CogBlogged from ‘November, 2008’

Twitter Timeout by cogdogblog posted 16 Nov ’08, 10.02am MST PST on flickr and stop reloading, damnit! You are hurtin’ the tubes!

You know much little grades really mean to what we know/can do, but long-time colleague Liz tweeted me my TwitterGrade and then followed up with data of overwhelming stomping of Guy Kawaski: So we can put a lot of faith into a mystery metric, but what the heck? I’ll roll with it. Take that @guykawasaki and your 27,000 followers (whose tweets you read in detail, eh?), me and my puny legion are ahead of your pack! Stomp! Dog stomps Guy. Film at 11.

Aloneness or Lonliness? by cogdogblog posted 16 Nov ’08, 4.54am MST PST on flickr Perhaps it is a fine line, but as a very sparsely populated, expansive– and moving into winter– dark place, Iceland can offer you plenty of time, space for reflective alone time… or toss you into an abyss of isolation. My measure seems to fluctuate with the ins and outs of my internet connection. This month in Iceland was an opportunity I could not refuse and am glad I have not done so. It is quite different living in a different culture versus visiting as a tourist or a parachuting presenter. My free time for getting out an exploring fit in around the fact (or my own compulsion) that I have to work as well. Fortunately, the nature of our work at the NMC is that we can work where-ever we are if there is internet. And [...]

iPhone iFlute! by cogdogblog posted 16 Nov ’08, 4.22am MST PST on flickr Yet another day passes and its another utterly amazing iPhone app. Ocarina is a musical instrument, and you play by holding it horizontal and blowing into the microphone (indicated by yellow arrow) You then place your finders on the dots, and the combinations allow you to create music as you blow. If you are very good, you can generate (well manually) your original music online as a score. A Twitterbution to @courosa Boom. Tremors. It feels like a veritable explosion of innovative ideas on how to leverage the unique (well it was unique, look at all the wanna-be clones) interface of the iPhone. (yes, it is a “closed” platform, am I hurting for apps? nahhhh) Copying a touch screen won’t be enough, IMHO. Among the coolest features are ones tapping into the audio side of the phone- [...]

Here is Proof! I Created YouTube by cogdogblog posted 14 Nov ’08, 8.13am MST PST on flickr The heck with the flimsy claim of Herbert Elwood Gilliland III who says he was the fourth You Tube inventor — I have videotape proof of me sketching out the concept in 1979 (it is the second part of the tape where I outlined the core functionality of the web). Someone has to pay. I will accept my due share of $1 million paid in small biscuits. Created with Videotape Generator- make your own! says-it.com/videotape/

Getting a PhDDD! by cogdogblog posted 14 Nov ’08, 8.35am MST PST on flickr And they say spam is a problem! I am so excited! I like the sounds of this program: No Exams/Books/Tests/Interview/classes 100% No Pre-School qualifícation requìred! And best of all, I "can even becomêe a doctor and receíve All the benefìts That comes with it! " I am so eager to hear from their Stäfff 1-3 wòrkiñg dáys I am so glad I did not waste time or money at a university. These internet tubes are so useful.

modified from cc flickr photo by JTony I want a law named after me ;-) Call this CogDog’s Law of Web Tools: The “best” tool is the one I am currently using the most. This played out earlier this week during Howard Rheingold’s session for the CCK08 session. While he was talking about his new social media tool, in a back channel, people were talking about wikis. “Question- what is the best free wiki site?” “I like wikispaces- it has great tools for embedding media.” “PBWiki has the best editing features.” “WetPaint is very cool.” It is a bit of a silly pursuit that there is an absolute “best” internet tool– ou might as well go to Home Depot and hear the same conversations in the power tool aisle: “I only by Dewault- they have the best power supplies and have been most durable on my drilling sites. Besides, it [...]

It’s been a fruitful reading of those so-called dead blog scrolls this week– Scott Leslie has liad out a strong missive in Planning to Share versus Just Sharing and just across the bay from Scott (well farther this month), Brian Lamb is posing some tough questions like Am I missing the point on open educational resources?. I’ve been muttering around that after years of simmering on the sidelines, there is something abuzz this year on open _______ (content? resources? pubs?). In general, reluctance I have seen on sharing involves what I think are greatly exaggerated fears (“someone will STEAL my stuff and MAKE money”, “they will steal my stuff”, “they will steal my stuff”) in comparison to the order of magnitude larger positive things that are enabled by open sharing (but not as much highlighted). I do not discount that miscreants and greedy theft has happened (lifted web site content, [...]

On updating my 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story site, I am trying to fill in more examples where I was lacking more than just my repeated Dominoe Story. In Looking for ones created with the comic tool gnomz (which are pretty sparse) I dug way back and found one D’Arcy did in 2005, and then said doh! I had done one myself – Aren’t They Just Diaries which pops up relevant again as people claim blog deaths. This was a setup I did for a 2005 NMC Summer Conference presentation More Than Cat-Diaries: Publishing with Weblogs where, yes, in 2005 I was trying to make a case that blogware was a powerful publishing platform (and that site was the most extensive mangling I have every done with a blogger template, and that was not trivial!). And um, ahem, this is my sideways stance again to say that [...]

Thanks to a curious click form a Tony Hirst tweet, I briefly whizzed by xtranormal an interesting web app for creating/directing/producing/gaffering your own virtual movies: Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century and its democratization is a massive business opportunity. Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie. On the web and on the desktop. And all of this rang as 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story material. As I am preparing to do a remote online intro for Dean Shareski’s class this Monday, I am spiffing up the site and re-acquainting myself with old and new tools. After an hour’s play, [...]