Monday, February 23, 2004

AppIQ To Help Sun Manage Storage Systems Sun is turning to AppIQ to help build out its N1 technology for managing software, servers and storage systems. The AppIQ software fits in the broad SRM (storage resource management) category and makes it easier for customers to manage hardware from various vendors via a single console. Sun will bundle the AppIQ software with its own storage management package by the second half of this year. (The Register) 4:35:16 PM    comment []

<

Army Scrapping Comanche Helicopter (Reuters) Very interesting move considering the investment to date on this program. Reuters - The U.S. Army will scrap the Comanche helicopter being developed by Boeing Co. and United Technologies Corp., shifting $14.6 billion into other aircraft programs through 2011, acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee said on Monday. [Yahoo! News - Business] 4:26:42 PM    comment []

<

Intranets.com Adds Web Conferencing To Service Intranets.com is adding web and audio conferencing capabilities to its hosted collaboration suite.  [CRN.com : Breaking News] 8:53:26 AM    comment []

<

Online Presentation Tool - Wink Wink is a freeware Tutorial and Presentation creation software application, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots of your software, use images that you already have, type-in explanations for each step, create a navigation sequence complete with buttons, delays, titles etc and create a highly effective tutorial for your users. It is estimated that Macromedia Flash Player is installed in more than 90% of the PCs. Using Wink you can now create high quality tutorials/documentation which will be viewable across the web in all these users' desktops. Similar applications sell for hundreds of dollars, while Wink is free with unrivaled features. So spread the word about Wink to your friends. 8:47:13 AM    comment []

<

News Aggregators Getting New Features News Aggregator Update From - [The Shifted Librarian] New NewsGator Extensions "NewsGator users: check out Greg Reinacker's blog.... Extensions include a cool calendar extension that takes feeds and ads them to Outlooks calendar. Also one that looks at feeds that don't push down all the content (lame lame lame, if you're one of the feeds that does that) and lets you slurp up all the content. I love THAT!" [Scobleizer] AmphetaRate "AmphetaRate RSS Recommendation is the first RSS recommendation server. It calculates your likes / dislikes to create a personalized RSS recommendation feed. We also currently provide an aggregator based on AmphetaDesk to communicate to AmphetaRate." [Lockergnome's RSS Resource] "You might want to check out FeedDemon by Nick Bradbury. While it comes with default style sheets, users are able to create their own XSL for efficiently processing the information. So, if you wanted to view just the first paragraph, you could create your own style or ask someone in the community to create one. Radek, an active community member, has created styles that hint at what can be achieved with this combination, from rating your feeds in a database, to creating powerful MindMaps." [Note to Self, via Jon's Radio] I think all of these indicate that we're seeing a new phase for news aggregators. The first months of 2004 are going to be a major marker on a future timeline showing progress on the march towards maturation. 8:40:28 AM    comment []

<

Content Delivery in the 'Blogosphere' Excellent Article From The Journal Online By Richard E. Ferdig, Ph.D., and Kaye D. Trammell, University of Florida The interest in new media for teaching and learning has highlighted the potential of innovative software and hardware for education. This has included laptops, handhelds, wireless systems and Web-based learning environments. Most recently, however, this interest has focused on blogs and blogging. Weblogs, or blogs, are Web pages often likened to online personal journals. They are noted for being the "unedited, published voice of the people" (Winer 2003). Winer provides a more technical definition, suggesting that a Weblog is "a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser." Blogging is writing your thoughts into your blog, and the "blogosphere," a term coined by William Quick (2001), is the "intellectual cyberspace" that bloggers (i.e., those who blog) occupy. While a few educators have already started using blogs in the classroom, more have focused on the potential of blogging in teaching and learning (Shachtman 2002; Embrey 2002). For instance, some claim that blogs may further democratize the Internet, addressing some of the concerns under girding the digital divide (Carroll 2003). In this article, we will describe the pedagogy behind blogs. We will address the reasons why blogs should be used as one of many teaching and learning tools, as well as describe the potential benefits of blogs for educators. Drawing on our own research and teaching, we will conclude with specific strategies for using blogs in the classroom. (The Journal Online) 8:19:27 AM    comment []

<