Everything that does not have a home, just a big old stinking pile of posts.
As hinted, I have just posted an updated version of the RSS to JavaScript service/code we created in April 2003. The new one is now called Feed2JS and features a number of enhancements- primarily an adoption of the open-source Magpie RSS parser, to replace the unsupported OnysRSS parser previously used. Magpie allows us to provide […]
This dog will not blog… for the next 4 days. I’m off for some backpack time around the edge of the Mogollon Rim, in the Coconino National Forest. Given drought conditions of the last several years, a rather dry winter, it will only be maybe a week or two before fire restrictions and closures shut […]
Today is my big catered affair. The 2004 Ocotillo Retreatis the 17th one for the Maricopa Community College’s “Ocotillo” program— something started to provide a faculty-led focus on issues of instructional technology. Ocotillo is a desert plant that is also the creative metaphor for what has been a dynamic and evolving organization over the years […]
Again, I should be working on something important, but for idle curiosity I was fishing in the Ocean Google to try and find where other folks have been using our RSS To Javascript code/service: http://www.google.com/search?q=rss2js.php%3Fsrc%3D It is an interesting mmix of people running off of our server as well as running it on their own […]
I’ve been in a number of collaboration initiatives that aim to use online collaboration tools or “virtual community building” and sometimes it feels like the frustration of combing through one of those 90 function multi-tools when all you really need is a basic knife.
While not convinced the tools make or break the projects (it has more to do with the people, the motivation, a shared purpose, the gravitational pull of Saturn ;-), it sure seems like the tools often get in the way rather than enabling. The creaky 1990s vintage “Worktools” used, or attempted in use last year by the Learning Objects Virtual Community of Practice (LOVCOP) as well as the ePortfolios VCOP (E-PAC) had brief pulses of activity last year, but are now online ghost-towns. Was it the tools fault? I would not know, but I can vouch that the sheer tediousness of using them compelled me not to extend an effort (email notifications of discussions posted- you had to log in, navigate and open threads to even find them) and not many others spent time inside these multi-tool. sites. Worktools was likely a fine effort in the early days of web-based forums, but to me it was the equivalent of a Model T on the autobahn.
So what has happened?
I ought to be something else, but have been bothered by two items regarding our often used RSS2JS (allows humans to use RSS by cut and past JavaScript, processed by a PHP middle ware script). It hinged upon the defunct, gone, and un-documented OnyxRSS Parser. It could not handle Atom feeds, and since Blogger is […]
Nice…. “Blogs and RSS- Tools for Creating, Collecting, and Sharing Ideas Online” , presented as a WebQuest: “Learn about tools that will forever change the way you gather information online and separate the online publishing from the technical hurdles typically associated with running a web site” This has your basic components of a webquest, a […]
Maybe people tire of blogging not because of lack of things to write about, but Interface Fatigue?? Back and forth from the MovableType editing screens, wating for those CGIs to pop, makes one s-l-e-e-p-y… Another stumbling along the blog roads came up with a link to a new desktop editor for MT bloggers- Zempt. I […]
Actually, my weekend adventure was not influenced at all by Dan Gillmor’s post One Reason Bloggers Need to Get Out More , but I thought I would not give him credit anyhow 😉 Getting out is good for the mind, soul, and body, so Sunday morning, from our escape hideaway on Strawberry Arizona, I mounted […]
Just like wildflowers or weeds, springing up across the net are more services to help you use RSS in your web sites. FeedSweep just came on the scene, in time to help Amy sweep her “webfeeds”: Anyone that wants to syndicate RSS and Atom feeds on their web sites would be well-served to take a […]
