The Latest and Greatest

We've moved

2007-02-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

We have moved this blog to a local server... So, join us at our new site,and let us know what you think we should call our new blog.

Zink

2007-01-31T11:32:00.000-05:00

Zink stands for zero ink. It is a paper with the ink built in so that when you print through a thermal head, it turns into a color photo. It may turn out to be a total failure but it is an interesting concept. It is being introduced this week at DEMO 07.

Second Life Explorers

2006-12-12T15:51:00.000-05:00

A few of us from Wheaton began exploring Second Life together last week, and we've got another virtual meeting scheduled for this coming Thursday. Here's a group portrait from our last trip, taken at the NMC Campus:

Obviously, educational applications of Second Life are our focus and the NMC Campus is a perfect starting point. Here is a great list of educational sites that we should also start looking at:

Top 20 Educational Locations in Second Life

Wired's Travel Guide to Second Life

2006-12-05T10:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been neglecting this blog lately. I don't have much of an excuse... just busy, I guess.

Anyway, I couldn't resist this. We're starting to explore the use of SecondLife at Wheaton. In fact, we have some time set aside this afternoon to do a little exploring. Unfortunately, one of the main features that allows you to explore -- the place search in SL -- seems to be down at the moment. I think Linden Labs is having a bit of trouble after their recent upgrade.

So, I went off looking for some good slurl's (Second Life locations) on the web and found this Wired article, published in October 2006 -- a great primer for noobs like myself. If I don't have time this afternoon to explore these places, I will definitely be there tonight.

BTW, I may have mentioned this before, but my SL name is Paul Story. If you're in game, look me up!

Linux on Mac-Intel

2006-08-11T09:14:00.000-04:00

This site shows how to triple boot on a Mac-Intel with Macintosh, WIndows and Linux operating systems:

http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

Blackboard flexes it's muscles

2006-08-02T15:00:00.000-04:00

There has been a lot of buzz around the net about Blackboard's recent lawsuit against Desire2Learn. Blackboard has played down the implications of the suit:

"This is not about limiting competition or innovation. This is not an acquisition," said Mr. Small, Blackboard's general counsel. "We are seeking a reasonable royalty." (from The Chronicle)

But many others are taking a much more pesimistic point of view:

After purchasing and killing Prometheus in 2002 and WebCT last year (and many other companies, though not strictly speaking CMS/LMS companies), Blackboard seems to have a long-term strategy of not developing good or original technology but buying competitors and, now it is clear, trying to keep others out of the field by getting an absurdly broad patent for common uses of technology if that technology is employed in the context of education. Not only do we need to worry about the future of open source initiatives such as Moodle and Sakai, but we also need to worry about using a blog or wiki with a class of students. In fact, simple networking protocols, authentication practices, and the like, if undertaken by a school could well be jeapordized by this patent. (Peter Schilling on Academic Commons)

Thanks, Kathy, for alerting us to this one!

Digg, Stack, and Swarm...

2006-07-25T21:16:00.000-04:00

Sounds like a new dance, doesn't it!

Digg, a popular social networking service that lets people share and vote on news stories, launched Digg Labs today with two new tools that create cool interactive visualizations of all of the activity happening there. Here's a description from the Digg Blog:

Digg Stack shows diggs occuring in real time on up to 100 stories at once. As stories are dugg, they appear along the bottom of the screen, colored according to how popular they are. Users digging these stories appear as falling blocks that stack up as activity increases. The zoom level is adjustable, so you can focus in on the most recent stories, or pull back for a broader overview. You can also pause the visualization if it's flying by too quickly, or if you want to focus on a specific story more readily.

Digg Swarm is a more lyrical view of Digg. Stories come in as circles with the title inside of them, and diggers "swarm" around these stories when they digg them. Every time a story gets dugg, it increases in size — so the bigger the story, the more active it is. As people digg more stories, they move from circle to circle, and increase in size.

I'm not sure what to do with this yet, but it sure looks cool. :-)

Dandelife

2006-07-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

Saw this on Kairosnews

Dandelife: "Dandelife is a social biography network. What's that? Well you all know what a social network is. Dandelife is a social network built around the telling of your life's stories. You can use Dandelife to create your own personal biography and then share that with the rest of the world. Imagine all your own notes on all the people you've met, the places you've been, the events you've gone to and the stories you could tell about them all. "

I haven't tried it out yet, but it seems to create timelines out of blog-like entries that you make on the site.

An Undergraduate Course in Second Life

2006-07-20T15:28:00.000-04:00

Ed Lamoureux from Bradley University is teaching an Undergraduate Course in Second Life at the Second Life NMC Campus this coming semester. He plans to write three installments for the NMC Campus Observer blog about preparing for the class. The first installment is already there and good reading!

Arts in Ireland

2006-07-07T10:53:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to blog about this one for a while. Wheaton art professor, Andrew Howard is chronicling his and his students experiences at the Burren College of Art in Ireland on a Blogger blog:

Arts in Ireland

Fifteen students and professors Andy Howard and Tim Cunard will be spending three weeks at Burren College of Art, which is located in one of Ireland's most picturesque regions.

Second Life

2006-07-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

I joined Second Life last night and spent quite a bit of time tweaking my avatar (Paul Story) and trying to get my bearings. Lots of wandering (and teleporting) around aimlessly.... er... I mean exploring! Some chatting with other newbies. It runs a bit on the slow side on my home computer (which is far from top of the line)... but a lot better than I expected. I seem to be able to move around and talk, listen to music, play games, watch movies, etc... all in real time. Sometimes the textures on objects take a little time to draw, but eventually I can see everything.

Today, I figured out how to get to the NMC Campus and took a brief look around. I plan to explore more soon. Here's a snapshot of me standing at the entry point to the campus:

Second Life really is an amazing environment and deserves a close look. It is not your typical hack and slash online game, but rather an open-ended virtual world that allows you to be creative and social. It reminds me a little of the MOO environment that the NITLE sponsored German Liberal Arts Collaborative used in the Fall 2005 semester, but much more sophisticated. I can imagine students creating complex class presentations here and/or meeting and having classes with students from other institutions from around the world. I can imagine virtual conferences here, virtual galleries... maybe even some virtual campus tours?? Lots of possibilities here.

iView Multimedia

2006-07-05T16:13:00.000-04:00

Been busy and vacationing lately. Now I need to get back in the habit of blogging!

Here's a link to Microsoft's Digital Asset Management system that Ken sent via email the other day:

iView Multimedia

A Good List of Open-Source Software

2006-05-18T09:38:00.000-04:00

If you are at all curious in using open source software for personal computing, these two sites that I ran across this morning seem like great places to start:

Open Source Windows - Free, Open-Source software for Windows

Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for Mac OS X

Open Source Mac/Open Source Windows is a simple list of the best free and open source software for Mac OS X/Windows. We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every open-source mac/windows app, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use. This page should be a handy reference and a useful tool for getting more people to start using free and open-source software.

I'm not sure who maintains these sites, but they seem to be right on target in their recommendations. And they are not biased toward Mac or Windows! They just need a list for Linux too.

Online Productivity Software

2006-05-16T15:43:00.000-04:00

We may indeed be moving away from running desktop applications and toward using web applications in the future. There seem to be a lot of software developers out there banking on that idea anyway. Just a few examples: With Writely you can do all of your word processing online. Jotspot Tracker allows you to create spreadsheets online. Thumbstacks gives you PowerPoint-like presentations. And Gliffy lets you create diagrams and flowcharts.

Today I ran across this one: Pixoh: Edit pictures online. I tried it out on one of their test images. For really basic image editing it seems to work well.

Women DO play online games afterall...

2006-05-12T09:17:00.000-04:00

I am often told in conversations about online gaming by the skeptics that one of the real problems with it is that the whole activity is really male dominated. Well, maybe not... According to this post on jill/txt, entitled the myth that women don’t play games:

Apparently 24-35 year olds are the heaviest gamers. According to a recent survey, 65% of women in this age bracket play games. Only 35% of men in the age bracket do. The survey found that women play “slightly less” console games than men and that many more women play casual games, like flash games in web browsers, solitaire or online Scrabble. They didn’t think to ask the women why they liked casual games, but assume that it’s because they’re non-violent and non-cometitive (they can’t have played many games at games.com). Great. Let’s just assume gender stereotypes instead of asking.

Interestingly, Nick Yee’s statistics from MMOGs show the same trend: while boys are clearly dominant among teenaged players, women players outnumber men for players above 23 years of age

(via Liberal Education Today)

Google Trends

2006-05-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

Google Trends was launched yesterday:

With Google Trends, you can compare the world's interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched for on Google over time. Google Trends also displays how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and which geographic regions have searched for them most often.

Here's my comparison of myspace (in blue) and blog (in orange):

Art history with Flickr

2006-05-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

Bryan Alexander posted last week about an art history professor's use of Flickr for one of her classes. In this example, students comment below and within the picture itself! Pretty slick.

Podcasting Legal Guide

2006-05-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

Creative Commons has developed guidelines for podcasting that explain copyright as it relates to various types of podcasts.
The Podcasting Legal Guide may help in defining what types of permissions we need in creating podcasts at Wheaton.

Seven Things about Podcasting

2006-05-03T16:39:00.000-04:00

Seven Things You Should Know about Podcasting: part of Educause's brochure series that I just happened across. Maybe we could use it as a handout at the upcoming faculty workshops?

NITLE's Online Publication about Visual Resources in Liberal Education

2006-05-03T13:55:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of last month NITLE published (on their website) an article about Visual Resources by Roger C. Schonfeld. Something worth a look as we continue to think about Digital Asset Management at Wheaton:

The Visual Resources Environment at Liberal Arts Colleges

Here's a little piece from the introduction:

The findings are based on visits to seven liberal arts colleges in late 2004 and early 2005, which were designed to examine the role images play in teaching and learning. Although a number of campuses had developed viable strategies for the provision of digital images and the organizational plan and campus culture to support those strategies, several of the institutions we visited suffered from an organizational structure or campus culture that was ill-suited to take the strategic choices needed to encourage a transition to digital images. As the section on Campus Roles and Responsibilities explains at greater length, we saw two fundamentally different organizational models for the information services units that support image provision, one of which was much more successful than the other. [1] The role of the slide library or visual resources collection was the ultimate variable, and those campuses on which the slide library takes a campus-wide perspective (rather than serving the art history department alone) seem to see much easier and more successful transitions to digital images.

Ohio leads the nation with a state-wide computer literarcy program

2006-05-03T11:19:00.000-04:00

Another interesting development involving technology literacy.

May 3, 2006

Ohio Leads Nation with Statewide Computer Literacy Program

COLUMBUS, OH – Ohioans can lead the nation in computer literacy and carry a card to prove it!

The International Computer Driving License (ICDL), provides a way for all Ohioans to obtain an internationally recognized certificate of achievement. Each person who earns the ICDL receives a card to certify they have the “license.”

ICDL is an international standard of definition and achievement for basic computer skills. While the program is currently offered in more than 130 countries worldwide, the program is relatively new in the United States. Ohio is the first to create a state-wide focus on basic computer literacy and the ICDL program. Information about the program is provided by Ohio Computing Unlimited, (www.ohiocomputingunlimited.org), a program of the Ohio IT Clearinghouse.

“The ICDL is in no way a real ‘license’ for computer users,” says Rich Bowers, coordinator of the Ohio IT Clearinghouse, an initiative of the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Learning Network. “But it is a very good analogy – just as the automobile driver’s license indicates that one has the basic skills necessary to drive a car safely and responsibly – the ICDL indicates that one has proven a basic level of skill with computers and key applications.” It is important that Ohioans have a basic knowledge of computer skills because computers have become so essential to both school and work. The Ohio Board of Regents believes that computing skills, along with reading and math skills, are fundamental to success in higher education and the workplace. Numerous studies show that higher education is key to a renewed and more highly skilled workforce across the state.

“We have a reasonable definition of the ‘basic computing skill set’ with this program which enables learners, educators and employers alike to share a common understanding and expectation,” said Bowers. “The ICDL program can be used as a guide to know where you are in your knowledge and skill, and what you might be missing. Employers will want to reward their employees’ efforts to enhance their computer skills by obtaining the necessary education and acquiring the certificate.”

Raising the awareness of employers about the benefits of employees and job candidates having such a certification is a priority of the OCU. Employers should see this program as an effective way to save time and effort in evaluating job candidates and for providing basic computer training for new employees.

Ohioans can earn the ‘drivers license’ locally. OCU is partnering initially with the EnterpriseOhio Network and the SkillsMAX centers to provide local testing centers. The EnterpriseOhio Network supports the training and community activities of 53 Ohio community colleges and satellite campuses. The SkillsMAX Centers are specially-outfitted testing centers – and most of the 20 campuses in that network are the initial testing centers for those pursuing an ICDL certificate. Community technology centers around the state – such as the ACCEL program in Zanesville – and other organizations that reach out to specialized audiences are expected to be involved in the initiative. For a center close to you visit www.ohiocomputingunlimited.org.

The Ohio Learning Network , is a consortium of 72 colleges and universities helping Ohioans learn more to earn more and improving teaching and learning with technology.

Ohio Computing Unlimited, the Ohio IT Clearinghouse, and OLN are programs of the Ohio Board of Regents. For more information, visit the Ohio Computing Unlimited website
or send e-mail to ohio-icdl@oln.org.

Google Calendar

2006-04-13T23:00:00.000-04:00

Google continues to make forays into web-based productivity software. Not long ago, they purchased Writely, the online word processor. Gmail is one of the best web-based email programs out there. Now there's Google Calendar. Features include: Calendar Sharing, Invitations, Gmail Integration, and of course Search.

Keeping up with the new...

2006-03-26T00:06:00.000-05:00

It's a little ironic that I'm posting this now, since it showed up on Kevin Kelly's blog 15 days ago, but I guess we can't all be up to date all the time. ;-)

This post on Cool Tools points to a bunch of sites -- he calls them Consensus Web Filters -- that can help us keep up with the latest and greatest.

...each of these sites supplies readers with pointers to news items that are ranked by other readers. None of these sites generates news; they only point to it by filtering the links to newsy items. Using different formulas they rank an ever moving list of links on the web. The velocity of their lists varies by site, but some will have a 100% turnover in a few days.

Well worth a look!

Accepted by iTunes

2006-03-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

Noted without comment.

Google Mars

2006-03-15T20:48:00.000-05:00

Just saw a reference to this on NITLE's Liberal Education Today Blog: Google Maps for Mars!

Zoho Creator

2006-03-10T10:12:00.000-05:00

This one looks interesting:

Zoho Creator: "Zoho Creator is a free online service to create & share web applications with few mouse
clicks."

I will have to investigate.

via Educational Weblogs

LibriVox

2006-03-10T10:03:00.000-05:00

LibriVox: "LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain."

They have a podcast too!

via NITLE's Blog

Google buys Writely

2006-03-10T09:43:00.000-05:00

The online wordprocesser Writely announced yesterday that it is now part of Google.

CogDog Podcasting Resources

2006-03-08T20:28:00.000-05:00

Alan Levine has put together a nice wiki page with a bunch podcasting resources on it. He used it during a recent demo where he works (the Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, AZ).

Thumbstacks

2006-03-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

Here's another web-application-that-replaces-a-desktop application:

Thumbstacks.com - Live presentations on the web!

It looks a lot like PowerPoint; and the name reminds me of hypercard stacks. Warning! The site claims that they are still in alpha, so you might want to wait before you use it for real.

Wiki+Ajax = Wetpaint

2006-03-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

Wetpaint is the latest entry into the world of wiki hosting, and I am impressed. Check out the demo page if you get a chance and be sure to try out the editing functions. I can't think of a more elegant-looking easy-to-use wiki-editor.

UPDATE: I should have thanked TJ for pointing me to the site. Thanks, TJ.

Google for email support

2006-02-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

I was wondering if this would happen. Google's email service is fantastic, better than any other webmail client that a college could offer, IMHO. And it looks like I am not the only one with that opinion. One school is now outsourcing their email support to Google. Will others follow?

Liberal Education Today - Campus turns to Google for email support: "One American campus is outsourcing its email to Google. San Jose City College email accounts will be hosted by the search giant, who has been running its email program, Gmail, for several years. Users' email domains will not appear as Google's."

via NITLE's Liberal Education Today

U.S. Grant Web Site Doesn't Work With Macs

2006-02-14T08:34:00.000-05:00

U.S. Grant Web Site Doesn't Work With Macs:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060213/ap_on_hi_te/grants_no_macs

Mon Feb 13, 6:21 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A government Web site that aims to serve as a one-stop shopping point for scholars and others in search of federal grants is creating headaches for users of Macintosh computers.

The site's electronic forms for would-be applicants aren't Mac-compatible. "Frustration kind of goes through the roof," said Mark Tumeo, vice provost for research and dean of the college of graduate studies at Cleveland State University.

He said about 30 percent of the systems used by his university's scientists and others are Macintosh computers. Those with Macs are having to seek out Windows-based PCs in order to fill out the applications. Tumeo estimated several hundred grant applications are affected by the glitch, which was first reported by The Washington Post.

The idea behind the new government Web site, Grants.gov, is to streamline the process of applying for grants by reducing paper applications and replacing them with electronic ones. It also serves as a resource point for the 26 federal grant-making agencies that award over $400 billion in grants each year.

Calls to Grants.gov and the Health and Human Services Department, a managing partner for the program, were not immediately returned Monday.

The Post said HHS helped choose a small Canadian firm called PureEdge Solutions to create the electronic forms, which only work with Microsoft's Windows operating system. PureEdge is said to be working on a fix.

Mozilla's Songbird

2006-02-09T23:54:00.000-05:00

While sitting and listening to a Ruckus demo today, Ken showed me Songbird, Mozilla's recent entry into the media player/organizer race. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm hoping it does what Firefox did for web browsing. Currently the download is Windows-only, but give them time... this is only version 0.1!

"Songbird is a Web player built from Firefox's browser engine. Songbird is open source, will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and supports user contributed, cross-platform extensions."

Elgg

2006-02-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

Found this blogging tool aimed at educational institutions. It might be worth a try:

elgg.net :: the learning landscape: "The concept behind the system is to develop a fully customizable learning landscape. To achieve this Elgg is a hybrid of weblogging, e-portfolios and social networking. It is hoped this combination of features will provide an engaging environment for learners to create their own learning space and then connect to others, forming online communities of learning."

Apple - Education - iTunes U

2006-01-24T16:36:00.000-05:00

Jeanne just emailed the faculty tech liaisons about this, and I'm posting it here, because I'll lose it in my email:

Apple - Education - iTunes U:

"iTunes U* is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to your educational content, including lectures and interviews 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

Seems to good to be true... where's the catch? Here's some more text from the site:

"Instructors can easily post and change content on their own without impacting the IT department and allow students to upload their own content to share with professors or with the class. All content is stored in an Apple-hosted repository that can be browsed and searched, and configured to provide open or secure access as needed."

SSUG Notes for January 13

2006-01-13T09:46:00.000-05:00

I have some notes from yesterday that are still a mess... Here are some notes that I just took:

Bryan Alexander is talking right now at the SSUG. One of the things he showed: a page on NITLE's new site that is a great starting point for a number of technologies.

Other things he is talking about...

Characteristics of Web 2.0 applications:

they tend to use AJAX

Focus on Microcontent: small pieces pulled from different sources to create a single page

About connecting people

"Continuous Beta"... constantly being developed

There is a tension between centralized and decentralized technology
- dispersed applications, but large corporations (like Yahoo) are slurping them up

Implications:

We have to become more nomadic in the way we live on the web... in the way we store information on the web:
- Be prepared to export your stuff into other technology (e.g. OPML)
- Things move rapidly on the web, and we need to be able to move quickly with it

With the rapid development of technology comes more irrational fears of it

Mobile Technology

Mobile technology is a large part of Web 2.0, and the United States is still behind much of the world in this area. Examples:

Many projects right now are tying information to geographic locations

Wednesday Evening Writing Exercise < Ssug < NITLE Wiki

2006-01-12T09:27:00.000-05:00

I'm at the SSUG (Social Software Users Group) meeting in Wooster, Ohio today. Last night we had some nice conversations and this writing exercise, the results of which are recorded on a wiki.

All the World's A Podcast

2006-01-05T09:48:00.000-05:00

Saw this on the new NITLE blog:

A Web Monkey Guide to Podcasting

Web Monkey's tutorials helped me out with HTML and other web technologies when I was first learning it long ago. So, I'm thinking this is definitely worth a look.

New NITLE Blog: Liberal Education Today

2006-01-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

Looks like NITLE has a new blog, which replaces the old NITLE blog and the CET blog.

Liberal Education Today

I've already subscribed!

Looks like the website is all new as well.

The Geospatial Web

2006-01-03T13:23:00.000-05:00

On Point, a Boston-based NPR show, had an interesting segment this morning entitled The New Sense of Place about "the geospatial web." Some of the sites that were mentioned:

Yellow arrow

Memory Maps (a mashup of Flickr+GoogleMaps)

Dodgeball

The Google Earth Community

Peter Morville's Blog (findability.org)

UPDATE:

A full list of the sites mentioned has been published on the OnPoint website. My thanks to Rekha Murthy (the show's producer) for the pointer.

BTW (and this is probably obvious to my fellow Wheatonites): I originally posted this here, because the show points to trends in the digital world that are related to the work our students and faculty have been doing with GIS at Wheaton.

Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

2005-12-19T11:55:00.000-05:00

Microsoft drops support for IE 5.

In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates. Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006,
Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.

Revisions in Wikis

2005-12-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

Someone made an interesting commented recently on a Kairosnews post about Wikpedia about revision:

"the big question of revision: how do we (people who write on wikis) get past the 80/20 rule of revision? Can you distribute the task of proofing for unity and coherence? Or will it always be that 80% of the people do 20% of the work while 20% of the people do 80% of the work? This is the same problem that Yochai Benkler calls 'low-cost integration' in Commons-Based Peer Production."

In my (few) experiments with wikis, I have found that this does tend to happen. Someone or a few people get to the wiki first and do most of the work. Then others often arrive and just tweak what the first people have written. This raises a few questions for me if I want to use or encourage others to use a wiki as a pedagogical too: Does the "80/20 rule" occur because peer editing is foreign and takes some time to warm up to? Is it something about the work being open and on the web that keeps people from making major revisions? How do you create an environment where everyone is contributing equally? Or is that even desirable? Maybe the 80/20 rule is how peer-editing and group projects work in real life too.

PowerGramo-The Recorder for Skype

2005-12-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

Through this company, you can record Skype conversations:

PowerGramo-The Recorder for Skype: "PowerGramo is a powerful realtime recording solution for Skype. You can record and replay any Skype call easily and simply."

There's a free and Pro version ($20), the main difference being that you can record conference calls with the Pro version. Looks like it is Windows only, though... um... Skype is crossplatform guys.

via Weblogg-ed

Creating PDFs for free on Windows

2005-12-12T16:19:00.000-05:00

The tech liaisons had an email exchange recently about creating PDFs from Word Documents on Windows, because a faculty member wanted the ability to do this but did not have the full version of Acrobat. Mac OSX has this feature built in (through the print dialogue), but Windows does not... of course.

In my blog reading today, I came across a solution for Windows users:

CutePDF - Create PDF for free, Save PDF Forms, Edit PDF easily.: "This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!

FREE for personal and commercial use! No watermarks! No Popup Web Ads! "

I tried it out, and it seems to work just fine. Requires downloading two small executables, running them, and restarting the computer. After that, you can create pdfs through the print dialogue by selecting it as a printer.

JotSpot Tracker - Stop emailing spreadsheets

2005-12-12T14:43:00.000-05:00

Something for those of you who might think social software is only for those of us in the humanities... A Spreadsheet Wiki (sort of):

JotSpot Tracker - Stop emailing spreadsheets

via Educational Weblogs

Yahoo swallows up another del.cioi.us Web 2.0 application

2005-12-12T14:29:00.000-05:00

First Flickr, now del.icio.us... It'll be interesting to see where things go from here. Here's the announcement with some mixed (though mostly postive) reaction:

del.icio.us: y.ah.oo!: "We're proud to announce that del.icio.us has joined the Yahoo! family. Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community. We're excited to be working with the Yahoo! Search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. (We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin Flickr!)"

Podcasting is "Word of the Year"

2005-12-08T12:58:00.000-05:00

According to Slashdot and many other sources, the New Oxford American Dictionary has declared "podcast" the word of the year for 2005.

ExifRenamer

2005-12-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

I used this tool recently to help me rename hundreds of photos. It saved me from pulling all my hair out.

ExifRenamer

ExifRenamer is a tool for renaming digital photos, movie- and audio-clips of almost every camera vendor. ExifRenamer is the perfect tool as auto-action for Apples ImageCapture - it can automatically rename the new downloaded pictures without a single mouse click! The program allows to rename photos by their embedded date+time information in a much more usable way. Most downloaded pictures are named like "pic0001.jpg" or other cryptic names. ExifRenamer reads the embedded date+time information and renames the picture to for example "2001-11-18_11-16-34.jpg" (YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss.jpg). This naming style lets you easily create a large photo library with the chance to sort your pictures in chronological order just by displaying it alphabetically sorted in the Finder. This naming style is recommended as other naming styles mostly don't provide this advantage!

Glide Effortless

2005-12-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

David Pogue reviewed this today in the New York Times. Seems like it is worth a look:

Glide Effortless: "Easily and securely upload, manage, store and share your files online. Glide Effortless provides a portable desktop that links with your current desktops."

Schtuff

2005-11-30T14:03:00.000-05:00

Another wiki hosting service. This one appears to be ad free:

www.schtuff.com - What is Schtuff?: "Schtuff is the first to offer a totally free Wiki service. We've made the traditional Wiki easier to use, and tacked on a few really nice features like tagging, custom permissions, and an image gallery.

Schtuff is flexible. Use it to collaborate on group projects, create a blog, share photos with your family, take personal notes... the possibilities are endless! Have a look at some space examples."

via Educational Weblogs

University Channel

2005-11-29T16:14:00.000-05:00

Podcasting academic content out of Princeton:

University Channel - About Us: "The University Channel makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public. It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format. Contributors with greater video production capabilities can submit original productions."

The content is focused on Public and International Affairs.

A Skype Competitor

2005-11-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

Another possibility for language instruction??

Gizmo – A free phone for your computer - Learn More Overview: "Gizmo Project uses your internet connection (broadband or dial-up) to make calls to other computers. With the click of a mouse, you’re connected to friends, family, and colleagues anywhere on earth. It’s just that simple. You talk clearly. For as long as you want. For free."

via Weblogg-ed News who said:

"Gizmo is like Skype except you can record your conversations."

SSE: Simple Sharing Extensions

2005-11-22T09:01:00.000-05:00

First there was RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), now there is (or will be) SSE. Instead of just broadcasting information outward (as RSS does), SSE will be "bi-directional." What this really means in practical terms, I'm not entirely sure. And this may only be of interest in the immediate future to web application developers. Nonetheless, it does seem to be a big thing in the world of social software and Web 2.0, so I put it on my list of things to read about. Here are some links in case anyone else is interested:

Ray Ozzie's summary

Dave Winer's article

The specification

The FAQs

A couple blog posts on the topic.

AmbitiousLemon

2005-11-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

An interesting possibility...

AmbitiousLemon: "Free Webhosting no fees, no advertisements, and no sacrifices

AmbitiousLemon is not a webhosting company. We are a community of website owners who develop and maintain a webserver for the sole purpose of providing free webhosting for those with a commitment to the community. It all began with an average Joe who owned a web server for his own personal use which had plenty of storage space, cpu cycles, and bandwidth to go around. It has since grown into a diverse community made up of people from all over the world with skills and talents as diverse as their nationalities. Please read on to learn more about our service and how it differs from other free web hosting services available to you."

via Educational Weblogs

Copy-protection Malware on Sony Music CDs: an update from Slashdot

2005-11-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

Don't know whether you've been following the recent news about Sony and the malicious software they've been putting on their music CDs, but I thought I'd at least pass along an update from Slashdot about Sony's attempts to recover from the fiasco.

Yeesh... what a mess! Glad I haven't purchased music CDs for a while!

A Video Podcasting tool

2005-11-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

For watching video podcasts. A tool we should probably watch...

DTV: Internet TV On Your Mac

It looks like they are working on a Windows version as well.

via Boing Boing

Social Software Summary

2005-11-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

Barbara Ganley has a just posted a great overview of some social software tools on her blog. She writes about blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and not only describes them, but also gives some great reasons for using them as well as a few tips on how to use them effectively. This seems like a great post to refer people who want to know what this blogging thing is all about.

Educause Article on Podcasting

2005-11-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

In case you didn't see it on the ManeIT Network Blog, here's a link to a decent article about podcasting.

Celestia

2005-10-29T20:16:00.000-04:00

An update to the World Wind post on Boing Boing, reveals another cool app: Celestia

"The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X."

NASA World Wind

2005-10-28T11:27:00.000-04:00

Saw this on Boing Boing:

"World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there."

Their newest version also includes the moon. A lot like GoogleEarth.

Google's new service

2005-10-25T13:08:00.000-04:00

Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing reports: "Word is ripping around the web that Google is testing a new subdomain called base.google.com. A screen shot - the site has been up and down - shows a Google database of sorts where you can 'Post your items on Google.'"

Writely, the Web Word Processor

2005-10-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

Came across Writely while roaming around the web tonight and thought I would share it here:

"Writely is a web word processor that provides simple and secure document collaboration and publishing on the web using only the browser."

Doesn't work with Safari, so Mac users will need to use Firefox... but you should be anyway ;-)

Macworld: Feature: The power user's guide to Firefox, Page 1

2005-10-19T13:50:00.000-04:00

via Educational Weblogs:

Macworld: Feature: The power user's guide to Firefox, Page 1: "Mozilla Firefox is rapidly catching on with Mac users, and for good reason: It’s free, fast, and flexible, and it does an outstanding job of displaying most Web pages. (This cross-platform browser is also increasingly popular among Windows users, largely because of its excellent pop-up-blocking features). And beneath Firefox’s simple interface are some surprisingly powerful features."

PowerPoint Book

2005-10-19T13:36:00.000-04:00

I came across this book review from Cool Tools that I thought folks might be interested in -- especially considering the faculty PowerPoint session that was held last week. Looks like a good read:

"A great PowerPoint presentation is a story well-told. A bad PowerPoint is a mind-deadener. Thousands of businesspeople are snoozing away at this moment as slide after slide of fancy-transitioned words, words, and more bulleted words evaporate a fortune in productivity.... It doesn't have to be that way! Beyond Bullet Points shows you how to achieve excellence in presentations."

Content Management Systems for Teaching

2005-10-16T00:59:00.000-04:00

In case you didn't see it on the MANE IT Blog, here's a good article: "How to choose a Content Management Tool according to a Learning Model"

Thought it might be of interest to some of us since Wheaton will be looking more at its web presence in the coming months. I like the article, because it provides an overview of CMS's in a way an educator would best understand them: based on three Learning Models: 1) To transfer knowledge (Teaching I), 2) To acquire, compile, gather knowledge (Teaching II), and 3) To develop, to invent, to construct knowledge (Teaching III).

Blackboard and WebCT will soon merge

2005-10-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

According to a post on Slashdot: "Blackboard will acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at approximately $154 million, net of WebCT's August 31, 2005 cash balance of $26 million."

More details can be found on Blackboard's site. What will this mean? Does Blackboard have a monopoly? Will costs end up going up for educational institutions? Will the two systems be integrated? Do any other competitors out there have a chance?

Games and the Digital Humanities at 2005 NMC Regional Conference

2005-10-11T13:06:00.000-04:00

This is my second day back in the office after having attended the 2005 NMC Regional Conference at Yale last week. I have to say, I was impressed...

The predominant topic of the conference was Online Gaming (e.g. Massively Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft) and its implications for teaching and learning. Many of the undergraduates who attend our colleges and universities play these games, and rather than villify them (as the press often does) many of the presenters instead portrayed gaming as a very engaged style of learning. Gamers solve complicated problems, they work collaboratively, do all sorts of research, try on different roles and identities, participate in and develop complex story lines... and they do all of this with great zeal. That should give you a taste of the arguments for gaming as a valuable learning exercise. The question (still largely unanswered), then, is: how do we harnass/reproduce this enthusiasm and engagement in learning processes that we design in higher education? In the opening plenary for the conference, Marc Prensky suggested that we could 1) try to use commercial games as pedagogical tools, 2) create custom games, 3) talk about games with students in class (thus placing value on what interests students), and/or 4) use the principles of gaming in designing learning experiences. These gaming principles include: 1) focusing on the users' engagement, 2) involving frequent, important decisions, 3) building in the ability to "level up" toward clear, important goals, 4) adapting to each "player" individually, 5) allowing "players" to test out theories and ideas through play, and 6) realizing that game play is more important than the look and feel ( or "eye candy").

I attended one fabulous panel discussion (actually four mini-presentations) in this track which gave a great overview of the gaming landscape. Bryan Alexander presented on the eery and intriguing world of Alternate Reality Games. Marc Prensky spoke briefly about the value of games in general and his excitement about Spore -- a forthcoming online game that will allow users to shape the evolutionary process of entire virtual worlds. Constance A. Steinkuehler talked about MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) like World of Warcraft. And Nick Montfort presented on Interactive Fiction. Here's a website of resources that the presenters put together -- well worth a visit.

Though the gamers certainly dominated the conference, I did notice a slight trend that others at the conference did not pick up on... probably because of my own interests: introducing Digital Scholarship in the Humanities to undergraduates. As I mentioned already, I helped present on our work here at Wheaton with TEI. I was surprised and pleased to see that we are not alone in this type of work. Immediately after we presented, Krista Terry and Erin Webster-Garrett from Radford University gave a presentation entitled "Teaching and the Web of Mind." As with our TEI projects, they too had undergraduates help create (and research) digital editions of texts (in this case a long out-of-print work of fiction by Mary Shelley). And the next day, a group from Lehigh University presented on a similar project, where they had undergraduates transcribing and researching primary resources/archival material from the University's Special Collections. We didn't all use the same technology (we used TEI; Radford used OCR, wikis, blogs, and text files; Lehigh used WYSIWYG editors to create HTML). But the projects' goals and results were the same: We wanted our undergraduates to have a meaningful, deep experience with primary resource materials using techniques found in the digital humanties. And most students came away from the project feeling a sense of engagement with the process and a sense of ownership of the work they did.

NMC Regional Conference

2005-10-06T10:11:00.000-04:00

I'm in New Haven today at the first NMC Regional Conference and will later be giving a talk with Kathy Ebert-Zawasky, Kathryn Tomasek, and Domingo Ledezma about our work with TEI in the classroom. This is the webpage that we will be using during the presentation.

Kudlian Soft - Podcaster

2005-09-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

More podcasting software from a British company. This one is free and geared toward education.

via Educational Weblogs

FileMaker 8

2005-09-29T16:12:00.000-04:00

FileMaker announced version 8 today. Can't say I feel too excited about this after just going through the FileMaker 7 upgrade... which we just worked on over the summer.

JotSpot Live

2005-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

Jotspot is a great wiki-hosting service that I think I have mentioned here in the past. Now there's JotSpot Live, which takes advantage of AJAX to allow you to see edits live. Free accounts are available.

"Live, group note-taking. Five people in a meeting? Take one set of notes instead of five."

The $100 Laptop

2005-09-28T14:37:00.000-04:00

Can Nicholas Negroponte make good on his promise of a hand crankable, sub $100 laptop? Jeez, I sure hope so. Check out the photo gallery for pictures. It has a handle like the late great eMate.

Quote from the site: According to MIT Media Labs director Nicholas Negroponte, because of the environments in which these notebooks must survive (eg: the jungles of Cambodia), these machines will be made of rubber, and will hermetically seal when closed. The AC power cord doubles as the shoulder strap. The ruggedized laptop can be self-powered, too -- its wind-up crank, designers hope, will deliver 10 minutes of power for every one minute of cranking.

One Laptop per Child

Personal images in ARTstor

2005-09-28T12:55:00.000-04:00

ARTstor announced this morning to Primary, User Support, and Technical Contacts from subscribing institutions that it is making Personal Collection Tools available.

"These Personal Collection Tools have been developed to allow individual end-users to add their own images into the online ARTstor environment. Each user will have his or her own private Personal Collection section of online ARTstor. Once a user uploads images to this part of the site, he or she will be able to add those images to public or private image groups and make use of them like any other image in ARTstor."

Pretty exciting stuff! Thank you, ARTstor!

Blogs we read

2005-09-27T16:02:00.000-04:00

After doing some work on a class blog, I decided I needed to spruce up our site a bit. So, I just added a blogroll in the right hand column of this site that is generated from my Bloglines account.

These are the blogs that I read most frequently. If anyone would like to add (or subtract!) from this list, let me know. It should reflect our group's preferences.

Google Planimeter

2005-09-27T12:16:00.000-04:00

More fun with Google Map Hacks...

According to the Google Planimeter, Wheaton College is "30.06 hectares / 0.3006 km² / 3.236e+6 ft² / 74.28 acres ". I got these measurements by going to the site and placing points on a Google Map around Wheaton.

(Relatively) New Vocabulary: Web 2.0

2005-09-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

And the term of the day (month? year?) is... Web 2.0

A post on Kairosnews points to some good articles about new directions in Internet technology:

"If you haven't heard of it, you will: Web 2.0. It's exploding into conversations online at the moment. Is it a useful way of describing the way that the web is turning to a distributed environment where users push/pull/share content in communicative acts rather than just visiting static virtual spaces? Or is it just business hype?"

Zip Codes on Google Maps

2005-09-27T09:39:00.000-04:00

Alan Levine points to another interesting application of Google Maps on CogDogBlog. On this site, find an outline of any zip code on a map.

Cast Easy

2005-09-21T15:57:00.000-04:00

Here's another application for podcasting that I came across.

Podcast Maker

2005-09-21T15:47:00.000-04:00

If we ever get into podcasting, this might be something worth looking at.

Raw Sugar and Social Bookmarking

2005-09-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

The start of school frenzy has put me a bit behind in my blog reading and writing. So, here's a link to a post by Bryan Alexander from earlier this month on the MANE IT Network Blog about Raw Sugar. Raw Sugar is another social bookmarking tool like del.icio.us with some added features that definitely makes it more appealing. (You can even import your del.icio.us bookmarks into it.)

If you haven't tried, social bookmarking, you should. At first, I didn't get what the big deal was... on the surface it doesn't sound all that exciting. But once I got started, I began to see the appeal of being able to access and update my bookmarks quickly and easily from anywhere, while also collaboratively combing the net for resources with others.

I wonder a bit about whether social bookmarking has any pedagogical potential. It seems like it should be a nice quick and easy way for students to share resources on a topic -- especially for group projects. But now that we are using RefWorks (which can be used to serve a similar function for all kinds of sources, not just web sites) would there ever be a need for a social bookmarking tool?

Google Blog Search

2005-09-15T12:50:00.000-04:00

Chrissa just pointed out to me that Google now has a Blog Search. Wheaton's Latest and Greatest Blog (i.e. the one you are reading now) comes up fourth when you do a search for it. When I narcissistically search for myself, all of my posts on this site come up immediately. Nice.

How to create an RSS feed for your CMS (Blackboard)

2005-09-15T09:49:00.000-04:00

I've been seeing more and more posts about this and just discovered this website that helps you do this. You use either FeedBurner (couldn't connect to their website) or Feed2JS as your converter. This website link gives you the step by step instructions. I haven't tried it yet but hope to have a feed in one of my courses by the end of the week.

Post for Religion 204

2005-09-12T11:02:00.000-04:00

Hello World. I am teaching a blogging class right now.

ARTstor OIV 2.0

2005-09-02T16:25:00.000-04:00

ArtStor has just announced that the Offline Image Viewer 2.0 is now available for Mac users (2.0 for Windows was released several weeks ago). This new version is significantly different than the previous version -- the main difference being that users can now construct PowerPointesque presentations if they want to.

Here's some text from the ArtStor announcement:

"The latest release of the ARTstor Offline Image Viewer (version 2.0) contains additional features and enhanced functionality that were not available in previous versions of the software. Many of the new features are a direct result of user feedback and recommendations.

In addition to all of the functionality of previous versions, the new release of the Offline Image Viewer will include the following new features:

Blank "slides" can now be created for each screen of a presentation;
ARTstor images and local images can be pasted into the slides;

Customized text can now be included along with images when presenting;

Multiple images and text fields can be accommodated on a single slide;

Zoomed-in portions of an image can be saved for display on a slide;

The background color behind the images and text, as well as the entire slide, can be customized;

A smaller, presentation-only file can be exported without requiring the full-size image files;

Presentations can be exported in a format compatible with the previous version of the Offline Image Viewer;

Connections to ARTstor for authentication and for downloading Image Groups can be accommodated through certain proxy servers;

Users can choose where the image file cache will reside on their machine;

Users can choose the maximum amount of memory the application will be permitted to use on their computer.

"

NerdTV launches

2005-09-02T14:36:00.000-04:00

I have a great deal of respect of Robert X. Cringley and will be looking on with interest as he launches NerdTV next week. It's a downloadable tv show about computers. I'm guessing you will be able to watch it with Quicktime Player.

NerdTV

Visual Studies Program at Whetaon

2005-08-29T10:23:00.000-04:00

Saw this mention in an article in the Boston Globe this Sunday:

"Wheaton College, in Norton, acquired an illustrated transcript of a ''Book of Hours' that dates to the 15th century, and will use it to teach art history and Latin; the document will be exhibited at the school this fall and perhaps at Boston College in the spring.

And because of growing interest in digital technology and digital images, Wheaton has expanded its curriculum offerings with a new visual studies program. An alumnus, who asked not to be named, donated $3 million to get the program off the ground, said a Wheaton spokesman, Michael Graca. A visiting professor will be teach courses on film production in the spring, and next year a full-time professor will be brought in."

Looks like we have some interesting work ahead of us...

Colleges coping with Helicopter Parents

2005-08-29T09:04:00.000-04:00

Helicopter Parents

HAMILTON, N.Y. - They're called "helicopter parents," for their habit of hovering — hyper-involved — over their children's lives. Here at Colgate University, as elsewhere, they have become increasingly bold in recent years, telephoning administrators to complain about their children's housing assignments, roommates and grades.

Recently, one parent demanded to know what Colgate planned to do about the sub-par plumbing her daughter encountered on a study-abroad trip to China.

"That's just part of how this generation has been raised," said Mark Thompson, head of Colgate's counseling services. "You add a $40,000 price tag for a school like Colgate, and you have high expectations for what you get."

More Google Map Hack Fun

2005-08-22T20:51:00.000-04:00

gVisit.com - Track visitors to your website using Google Maps

This one is also from Educational Weblogs. With a simple script pasted into your site, you can have GoogleMaps plot out where your most recent site visitors are located.

Update:
I actually decided to try this out. Here's a link to a map of our most recent visitors.

How to use Backpack for School

2005-08-22T20:45:00.000-04:00

I posted back in May about BackPack, a personal wiki-like web environment. If you haven't tried it yet, you should. I've recently been keeping working notes and to-do lists on a free account, and I'm impressed.

In any case, someone has recently written a blog post about How to use Backpack for School. Worth a look.

Saw this first on Educational Weblogs.

Using Moodle, First Edition

2005-08-22T16:01:00.000-04:00

Saw this on one of the blogs I read, but I lost track of where I heard it first.... Anyway in July, O'Reilly published a book on
Moodle. Interesting to see all the buzz this open source Learning Management System has been getting.

Google's been busy

2005-08-22T15:30:00.000-04:00

In case you haven't heard, Google and Blogger (which are really one and the same) have introduced a whole slew of new stuff over the last month or so:

1. Personalized Google Homepages that include Gmail, Weather, and RSS feeds (though for some reason I can't add the feed for this blog to it).
2. Google Desktop 2(windows only) with all kinds of nice goodies -- News, Web Clips, Photos, Quick Finds, and much more.
3. Blogger for Word (also Windows only) that allows you to publish to your blog, save drafts, and edit posts right from Microsoft Word.
4. Google News now allows you to get your news from Google as RSS or Atom feeds.

Mac Keyboard Control (for the geek in all of us)

2005-08-15T15:34:00.000-04:00

A listing of Mac Keyboard Controls. I find these handy from time to time:

http://homepage.mac.com/frakes/MOSXPT/content/keyboard.html

Thucydides Safari History

2005-08-12T12:16:00.000-04:00

Here is a small (and free) app that I find to be quite useful. It presents your Safari history file as a sortable, searchable table. I use it when I want to find a page that I visited three weeks ago but can't quite remember where it is.

Matt Neuburg's Home Page

ArtStor Training Materials

2005-08-12T09:55:00.000-04:00

ArtStor just sent a link out to a wealth of resources and training mateials for end users, primary contacts, faculty, IT Professionals, and Trainers, as well as a tour of the site. The resources include presentations, handouts, demos, FAQs, Announcement Templates, and Best Practices.

Academic Commons Announced

2005-08-11T16:01:00.000-04:00

This looks like a good place to visit on occasion:

Academic Commons (link) offers a forum for investigating and defining the role that technology can play in liberal arts education. Sponsored by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College (link), Academic Commons publishes essays, reviews, interviews, showcases of innovative uses of technology, and vignettes that critically examine technology uses in the classroom. Academic Commons aims to share knowledge, develop collaborations, and evaluate and disseminate digital tools and innovative practices for teaching and learning with technology. We want this site to advance opportunities for collaborative design, open development, and rigorous peer critique of such resources.

Academic Commons also provides a forum for academic technology projects and groups (the Developer's Kit) and a link to a new learning object referatory (LoLa). Our library archives all materials we have published and also provides links to allied organizations, mailing lists, blogs, and journals through a Professional Development Center.

MacJournal

2005-08-09T09:35:00.000-04:00

This is still my favorite snippet keeper. It can also be used to post your to your blog if you want. It exports to Word, rtf and html. Version 3.1 is commercial. Version 2.6 is freeware.

Dan Schimpf Software

Tiger Tip: Enable/Disable "Dashboard"

2005-08-04T15:19:00.000-04:00

10.4: How to disable (and enable) Dashboard (a tip from MacOSXHints)

Some people have claimed memory or performance problems with Dashboard.

Launch Terminal and then enter the following commands...

To turn Dashboard off:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

To turn Dashboard on:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

You have to restart the Dock after making either change for it to take effect:
killall Dock

Beginning Of The End Of E-Mail - Forbes.com

2005-07-30T13:45:00.000-04:00

I liked this quote: "Teens view e-mail as a way to talk to "old people" or institutions like companies."

Beginning Of The End Of E-Mail - Forbes.com

Cool uses of Google Maps - CyberJournalist.net

2005-07-28T15:00:00.000-04:00

I saw a reference to this on j's scratchpad and thought I would share. CyberJournalist.net lists some cool uses of Google Maps. My favorites are Found City, "a social mapping tool" where "you learn what others value in the city as you surf their hotspots" and Cheap gas. Enjoy!