Seb grabs a choice quote from the schoolblogdebate weblog.

School site review blog ..."Purely my own opinionated views but I wanted to keep track of them. I think I'm now seeing some patterns and uncovering some best practices. Overall the best sites also are the sites with most prominent news - at least, I don't think I'm imagining this correlation.

Bill Kearney shares more of his analysis of school Websites...

BK notices a correlation, but he is noticing a symptom of the variable existing, not the actual variable, though. The quality of the website most often has a strong positive correlation with, to paraphrase Seb, "people who simply [DO] have [an] interest in sharing information on their activities, who [DO] want to engage in a conversation with the students, their parents, and the wider community [, and are willing to make the time to do so in their day, regardless of the immediate rewards]."

That variable also shows up inthe quality of the visual appeal of a site (like Seb's which can grow on you quickly), and in the quality of the actual content, too...

8:27:13 PM  [] blah blah blah'd on this    [ blinked via Seblogging News ]

IMO, one of the problems with Wired News is not their format, but the content. They have almost no time to research a story well. Seems they'd rather publish something half-baked, then do a follow-up. I guess that ups the pageviews counts (And would be in a reporter's best interests, if they are paid by the article, too). Here's an example:

Mac Toters Push Wireless Bounds. Apple's Titanium PowerBook costs more than other Macintosh laptops, but its built-in wireless card isn't up to snuff. For Bay Area Wi-Fi hackers, however, it's not a problem -- it's a project. By Paul Boutin.

Yes, the built-in Airport card has some problems. Yes, you could just slap a wireless card into the PC card slot, and have it hanging out the left-hand side of your powerbook. Yes, the WirelessDriver Project provides a wonderful way for folks to use non-Lucent/Agere/Apple wireless cards in their Mac OS X machines. Yes, some wireless cards allow an external antenna to be plugged into the card, to extend the effective range. Anything new there? Not really.

The notice about the Senao EnGenius card was kinda scary, though. I personally don't like the idea of having 200 milliwatts (most cards operate at 30-100mw, according to the article) of microwave frequencies radiating in an omni-directional pattern that close to my favorite parts of my lap. But that's me, and I rarely have my powerbook attached to an ethernet cable anymore. Yea, 200mw's still considered low wattage, but I'd rather move my location to find a sweeter spot for the wireless node. And keep my own sweet spots just as they are.

Of course, now, after I typed a draft of this Murphy got involved. My wireless connection gacked, and now I'm running with the ethernet tether right now. *sigh*

8:44:56 AM  [] blah blah blah'd on this    [ blinked via Wired News ]