Technocast pt 1 RSS and XML

Check it out... Podcast about digital media technologies
produced by Anthony Galvez
College of Mass Communications
Texas Tech University

In Technocast pt 1 RSS and XML, Anthony Galvez explores RSS, XML and their relationship with pod/webcasting.
Check out his website at: http://www.galvezweb.com/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html - Not too many podcasts there yet, but hopefully there will be more!?!??

Audio Post...version 1.0

Searching for Podcasts

I’m on a mission… a mission to find useful and informative podcasts relating to educational technology, new media, and distance education. I am currently using iTunes to locate and subscribe to a few podcast (although I’ve used FeedDemon in the past and it works just fine too). I have subscribed to a few podcasts so far…

• Ripplecast – Podcasts from the Apple certified pros.
• Terry Freedman’s Educational Technology Podcast – news and views relating to the management and use of computers in schools.
• The Tech Teachers – Teachers talking tech… and a little bit of education.
• The Web 2.0 Show

I’ve been subscribed to these podcasts for less than a week, so its hard to say at this point just how informative they will be, but I’ll continue to explore and search for more…
I'd love some suggestions...Send me your favorites!

Web 2.0 Review: Box.net

Box.net is a web service that offers a practical solution to file storage and sharing. Box.net offers 1GB of free files storage with more space and additional features available for a fee.

Immediately I was impressed with the pleasant interface and intuitive folder structure. The site uses expandable tabs that make for easy access to the options and tools within the site. Box.net offers multiple options for uploading files to your space. You can use “browse upload” by clicking on the “add files button” to upload up to 20 files at a time. There is also a drag and drop feature that will allow you to upload multiple files and entire folders to your space. (Note: This option does require the use of a JAVA Applet which I did have trouble running on my laptop).

In addition to its intuitive interface and ease of use, Box.net offers some key features that make it a valuable tool.

• File Sharing: Box.net allows you to make a single file or entire folder publicly accessible. Once you define a folder as public, a unique URL is assigned to the folder. Anyone can access the public files and folders by using the assigned URL. (Note: See link to PixelPoint Files on the sidebar of this blog for an example of file sharing)
• File Searching/Sorting/Tagging: Box.net allows you to easily search for files within your space as well as sort files by name, date or file size. The tagging feature offered by Box.net allow you to apply keywords or tags to each file or folder and then access or sort files using these tags.
• Network Sharing: You can add other Box.net members to your network and easily share files with them by dragging files to their box.

For a small fee (starting at $4.99/month) Box.net offers premium and pro packages that provide additional space (5GB to15GB) and many additional features. Although I did not upgrade and test these features, they are interesting additions worth mentioning and possibly worth checking into…

• File Security: Password protection on selected files.
• Post Files Directly to a Blog
• Syndicate your files with RSS File Sharing
• Collaborative Workgroups: Create multiple users, with unique passwords and account privileges.

As far as application goes, Box.net is an excellent solution for online storage and file sharing. In addition to the obvious benefit of additional file storage, Box.net’s file sharing features could be used in a variety of ways. In the area of electronic publishing and computer graphics, students are often dealing with graphic files that are very large in size. Saving and transporting these files could be made easier with a central, online storage location such as Box.net. Additionally, I teach an Electronic Publishing course where students are asked to get “Client” feedback on layouts and design ideas. This is often a challenge due to the large files. Box.net’s file sharing features offer an excellent solution. Students could easily email a client the URL of their comp files online. The client could review these files and provide feedback to the students.

References:
Box.net Web site: http://www.box.net

Arrington, M. (2006) The Online Storage Gang. Retrieved June 11, 2006, from TechCrunch
Web site: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang/

Web 2.0 Review: gOFFICE

gOFFICE is browser-based tool designed to allow you to create general word processing, desktop publishing and spreadsheet documents. I have to admit I approached this site with many doubts and a bit of hesitation. As a graphic designer who uses professional graphics and publishing tools on a daily basis, the claim that gOFFICE can produce “High quality printable PDF output that rivals output from Adobe InDesign”, had to be proven to me.

After experimenting with the Word Processing tools offered by gOFFICE, I was pleasantly surprised at their ease of use and flexibility. The interface and formatting tools were very similar to those you would find in Microsoft Office or any word processing software. They offer a variety of letterhead styles and templates to choose from. They mention that you are able to upload your own letterhead for use in your documents, but I was not able to locate this feature in the tools. Overall, the Word Processing tools offered by gOFFICE worked quite well.

The spreadsheet tool was very simplistic. It did not seem to offer any formatting tools or features. It did simple calculations and represented simple data successfully. I tried to upload a very complex MS Excel document into the tool and it did a fair job of rending the file accurately. For very simple calculations and spreadsheets, gOFFICE Spreadsheets would work fine.

The Desktop Publishing tool offered by gOFFICE was very limited. There are only two templates available, a business card template and a Thank You card template, but neither could be modified very extensively. gOFFICE mentions on their site, that they will be adding additional templates for such things as resumes, brochures, mailing labels, and invoices, just to name a few. Overall, the desktop publishing features of the site were a bit disappointing.

gOFFICE provides a unique service, the convenience of publishing documents from virtually anywhere with internet access. It also enables users to Email, Fax, and even sends by Postal Mail any of the PDF documents created within the tool. This feature, along with its accessibility online is what gives this tool its potential. If the developers at Silveroffice, Inc. (creators of gOFFICE) continue to develop this tool, add more features and templates, I truly think they will have a very usable tool. According to their website, the mission of gOFFICE is “to help people communicate in a more effective, efficient and creative way by providing them with the tools they need”. I think they are living up to this mission, the tools are solid and easy to use and for individuals who do not otherwise have access to publishing tools or have the ability to easily create a PDF, this product works fairly well.

In an educational environment, this tool could be used by students to create and share simple documents regardless of the operating system or software they own. They could easily create reports, documents and letters using some of the sample text found in the gOFFICE sample text library and distribute them fairly easily. gOFFICE is a tool that could be used for learning, its free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It provides simple communication tools.

References
gOFFICE Web site: http://goffice.com/goffice6.aspx

gOFFICE.com Announces Free Browser-Based Office Suite Service. Retrieved June 9, 2006, from eMediaWire
Web site: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/7/emw263190.htm

(2005) Podcast: Geekcast #41 Retrieved June 10, 2006 from ODEO
Web site: http://odeo.com/show/101114/view

Web 2.0 Review: Riya Photo Search

Riya, the online photo search tool, is an experimental tagging tool for photographs developed by a group of researchers and engineers interested in face recognition and text recognition. At this point in the software’s development, I don’t see a lot of practical applications for the average recreational photographer, but for the professional photographer who has thousands of photos, I see this technology having tremendous potential for automatically tagging and searching volumes of photographs.

Immediately when you register an account on the site you are warned that “Riya is seriously in ‘sobetaithurts’ mode” and that “Riya will be unstable, s..l..o..w, buggy, inaccurate, and could lose some (or all) of your tags”. But, the developers appear to be committed to researching this new technology and are very interested in learning from their users. In order for the automatic tagging technology to work properly, they recommend you use only high resolution JPEG files that include the date and time indicator from your camera and that you upload at least 1000 photos. Scanned photos or photos with poor lighting are not recommended. Again, this technology seems more applicable to professional photographers than the average recreational photographer.

The tool requires you to download the Riya photo uploader. The Riya Uploader allows you to upload multiple images at a time. The system requirements for the Uploader are listed on their website. Because of its infancy, many of the features they plan to include, such as flickr integration are just not quite ready yet. Once photos are uploaded into Riya, you need to manually tag your photos to start to train the tool to recognize the faces in the photos. After you have trained Riya to recognize individuals in your photos, the software will begin to auto-tag the rest of the images in your album. According to the sites FAQ, it usually requires you to manually tag approximately 30 images before the software is trained to recognize the faces.

Overall, this new technology is fascinating. The search capabilities and auto recognition features of Riya appear to be quite complex and unique. The site does have great support and help features and a pleasant interface. Although I do not see any practical applications for this tool at this time, I am very interested to see how this technology changes and improves over time. This automatic face recognition technology and advanced searching technologies are very powerful and may have some social implications we are not yet aware of at this point.


References:
Riya Photo Search Web site: http://riya.com/

The Jamboriya Blog: http://blog.riya.com/

Free remote backup storage...

Mozy is a online service that provides free automatic remote file backup.
The site offers 2GB of secure storage and scheduled backups. The site makes its money from paid advertisements in their newsletter which they send to you weekly. Now, This is something I'm not familiar with - how does this work? Is it really secure? How do we know for sure? Does anyone know of similar free backup services such as this? (I think I must explore some more...)

Blog Resources...

The various resources that I have included in my blog continue to grow and change as the focus and message of my blog becomes clearer.

Digital Asset Management: Flickr

Flickr’s free online photo management site provides options for sharing, organizing and storing digital images. The software includes security feature and the interface is very intuitive and easy to use. Flickr also incorporates blogging features, commenting, and some limited image manipulation tools. It is an easy way for individuals of all ages to experience technology in a fun and interesting way. People at all skill levels would find this tool useful.

Social Bookmarking: BlinkList

BlinkList is a social bookmarking manager that lets you “save, share, and access all the favorite information you find online.” The tool easily allows you to import your current bookmarks from your browser and other social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and Furl. The support, tutorials and “how-to” movie demos make it very easy to get started. It is very easy to add useful sites to a blog. Each time you update your blinklist, the new link immediately appears on your blog. BlinkList also allows you to keep some of your bookmarks private, so for example, if you have additional bookmarks that do not necessarily relate to your blog or website, you can keep them private so they are not updated to your blog. Some of the sites I’ve added to my BlinkList include resources relating to web design, distance education, and graphics. I’ve added links to resources that I hope will be of interest to the audience reading my blog. Some of the resources I’ve included are:
W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium site is a very valuable resource for anyone who produces web documents. The site is an informational site that contains specifications and guidelines relating to web standards. The site also has tools available such as the MarkUp Validator and Link Checker which will allow you to test your code and help you produce quality web documents.
Innovate: Journal of Online Education - This online periodical provides interesting articles on distance education and information technology in education.
CSS Zen Garden - This site provides excellent examples of Cascading Style Sheets. Individuals can download the html and css files for each page and experiment with them. You can modify the style sheet and experiment with the code to get a better understanding of the power of CSS.

Bloglines

I’ve also incorporated into my blog, a list of other blogs I am monitoring thru Bloglines. Bloglines lets you easily subscribe and share blogs and news feeds that are of use or interest to you. One feature that I found useful was the ability to organize my feeds into folders. I was then able to link the appropriate folder to my own blog to customize the resources I am providing for my audience. This option allows you to very easily organize your resources and customize a group of links for a particular curriculum, purpose or audience.

Will Microsoft hold your photos for ransom?...

The new Windows Media Photo Format Promises better quality at half the size of a JPEG file. Amusing mixed reaction on this new format can be found here>>>

Adobe demos anyone?...

For those who use Adobe Software or who would like to learn more... check out the free online seminars.
"You won't have to leave your desk to learn about creative software and e-learning solutions from Adobe. This summer, join Adobe Education experts as they conduct free live, online product demonstrations. Learn how software from Adobe can help educators produce more effective course materials that engage students in learning, and find out about exciting new possibilities for professional development. Discover how to implement interactive e-learning solutions that help educators better prepare their students for exciting careers." Adobe Education eSeminar Series