I followed Jim’s instructions to get UCalgaryBlogs.ca converted from using a single database (as is the default) to using multiple databases (17 separate databases now) via the premium.wpmudev.org Multi-DB code to prevent growing pains. The single database config is good for getting up and running, but with 300 blogs in the system, table explosion was causing grief on the shared MySQL database server - there were almost 3000 tables, which was making the automated backup script complain a bit.
Rob Cottingham gave the second keynote presentation at Northern Voice 2009 (following a great presentation by Nora Young, who delivered a live-performance radio show that wonderfully got the conference rolling)
Here's Rob's keynote. This is one of the reasons I love Northern Voice - I haven't been to another conference that had a standup comic routine as a keynote, and have it so fully and faithfully capture the spirit and set the tone for the entire conference. Nearly every other presenter tied their session somehow back to Rob's keynote.
(you might need to view the post to see the video - I have no idea if it will survive RSSification)
The Reverend just posted a link to a great video produced by EDUCAUSE, which is basically a discussion between Jim Groom and Gardner Campbell on edupunk. It’s well worth viewing. I’m going to be passing it around here on campus.
I just tried logging into ucalgaryblogs.ca using a test user account, and was surprised to see a strange item in the admin bar at the top of the page:
I was curious, so I clicked it.
mwah? Those are site-admin items, being displayed to a non-admin user. I was actually able to click the “Admin Message” item to set that, even though the logged in user wasn’t an admin. Scary. Luckily, nobody’s noticed the extra menu yet - or if they have, they’ve behaved.
I’m not going to write up a summary/reflection/whatever post. It was a blast as always. And, as always, the best part was hanging out friends - old and new. I’m wishing I’d taken more photos of that part, but here’s the only recap I’ll be posting.
Facebook recently revised the terms of service for their website. They have a right to do so. I have a right not to like the new terms. Here’s the snippet that put the last nail in the Facebook-as-content-application coffin for me:
Licenses You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.
I just pushed the latest version of the WP-Sentry plugin out to general use on UCalgaryBlogs.ca - any site can now enable it to have the ability to create groups and to set the audience for posts and pages. A site admin can create groups and put members of the site into any number of groups - which can also be hierarchically arranged - and then the members can decide who should be allowed to see the posts that they publish.
I’ve been looking at various options for student response systems - primarily clickers - and have been quite frustrated at how that market is set up. I wouldn’t be able to recommend use of those, in good conscience, given the recurring costs. It also seems a little strange to compel students to buy a specific piece of hardware to perform the task, when they (almost) all have laptops and/or smartphones in their hands anyway.
Alan’s working up a 5 Card Flickr Story project to show at Northern Voice, and it’s a really fun little application to explore simple visual storytelling. Any photo on Flickr tagged with 5cardnv is sucked into a pool, where 5 photos are chosen at random and presented as a mini story. You can “keep” any of them, or roll the dice for a fresh batch, until you’re happy with the frames of the story.
I just registered to participate in the 2009 Alberta Ride to Conquer Cancer. It’s an epic 2 day, 200km bike ride in the Rocky Mountains west of Calgary, with riders raising funds to support the Alberta Cancer Foundation.
My goal is to raise $2500. But I need your help. If you can, please sponsor me.
I will be training for the ride, to build up to the longer distances and mountains that will be part of it. It’s going to be one hell of a challenge, but it’s also going to be well worth it.
I just cracked open the Google Analytics stats for my blog, and was curious to see how much data was available. I had it display all data (going back as far as November 16, 2005, which is apparently when I first started using Analytics). Google has tracked over 1 million page views on my blog. Over 600,000 unique visitors. The scale of that just blows my mind.
This article is making the rounds, and the comments on the Globe and Mail page are pretty entertaining. Professor Denis Rancourt gave everyone in his fourth year physics class an automatic A+ so they wouldn’t be stressed out over grades and could get into some interesting and meaningful stuff in the class.
I’ll be clear - I think that’s a fantastic idea. I’d maybe pull back a bit and make the course pass/fail rather than automatic A+, but I love the idea of nuking grades and focusing on learning instead.
I followed Jim’s instructions to get UCalgaryBlogs.ca converted from using a single database (as is the default) to using multiple databases (17 separate databases now) via the premium.wpmudev.org Multi-DB code to prevent growing pains. The single database config is good for getting up and running, but with 300 blogs in the system, table explosion was causing grief on the shared MySQL database server - there were almost 3000 tables, which was making the automated backup script complain a bit.
I just registered to participate in the 
