Best CSS Techniques
I’m always open to hearing about another CSS trick. And here are a bunch of them in a two part post. Take a look you sure to find something that will come in handy — I know I did!
Archive for January, 2008
Change is hard
Today was one of those days when innovation just didn’t seem worth the trouble. The challenge at hand was looking for a cost effective solution for multi-point video conferencing. With a faculty member and another staff member we worked through issue with WebEx, the market leader, Skype and Ichat/AIM. They all work, in some fashion, but none were easy or ready to deliver in the style we’re looking for. It was overall a very frustrating morning. I’m not quite sure real video conferencing is ready for prime time. And mind you I’ve participated in a lot of webex sessions over the last two years, and the others are regular users of Skype. For certain limited situations these things work very well, but outside of those relatively narrow parameters, look out.
Google generation information illiterate
Here’s an interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Its another study finding that today’s “Google generation” may be good at using computers but that doesn’t mean they are good at finding information, or evaluating its accuracy or usefulness. I’ve found this to be true among our grad students, and my wife has found this with her college students too. This is nothing new — one of the big reasons students are in school is to learn how to effectively find, evaluate and interpret information. This is the way it was 20 years ago when I was an undergraduate, and its the same deal now.
Pimp your WordPress
I’m always a fool for a new WordPress Plug-in. Look for the related posts one to show up here soon! Here’s 5 ideas from the Download Squad.
WordPress Admin Theme
Its not often I’ve come across a plug-in to change WordPress’ administrative look and feel. I’ve always known it could be changed, but I’m the only one who sees it. Its not my favorite interface, but I’ve seen worse. But when I saw this post from Nate, I decided to give it a try. At first glance it feels a little strange, but it is certainly much nicer from a design standpoint.
Learning with YouTube
YouTube traffic numbers continue to grow, and the audience is now spreads across all ages. And the benefits for learning are incredible. Back in the mid 70’s, when I was first learning guitar, there weren’t many ways to learn a popular song. You could sometimes find a music book in the store, but most of those had piano scores and were written in different keys than the original. It took a fair amount of work to learn a song, unless you had someone to show you how.
