Dane Carlson notes that "blog" is being added to the Oxford English Dictionary. [Scripting News]
8:00:58 PM  #  comment []

Disruptive Technology My new domain http://www.disruptivetechnology.org Now what will I do with it.
5:46:49 PM  #  comment []

ShowTime On Wednesday, Martha Zepeda and I stayed until around 6:30 pm. selecting the last digital images of the year for the Kindergarten slideshow. After selecting some 20 more images, we previewed the show. With the last image, the song No Basta by Franco de Vita finished! Perfect! It must be great Karma, I could only smile as Martha told me, "see what I mean about this classroom!" Another minor miracle in a long string of them.

Thursday morning, I burned the presentation project folder onto a CD, five minutes before the Kindergarten closing ceremony. I loaded the CD into my trusty iBook and the damn presentation didn't work as it was supposed to. The presentation was missing 30 plus images and didn't keep the image order intact. I thought I had all the source images in my project image folder. I didn't. I quickly asked Ruth Solis, if I had some time to fix the presentation before the slideshow was to start. I had maybe 20 to 30 minutes.

I got two 6th grade students to man the digital camcorder, while I ran downstairs to come up with a damn fast solution. Using Gluon's free PresenterActive application, I decided to export the original slide show on the desktop as a Quicktime Movie.It took about 8 minutes to make the quicktime file and burn it onto a CD. Right away, I burned the two MP3 songs that played behind the slideshow. That took about 5 minutes. I did a quick test on my iBook. It was golden. Another minor miracle. I ran up three flights of stairs with both CD's in tow. I didn't know that the Kindergarten children just finished the last of their ten songs! As soon as I entered the gym, Martha Zepeda said,"Mr. Delgado, are you ready?" Yes, I was! I connected the iBook to the LCD projector and gave the music CD to Martha, who plopped it in the CD boom box. Bam! The slideshow, with Carol King's Child of Mine and No Basta! playing in the background mesmerized the audience of parents and students. One of my camera boys said that the slideshow was so sad. "A lot of mother's were crying." I have to say that I felt my tears falling , again! I guess watching children grow from the start of Kindergarten to the end the school year is remarkable. One sees a slice of all the hard work and care that these teachers and aides provide their students on a day to day basis.

It is the most rewarding project that I work on. It is very simple tech wise but the selecting of the 132 slides with accompanying stories provided by the Kindergarten team provides me a rich background that I am very, very privileged to hear. In between the humor and the laughter is the observation of how much each child grew that year.

If I had the opportunity to go back to Kindergarten as a child, I would love to go to Whittier School! To play on a phrase, "these teachers cook the soup that warms the soul!"
5:45:27 PM  #  comment []

Showtime! Kindergarten Closing Ceremony Today and Tomorrow. A salute to the Kindergarten teachers:Martha Zepeda, Martha Pedroza, Ruth Solis, and Rosa. A lot of work went into the production. Lights! Camera! Action! There will be 10 numbers sung by the kids! Bring the tissues! Our slide show with music kicks! I think after the 6th edit, I didn't cry. Whew! Next Broadway! Thank you for having the opportunity work with the Kindergarten team.
8:09:51 AM  #  comment []

Today, an application for Radio's outliner that will be new for many. We've brought a feature from Manila into Radio Community Server, making it possible for people to create Yahoo-like directories that appear in their Radio weblogs. These directories can include other directories. They're built on an open format, OPML; which can be created in any compatible outliner, including Radio's outliner. Viewed another way, directories are hiearchic blogrolls. When you start getting hundreds of links in your blogroll, and start categorizing them, it's time to look for something richer, and that's where directories come in. [Scripting News]
7:57:27 AM  #  comment []

An essay about academia and XML. [Scripting News]
7:52:38 AM  #  comment []

Russ Lipton's RadioDocs, on-line, ready for UserLand. [Scripting News]
7:48:05 AM  #  comment []

Paolo explains how Radio can be viewed as decentralized Intranet portal software. [Scripting News]
7:45:27 AM  #  comment []