I’ve been experimenting with a copy of BlogBridge Feed Library, to test it out for possible deployment for use by students and faculty here at UCalgary. It’s not an official project, but I think it’s important enough to warrant investigation. What is BlogBridge Feed Library (BBFL)? From their website:
Feed Library (FL) creates a flexible web based structure to showcase Feeds, Reading Lists and Podcasts to employees in your company, or members of your organization. It will be the ‘store’ where users can browse and search for recommendations of content to read with their Aggregators. And, here’s the important point: these are recommendations by people in your organization for people in your organization.
I just went to renew my long-expired .Mac account. It’s only $99.95, and with the new iLife'08 stuff, and syncing, I thought it might be time to re-up. Went to the .Mac website, where I was greeted by a “Welcome back! We missed you!” message. That’s sweet. I see the $99.95 subscription, and click through to the .Mac Currency Table to see what the Canadian rate is. And, surprisingly, they’re asking a $34 premium just because I’m in Canada.
I’ve been completely addicted to the Sharkrunners game hosted by The Discovery Channel. It’s a promotional/educational tool, aligned with their “Shark Week” sweeps week ratings booster. It uses real shark data to position 6 sharks off the southwest coast of California. You are given a boat (not quite a ship) and a few crew members. You have to plot your course to meet up with the sharks, and decide how to collect data. You get dollars for collecting good research data, which can be used to improve the boat, acquire better gear, or to hire new crew members.
Or, is someone just using it as a starting point for some Pipes/GoogleMashup/OPML automated coolness? Either way, Edublogs kicked ass and took names in July.
I once “flew” a 747 when I was about 6 years old. The Captain invited me up to the cockpit, stuck some wings on me, and handed me the controls. He told me not to crash the plane, and the co-pilot was also on his controls, but to a 6 year old, that was pretty cool. Of course, now they’d have a sniper take me down if I got close to the cabin door, and TSA would accuse me of trying to bring the plane down with a BoogerBomb or something. The times, they are a’changin'.
I once shared a plane with an intoxicated Leslie Nielsen. Stop calling me Shirley!
I watched the Simpsons Movie, and laughed so hard I nearly sprayed coke all over the guy in front of me. My face hurt from laughing. OK, so I’m rather juvenile…
We went to the Zoo today, and I brought along the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM MK II lens. I wanted to try getting up close and personal with some of the animals, which is something I hadn’t really tried before. I’ve usually gone with the point-and-shoot, or just the kit 18-55mm lens on the XT. This was the first time I tried shooting animals at 300mm. I wound up taking 178 photographs. I kept 18, and I’m really quite happy with the shots that survived the cut.
I passed the 1500km mark on the way home today. At 26km/day, I’m hoping to add at least another 1000km before the riding season ends. Following Dave King’s lead, I’m taking a photo at every 100km rollover. Here’s what 1500km looked like:
I’m more than a little crazy for even thinking of doing this, but what the heck. I’m going to try submitting a photo to the inaugural contest. The rules are pretty strict with respect to model releases and any potentially copyrightable works included in photographs (models must provide signed releases, artists must provide copyright release for any sculptures, etc… shown in the photograph).
With those limitations in mind, I’ve selected 7 contenders from the last year. I can’t decide which, if any, to actually submit.
And I just can’t stop wanting to scream at the TV “The solution to burning christmas trees isn’t a fancy invention for fire suppression. STOP PUTTING FIRE HAZARDS IN YOUR HOUSE.”
There. That’s my invention. Leave the trees outside. Fires suppressed. I haven’t had a real christmas tree inside the house for, what? A quarter century?
I listened to the podcast while riding home this afternoon, so I couldn’t respond in real-time. Here’s hoping my memory isn’t completely jumbled, because there were several things I wanted to respond to. I couldn’t find an entry for episode 28 on the ETS Talk site, so here goes…
iPhone - I agree that the iPhone is an amazingly compelling device. Even if it was just a wifi-enabled iPod that allowed web browsing and email, it would be worth the money. If I was in charge of a department, I would issue each staff/faculty member an iPhone (unactivated - they can activate or migrate their own cell phone plans if needed). It would be money well spent, in order to have everyone able to play with the various collaboration apps we all use, anytime/anywhere.
I just got an email from a colleague at UCalgary, posing a really interesting question. She is doing some blogging and writing with some residents of Nunavut, and needs a way to represent the Inuktitut language online.
There is a reference to Inuktitut syallabics in Unicode, but I couldn’t find any implementation details so I’m wondering if anyone has any experience dealing with Inuktitut as digital text? Can typical blogging platforms deal with it? How do you handle text input? Do you need special fonts to display it?
