I stopped to record a quick stream-of-thought rant about openness and the institution. My opinions are my own, not my employers, etc… Please don’t fire me.
And, yes, I know that I said “thousands of years” - I meant “hundreds…” or “a long time”. Whatever.
Read MoreOne of the use-cases for UCalgaryBlogs.ca is for a class to integrate external resources such as OpenLearn courses, or potentially anything that has an RSS feed, to be ingested into the class blogsite. Currently, there are 2 scenarios possible for doing this, each with their own specific benefits, but neither quite matching what I think would make for a more powerful way to contextualize these external resources within the activities of a course.
Read MoreI wasn’t convinced that we needed a “campus blogging platform” here at UCalgary. I’d tried to set up one before, at weblogs.ucalgary.ca , and watched it basically wither on the vine for 3 years. Little activity, except in small bursts when used in a class. Almost no individual involvement or ownership. Not interesting or relevant to anyone.
I’d decided that a “campus blogging platform” was the wrong tack. Why not just send people to other services that provide the software, for free. Services like wordpress.com or edublogs.org or blogger.com or typepad.com etc… They all provide the functionality, hosting, and support, without any intervention by a “campus”.
Read MoreI’d guess that the applications, and their arrangement on the menu screens, tells a fair bit about a person. I’ve been slowly gathering a frighteningly long list of apps - games, utilities…
My current favorite add-on apps? Twinkle. Wurdle. X-Plane. Cube Runner. Asphalt. Countdown. Line Rider. Seismometer. And the shortcut to Google Reader.
Read MoreOh, man does this take me back! I spent hour after hour playing the original handheld LED football game - working on my offensive fake-out and hammering the arrow keys into dust.
Now, I can play the game on my iPod Touch. Sure hope I don’t put my finger through the touch screen…
The Boy™ and I went to the Kickoff ‘08 game, and had a total blast. Lots of fun, and the Dinos won (but we missed the action of the fourth quarter - had to leave a little early with a worn out 5 year old :-) )
(slideshow not visible in RSS feed readers)
Read MoreI’ve been meaning to write a mini review of my 2008 Kona Dew FS, and figured after riding it for a year I’d have some thoughts on how the bike works as a daily commuter. I picked the bike up exactly 1 year ago today, and have ridden it to and from work in pretty much all kinds of weather (+30˚C heat waves, monsoon thunder/hailstorms, blizzards, and -30˚C cold snaps). In that year, I’ve put 4,800km on the bike.
Read MoreI’d LOVE to have written a post on how awesome Spore is, what a great game/simulation it is, and how I’ve been playing it nonstop since it was released.
But I can’t.
I prepurchased Spore for Mac on September 5 - 2 days before the release - and have yet to receive a download link for Spore for Mac from EA. They sent me links to the PC AutoDownloader, and PC installer. But no Mac version. So far, I’ve been ripped off by EA.
Read MoreI mentioned this morning on Twitter that it took me maybe 30 seconds to upgrade my blog to the latest WordPress release. I thought it might be handy to show how I do it. I’m not sure if this follows best practices, and it might be a good idea to back stuff up before upgrading, but this process has served me well for the last several versions, and it’s just so quick and painless that upgrading is trivial.
Read MoreIt appears as though 3 of the 4 major national political parties have balked at the suggestion that Elizabeth May represent the Green Party at the televised leader’s debates.
The Green Party is a valid national party, now with a seat in Parliament (although the member was previously an Independent who switched to Green, not an elected Green MP).
According to The Canadian Press,
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday that letting May into the debate would be in essence allowing a second Liberal candidate to participate.
Read More
I’m working with a faculty member who is using a WordPress with his students this semester as a place for them to publish and reflect as a group. To make things easier for everyone involved, it’s a good idea to batch create user accounts for the students so they don’t have to go through that process (it’s easy, but every step avoided means people are more comfortable and less aggravated with a service).
Read MoreI just ran John McCain’s speech from the final day of the RNC 2008 convention through Wordle to generate a word cloud to see major themes.
