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.