CogBlogged from ‘January, 2007’

I just love it when I find something cool on the web by accident. We Blog Cartoons does something almost no other cartoon site does– it lets you republish the cartoons without any copyright restrictions (how many times have you used that New Yorker one about “no one in the internet knows you are a dog”?) ‘We Blog Cartoons‘ contains cartoons by Dave Walker which can be freely reused on other weblogs. How to use the cartoons in your own blog: Either: 1. Save the cartoon onto your own webspace and then post the cartoon on your blog, keeping the credit line and link as it is. (The advantage of doing this is that you save me a bit of bandwidth cost and you have full control over the image on your site) Or… 2. Simply copy and paste the code underneath the cartoon in question. Simple as that. So [...]

I am being sarcastic, but am curious as to the point where we have so many social network tools, accounts, and activities, that we do nothing but link together. With some trepididation, I actually fell into two more today (LinkedIn and Twitter), with some interesting comparisons on the experience. Over the past months or more, I;ve gotten a number of those invitations to join LinkedIn: LinkedIn is an online network of more than 9 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals. And yes, that [...]

It’s not everydayavailable on flickr Even better than second place and collecting $10, I won first place and got $50 donated to the American Diabetes Association- see And the winner is .. and some reflections on user-generated content: As many of you know, I celebrated a milestone birthday this month.  To celebrate, I concocted an action learning experience in user generated content, the Beth 5.0 Flickr Photo Birthday Remix Contest.  I set up a flickr group, uploaded some instructions and some photos from the past half-century, and invited people to celebrate.  The winner would receive $50 to their favorite cause or charity.   I blogged the invitation, I emailed friends, family, and a few colleagues, I skyped, and sent an invitation to join the flickr group to all my flickr contacts. When I heard about this, I thought, what a groovy idea– make some of your flickr photos available, ask folks [...]

For the Google sketchers, mappers, and fans who want to earn a trip to the Googleplex, see Show us your university campus in 3D: Today the Build Your Campus in 3D Competition begins. This spring, you and your (presumably equally artistic) friends can honor your campus turf as you hone your 3D design skills just by modeling your school’s campus buildings in Google SketchUp, geo-reference them in Google Earth, and submit them through the competition website to earn lasting online glory. And the winners get a visit to Google, all expenses paid Is that Stanford? That’s right- plant your uber campus in Google, and the gold might be yours… The top 5-7 teams (max 50 people) will win a 3 day trip to Google’s Mountain View headquarters to participate in a workshop with 3D modeling experts from Google, get free airfare and hotel, food in our world-famous cafes, and a [...]

What a sad day it is when us old skool flickrites now have to wear the official uniform — just got my note from the principal: What this is referring to is those with flickr accounts had previously, on signing in to flickr, had to follow the extra “Psssss…” link to get to the 5% club’s entrance. I felt so special, so unique, wearing my tattered old skool jeans: I am making a bit light of this, as I had a yahoo account used for almost nothing, not even mail, with the same name as my gmail account. So the transfer was easy. And if there are improvements on the way… okay. But in a way, it really feels sad, to loose that special, old skool feeling. I set up my flickr account in March 2004 (that is about 3 internet centuries ago), when I was looking at photosharing sites– [...]

And Then There Was One (Laptop)available on flickr Now that is a clean desktop! Over the weekend, I used the OS X migration assistant to move my files and music (a paltry 6 Gb) from the old iBook (vintage 2003) to a separate user account on my MacBook Pro. I have gone from Three laptops down to two, and now…. one. If you never see another post here, you will know I have taken the next step! This means my life is organized neatly into one computer and no more stuffing two laptops (and power supplies) into the bag for a trip to the office in Strawberry. Where is the old Compaq PC? I erased it with Darik’s Boot and Nuke and left it for a donation at the Pine Arizona Senior Center Thrift Store…. it barely hit the table and someone snagged it for $25. The G3 iBook still [...]

Last week was long, I am sure there were 16 days crammed into it. This included flying to Atlanta for the EDUCAUSE/ELI conference, presenting twice on Monday, exiting early Tuesday to hop a flight to Dallas, and being part of a trio running a 3 day workshop. After a late Friday night arrival at home, I am fairly sure my wife stacked me in the back of the pickup truck with the rest of our gear for a weekend escape to our cabin. The computer was not touched until late Sunday. That’s a roundabout way of saying I was not blogging. Well, I had something itching to blog, then I deleted, then I itched, then I shut the lid on the computer. Sometimes it benefits to let an idea sit and ferment, or die of neglect. We’ll see which is the advisable course. This has to do with some reaction [...]

I’m biased towards Google Reader as my current tool for swimming through RSS feeds. That’s not to claim that My Reader is Better Than Yours, or My Reader Can Beat Up Your Reader. I like what I’m getting out of it, and it works for me. I’ve ignored the link for a while listed under See personalized trends for your subscriptions and read items, but took a peak today. So Big Brother G is monitoring what I’m reading, sharing, starring, but I’ve got nothing to hide. It provides you some data on what feeds you hit a lot, and which ones you read versus skim, all nicely Ajax tabbed. Or ones you skim lightly, since I read lightly: So I am reading less than 40 items a day ( thought it would be more), though it is questionable if I am reading these versus looking quickly, and mostly headline scanning. [...]

Small new feature for Google Personal Home page fans– If you use the module for displaying RSS feeds, in addition to getting headlines from your feeds, now you get expandable summaries as well. Just click the little plus sign, and stories expand, click again to collapse. Not earth shattering, and not that i use this for an RSS reader, but if you use a Google Home page, it makes a nice addition for those very, very special feeds.

I’ve not been much of a blog coverage provider (or actually even much of a participant) at the EDUCAUSE ELI conference — since we had two presentations back to back Monday, I missed other sessions, and held more informal, liquid activities at the reception and hotel bar (Gardner, sorry we missed connecting!). I had to leave early Tuesday to get to Dallas for another NMC workshop, and am really regretting missing a raft of great sessions today. This conference gets a hearty 2 paws up as one of value and networkng capability (the human variety). Next year I hope to be more present!