Student UNIX e-mail dies tomorrow

Yes, tomorrow is the last day for all student (STUDENT!!!!) UNIX email accounts. Those are the STUDENT accounts that end in:

@email.sjsu.edu

This only applies to students! If that is you call the help desk or go to the help desk TODAY! Our number is 408/924-2377. The help desk is in Clark Hall 1102. After tomorrow all e-mail on these accounts is wiped out and you will NOT be able to get it back!

More information about the new student e-mail system that has replaced the old student (STUDENT!!!!) UNIX email accounts is here at this link.

YouTube in HD

[Click to see Movie]

YouTube is Higher Dev

It is not new news but it is good to know and it provides some options for folks like me who use YouTube so much in the classroom. Especially when you use it full screen in the classroom. Keep an eye out for the button!

Murder of Avatar brings arrest

Woman in Japan charged with killing her virtual ex-husband

According to Associated Press:

A 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher's sudden divorce from her online husband in a virtual game world made her so angry that she logged on and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.

Reportedly, She was charged with illegal access onto a computer and manipulating electronic data.

CSU student held in Iran prison

Student was reportedly doing research

Reportedly Esha Momeni, a 28-year-old Cal State University Northridge mass communications master's student from Los Angeles, arrived in Tehran two months ago to visit her family and conduct research for her thesis.

According to a, October 23rd post on a blog run by the San Diego Union-Tribune:

LOS ANGELES – A California State University, Northridge student has been imprisoned in Iran since last week after authorities discovered she was conducting research on the country's women's rights movement, the university announced Thursday.

Inside Hiher-Ed also has a post on the subject. According to that post, "The reported arrest is the latest involving scholars whose lives span the United States and Iran."

Quark QPS to support InDesign

According to InDesignSecrets, The InDesign blog, Quark has just announced support for Adobe InDesign file formats:

"Given that that Quark’s flagship product, QuarkXPress, has fallen dramatically in market share, it only makes sense that they would want to expand the market for their workgroup QPS product."

Now, let me tell you MY Quark story.
About five years ago I bought Quark 6 as my wife and I were doing a book together. I loaded it on my desktop system. Suddenly my sister got very sick (she had cancer, which she later died of). I had to go and take care of her in Spokane and layout our 900+ book on my laptop.

At that time Quark was the only game in town for page layout. InDesign was a newcomer. Quark would only let you do one install on one machine. We paid about $600 for the product. I called Quark and begged, can I please install it on my laptop as well as my desktop?

They said yes, I could install it on my laptop if I paid them an additional $90 bucks for a "laptop license." Yes, they got their $90 bucks, I finished the book and they lost a loyal customer.

As soon as InDesign came on the scene I never looked back! I dumped Quark, switched to InDesign and helped my employer switch to InDesign. We dumped thousands of dollars worth of Quark product.

Never take your customers for granted.

Technorati Tags: Quark, InDesign, QuarkXPress, ssloansjca

NYT and McClatchy on the ropes

Bad news for newspapers

According to The Silicon Alley Insider, The New York Times is running on fumes:

...the New York Times (NYT) is approaching the point where it will have to manage its business primarily to conserve cash and avoid defaulting on its debt. This situation will only get worse as advertising revenue continues to fall...

This follows similar concerns at McClatchy as told in the Sacramento Bee:

Fitch, the least known of the credit rating firms, downgraded The Bee's parent two notches, to "B-minus." That leaves McClatchy deeper in non-investment-grade, or junk-bond, territory.

The bad economy is not going to be kind to newspapers that were already on the ropes.

Technorati Tags: J-school, Journalism, Newspapers, ssloansjca

Bigots vote yes on 8

[Click to view video]

If I vote yes on Prop 8 am I a bigot?

In my book, yes!
Let's be clear about this. The idea that only heterosexual couples should be allowed the right to marry is discrimination. Pure and simple, we are talking civil rights here.

Fifty years ago the majority of voters might have voted against desegregation. But, that does not matter. Sometimes majorities are wrong. It does not matter if the majoritry is for or against the right of gay couples to enjoy the same rights as straight couples. Rights are not, or should not be, subject to votes. That is why we call them rights. If you vote to deny gays their equal rights are you a bigot? You betcha!

[See related story in Mercury News]

Technorati Tags: prop8, Prop 8, Gay Marriage, ssloansjca

Google expands mobile news platform

New Google G1 (way more than a) Phone

The future is increasingly mobile, increasingly pervasively connected computing. The new Google G1 has been released. It joins the iPhone and other similar devices that provide an Internet delivery system using standard Web protocols, independent of Wi-Fi networks. You can expect almost everybody to have such devices in about 24-months, given the rate people replace their phones.

This technology is providing a medium to deliver compelling content to everybody all the time. Since these devices are increasingly aware of their physical location, thanks to integrated GPS, this opens up all kinds of new and interesting ways for journalists to deliver content.

Thanks to "easy access to all Google Applications" these devices really leverage the power of Cloud Computing and in my opinion they should be thought of as hand-held computers and not mere phones or mere PDAs.

[Device Specs]

Technorati Tags: Google, gphone, Android, ssloansjca

Cameraphone: SJSU Evacuation

Yesterday we had an evacuation drill. We were paid to enjoy the morning sun.

Why the new face to Office 2007?

In a 3 part post in Network World's Security Strategies Alert Column, M. E. Kabay explores why Microsoft changed the User Interface (UI) with Office 2007 and did not provide a classic view for users happy with the old UI.

As most readers know, the Office 2007 suite has a radically different user interface, called the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface (UI), in which familiar functions are grouped in new ways.

• Some functions have disappeared entirely.
• The limited user-definable toolbar is restricted to a single roll of symbols.
• Icons in the user definable toolbar cannot be customized.
• There is no way to revert to the more familiar Office 2003 (or older) interface.

The new UI has been a source of user frustration and has slowed adoption of the new version of Office at our institution.

Technorati Tags: Office, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, ssloansjca