CogBlogged from ‘November, 2003’

Ignore this! I am testing Aaron’s RSS to Email Aggregator, which should be able to send me RSS via email from selected blogs (in case this one). More details later if the experiment works, but I have to post a new message to see if I get the email update. I am sure that no one ius listening.

It’s taken actually several weeks (off and on) to get a new web design up for our Faculty in Progress Program (FIPP). The old site was not horrible, but as this faculty recruitment program is in transition from an internal internship to one open nationally, and it was to be less tied to our center, there was an opportunity to do some new web stuff here.

Nossa ferramenta de RSS est¬… jogando agora em Brasil Conversor RSS para JS [demo]. I cannot really write Portuguese without the help of the fish, but this is saying that our RSS tool is playing now in Brazil. More scanning of the referring site sin our web server log showed that the RSS2JS demo has been translated into a Spanish version which is very cool, hosted on what looks like an entire Portuguese language site about RSS. Updates While I am at it, Spanish language: Recursos sobre RSS (Resources on RSS) with some RSS specific articiles written in Spanish.

Wow, it’s been a while since I clicked over to BBspot. This story is a bit dated (June 14), but is important if you are concerned about today’s youth. BBspot – Student Suspended Over Suspected Use of PHP Topeka, KS – High school sophomore Brett Tyson was suspended today after teachers learned he may be using PHP. “A teacher’ÄÝoverheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked,” said Principal Clyde Thurlow. ’ÄÝ “We’re not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB.”’ÄÝ If you have not figured this out, yet, this is satire. Do not read anything here at face value. The news continues: Interviews with students suggested that’ÄÝPHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly [...]

I musta been sleepin’ that day they covered bizness models. Here them smart folks in the Windy city offer Business Blog / Weblog Workshop by BloggingWorks One day workshop on how your business can harness the power of weblogs to improve efficiency and communication. a smokin deal at $395 per suit, err head. At what are we chargin’? nuttin’?

I am guilty of this as much as the next person– in working on a web design project, or any project for that matter, you can get so close to the details and the content that you easily miss minor but important details. Huh?

IndyJunior Flash Mapping Module is a nifty Flash application from Bryan Boyer… By editing your own XML file, IndyJunior generates a dynamic map of places you have been or are planning to go to, and IJ features a configuration tool to customize the map appearance and features. Nodes can be set as hyperlinks to relevant sites. I quickly mocked up a where in the world is/was cogdogblog page as an example. I found an example of this while clicking around Meg Hourihan’s blog.

I’d rather be blogging about something else, but after a raft of stupid “Neat Blog”, “I agree”, “Cool Blog I’ll be back” comments, often from the same IP with faked emails, appearing on very old posts (ones that pop up on Google), I have taken another level of blog protection. Taking a cue from Greg’s effort, I have set up a close comments script that de-activates the comment forms on entries older than 30 days (using a PHP script described at geeksblog but the link has actually moved elsewhere). It is pretty easy to set up for MT blogs using mySQL. (Note to Greg- you need to run this as a cron job to keep closing comments off). This is not too horrible as there are hardly any relevant comments that come more than 30 days later. It does not quite close the comments door as far as Stephan warns [...]

Here is another new learning objects “hub” site (a PHP-Nuke supported site) called Learning About Learning Objects . I clicked and clicked and clicked trying to find the elusive “About” statement, failing, and found this on a site that seemed to be the prototype: The process of implementing SDCCD Online to date has highlighted several problems in implementing a distance education program at a community college: Faculty need training that models good distance education, additional support in making the transition to online instructor, and much greater and easier access to online instructional materials they can use to construct their courses. This ˆ¨Community College Faculty OnlineˆÆ project addresses those needs. The project will train faculty in the development of learning objects, train faculty to use them to create online courses, and submit the learning objects to the MERLOT online instructional repository for public access. “SCCCD” would be the San Diego Community [...]

Recently Brian Lamb and Jim Sibley conducted a Canadian Blogshop at the University of British Columbia, and plentifully acknowledged the materials in our BlogShop from down here in the far south Canadian hinterland province of Arizona ;-) Actually the UBC version takes it a notch further by posting the workshop materials in a wiki. I liked their idea of creating a BlogLines account with RSS feeds from the workshop and it’s participants’ play-blogs. However, I must admit being a bit scared at the look of Jean the Blogging Grad Student. In addition to this work, other recent blogshop-type activities include: * ETUG BlogTalk * Nick Olejniczak’s A Course About Weblogs (syllabus done as a wiki). If there are more, please let me know. The more the merrier, and I say in developing your local blog introduction eforts… beg, borrow, and steal as much as possible from other efforts. Update (a [...]