I’ve been using the WP-Cache 2 plugin for some time, as it offers pretty effective file-based caching of WordPress pages to help reduce the load on the database server and reduce page generation time. But the plugin has kind of languished without any real updates for months(?) or years(?).
Donncha O Caoimh, the WordPress guru who’s name I’ll never be able to pronounce, released an updated and refined caching plugin called WP-Super-Cache, based on the great start offered by WP-Cache 2.
Evan and I spent the day at the Glenbow Museum, checking out the exhibits and hanging out in the discovery/crafts centres. We were at the museum for a record 5 hours - not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
We started at the top (4th floor) and worked our way down. I hadn’t seen the physical Mavericks exhibit, although I did construct the website for it. It was pretty darned cool to see the exhibits in the flesh. The Glenbow did a helluva job putting the Mavericks floor together.
I’ve been using my “nifty fifty” (aka “plastic fantastic”) Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens almost exclusively since I got it a couple months ago. It was cheap, at $100, and it’s been a blast to use. The wide aperture means I can take shots without needing the flash, with a strong bokeh (blurred background with foreground in sharp focus). It really hit me just how awesome this lens is, when I dragged the camera out trick-or-treating with Evan last night. Lots of other parents brought cameras - it’s a natural thing to do. Many even had DSLRs with fancy schmancy lenses. But they ALL were firing the flash. Completely blowing away the spooky halloween ambiance, replacing it with brightly lit subjects with harsh shadows. Ick.
Today is a memorable day. It’s the day that CAREO, the learning object repository we built at The University of Calgary, is being officially decommissioned. Unplugged, mothballed, and put into storage. It’s been a wild rollercoaster ride for these 6 years, but that ship has sailed. Back in 2001, when CAREO was first created, there was a need for a concrete prototype of a repository. Other available software didn’t quite do what we had in mind, and it was relatively easy to just go ahead and build some software to test out some ideas.
We’re working on a project with some folks at the CHR, and they are travelling to a conference to present their courses and talk about the process. Part of that presentation will be a live demo of the Moodle-powered site and some of the cool Breeze content we put together for them.
The hotel (which shall remain unnamed for now) sent them a sheet, asking what technical services they would like for their 1 hour presentation. Included in that sheet was this portion, listing the costs per service:
Others will write more profound and deeper posts describing what’s so freaking cool about MacOSX 10.5 Leopard. This post is just my initial gut reactions. Want more meat? Surf over to arstechnica.com.
I’ve played with seeds of 10.5 for what seems like years (but is really only a year?) through our Apple Developer Connection subscription. But all of my previous experience was in carefully isolated cleanroom installations, to prevent any bugs from nuking my production system. I’d never tried an upgrade install. I’d never run it for more than a day or two tops because bugs and instability sent me running back to 10.4. So, this is my first real time in Leopard, without an alternate or backup system running a previous version Just In Case™.
I just poked through Rory’s A Typology of Learning Object Repositories article, starting with the tables, and found a few errors relating to his description of CAREO. Here are the corrections (I don’t have Rory’s email handy, and there aren’t comments on the DSpace page for the article):
CAREO supports hosting content as well as linking to other servers. That was one of the primary goals of the project - to allow people to easily post content without having to know FTP. I don’t have the stats on this, but about half of the items in CAREO were uploaded to the CAREO server via the “add object” form.
For “maintaining” an object - CAREO lets the owner of the object edit the metadata, including replacing the media with an updated version.
CAREO does allow retrieval of metadata - there’s a “metadata” button on every object - which shows up once you are logged in.
CAREO requires an account to submit objects, but anyone can create an account.
The metadata schema used was IMS LOM (and later IEEE LOM).
But, it’s all a bit moot, as institutional and provincial support for the CAREO repository evaporated long ago, and the application itself is on its last legs. It’s no longer supported, is barely functioning at the moment, and will be decommissioned at the end of the month.
We use the Events module to manage workshops here in the Teaching & Learning Centre, and use the “Upcoming Events” block to display the next few workshops on our website. Works great, but the default text leaves a bit to be desired. By default, it shows the event title, and “(2 days)” - which indicates that the event begins in 2 days.
But, it could also mean that the event lasts for 2 days.
I had the chance to work on a presentation for the K12 Online 2007 conference. Alan, Brian and I started by thinking of doing an updated “Small Pieces” piece, and we wound up creating a 53 minute video presentation touching on 9 trends in successful online tools, and how they might be used effectively.
The trends are, in no real order:
embed
connect
socialize
collaborate
share
remix
filter
liberate
disrupt
Here’s the presentation, hosted in chunky Google Video transcoded format. There are links to higher (and lower) res versions on the K12 conference page for the presentation.
I’ve been thinking about this for some time, but haven’t taken the time to put it into words. Most recently, a post by Jennifer Jones nicely sums up why Twitter is important, and I think it goes even further than that.
Twitter is important because it makes many of the intangible human connections more readily available to people who are separated by distance. I often feel more closely integrated with the people on my Twitter stream than I do with people who work in my department. Why is that? I see those people every day. But - the people on Twitter are constantly reinforcing my connection with them, and vice versa, through the unceasing flow of status updates.
It’s still not officially released, and I’m still in the early stages of putting together a funding proposal to turn it into a supported service, but if you’re willing to live life on the edge and risk a little beta goodness, UCalgaryBlogs.ca is kinda on the air.
All you need is a valid @ucalgary.ca email address, and you’re off and running. You can create as many blogs as you like, and can select from a bajillion available themes.
