerton, California State University, San Jose, Vlogging, Video Blogging, Podcasting, Blogging, ssloansjca

A Sunday in Mojave

Just over a week ago in the desert
Here are a few of the photos I took with a film camera recently in Mojave. Mojave is where the mountains end and the great Mojave desert starts. A lot of trains roll through Mojave. Morning is the best light and the looming mountains make for an impressive backdrop for eastbounds.

Technorati Tags: Trains, Railroads, Railroading, Tehachapi, BNSF, Union Pacific, ssloansjca