How to Create an RSS Feed With Notepad, a Web Server, and a Beer

...via The Shifted Librarian

The AARP has published a report that looks at how Americans aged 25-44 have helped their parents access the Internet.

They list the following key findings:

• Almost three quarters (71%) of those contacted who reported having a parent with a computer say they provide their parents with computer and technology assistance.
• Eight out of 10 (78%) of respondents who are contacted by their parents for help report that they are the first place their parents or older relatives turn — with nearly 50% saying they are contacted more than twice a month.
• Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) respondents aid their parents in finding information on the Internet.
• Four out of 10 (43%) of the respondent's parents use instant messaging to keep in touch with theirchildren.
• The majority (84%) of respondents believe that having two generations online has made a positive difference in their lives.
• Older grandchildren (52% of respondents with kids 18-24 years old and 48% of respondents with kids 11-17 years old) help their grandparents with the computer or Internet

According to an article at AlwaysOn

Here's the irony in Wi-Fi public access pricing: retailers can be profitable by offering free Wi-Fi as a customer acquisition tool. But when they charge for Wi-Fi access, these retailers, and the WISPs serving them, almost certainly lose money. According to a market study coming out this summer, retailers are quickly learning this lesson: up to 30% of US location owners who plan to deploy commercial hotspots in 2004 intend those hotspots to be free or free-with-purchase.

The fully loaded cost of offering free Wi-Fi access is less than $6/day. Operating a billable hotspot costs over $30/day. Half this cost comes from building or altering billing systems, plus the endless associated customer care. The millions of dollars already spent on systems to charge Wi-Fi users by the megabyte, minute, etc., will never be recuperated. Next year, authentication should become cheap enough to be part of a profitable Wi-Fi offering, but for the foreseeable future, authorization and accounting remain dangerous distractions.

...via BoingBoing

Interesting New York Times article on backchannel discussions during presentations.

...via elearningpost

Jakob Nielsen writes on Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster:

Google and always-on connections have changed the most fruitful design strategy to one with three components:

• Support short visits; be a snack
• Encourage users to return; use mechanisms such as newsletters as a reminder
• Emphasize search engine visibility and other ways of increasing frequent visits by addressing users' immediate needs

Better intra-site navigation and better site maps may tip the balance slightly back in favor of longer stays, but it's safest to assume that users' visits to any individual website will become ever shorter.

Hotels' High-Speed Internet Often Has a Catch according to a recent article in the New York Times.

More travellers are considering high-speed availability when they travel. However, some hotels' systems are clumsy, difficult to connect through and lack support. Sometimes, says the article, free access is simpler better and easier all around.

From WhatISNew comes 101 Reasons Not To Get A Tablet PC:

1. It's too expensive.
2. It's too small.
3. It's too big.
4. It's too heavy.
5. It's not durable enough.
6. I can't read it outside.
7. It can't get wet.
8. It's too slow.
9. It runs too hot.
...
101. If it were free, I'd get one.

Cornell University's Mann Library has developed the HEARTH project to put historical home economics material online:

Mann Library at Cornell University has begun work to preserve and make available electronically essential and influential books and journals in the field of home economics, focusing on items published in the United States before 1950. We have completed a project that identified and ranked material. We also established an outline of the relationships among the sub-categories of the field of home economics: child development, clothing and textiles, and so forth. Our approach to this project, developing bibliographies, and then having the books ranked in importance by scholars, is based on the earlier successful project to identify and preserve the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture.

We built a database of the published works up to 1950, drawing primarily on bibliographies and library catalogs. Our guidelines for inclusion focus on widely available, commercially published materials and scholarly works. This database currently contains several thousand titles.

The project provides a detailed look at domestic culture, attitudes and practices in the US between 1850 and 1950.

...via BoingBoing

Matt Murteen blogs Dave Snowden at the Gurteen Knowledge conference talking about why knowledge can'tbe distilled from interviewing people about what they know:

Human knowledge is stored in patterns far more than raw skills and artifacts. Knowledge is in the fingertips and needs to managed in a different way. This is both our power & our downfall. It also means that you can't get knowledge from people by interviewing them because:

• I only know what I know when I need to know it
• The way we know things is not the way we think we do things
• "I know more than I can say. I will always say more than I can write down.
• Knowledge can only be volunteer[ed] it can't be conscripted

This last is very important because it means that incentives and other attempts to make people share produce the wrong behaviour. People will either camouflage, or dissemble.

He also talks about something he calls a third generation approach to knowledge management that separates knowledge into:

Content: Very high cost associated with proper codifications. Only where it's needed and we have stablity of knowledge. Knowledge goes out of date before you complete the documentation process. (A big problem in government).

Narrative: What I can speak but not write down.

Context: What I can neither "say down", nor write down. Context is the basis for the success of apprentice schemes and the reason they are being re-introduced (e.g. Cynefin's IBM Inside programme). The most effective way of doing complex knowledge transfer. You only qualify once the master agrees you've got it, exams are not enough

...via elearningpost

Stanford University has released CourseWork: an Open Source Course Management System:

By releasing CourseWork as Open Source software, Stanford University is providing non-proprietary, open access to a flexible, scalable course management system for teaching institutions of all kinds. CourseWork allows institutions to integrate their course web sites with their campus registrar’s database, student information system, library systems, and other campus-specific infrastructure systems. Institutions adopting CourseWork can modify its tools to better fit their teaching mission, or add new tools for different functionality. The CourseWork interface can also be freely modified to match the look of an institution’s existing web sites, unrestricted by the constraints of proprietary systems.

Coursework includes APIs developed as part of the OKI (Open Knowledge Initiative)

There is currently a great deal of interest in the science of networks and self-organizing behaviors. There is general acknowledgement that we currently--in Western Society, at least--suffer from information overload--too much information, too fast. Weblogs provide some possibility for locating trusted experts and individuals with compatible interests. News aggregation and RSS make it possible to organize weblog feeds for instant delivery.

But weblogs are not the final answer certainly, in locating trusted expertise, in generating social capital, and in bringing together like-minded individuals interested in engaging in civic society. Blogs are haphazard, disruptive, and casual. Someone who precisely fills the need for knowledge, connections, etc. of you and your group may have a blog for years and you will never find them.

Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster, members of an ad hoc group called ‘Link Tank’ have developed a report on The Augmented Social Network: Building Identity and Trust into the next-generation Internet.

This paper proposes the creation of an Augmented Social Network (ASN) that would build identity and trust into the architecture of the Internet, in the public interest, in order to facilitate introductions between people who share affinities or complimentary capabilities across social networks. The ASN has three main objectives: 1) To create an Internet-wide system that enables more efficient and effective knowledge sharing between people across institutional, geographic, and social boundaries. 2) To establish a form of persistent online identity that supports the public commons and the values of civil society. 3) To enhance the ability of citizens to form relationships and self-organize around shared interests in communities of practice in order to better engage in the process of democratic governance. In effect, the ASN proposes a form of “online citizenship” for the Information Age.

Online identity and building trust on the Internet are critical factors for enhancing knowledge, building community, and developing new structures for promoting civic society. In addition, as this paper proposes, persistent online identity, combined with reputation tracking, and brokered introductions might be a way to increase knowledge sharing, reduce ‘reinventing the wheel’ in unconnected groups, and broaden communities of interest and practice. In addition, it may be a way to overcome issues that arise as the web gets more crowded, that some individuals are always recognized as the ‘go-to’ person in a certain subject area (because they were in the past, or were on a closely related topic, because they’re a prolific writer, because they have lots of connections) and some people, who may also have valuable knowledge or new and essential insights, never are (because they’re new to the system, because they post infrequently, because they are not as extensively networked). A system is strengthened when it has a dynamic flow of new information, but it becomes difficult to maintain the flow when trust isn’t being built or new ideas aren’t being communicated across communities.

The Augmented Social Network proposes to tackle some of these issues by developing a system where affinities can be discovered and trust established across communities and among strangers. Trust, we believe, is currently in decline in our society. This is likely due to many factors, among them increased stress, rapid change, broader networks, businesses and government institutions who do not honor agreements as they have been made. And yet, trust is essential for people of good will to engage in productive civic development and policy discussions. So, how can trust be established on the Internet in ways that recognize everyone’s potential participation and promotes community and progress?

The ASN proposal includes four main elements:

Persistent Identity
Interoperability between online communities
Brokered relationships
Public interest matching technologies

As discussed in this paper, persistent identity in this context must be something controlled by the users themselves. They must be free to decide not only what information is stored about them, but how it is revealed. For example, mandatory persistent identity that reaches across work, play, and civic environments would be a sure-fire way to guarantee that many people would either not participate, or would only participate in ‘safe’ ways. If someone has to choose between civic participation and their job, then they are not free. We can argue that it’s a ‘choice,’ participation or job, but if we truly want to live in a democracy then it is not an appropriate choice. We must have both employed workers and full participants in society--not an increasingly small group who can afford it or who have nothing to lose. Civic participation cannot belong only to the wealthy.

The other three elements are primarily concerned with finding and making contacts with like-minded others or with people who can contribute knowledge to a project. Ways to reach across communities, brokering relationships to introduce one ‘stranger’ to another in the system while still respecting everyone’s privacy, and developing systems to match public interests across the web are all critical to civic participation and productive progress.

Among the many issues here, (especially in judging affinities and capabilities and in matching public interests is one that plagues the Internet and its need, as a technological system, to have all things defined) and that is the essential nature of serendipity in any task of this nature. We don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t always know our own capabilities or how they apply. We find it particularly difficult, for instance, to locate people whose expertise isn’t credentialed in some identifiable, categorizable way. When you’re looking to solve an environmental problem you want people with expert knowledge, with local knowledge, and with policy knowledge and you want simple ways to bring them together. You want ways to identify people, to invite their participation, to build trust and to move ahead without too much ‘noise’ in the system.

There are a number of things going on currently on the web that would help build the system outlined in this paper--XML, RDF, Topic Maps, reputation systems on Amazon.com and eBay.

The paper ends with the following recommendations for proceeding:

• Establishing an ASN coordinating body
• Convening a board of technical advisors
• Providing a dedicated engineer to represent the public interest at standards bodies working on persistent identity
• Develop basic ASN functionality with select online community companies
• A dedicated team would coordinate implementation of matching technologies for the public interest sector

Principles of implementation are:

• Open Standards
  
• Interoperability
  
• Inclusivity
  
• Respect for Privacy
  
• Decentralization

The ASN could be implemented piece by piece and community by community. The system could be emergent and respond to growth and new unexpected uses that people will find to apply to the system once it’s in place.

So, what does all this mean for Extension and, in broader terms, for the Land Grant System? ISU Extension’s mission is as follows: ISU Extension builds partnerships and provides research-based learning opportunities to improve quality of life in Iowa.

Other extension service mission statements:

Providing quality, relevant outreach and continuing education programs and services to the people of Texas.--Texas Cooperative Extension

The Cornell Cooperative Extension educational system enables people to improve their lives and communities through partnerships that put experience and research knowledge to work.--Cornell Cooperative Extension

University of Illinois Extension provides practical, research-based information and programs to help individuals, families, farms, businesses and communities in Illinois. Its mission in short, is to help you put knowledge to work.--University of Illinois Extension.

Extension is about reaching out to people all across the state, about helping people use the information that university research produces, about taking data and information and helping people turn it into resident knowledge. Extension runs on networks. Clients, field and regional specialists, county office staff and campus specialists all work primarily through a web of loosely connected networks. For example, county office assistants communicate with their county directors, other county office assistants in the region, clients of extension, field specialists, campus specialists, local institutions and others. They provide information, seek support, offer expertise, and coordinate data, information and knowledge.

So where could the features of ASN--persistent identity, interoperability between online communities, brokered relationships, public interest matching technologies--fit into Extension’s mission and organization? I think there are probably a number of applications that will become possible that are not possible now and that many of these applications will be invented by people pushing current boundaries as well as just trying to get their jobs done. Applications of this sort are generally disruptive and spontaneous and difficult to predict. What we can do is be prepared for disruption and encourage positive change when it happens. In addition, ASN could provide more people with the opportunity to interact with Extension experts through brokered introductions and public interest matching technologies. It could expand the Extension staff interaction on the Internet in ways that add value both for citizen participants (thanks to the information and knowledge they glean from Extension personnel) and for Extension (in enriching and deepening Extension staff’s knowledge and understanding of current developments).

Discussion of the Augmented Social Network and its potential applications is ongoing now. And while the final application may mutate it’s very likely that some form of building identity and trust will be implemented as the Internet continues to develop. It makes sense for Extension and other public service institutions to be aware of these discussions and prepared to participate in ways that enhance the public interest and the services we provide.

PluggedInns.com lists what hotels in what cities offer high speed Internet connections. Some entries also have additional information including cost, location, wired vs wireless, etc.

...via Scripting News

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and current candidate for President will be guest blogging on Lawrence Lessig's blog this week.

Christopher Coulter (via Gizmodo) tells us:

Acer TravelMate - Wendy's Single and then Double and Triple Burger(s). HP/Compaq Tablet PC - Happy Meal Special with toy. Fujitsu Stylistic - Checkers Drive-In Classic Burger, Outdoor seating. Motion - Quarter Pounder (at the 50s fun-themed McDonalds). NEC - Soy, Air-Pumped Low-Cal Diet Special Burger. Toshiba Portege - Arby's Beef and Cheddar

and more....

Posted by dcoates at 01:14 PM

Wired picks the year's best stuff so far:

• pocket digicams
• portable photoprinters
• tablet PCs
• 802.11 g Wi-fi routers
• smartphones
• 17 inch LCD televisions
• DLP projectors
• Lhandheld televisions
• keychain MP3 players
• MP3 car stereos
• shower radios

According to a report at news.scotsman.com, it appears that contrary to record company gloom and doom, a new report from Music Research and Programming says:

Music Research and Programming, industry research experts who surveyed 500 serial downloaders aged between 13 and 45, discovered that 87 per cent of those who "try before they buy" would still buy albums when they were commercially released.

A total of 91 per cent of file-sharers download individual tracks, but more than two-thirds go on to buy the album, with even the heaviest downloaders saying they like to own real CDs.

Only half of people who download music illegally from the internet believe they are doing something morally wrong. Almost half of the people who responded to the survey were "heavy downloaders" who obtained more than 100 tracks. However, surprisingly, 34 per cent of them said they were buying more music than ever before.

Although 38 per cent of heavy users said they were buying less music, about 28 per cent said their internet activities had not affected the number of CDs they bought in a year.

...via ArtsJournal

Researchers from Bradford University have found that using a cellphone may increase short term memory in men:

The researchers found that the men who were given active mobile phones made fewer mistakes in word recall than men with inactive phones. Female participants seemed to be unaffected by the experience

Alright, it's not much of a study (33 men and 29 women) and they only tested them, like, twice, but it's posted at a health news site so it must be important....

...via Gizmodo

Via Gizmodo, comes a report that Korea legislators are considering requiring camerphones to make noise when they take a picture:

Huh Un-na, a ruling Millennium Democratic Party member on the Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Telecommunications committee said that the party plans to submit a bill mandating that cameraphones be designed to emit a loud noise when photos are taken. The noise would alert people in public that their picture might have been taken.

Gizmodo says that this won't work because there are other cameras people can take secret pictures with that don't make noise. Korean manufacturers say that the restrictions will bring ruin down upon their heads.

I say, think before you take pictures and blast them all over the Internet.

We've talked about mobile computing for a long time, but we are now getting closer to the reality of nearly ubiquitous mobile computing. However, the form this takes may not be the form we expect. It will likely involved cell phones and PDAs (for while at least) and tablets and other devices.

Ray Ozzie has more on Extreme Mobility:

I believe we're currently in a transition period for personal computing: from a tethered, desk-bound, personal productivity view, to one of highly mobile interpersonal productivity and collaboration, communications, coordination. We're focused right now on devices and networks because we're coming at the problem bottom-up: preoccupied by gizmos and technologies' capabilities rather than focusing on how our lives and businesses and economies and societies will be fundamentally altered.

Tim Lauer, a teacher, has a PowerPoint presentation online: Bringing Literature Circles online: Blogging about Books, about students discussion online using weblogs.

Also, check out Edweblogs, group blogging about the NECC 2003 conference

Daniel Will-Harris has an interesting article on working with a designer:

Preconceived notions are just one of the mistakes people make when they work with a designer. A good designer%u2019s work will make something:

• Work better
• Sell better
• Shed new light on old subjects
• Look better

...via elearningpost

Posted by dcoates at 03:36 PM

NewsGator has published a case study of Triple Point Technology's adoption of weblogs, RSS, and news aggregation to communicate within the organization:

Triple Point started with a simple goal: "The idea is to free some of our content, expose it via easily searchable XML and HTML via HTTP, and reduce the amount of information ‘hunt and peck’ that currently goes on, thus increasing productivity and improving the quality of our work," says Allie. They wanted to leverage the fact that employees already spend significant time using Outlook, and also build upon intranet work they had already done with SharePoint.

The solution was multi-fold: weblogs were created for employees to publish to, business systems were modified to leverage RSS, intranet sites now notify via RSS, and NewsGator delivers the content to the desktops.

...via The Shifted Librarian