Internet 2 / W3C - Semantic web

Glad to know there are grown ups in charge of all this web mess!

I've read / heard about Tim ('scuse me, Sir Timothy) Berners-Lee for years and it was a real treat / privilege to hear him speak. And I really appreciated his simplification/clarification of the term 'semantic web' as data links: that was / is something I can begin to understand. The examples he offered didn't hurt either. A valuable 20 minutes or so.

He also articulated the larger, global picture in which 80% of the world's population has no connection to the web. The ensuing discussion of how 80% of the world's population did have access to cell phones and how those cell phones could be the 'on ramp' (that was Steve Lohr, NY Times, interviewer's term, not Berners-Lee's) to the web.

This was in the context of the newly established WWW Foundation that is going to try to make sure that the further development of the web is focused on serving all humanity, not just those who already have access to it.

Internet 2 is impressive along the same lines: an organization devoted to guiding web development in a direction that will be beneficial to all. I was fascinated by their work with 'dark fiber' (optical fiber that is currently not being used). Also I was impressed by their idea of a parallel internet where new ideas, improvements, etc can be tested before being rolled out into the plain, vanilla web we know and love.

Understandably, neither organization offers memberships to individuals. But that doesn't mean we / I shouldn't track their activity because combined they pretty much represent the future of the web.

Learning 2.0 = Bronchitis

Am I the only one or has everyone contracted bronchitis because of doing Learning 2.0. The minute I opened the MP3 player we got as a reward for completing the course I started coughing...and I couldn't stop.

I had to trade in the player for some antibiotics and I'm just now getting my breath back.

Other than this most recent development, I have appreciated Learning 2.0 no end. As August ended I could do none of what Learning 2.0 covered. Now I can do it all - some better, some really poorly - but all, nonetheless.

So the edict now is practice, practice, practice and keep learning.

Learnng 2.0, November 2009, NY Yankees 27th World Championship Edition

How do you make a Philly Cheese Steak? (there must be some baseball / Yankee dominance answer to this riddle but I don't know it)

Confession: a concerned family member told me about the above You Tube video when I signed up for the MLIS program...

Alan Watts (d. 1973) easily the biggest influence on my life, bar none. Give him a try...

eAudiobooks...well, how much time do you have? I worked in audiobooks from 1995 until earlier this year when Simon & Schuster, along with most publishers, laid many folks off. I was involved with Recorded Books and then by extension with their involvement with NetLibrary. Many publishers are now also using a company called Overdrive to deliver eaudio to libraries - there's a program called Listen NJ that Overdrive runs - that's what's used in South Orange, where I live.

While eaudiobooks through libraries all sounds (sic) very nice, for the authors it can easily be a financial disaster if the proprietors of the audio rights are not vigilant. But that's a story for another day...

Learning 2.0, part 455, d

Well, I started @ Omnidrive because I've always wanted another back up for my stuff in addition to the external hard drive I use. And the link from Learning 2.0's short list of award winners dated 5/9/8 is http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/omnidrive_officially_cooked.php which is an article about the demise of Omnidrive. And it's dated 5/2/08. Hmmmm.

So I figured that was just some weird hacked situation and I went to the Omnidrive site to get info.

There I found this notice:

Omnidrive is no longer available, we recommend Nomadesk

So I went to #2 in the Learning 2.0 survey (why take a failed company's recommendation?) and that link took me to the actual provider - Fluxiom @ www.fluxiom .com. But their prices seem quite steep: €89 per month for 40 GB!!! Maybe I'll never have a system crash instead. That sounds more in line with my budget.

I'll report back on how that goes...

Zoho Uno

Zoho...

Well, when Soho was first discovered by 'artists' in the mid 1970's a close friend who had lived on Sullivan street for years dubbed the movement 'So-what for the Ho-hums.'

That would make Zoho what?

Or is it the excact opposite? 'Zo-nice for ho-humans'? That's more likely....

Wikibutt - Learning 2.0

I thought the term 'wikibutt' was amusing. I checked it on Google and found a guy who's Facebook page is Wiki Butt, so maybe that's his name, or at least nom de guerre. Through Google I also found some images on Photobucket of the rear-end of a hedgehog whose name, presumably, is Wiki.

Perhaps it's my age, my horrible childhood (joke - I don't do emoticons), my lack of hair, or my shoe size but I really, really have problems with the 'lack of control' many of the sites described in the Learning 2.0 Wiki lesson when they discuss the downsides to making a Wiki. I just don't see the point in putting something together, especially something involving planning and collaborative effort, that any idiot with access to a computer can mess with or mess up. What am I missing?

I'm a latecomer to Wikipedia but have embraced (sic) it only because now I understand the editorial process.

All that said, to create and use a wiki in a controlled (there's that word again) group sounds absolutely brilliant. I wonder if they would be better places for our teams / groups to work together assembling our final project web sites? Better, say, than group chat rooms, like Meebo, or Google docs? Wait - did I say there was no 550 Wiki? I DON'T THINK SO...BUT NOW THERE IS @ http://sci550.pbworks.com

Questions, questions, questions...

And I'm still trying to come up with a clever definition for Wikibutt: perhaps it's someone who always wants everyone to do whatever he / she is up to at the moment but then goes off to the next thing with no warning and begins the process all over. Kind of like 'scattered 2.0.' Example: "I'm really frustrated with Paul: first he put together this group of us to go to Ireland and research our Irish roots there, all together to see if there were any overlaps so we could compare those to the connections we have made here. Then, without warning, he dropped this for a project on poisonous frog encounters in Brazil. What a wikibutt!"

PAYGO #2

Library 2.0 - First off, it has to be at least 3.0, from what little I've learned, lo these past weeks...L 1.0 was an institution that preserved knowledge / culture without sharing, no? So L 2.0 is an institution where you are welcomed to retrieve knowledge / culture, albeit in a 'shushhhhing' mode. So what we're now working to imagine / create is Library 3.0...

So the suggested reading had these in particular that struck me as particularly astute and appropriate:

"No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves. At this point in time, our profession is far closer to the latter type of disaster than it is to the former. We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time." - from Away from the Icebergs, Rick Anderson,Director of Resource Acquisition, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries, http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm


"Expanding and enriching metadata will give libraries a competitive advantage and will support the bibliographic services of the future." - from To better bibliographic services, John J. Riemer, Head, UCLA Library Cataloging & Metadata Center, http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/5.htm

"Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory...Librarians today are not just inventory management biobots: they are people with a unique understanding of the documents they compile and catalog, and the relationships among those documents." - from To a temporary place in time..., Dr. Wendy Schultz, Infinite Futures, http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm


The first sums up the 'call to arms' that the current library community seems to be answering to, and, I believe, wisely so. The second points to an area where libraries can contribute significantly in the Web 2.0+ world. But the last is the one that speaks to thoughts I've been having, though I'd take it one or two or light years steps further: the library community should / could serve to replace that 'trusted' imprimatur traditional publishers wore as the written / spoken word becomes digital and delivery, the other prime traditional publisher service, becomes ubiquitous. This is an idea I'm toying with and can't find adequate expression / justification / realization for as yet but more soon.

That said, and much as I agree with Dr. Schultz, I don't think I'll be meeting her in 4.0, with or without a single malt...

PAYGO (Post As You GO!), #1

this just in from the front lines of assignments due (but don't look for no stinking Access here) - what I'm doing right now, this very minute (or at some point over the last 600 minutes, or so):

finally got the image manipulating thing goin' on - look to your right, my left

got the Library Thang goin' on - again, look to your right, my left

did everything I thought I needed to do (as mentioned below) @ rollyo and created (I thought) a thing (sic) called 'woll on' but every time I try to get back into rollyo my browser (f'fox) just loads and loads and loads and my mind wanders to greener pastures...

I am now officially delicious (or at least in some very select - and limited - circles) and I think I get it. Please don't ask me to explain, however. But I will post more after I used it for more than, what's it been, 15 - 20 minutes?

I do want to point out here that the Learning 2.0 site could stand for a Learning 3.0 or more update: many of the links go either nowhere or to 'pages not found' at the intended destination...I'd be happy to suggest replacement destinations. Delicious destinations, at that.

And that happened again in the Technorati section.

But now I've created a Technorati identity/account that they tell me it (I) will be activated after I click on a link they've sent me in an email.

but there's no email....

still (10 SECONDS LATER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) no email....

STILL (20 SECONDS LATER NO...) never mind - just got the email.

And I'm in - I'm a Technorati (isn't the singular form Technoratus?) but no sign of Learning 2.0's 'claim your blog' area...maybe someone in class tomorrow can (gently) tell me what I did wrong...

Found 66,047 references to Learning 2.0 in their Blog Posts, 0 references in their Blog directory (out of 825,402) and, now don't get upset, L. 2.0, there was no listing for you among the 'popular tags' used over the last month - the only 'Tag' listing I could find...

Library 2.0? Aren't we talking about at least 3.0? but more on that tomorrow. For now, Sleep - Beta

All Play and No Work or The Dog Ate My Homework, part 34,m

Dull, dull, dull. 'Playing' with various 2.0 items while putting together a power 'with no' point presentation has plum wored me out!

Sure I tried to use rollyo - even created an account and, I think, a public browser (called Woll On), but the browser said there were too many connections so I'll have to re-rollyo, at some point.

Tried to do some image generating @ BigHugeLabs - even created an account there - but couldn't pull any of my iPhoto images - or at least not yet.

Visited LetterJames and left almost immediately.

Downloaded open source application Audacity to try to use with my power 'outage' point presentation - or rather a different presentation I would have created if I could have figured out how the program works but as I didn't have the idea until yesterday afternoon on the way to toe surgery (you don't want to know) and I had to spend the evening at my youngest son's school's general membership meeting (you really don't want to know), it was all I could do to get the thing installed properly (totally not complicated) along with it's great plug-in called Lame Mp3 converter (or words to that effect), load the audio file, see it in the program but then be unable to do anything with it (EVEN LISTEN TO IT!!!!)...

And just when I had just figured out how I was going to explain to my wife that I spent $300 on Pro Tools, the premiere audio editing program - but now with Audacity - assuming I can get it to work (not a great leap) - I can spend that $300 on something else...maybe a digital recorder...

So I'll have to 'play' more later - assuming the internet still exists and I can get to it.

But I did spend about 28 hours on the powerpoint presentation. Boy, that felt like time well spent!

Other play plans: more, more, and more open source stuff.

look out world...especially Redmond, Washington...

Learning 2.0 lessons 7 & 8 and severe regression in My Life 1.0

Now I'm questioning this whole Learning 2.0 thing and think I should go back to an earlier version. Got the feeding-in thing going on. Got the feeding out thing to go. Got the Bloglines account set up and somehow have also set up a blog there (http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wwwaterbury) but have no idea why - all in an effort to get a link to my blogline selections on this damn blog page...but am not sure we were supposed to do that or even if it's humanly (sic) possible...

Yesterday I did a great Learning -4.3 task: I went to the Post Office - yes, in meat space - and bought one postcard stamp and mailed a postcard. Take that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the rest of the weberati...

The First Blog Post Ever About Uma My Dog (named after the Hindu Goddess, the daughter of the Himalayas, mother of Ganesha) - with Music

Make a Smilebox slideshow

flickr, flickr, flickr, sputter, sputter

Well as some of you will soon see if you haven't already I've flicker'd my heart out and don't really know what I have to show for it...

On the one hand learning about these programs and possibilities is fascinating; on the other there's life in meat space (my favorite term for all non-cyber areas coined as the internet emerged and then, for all intents and purposes, lost in the shuffle to more appealing terms) with its never ceasing demands.

but we carry on nonetheless...in or out of smilebox, flickering weakly until we sputter out completely, leaving a series of 1's and 0's for posterity

Happy Thought # 49,290

attempt at Smilebox slide show post

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

First (sic) Post

I like the idea of an information literacy toolbox. And of patting myself on the back. The next thing I have to learn is how to make 2's and 3's appear in smaller case to create 'squared' and 'cubed' things. I'm thinking particularly about Lifelong Learner as L cubed...and then there's our group - C squared.

Of the 23 things I'm looking forward to just about everything but especially Flickr and the online image generator.

Of the 7 1/2 habits because of my background I couldn't help but wonder if Stephen Covey's lawyers had been heard from at any point, especially when at the end of the second podcast Helene Blowers slips up and refers to them as the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Lifelong Learners...

But the habits themselve, like those of their originator, seem worthwhile...

first post

there's no turning back now

stepping off the cliff