Year End Bloggings (No Rest for Spammers)

I’ve finally caught up with my other colleagues in getting into relaxed, holiday, not-at-the-office for a while mode. One of the nice side perks of working in education is getting their holiday schedule, so I am away from the building until January 3, hibernating up in our comfy cabin in Strawberry, in frequently sipping the internet through a 28 kbs dial-up straw.

We’re wondering where winter is, as high pressure over the southwest has our temps in the mid 60s in the day, and barely below 50 at night, maybe 20 degrees warmer than it ought to be. And there has not been significant precipitation here in Arizona since October. We want snow, but there nearest moisture must be 1000 miles away.

Even the last week at Maricopa, the internal email dropped off to almost nil as most made an early exit, and my major accomplishment on my last day (Thursday) was cleaning my office (meaning trashing piles of papers in my desk or shoving important things into an unorganized drawer). With a notice that our carpets were to be cleaned over break, I even got rid of a bunch of crap under the desk, and tried to detangle the mess of cords and cables from an assortment of laptops, hard drives, speakers, extra monitors, audio speakers, video camera, periphials, that I rustle around. It was cable hell under there, and I got them pretty well tidied and bound up more neatly. I know entropy works in my office clutter.

But while most people are slowing their life down and spending time with family, the spammers are still running their race pace. 36 hours away from email, and the ratio of real mail to total was about 3 / 127. Boy do I appreciated Thunderbird’s spam filters. And here on the blog, the in vain efforts of spammers has been on the rise lately, and the pile of dead spam roaches is growing higher outside the protective wall of the Word Press Spam Karma 2 plugin.

Ah, the smell of dead spam frying in napalm.

But enough of that… I’m expecting to be engaged next week in mostly non-bog worthy activity (picture a hammock), so I am mulling over blog year 2005 for some highlights and favorite posts. (Ok, D’Arcy inspired me to comb through my archives):

• Build Your Own DeliciousFurlBagConnotea Marklet Maker (Jan 13, 2005). The first appearance of the MultiPost Bookmarket Maker, now up to maybe 17 different social bookmark sites in the current tool.
• Skypecasted Today, Some Other Cast Tomorrow (Jan 24, 2005) Skype is for real- an hour plus flawless audio chat with Teemu in Finland.
• Foibles of my First Pod… er, iRiverCast (Jan 25, 2005). The technology actually owrked doing a video iChat presentation from my office in Arizona to the EDUCAUSE meeting in New Orleans, for a session on the NMC Horizon Project.
• Helen is Coming To Town! (Feb 23, 2005). Helen Barrett, the “Grandmother” of ePortfolios comes to Maricopa for a successful ePort Dialogue Day.
• Ocotillo Presentation Under The Belt (Mar 7, 2005). At the Innovations 2005 Conference, our presentation on Ocotillo went great; the conference environment itself was dull, dreadful and saved only by being in Times Sqaure.
• Out and About At MIT (Mar 12, 2005). A visit to MIT is magical and eye-opening– doing an invited presentation was another story, but ti went well.
• A Lamb Comes to Phoenix (Mar 29, 2005) Friend and colleague Brian Lamb comes to Phoenix for a dialogue day on learning objects and wikis
• Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! Copyright Slap from the Ripley’s Folks (Apr 6, 2005). Don’t use that phrase online, ever.
• New Feed2JS Mirror and Some India Students Feed Aggregating (Apr 7, 2005) Our code gets some good use by students on the other side of the globe.
• Harry Mudd and the TCC 2005 Keynote (Apr 21, 2005). A one hour keynote presentation for the TCC 2005 Worldwide Online Conference: “Harry Mudd, Small Pieces, and that Not Widely Distributed Future”.
• That was a little too easy (Apr 26, 2005) Migrating this blog from MovableType to WordPress took about 5 minutes, and loving it ever since.
• Podless No More (thanks Mom!) (Apr 28, 2005) After months of complaining, I finally get an iPod.
• WordPress Search Bookmarklet (May 4, 2005). Well I thought it wa suseful, never heard if anyone else did.
• In Print/Web: “Internet Audio: Can You Hear/Talk to Me Now? Good.” (May 9, 2005) The Spring 2005 issue of the mcli Forum hits the web streets, with an article on podcasting and a feed with my audio interviews with 20 some colleagues.
• My First (sloppy) ScreenCast (May 12, 2005) I am waiting on the Oscar nomination.
• What a Day! (May 17, 2005) Our biggest and most successful Ocotillo retreat ever; nearly 200 gather at South Mountain Community College for a day full of technology and guests Richard Baranuik and Larry Johnson.
• Learning Objects R.I.P. (May 24, 2005) Maybe it was not exactly this date, but Learning Objects sure have waned this year. (“I’m not quite dead yet”!).
• Technology Firehose at San Diego State (May 24, 2005) An invited visit to SDSU, getting to hang out with the legendary Bernie Dodge.
• When Was Your Blog-Ha Moment? (May 27, 2005). My most ‘successful’ meme, maybe went as far as 5 people.
• I Rode the Wiki! (Jun 15, 2005). I have the photo of the most famous bus in Hawaii.
• Five Minutes of Fame (NMC Conference) (Jun 17, 2005) My gig on Feed2JS, done with S5, got a gong in Hawaii. It felt good.
• Cat Diaries (NMC Presentation) (Jun 18, 2005) – a packed small room audience, way too much content, and the most ever I twisited Blogger into creating- More Than Cat Diaries.
• Four Full Days at PSU (Jul 14, 2005) I’m at Littany Lion country for the EDUCAUSE Instructional Technology Leadership Program 2005. My presentation on Living at the Crossroads of IT&ID was fun to create, fun to present, and slightly missed the mark. Live and learn, eh?
• Conference Bagged (Aug 7, 2005). I’m not crazy about conference bags… To date, on flickr, my flickr meme tag of conferencebag has a total of 3 photos, and 2 of them mine.
• SAC 2005 Session on Collaboration Tools (Aug 10, 2005) Sharing the presentation stage at the Snowmass conference is Stephen Downes, Phil Long, and little ole me.
• Conversations: Tree People and Cave Dwellers (Aug 24, 2005) and Distributed Conversations: More Than Four Reasons (Aug 16, 2005), and A Tale of Technology & Two Organizations: CNN vs Education (sep 5, 2005). These barkings got some of the most comments ever (a whopping 10+ each).
• More Platefulls: The Ocotillo Sandwich Split (Sep 13, 2005) We manage to pull off two large events on the same day.
• Dusting Off Crusty Old Software (Oct 11, 2005) How fun! A 10 year old project still has interest and users.
• RSS Mixers (Oct 12, 2005) Lots of feedback on this tool summary.
• Me 2.0 (Oct 18, 2005) One of the silliest things I have ever written gets some of the most comments ever.
• Running / Blogging / Running (Oct 18, 2005) Start of my blog to document my efforts of training for a 1/2 Marathon.
• Podcast Publishing With MovableType (Oct 21, 2005) How we are using an old version of MT to create a system for publishing audio content to multiple sites.
• Can I Have That in Small, Unmarked Bills Please? (Oct 23, 2005) My blog is worth 72 million clams.
• Cover Art (Oct 28, 2005). My photo from Death Valley gets used on a CD for a German rock band and the CD arrives in my mailbox in November. Where else but the net can this happen?<
• Blogmenting (Oct 28, 2005) Recognizing again that there is more to blogging than just writing.
• Dogfacelift (Nov 12, 2005) I finally get around to a semi-original WordPress template.
• My Teacher Wears a Cowboy Hat and Boots- For Tonight’s Class He Lectured With Guitar and Harmonica (Dec 6, 2005)
• MCLI iForum Released (Dec 8, 2005) The release of the MCLI iForum, a Word-Pressed online version of our formerly dead tree publication.
• Throwing Stones at the Wiki Glass House (Dec 11, 2005) Another post with a double digit comment count (barely).

Wow, that took much longer than I thought, and maybe I should trim the list. These are my own mile markers, and the glance back does put a blogging year in perspective. I can say the thought is weird that people I do not know (or know) read this stiff, and even more weird, get in their minds I know what I am writing about. It’s made up as I go 😉

I am also looking forward to turning the clock for 2006. My IndyJunior travel plans already have San Diego, Vancouver (and maybe Austin) pegged for 2006 travel. Also on the map is a plan to be more serious and regular about keeping an eportfolio that is more than a playpen, and maybe a stepping stone…

Anyhow, to all CDB readers out there, have a great year-end roll over into 2006. Blogging relaxed from Strawberry, Arizona… Alan

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