CogBlogged from ‘September, 2004’

The fight goes on. Spammers keep trying to thrust their links to pharmaceutical and gambling and whatever crap.com sites via the Maricopa Learning eXchange comments. Today, some hours were spent making sure all new comments were not made visible, so after submitting the form, they should see that nothing has been added. Don’t you think a spammer would get a clue they are wasting their time? Nahh, that assumes some level of intelligence. Their spam is going right into the can! I have things in place to ensure the submissions are coming from our form and not spawned by a script. They latest tool is an email notification that will go to the MLX package owner, and allow them a one click option to trash a comment or make it visible. It should be running tomorrow. It sure woudl be nice to develop some new resources than waste time with [...]

Please excuse our regularly scheduled blogging for a sad announcement. Today we had to put down my labrador retriever, Mickey, normally the dog on the banner image for this blog. As warm and affectionate he was with humans, this dog had a strange aggressive streak towards other dogs. Last Spring, he bolted through a tiny hole in the porch of our cabin and attacked a small dog that was passing by. After reinforcing our fences, dropping a wad of money at a doggie therapist, using a bark collar, we were resigned to the fact he could not be around other dogs. Yesterday, a visiting relative stopped by the house with his new Great Dane puppy. I was not there, and missed the incident by 10 minutes, but apparently Mickey managed to squeeze out the door, and again went straight for the puppies neck in a death grip. Fortunately they were [...]

In yet another feat of “faux syndication”, we now have our events database updating our Ocotillo Central and Action Group blog sites automatically. This provides a dynamic link from the info on the main Ocotillo Events calendar which has unique URLs for the following views: All Action Group Events General Ocotillo Events Learning Objects Action Group Events Hybrid Courses Action Group Events ePortfolio Action Group Events Emerging Learning Technology Action Group Events This information is now pushed to Ocotillo Central with the three next Ocotillo events appearing in the top right box where John posts his updates, and in an appropriate section in the listings for each Action Group. In addition, each group’s events are now dynamically inserted to the left side bar of each group’s blog. Once we can modify our calendar database authoring scripts, the co-chairs will be able to directly add/edit events to the database. I call [...]

flickr foto Small Houseavailable on my flickr Mickey has a new house but it is a bit of a squeeze Likey Mickey’s new dog house, sometimes a course management system that looks swell at the store ends up being pretty much a tight squeeze to live in. He’d rather run around in the yard getting wet in the rain than live in there.

flickr foto P8181355.JPGavailable on my flickr Rest a Bit on the “Restbit Bench”, Santa Maria Springs, Hermit Trail, Grand Canyon I just posted this photo to my flickr account using a nifty plugin for iPhoto (found via Tim Lauer). Basically, one can select one or more photos from your collection, select Export, add captions and tags, and then export them. The first one went smooth, the second attempt I kept geting error messages about account/email not matching, but some amount of retries, re-entering, re-starting iPhoto. Since I have my Flickr account set up for a JavaScript feed to this weblog, the image makes a trip from my iPhoto collection to flickr and then faux-syndicated to thie blog site. I really, really like what flickr is doing, they are adding new and interesting services, and providing developers access to the APIs for doing nifty add-ons like this plugin. Definitely good small [...]

Wireless technology spreads far and wide. A recent EurekAlert came my way (somewhere in the techie/gadget RSS feeds in my reader) that describes the use of wireless sensors to monitor the activity on Tungarahua in Ecuador (this one is for you, Michelle ;-): A rumbling South American volcano has gone wireless: Computer scientists at Harvard University have teamed up with seismologists at the University of New Hampshire and University of North Carolina to fit an Ecuadorian peak with a wireless array to monitor volcanic activity. The sensors should help researchers, officials, and local residents understand and plan for eruptions of Tungarahua, one of Ecuador’s most active volcanoes in recent years. The researchers installed the wireless network on Tungarahua and captured 54 hours of data during a recent trip to the 5,016-meter mountain. The wireless system could eventually replace the wired sensors now used on Tungarahua and many other volcanoes. “Systems [...]

If I knew better, I would take last week’s Ocotillo Virtual Kickoff as a resounding failure. We had set up a series of 1-4 minute streaming video welcomes from not only our top executive levels, but more important;y, the faculty co-chairs leading our new initiatives on learning objects, eportfolios, hybrid courses, and emerging technologies. We invited people in our system (and beyond) to join some online discussion boards. We put the word out with system wide email announcements, plus individualized messages to specific target groups. The goal was to meet the ongoing mantra that people do not have time to go to face to face events/meetings, so we set up what was thought to be a flexible format, hybrid if you will. At week’s end, the video viewership was low, there were only 20 new accounts added to the discussion board, and the only conversations there were among our co-chairs. [...]

We’ve got some regular visitors to some of our Ocotillo wikis, too bad they are not contributing to our collaborative space, unless you think that inserting about 150 URLs for Asian web sites has something to do with Learning Objects. They hit the same pages, and in fact are wiki URLs mentioned here, so I am not linking directly to them. The IP addresses vary across the 220…, 221…, 60… range. I have been trying to sort out the correct syntax for the UseMod Banned IP features, which require perl regular expressions. not exactly my forte, but I found some examples with a 15 minute Google section. Found some useful stuff from the KaminskiWiki. I was also reassured, amused that the UseMod wiki itself was encrusted with the same exact crud ours has been hit with recently, URL for URL. I know it is a losing war. I know it. [...]

The demo blog I set up for the Low Threshold Applications site as the pro-bestiality cluns, the online gambling groups, and the freaky flesh photographers and their assorted scary friends have been paying daily visits. I have a new scheme which has plugged them up pretty good, so I am hoping to get a good test over there. I am being rather vague about this. eh? I’ve got me suspicious reasons. Stephen Downes writes “For some reason (because spammers usually pick bigger targets) it has been spammed.” Given that, I have a spooky feeling that whomever is spamming the MLX is a reader of this blog. Howdy to them! Here is a mirror: It’s nice to have fans. Thanks for all the spam! I’ve got nothing better to do than try and plug the holes in the wall.

This is the last session of the day. I think they want to go home. Let’s give a hand to our guest photographer, Jason, who’s image choice reflected how the group felt at the end of the conference. This group too ahs been rather receptive to some of the wacky ideas presented. Okay, that is it. We are out of here. I am filling space.