Friday, October 12, 2007
Contrastive habitats
These pictures almost speak for themselves. Please scroll down through and back up through them, and reflect upon what constitutes human habitat.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Backlinks Settings
In a previous post: The Critical Comments & Backlinks Settings, I forgot to mention the Blogger Help page explaining back links. That explanation should be available in both English and Japanese.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Gmail spam filters add warning: a follow-up
This is a follow-up on Gmail spam filters add warning (January 4, 2007). It suggests shortcomings both in legitimate mail senders' message subject heading practices, and in Gmail's analysis of innocuously entitled messages.
During an occasional foray into the spam folder this weekend, to grapple with the 1800+ messages that had accumulated since my previous foray a few weeks ago, I discovered only three false positives (approximately 0.17%):
However, the third one, which was the first that I had detected in rapid glances at twenty-five senders per page, was a noodle twister. I had recognized the sender on first glance, and the subject was innocuous.
Nevertheless, a gmail-generated warning superimposed on body of the message suggests that the links in the message itself were the problem:
Indeed, inside were truncated, somewhat destination-opaque links through tinyuurl.com to Eluminate Live! sessions (closed Sep 26, 2007):
Although those links were in a message from a recognized sender, and in context of a legitimate, far less destination-opaque link:
Gmail spam filters apparently caught those tiny URLs!
During an occasional foray into the spam folder this weekend, to grapple with the 1800+ messages that had accumulated since my previous foray a few weeks ago, I discovered only three false positives (approximately 0.17%):
- Shots, Shows, And Shirts, from Snap Shots
- Edublogs and EduBling!, from Edublogs
- Sept sessions and Nov online event, from Cathy Baxter
However, the third one, which was the first that I had detected in rapid glances at twenty-five senders per page, was a noodle twister. I had recognized the sender on first glance, and the subject was innocuous.
Nevertheless, a gmail-generated warning superimposed on body of the message suggests that the links in the message itself were the problem:
Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information. Learn more
([within] personal correspondance, September 24, 2007)
Indeed, inside were truncated, somewhat destination-opaque links through tinyuurl.com to Eluminate Live! sessions (closed Sep 26, 2007):
Although those links were in a message from a recognized sender, and in context of a legitimate, far less destination-opaque link:
Gmail spam filters apparently caught those tiny URLs!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Writing 'air up my ...
Because I've just taken part in preparing a presentation focusing on, among other writing quirks, sentences that begin with because, I've started here as I have with, "Because ...." However, the main reason I'm posting here is to raise awareness of another post, on another blog, and see if referencing and trackback functions rise to the occasion when I link from here to there, where I wrote about gaps between tech-savvy learners and educators. Hopefully this link will pick up and trackback from an edublog. If it doesn't, here is the link:
http://ltdproject.edublogs.org/2007/09/14/gaps-between-tech-savvy-learners-and-educators/
http://ltdproject.edublogs.org/2007/09/14/gaps-between-tech-savvy-learners-and-educators/
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Trial YouTube Video Players
This video player should display my YouTube favorites, if they're still available. Click the menu button, or move your cursor over the viewing screen to see. If they're not, please post a comment to let me know, and I'll pick more videos sooner or later.
Postscript: Though I had embedded another custom player here, within twenty-four hours the color of the frame changed and the selections in the sidebar were perverted from my favorites to a rack of amateur pyrotechnic rock video clips. I tried once to replace it without success, so I removed it (2007.08.09).
Postscript: Though I had embedded another custom player here, within twenty-four hours the color of the frame changed and the selections in the sidebar were perverted from my favorites to a rack of amateur pyrotechnic rock video clips. I tried once to replace it without success, so I removed it (2007.08.09).
Monday, July 30, 2007
Food for Thought, e-Cobblers
Dan Balzar makes a provocative statement that inspires me to listen to a Green Room podcast again. He says, "You can't cobble together a bunch of little pieces, and that makes a good course" (Seven Revelations about e-Learning, The Green Room, Episode 28 [that's episode 28, regardless of the "38" in the URL], July 16, 2007)....
I've done, gone and listened again to find that Dan, talking about point number five, namely: how instructional elements can "get lost in translation" from one educational context to another; gives the example of "learning objects," which he concludes "have not been as popular as we thought they'd be." Well, I've alway considered the term "learning objects" an oxymoron, and never thought they'd be popular for adult learners, though perhaps they would be as work-saving devices for educators too busy to learn to craft, compose and contextualize their own educational materials.
After all, what can an object learn, anyway - or, more accurately perhaps, what educational roles might fungible digital parts suit?
I've done, gone and listened again to find that Dan, talking about point number five, namely: how instructional elements can "get lost in translation" from one educational context to another; gives the example of "learning objects," which he concludes "have not been as popular as we thought they'd be." Well, I've alway considered the term "learning objects" an oxymoron, and never thought they'd be popular for adult learners, though perhaps they would be as work-saving devices for educators too busy to learn to craft, compose and contextualize their own educational materials.
After all, what can an object learn, anyway - or, more accurately perhaps, what educational roles might fungible digital parts suit?
Postscript: I've imported this post:Food for Thought, e-Cobblers; along with the all the rest of the posts, comments and labels in pab's potpourri to date, to the LTD Project Blog (2007.08.07). I invite you to continue browsing and commenting on posts and updates there.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Rogue Background Color: Twitches and Twiddles
A day or so ago, the color of the banner on one of my Blogger blogs, displayed using the same template as this one (as of date of publication), suddenly changed color for no apparent reason.
I was too busy to start mucking about with templates at the time. I still am, but the color is one that masks the title and possibly the subtitle of the blog, making them virtually unreadable - unless you squint your eyes (more) to detect minute differences in hue and tone between the rogue background and default text colors.
I've already saved the entire template of that blog to disk, Now I'm writing up this trouble-shooting report in this blog, which I've chosen for convenience as well as similarity of templates. The only thing I can find in the template that approximates the rogue color is:
Nope, there's too much info. to digest there, among help, help groups and cross-linked sites. So I got out the DigitalColor Meter (Mac OS X: App's: Utilities) and measured the banner background (RGB As Hex Value, 8-bit). It turns out to be 996600. However, that's nowhere in the template. Well, back to Blogger Help Center or, better yet, Help Group, I guess.
I was too busy to start mucking about with templates at the time. I still am, but the color is one that masks the title and possibly the subtitle of the blog, making them virtually unreadable - unless you squint your eyes (more) to detect minute differences in hue and tone between the rogue background and default text colors.
I've already saved the entire template of that blog to disk, Now I'm writing up this trouble-shooting report in this blog, which I've chosen for convenience as well as similarity of templates. The only thing I can find in the template that approximates the rogue color is:
name="titlecolor" description="Post Title Color"However, a preview after twiddling that color to FFFFFF showed no change in the banner background. So it's back to the drawing board. I'll try Blogger help....
type="color" default="#c60" value="#cc6600"
Nope, there's too much info. to digest there, among help, help groups and cross-linked sites. So I got out the DigitalColor Meter (Mac OS X: App's: Utilities) and measured the banner background (RGB As Hex Value, 8-bit). It turns out to be 996600. However, that's nowhere in the template. Well, back to Blogger Help Center or, better yet, Help Group, I guess.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Education: "next big killer app."
The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Geo-tagging
As an experiment in geo-tagging, and in hope of detecting this and other blogs using Feedmap (beta), I've registered this blog and added the following meta tags to the head of the blog template:
As Andrew Turner suggests in Geotagging Web Pages and RSS Feeds (2005.01.11) you can retrieve local latitude & longitude coordinates from Multimap, by city names, and get an International Standards Organization country code from the ISO.
I note that in Andrew's coding examples, tag closures for geo.region and geo.placename are missing (2007.04.09). Each of those tag lines must begin with a left angle bracket ("<") and end with matching right closure (" />"). I put those three lines immediately below the "head" line in the template, with the understanding that place name is optional. I'll soon see if it works.
Nope, I still couldn't update my location with Feedmap. So I've turned to Kuan Cheen's guide (2005.08.13) to find another tag of the ICBM variety:
Note that once uploaded, the template automatically redefined the tags with their elements in a different order:
Though Feedmap suggests, "If you want to update your location, simply add geo.position tags to your home page and submit it to the Ping page - it will automatically update your location"; I've done that, and I keep getting an error stating, "Unable to store blog. Please try again later. [ERROR: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: value]" - with and without the ICBM type tag.
Back to the drawing board....
meta name="geo.position" content="32.7885; 130.715"Before you try stuff like this, however, let me remind you to backup your blog template first, and if you have more than one blog, make sure you are using the correct blog template. You shouldn't have to learn those lessons the hard way, like I do!
meta name="geo.region" content="JP-43"
meta name="geo.placename" content="Kumamoto, Japan"
As Andrew Turner suggests in Geotagging Web Pages and RSS Feeds (2005.01.11) you can retrieve local latitude & longitude coordinates from Multimap, by city names, and get an International Standards Organization country code from the ISO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1Internet searching for "ISO 3166-2, [+ country name]" should turn up codes for other locales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:JP
I note that in Andrew's coding examples, tag closures for geo.region and geo.placename are missing (2007.04.09). Each of those tag lines must begin with a left angle bracket ("<") and end with matching right closure (" />"). I put those three lines immediately below the "head" line in the template, with the understanding that place name is optional. I'll soon see if it works.
Nope, I still couldn't update my location with Feedmap. So I've turned to Kuan Cheen's guide (2005.08.13) to find another tag of the ICBM variety:
meta name="ICBM" content="32.7885, 130.715"I'll add that and try again....
Note that once uploaded, the template automatically redefined the tags with their elements in a different order:
meta content='32.7885, 130.715' name='ICBM'Yet each line is still enclosed with angle brackets. Let's try again with Feedmap.
meta content='32.7885; 130.715' name='geo.position'
meta content='JP-43' name='geo.region'
meta content='Kumamoto, Japan' name='geo.placename'
Though Feedmap suggests, "If you want to update your location, simply add geo.position tags to your home page and submit it to the Ping page - it will automatically update your location"; I've done that, and I keep getting an error stating, "Unable to store blog. Please try again later. [ERROR: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: value]" - with and without the ICBM type tag.
Back to the drawing board....
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Lessons for bloggers (Porter, 2007)
In addition to a first batch of nine lessons learned through seven years of blogging (Porter, 2007a), Joshua has summed up nine more lessons for bloggers (2007b). I've collected and recast them here because they resonate with what I've been feeling, reading and wondering recently about blogging.
Getting over initial fears of publishing your thoughts is part of the blogging process. This is a challenge for many if not most would-be bloggers. You can get over, around or through it simply by blogging.
Saying your say is important, whether you say it right the first time or not. Thinking aloud in beta is part of the process; just keep typing. Posting what you've written is essential. As Joshua suggests: "When in doubt, post." You're a blog owner, so you can always change your posts, continue to refine them, or remove them later. Fine-tuning posts with comments is a possibility (Porter, 2007a). However, I prefer revising the posts themselves.
Sticking to your passion(-s) will enable you to inspire not only your readers, but yourself. It will help you decide what to write about, and feel strong enough about to see it through. You should be writing from the gut or heart. So rather than worrying about grammatical correctness, you should concentrate on making your ideas easy to understand.
Creating a "greatest hits" collection, or showcase module, and featuring it on every page will remind readers of where you've been and what you've done (Porter, 2007a). It will also help you remember that people are reading what you've written, and that you have written something you're proud of. This is an idea I plan to adopt and share with students as well.
Nevertheless, is important to take your time writing because each post can pay forward as well as pay back. Give each post and each concept that you embrace a meaningful, memorable name. Build on posts of interest to you and others. Continue to revise good stuff to make it better; you never know who may find it several years down the road.
Joshua suggests summarizing comments and writing your own reflections in follow-ups, linking to, but not quoting yourself. If you've got a hot idea that deserves reiteration, refer to it by name and paraphrase it; you most certainly can find a better, more economical way to say it again than quoting.
It is productive to own up to your mistakes. If someone points out a mistake that you've made, in thinking or expression, agree that you made it and carry on with what you actually meant. Take other disputes off-line promptly. If criticism becomes offensive, personal or tangential to the focus of your writing, don't haggle about it on your blog or in counter comments. You may wish to try writing a polite email response instead.
Finally, it is important remember that blogs are conversational. Your posts should sound as if you're speaking, and you can use your voice to help make others' perhaps softer, less familiar voices heard by cross-linking, creating broader audiences and promoting higher expectations of readership (Porter 2007b).
Porter, Joshua (2007a). Nine lessons for would-be bloggers. Retrieved April 3, 2007, from http://bokardo.com/archives/9-lessons-for-would-be-bloggers/
Porter, Joshua (2007b). Nine more lessons for would-be bloggers. Retrieved April 3, 2007, from http://bokardo.com/archives/9-more-lessons-for-would-be-bloggers/
Getting over initial fears of publishing your thoughts is part of the blogging process. This is a challenge for many if not most would-be bloggers. You can get over, around or through it simply by blogging.
Saying your say is important, whether you say it right the first time or not. Thinking aloud in beta is part of the process; just keep typing. Posting what you've written is essential. As Joshua suggests: "When in doubt, post." You're a blog owner, so you can always change your posts, continue to refine them, or remove them later. Fine-tuning posts with comments is a possibility (Porter, 2007a). However, I prefer revising the posts themselves.
Sticking to your passion(-s) will enable you to inspire not only your readers, but yourself. It will help you decide what to write about, and feel strong enough about to see it through. You should be writing from the gut or heart. So rather than worrying about grammatical correctness, you should concentrate on making your ideas easy to understand.
Creating a "greatest hits" collection, or showcase module, and featuring it on every page will remind readers of where you've been and what you've done (Porter, 2007a). It will also help you remember that people are reading what you've written, and that you have written something you're proud of. This is an idea I plan to adopt and share with students as well.
Nevertheless, is important to take your time writing because each post can pay forward as well as pay back. Give each post and each concept that you embrace a meaningful, memorable name. Build on posts of interest to you and others. Continue to revise good stuff to make it better; you never know who may find it several years down the road.
Joshua suggests summarizing comments and writing your own reflections in follow-ups, linking to, but not quoting yourself. If you've got a hot idea that deserves reiteration, refer to it by name and paraphrase it; you most certainly can find a better, more economical way to say it again than quoting.
It is productive to own up to your mistakes. If someone points out a mistake that you've made, in thinking or expression, agree that you made it and carry on with what you actually meant. Take other disputes off-line promptly. If criticism becomes offensive, personal or tangential to the focus of your writing, don't haggle about it on your blog or in counter comments. You may wish to try writing a polite email response instead.
Finally, it is important remember that blogs are conversational. Your posts should sound as if you're speaking, and you can use your voice to help make others' perhaps softer, less familiar voices heard by cross-linking, creating broader audiences and promoting higher expectations of readership (Porter 2007b).
References
Porter, Joshua (2007a). Nine lessons for would-be bloggers. Retrieved April 3, 2007, from http://bokardo.com/archives/9-lessons-for-would-be-bloggers/
Porter, Joshua (2007b). Nine more lessons for would-be bloggers. Retrieved April 3, 2007, from http://bokardo.com/archives/9-more-lessons-for-would-be-bloggers/
Monday, March 26, 2007
Breaking email habits (via Tomorrow's Professor)
In Tomorrow's Professor, TP Msg. #783 Seven Tips for Dealing with Email Addiction (March 14, 2007 00:31:36 JST), is a whack of advice for coping with "the most insidious, seductive time-waster we face" - email handling. Below is what I've done or decided to do in response to each of the seven suggestions from Mary McKinney, Ph.D:
- Quit launching the mail program at computer startup to make deciding whether to attend to mail first a conscious decision;
- Turned off the new mail sound to avoid auditory distraction while working on other things;
- Decided to turn mail off between sessions, though I'm not sure restarting will save time; if it doesn't I'll hide the mail application between mail checks;
- Decided to monitor how often (and when) I check mail during the day for five working days.
- Decided to check mail routinely every two hours, at: 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 & 18:00, for now;
- Planned to cut back to 2-3 mail checks a day once I get a handle on opportune times (4., above); &
- Planned to consider "more relaxing or rewarding" alternatives before checking mail.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Pre-Course Experience
Though I'm torn with regard to whether this blog, or another that I maintain, is an appropriate venue to spill gut feelings, I've decided to do so here. This will be a reflective piece regarding preliminaries to one of the first online courses to which I enrolled.
As soon as I had logged in to the course, a day or so before it was scheduled to begin, I discovered literally hundreds of unread messages. Regardless of ... [unswerving] family support, ... [and all the rest that enabled me to get where I was at the time]
I never wish[-ed] to create such an imposing presence [, or rather overwhelming burden of interpersonal data to digest from ill-threaded discussions, waiting to greet new-comers to a course that hadn't started]. Though I was striving to adjust to a new physical environment, in an unfamiliar country, the [massive novelty of online (only)] peer-to-peer ... [self-identification and relationship building was] phenomenal[-ly challenging].
[Original draft: 2007.03.24; retrieved and roughed out in retrospect: 2010.07.09]
As soon as I had logged in to the course, a day or so before it was scheduled to begin, I discovered literally hundreds of unread messages. Regardless of ... [unswerving] family support, ... [and all the rest that enabled me to get where I was at the time]
I never wish[-ed] to create such an imposing presence [, or rather overwhelming burden of interpersonal data to digest from ill-threaded discussions, waiting to greet new-comers to a course that hadn't started]. Though I was striving to adjust to a new physical environment, in an unfamiliar country, the [massive novelty of online (only)] peer-to-peer ... [self-identification and relationship building was] phenomenal[-ly challenging].
[Original draft: 2007.03.24; retrieved and roughed out in retrospect: 2010.07.09]
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Backup your template regularly!
The more involved that you get with your blog, the greater the chance is that you or the blogging service that you're using will mess it up radically. So here is a bit of advice to myself as much as anyone:
Backup / Restore Template
Before editing your template, you may want to save a copy of it. Download Full Template....(Blogger: Settings: Template: Edit HTML)
You do want to backup your template before you radically change it, don't you?
Friday, March 16, 2007
A word about smile-e
This post introduces a new logo for pab's potpourri, smile-e (2007), created with Omni Graffle Pro.
The concept is actually about three years old, but has come a long way since 2004. It has survived two trans-oceanic relocations: one on paper, another on disk.
The yin-yang design represents blending of face-to-face and online communication. The smiley on top of the "e" indicates preference for face-to-face communication.
The concept is actually about three years old, but has come a long way since 2004. It has survived two trans-oceanic relocations: one on paper, another on disk.
The yin-yang design represents blending of face-to-face and online communication. The smiley on top of the "e" indicates preference for face-to-face communication.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
BROG Shirt
Interesting list of brog papers to check out here. Thanks to Rick for pointing this out!
That's: http://www.blogninja.com/
That's: http://www.blogninja.com/
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Selection and sorting of B4B blogs
The table below contains a roughly sorted list of blogs that I'd selected during the Blogging for the Beginners (B4B) Electronic Village Online workshop - by no means all of the blogs announced or featured in that six-week workshop. I've extracted the blog links from the B4B Blogroll on this blog, and will soon delete the blogroll.
The B4B blogroll grew too long, especially in addition to a long list of experimental blog post labels that I was trying out. I tired of scrolling, and lost track of why I had picked particular blogs.
Having had another look through all of the blogs selected, I'm re-posting the blog titles and links here to show a variety of ways that workshop participants, educators from around the world, approach blogging and develop blogs for learners and themselves. Since I've started a couple more blogs since the B4B workshop ended, I've added them to the lists.
As you review the blogs listed, if you feel one belongs in a different or new category, please suggest changes in a comment.
| Courses, international exchanges & learner development | Educational technology & teacher development | Uncategorized |
|
| ||
|
| ||
|
| ||
|
| ||
|
| ||
|
| ||
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Tip of an information iceberg - telling questions
In an interesting elgg weblog, Christopher D. Sessums points out a "provocative" animated presentation about the Facebook:
(http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/)
Sessums follows up with telling questions, then reveals another layer of the story, a blog post archived on a Common Ground - Common Sense forum, dated August 3, 2005, with a whack of other references to follow up.
In comments on Sessums' weblog entry, Frances Bell cites Facebook terms of use and asks another telling question: "If user content had already been reused or republished, what meaning would expiry of license have?"
Though this may be just the tip of an information iceberg, is it not too late to steer clear?
In comments on Sessums' weblog entry, Frances Bell cites Facebook terms of use and asks another telling question: "If user content had already been reused or republished, what meaning would expiry of license have?"
Though this may be just the tip of an information iceberg, is it not too late to steer clear?
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Singeing the Monkey's Tail
As you might suspect from the title of this post, what you may read here will heat up before it cools down. I've been chilling the content since February 23, 2007, already. If your can't stand the residual heat or the pungent odor, please skip this message.
The purpose of this response to an EVO survey is to cool down by metaphorically singeing the monkey's tail. Nine times out of ten (or more) that I bother to engage a Survey Monkey instrument, I get hot under the collar - for a number of reasons.
First and foremost is the off-the-wall time estimates that preface many surveys. If surveyors really want no more than five to ten minutes of our time, they don't want substantive feedback. They are just going through the motions. Or, they are lying up front just to get responses, and hoping that respondents will follow up on their time investments, once they get started. (Echo Neil Young's song, Piece of ..., about here.)
Second, even when the surveys and time estimates come from prestigious institutions (research universities and professional organizations), they fail to demonstrate rigo(u)r in item preparation (or I suppose, piloting). For example, items 8-10 of a recent Electronic Village Online (EVO) survey conflate any number of serious research questions. If you just tick a box, fine; but what does that mean; or, for that matter, what do three or four ticked boxes on a single item mean?
Almost every time that I engage a Survey Monkey questionnaire, I start humming and rehearsing the lyrics of Neil Young's song: "Take it back to the store; they give you four more...." Doing so used to get me through - sometimes an hour or more beyond surveyors' time estimates, but hardly does anymore.
Then there is the issue of feedback on feedback. In recent experience (say, the last three to five years), most Survey Monkey surveyors have neither prefaced their instruments with promises to provide feedback, nor (to my knowledge [with possibly one exception]) provided any feedback whatsoever to survey participants other than: "Thank you; you're done."
Why don't feedback loops involve contributors? Perhaps they aren't really loops, but vacuums.
The purpose of this response to an EVO survey is to cool down by metaphorically singeing the monkey's tail. Nine times out of ten (or more) that I bother to engage a Survey Monkey instrument, I get hot under the collar - for a number of reasons.
First and foremost is the off-the-wall time estimates that preface many surveys. If surveyors really want no more than five to ten minutes of our time, they don't want substantive feedback. They are just going through the motions. Or, they are lying up front just to get responses, and hoping that respondents will follow up on their time investments, once they get started. (Echo Neil Young's song, Piece of ..., about here.)
Second, even when the surveys and time estimates come from prestigious institutions (research universities and professional organizations), they fail to demonstrate rigo(u)r in item preparation (or I suppose, piloting). For example, items 8-10 of a recent Electronic Village Online (EVO) survey conflate any number of serious research questions. If you just tick a box, fine; but what does that mean; or, for that matter, what do three or four ticked boxes on a single item mean?
Almost every time that I engage a Survey Monkey questionnaire, I start humming and rehearsing the lyrics of Neil Young's song: "Take it back to the store; they give you four more...." Doing so used to get me through - sometimes an hour or more beyond surveyors' time estimates, but hardly does anymore.
Then there is the issue of feedback on feedback. In recent experience (say, the last three to five years), most Survey Monkey surveyors have neither prefaced their instruments with promises to provide feedback, nor (to my knowledge [with possibly one exception]) provided any feedback whatsoever to survey participants other than: "Thank you; you're done."
Why don't feedback loops involve contributors? Perhaps they aren't really loops, but vacuums.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Welcome to pab's potpourri!
This is an experimental, informal blog for learning about blogging, blog development, and blog-related professional development activities.
