Archive for March, 2007
Daily Diigo Snips and Comments 03/30/2007
Stockstock Film Festival Annotated
What is it?
Stockstock is a film festival consisting of short films made entirely from stock footage. We select a limited amount of stock footage and give it to you; your job is to make it into some kind of short video presentation.
Interested?
Read the rules, download the footage, make a film, and submit it to us. It’s a great way to have fun and get some practice editing video, whether you’re a pro or a complete beginner.
- Cool idea and fun way to train students in basic editing. Next Fall? Next week?
- post by cburell
Folkstreams » The Best of American Folklore Films
FirstScience - FirstScience TV
MilkandCookies - Always Open, Never Clothed
Linux.com | Linux to help the Library of Congress save American history
Spresent.com - Presentations for New Web
- Kiss Powerpoint good-bye. This web-hosted alternative is amazingly easy, and more muscular than Microsoft at the same time. Oh–and it’s free.
- post by cburell
Spresent.com - Presentations for New Web
- This is the most powerful online Slideshow maker I’ve found: embeds videos, photos, voice, AND feels like Powerpoint feels. THIS ONE LOOKS BEST.
- post by cburell
VoiceThread (web-based Slideshows)
- This is totally free. You need a mic and to read the photo upload advice. VERY cool idea for creative people. And you can embed this. But it’s photo and voice only.
(The only way to add music is by playing it into your microphone, though.)
- post by cburell
- This is totally free. You need a mic and to read the photo upload advice. VERY cool idea for creative people.
(The only way to add music is by playing it into your microphone, though. And I’m not sure if you can embed.)
- post by cburell
One True Media - Beyond slideshows, dazzle your friends with amazing photo and video montages.
- This online slideshow-maker looks way more powerful than Powerpoint. Edit everything online: photos, graphics, videos, music, text. (But can you embed the slideshow? Not sure….)
- post by cburell
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Daily Diigo Snips and Comments 03/29/2007
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista Annotated
- Even more invasive than SP 2. Kenny and I will have headaches.
- post by cburell
- Bugs with no fixes: same old Windows.
- post by cburell
6. Media Center isn’t all there and falls flat.
I have no problems with the way Microsoft has implemented Media Center in Windows Vista Beta 2, except for one little detail: On my three-week-old Media Center test machine, the act of launching any kind of live TV in Vista Media Center brings down hard the device driver for the PC’s ATI X1400 128MB/256MB video card, which fully supports Aero Glass. The picture displays for a split second and then the screen goes black, which was not exactly the transition I was hoping for. The same PC displays live TV perfectly when launched in Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition. The drivers for the TV tuner and remote control and other Media Center goodies configured impressively and rapidly under Windows Vista. But if it doesn’t display TV, well, what’s the point?
- Invasive, annoying: same old Windows.
- post by cburell
1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance
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Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X. The User Account Control features, especially with the Vista Standard log-in, look a lot like Apple’s user interface design. Too bad Microsoft doesn’t let you lock and unlock things (leaving those settings permanent) the way Apple does. More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials. With some notable exceptions (including IE7+, where it copied Mozilla, and the Windows Sidebar, where it bests Apple, Google and everyone in user-interface design), Microsoft is belaboring the point by reinventing the wheel, often with an overall reduction in productivity and usability.
I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple’s or any other company’s best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What’s really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.
- Note: Reduced productivity.
- post by cburell
The bitter end
After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn’t just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.)
- I’m reading this over and over in reviews. Case closed. No thanks, Microsoft.
- post by cburell
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista Annotated
The stratification of PCs based on whether they can display Aero will become a headache for IT managers. This problem is likely to grow over time, as more business-class PCs are equipped with 128MB or more of video memory.
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista Annotated
It’s also intent on raising the bar to 64-bit architecture, driving the need for advanced video hardware and dual-core motherboards, and pushing the RAM standard to 2GB — all to help spur hardware and software sales over the next several years. Even though there are many great aspects of Windows Vista, taken as a whole, this next one could be Microsoft’s first significant operating system failure in quite some time — at least, as it’s configured in Beta 2.
Here are the 20 Vista behaviors and functionalities that could turn off Windows users. Windows newbies may not mind some of these things, but they will definitely try the patience of the millions of Windows users who’ve got real experience and muscle memory invested in Microsoft’s desktop operating system.
Visual Tour: 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista Annotated
- Vista compared to Mac OS X Leopard.
- post by cburell
The competition
Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It’s hard to beat Apple’s top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant, BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn’t to say that its user interface wouldn’t gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It’ll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X.
Meanwhile, I’m placing Windows Vista as a distant second-best to OS X. I see Linux and Windows 2000 as being roughly tied another notch or two below Vista, with XP being only a half step better than Win 2000.
Technology Review: Uninspiring Vista Annotated
- MIT reviewer becomes ex-Windows lover because of Vista, switches to Mac.
- post by cburell
- Mac’s new processor (Intel) gives it equal computing power to PCs.
- post by cburell
- This shift to web-based applications is the next thing we should talk about in our school vision. It will require administrative attention and real listening. It could save hundreds of thousands.
- post by cburell
Technology Review: Uninspiring Vista Annotated
- Vista will require teacher training just like OS X will. But it just imitates OS X. This review is from M.I.T.’s tech review website.
- post by cburell
- Big problem. Read on.
- post by cburell
- This is hugely persuasive that Vista is not our solution.
MIT is saying it’s a bad product.
- post by cburell
- This is a nightmare. Imagine teachers, students, parents, Kenny, and me having to troubleshoot all of these driver problems.
It would ruin the whole 1:1 initiative.
- post by cburell
- From MIT itself, what I’ve been saying all along:
“Windows is complicated. Macs are simple.”
- post by cburell
- This is the conclusion. The arguments are clearly laid out in the full article.
- post by cburell
All this adds up to make using Vista, look much more like a Faustian bargain, giving in your freedom and rights to Microsoft for “premium content” that you probably won’t be able to play on your hardware anyway.
Hopefully hardware manufacturers will put their foot down, and tell Microsoft “no way”. And the media companies should really consider if they want to put all their trust into Microsoft allowing them to run their premium content on Vista as “once this copy protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution channel”. And Microsoft has shown that when it is a monopoly, it certainly likes to abuse that power.
Lots of home users are also going to be bitten by this - and will warn others away from Vista. They will look at other solutions, such as Linux which will allow them to play whatever they want, however they want.
I think (and hope!) Vista will be the unravelling of Microsoft’s desktop domination - Various non-IT people I have spoken to lately (in particular small/med business owners) are going to avoid it as long as possible, because of the high cost of upgrading all their computers AS WELL as the additional problem of getting legacy applications to work on the new Vista, and having to perform staff training for the new releases of programs.
Linux is becoming a smarter alternative for the desktop every day now. And when people have to move from Windows XP, it is very likely we will see a massive uptake of Linux. Virtualisation and emulation technology will also make it far easier to deal with the issue of legacy windows programs.
MacOS is also a very nice alternative these days as well and the hardware is relatively affordable (and damn nice!), although MacOS could have DRM pushed into it should apple decide to do so, as it does contain a lot of propietary code.
Coyote Blog: The Next Milestone In Killing Fair Use Annotated
- Vista interferes with multimedia production with invasive features. Sounds like a nightmare.
Explanation: We will be downloading and editing free, “public domain” historical audio and video to edit. Vista might decide not to function if it thinks we are violating copyright. This article explains it.
Invasiveness is one of Windows’ biggest problems for teachers and students. It forces upgrades and restarts computers. It constantly pops up with some demand when you’re working. Apple OS X doesn’t do this. You can focus on Macs. They don’t invade.
- post by cburell
Back to the book analogy, its as if the book will not open and let itself be read unless you can prove to the publisher that you are keeping the book in a locked room so no one else will ever read it. And it is Microsoft who has enabled this, by providing the the tools to do so in their operating system. Remember the fallout from Sony putting spyware, err copy protection, in their CD’s — turns out that that event was just a dress rehearsal for Windows Vista.
As Rosoff’s statement implies, many of Vista’s DRM technologies exist not
because Microsoft wanted them there; rather, they were developed at the behest
of movie studios, record labels and other high-powered intellectual property
owners.“Microsoft was dealing here with a group of companies that simply don’t trust
the hardware [industry],” Rosoff said. “They wanted more control and more
security than they had in the past” — and if Microsoft failed to accommodate
them, “they were prepared to walk away from Vista” by withholding support for
next-generation DVD formats and other high-value content.Microsoft’s official position is that Vista’s DRM capabilities serve users by
providing access to high-quality content that rights holders would otherwise
serve only at degraded quality levels, if they chose to serve them at all. “In
order to achieve that content flow, appropriate content-protection measures must
be in place that create incentives for content owners while providing consumers
the experiences they want and have grown to expect,”
Nope, no arrogance here.
Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts that
this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray and
HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with DRM
technology. “I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the DRM
included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint,” Rosoff
stated. “It’s so consumer-unfriendly that I think it’s bound to fail — and when
it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are trying to
impose.”
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Daily Diigo Snips and Comments 03/28/2007
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #1: Branch to the Right
Phil Turner : The business of writing Annotated
Love the businessman who also loves great writing. From Phil’s blog:
We’ve been talking about how to write in the business world. Here’s my starting point:
“Short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy.”
Recognise this? It’s Ernest Hemingway. It’s the first thing he was taught as a young reporter on the Kansas City Star. He later said: “Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I’ve never forgotten them.”
It’s easy to forget ourselves that when Hemingway was writing like this it was near-revolutionary. This style of writing is almost commonplace today. He did away with all the florid prose of the Victorian era and replaced it with a lean, clear prose based on action rather than reflection.
Nowadays if people ask me to recommend a book on business writing, I give them a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Just 100 pages. Not a word is wasted. It’s written for a 12-year-old and yet it won Hemingway the Nobel Prize.
Communicators in business can learn a lot from Hemingway. . . .
Lars Eighner’s Homepage Writers’ Workshop FAQ: Q. How can I identify weak verbs? Annotated
Nice, conversational hierarchy of verbs with an application exercise after:
Like all parts of speech, verbs are strongest when
they are precise and concrete. For verbs, “concrete” is the quality
of expressing real movement in the real world–or in fiction, the
world we accept as real. In other words, strong verbs tell us
exactly what is done and that is a real action.Verbs have a natural hierarchy, from strongest to weakest:
- Doing (strongest)
- Saying
- Thinking or feeling
- Being done to
- Being (weakest)
This example should illustrate the hierarchy of verbs
in reverse order (from weakest to strongest):
- Jim was sick.
- Jim was being made sick by the clam dip.
- Jim felt sick.
- “I feel sick,” Jim said.
- Jim vomited on the Persian rug.
The strongest verbs express actions in the realworld. The weaker verbs express less real-world action. At the bottom are the being verbs which express either no action or very little.
As an exercise, revise a couple of pages (about 500 words) of your writing so that verbs which are not already doing or saying verbs are raised at least one level in the hierarchy wherever this is possible.
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs Annotated
From this excellent writing site:
At their best, adverbs spice up a verb or adjective. At their worst, they express a meaning already contained in it:
- “The blast completely destroyed the church office.”
- “The cheerleader gyrated wildly before the screaming fans.”
- “The accident totally severed the boy’s arm.”
- “The spy peered furtively through the bushes.”
Consider the effect of deleting the adverbs:
- The blast destroyed the church office.
- The cheerleader gyrated before the screaming fans.
- The accident severed the boy’s arm.
- The spy peered through the bushes.
In each case, the deletion shortens the sentence, sharpens the point, and creates elbow room for the verb.
A half-century after his death, Meyer Berger remains one of great stylists in the history of The New York Times. One of his last columns describes the care received in a Catholic hospital by an old blind violinist:
The staff talked with Sister Mary Fintan, who (in) charge of the hospital. With her consent, they brought the old violin to Room 203. It had not been played for years, but Laurence Stroetz groped for it. His long white fingers stroked it. He tuned it, with some effort, and tightened the old bow. He lifted it to his chin and the lion’s mane came down.
The vigor of verbs and the absence of adverbs mark Berger’s prose. As the old man plays “Ave Maria�”
Black-clad and white-clad nuns moved lips in silent prayer. They choked up. The long years on the Bowery had not stolen Laurence Stroetz’s touch. Blindness made his fingers stumble down to the violin bridge, but they recovered. The music died and the audience pattered applause. The old violinist bowed and his sunken cheeks creased in a smile.
How much better that “the audience pattered applause” than that they “applauded politely.”
Excess adverbiage reflects the style of an immature writer, but the masters can stumble as well. John Updike wrote a one-paragraph essay about the beauty of the beer can before the invention of the pop-top. He dreamed of how suds once “foamed eagerly in the exultation of release.” As I’ve read that sentence over the years, I’ve grown more impatient with “eagerly.” It clots the space between a great verb (”foamed”) and a great noun (”exultation”), which personify the beer and tell us all we need to know about eagerness.
Adverbs have their place in effective prose. But use them sparingly.
Workshop
- Look through the newspaper for any word that ends in �ly. If it is an adverb, delete it with your pencil and read the new sentence aloud.
- Do the same for your last three essays, stories, or papers. Circle the adverbs, delete them, and decide if the new sentence is better or worse.
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs
–Excellent Steinbeck example of a well-chosen passive verb. Nice Ackerman example of copulae (”is” sentences) as good writing. Nice, subtle lesson.
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #8: Seek Original Images
Poynter Online - Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
- This Poynter Online series is wonderful. Though a journalism site, it alludes to master writers constantly.
- post by cburell
Fencing With the Fog: Weak Verbs and Pansy Words
- Interesting screenwriter rant on verbs and nouns. Funny thing is, most of her verbs are weak.
- post by cburell
- Good exercise at end: simply underline all “to be” and “to have” usages in your draft, and decide how many you can improve.
- post by cburell
- Man, Yale can be dull.
- post by cburell
Writing, Clear and Simple - Notebook - Told you so: Use active voice!
- Re: Passive voice.
- post by cburell
Language and grammar tips for writing
- Short. Good.
- post by cburell
Internet Archive: Details: Atom Bomb [Joe Bonica's Movie of the Month]
- Great archival footage of atomic bomb tests.
- post by cburell
Internet Archive: Details: News Reports 02
- Radio reports of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
- post by cburell
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Daily Diigo Snips and Comments 03/27/2007
How-to RSS: Macromedia Flash (SWF) Movie
- Nice, but too long?
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Better Writing from Text Messaging and Blogging Teens Annotated:
We’ve also found it easier to improve keyboarding skills in middle and high school students with email, IM, or text-based gaming, vs. standard software programs.
University of Glamorgan, Learning Zone Annotated
- Note the implied demotion of the academic essay as the scholarship of the future.
- post by cburell
The debate is about who should determine the design and choice issues in the way students learn - Siemans says:
Open standards (or software) and APIs enable mashups and re-creations beyond what initial designers had planned. The end-user, not the designer alone, determines what can be done.
and goes on to argue that:
Too much of our learning is being designed as if the choices of the learners didn’t matter. We design LMS’ to lock learners into our format, our model. When the learners leave our institution, we eliminate their choice of further access to learning materials. When a learner would like to demonstrate competence in a certain way (for assessment purposes), we instead require a 2000 word essay. With education, the design of learning should follow a similar model as with any other design process: namely to balance the needs and intent of the designer with the end user. In terms of educational design, the choice has traditionally rested with the institution. [emphasis added--Clay]
He suggests that this is the attraction of social software:
The draw of blogs, wikis, podcasting, video logging, social bookmarking, and other social tools for educators arises from direct observation of what happens when learners are given choice. It’s enormously motivating to watch learners learn through dialogue - forming connections with learners and experts beyond the walls of a classroom (or LMS)…seeing passion replace routine, engagement replace passivity.
Universities: The learning mould is smashed - Independent Online Edition > Higher Annotated
- The entire article is fascinating. Here’s a snippet:
- post by cburell
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Daily Diigo Snips and Comments 03/26/2007
Inspirational Talking Points Justifying 1:1 Computing
- More to show parents and teachers.
- post by cburell
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Workshop


