Funny how fast design fads can change.   Don’t flash-heavy web sites feel dated?  Especially if they load slowly.  And how do they work on a mobile phone brower or other not-a-full-computer device?  Even on my super fast work connection the BAR site loaded really slowly.  All I wanted to do was check the opening time  I had trouble getting the Hard Rock Cafe site to load at all yesterday, although it seemed Ok today.  Again all I wanted to do there was check the street address.  If you view it on a device without flash it nicely informs you that you’re “missing the show.”  Oh really — maybe it is their designers that are missing something.

Read the rest of this entry »

iTunes U has been around for a while now, but viewing it requires having iTunes loaded, or (at least from a practical standpoint) utilizing some flavor of iPod/iPhone.  YouTube is browser based, Flash driven, and so just easier to get at.  You can also embed the videos in other pages, create your own playlists and all that other good stuff that has made YouTube the sensation it is.  There is plenty of content there so far from a pretty impressive cross-section of institutions.  Stephen Downes wonders if ‘education’ needs to be only top universities — an excellent point that will hopefully be considered as the content in YouTube U expands.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a new entry into the college textbook market — any maybe a game changer too.  Publishers no longer have a lock on the content in textbooks — students and even some faculty seem quite willing to make digital copies freely available.  And when the cost of the text is high, it makes it worth people’s time to go through the hassle of the uploading and downloading process.  And not just cost — students will expect to be able to read their text online, in print, on an e-book reader, on their iPhone, hear it in audio, etc.  Authors can’t be counted on to be outraged when piracy prevails — most make little if any money on book sales.  The real benefit to most academics is the publishing credits for tenure and promotion reviews.

Read the rest of this entry »

What is it about Apple’s iPhone that makes it the one always in the news? The phrase iPhoneU rolls off the tongue, but BlackberryU? Falls flat. Maybe it is something like iPhones are from Venus, the others are from Mars. One is engineered, one is designed? Whatever it is, in the role of picking/developing applications for a community it is important to look for that Apple mojo in the solution.

Read the rest of this entry »

Problem solving is a pretty essential skill in the modern workplace, especially in the technology area.  And I consider myself a decent problem solver.  But two recent problem solving errors on my part drive home the notion that sometimes the more you know about a problem the harder it is to solve…

Read the rest of this entry »

I have not always been a big fan of Real and the RealPlayer plug-in.  Not that I’ve ever found anything wrong with the video player itself.  When video was first starting on the web, Real made it possible, even in the days of dial-up access speeds.  My problem was always the bloated download and intrusive installer.  The default settings for the installer took over as the player for all media types.  Some poor person who just wanted to view a web video was confronted with audio files that no longer launched in the acostomed program. 

Read the rest of this entry »