BIT320 Remix: weblogs Archives

I want a cell phone with a camera and a planner and a mp3 and a…

Tigerlily23 brings up many topics for discussion in her articles about movies on Cell phones. I want to take it into a new direction. Cell phones are starting to offer more and more features: cameras, planners, mp3 players, etc. However these Swiss army devices are thought of as phones with other features. Mainly because these secondary features do not measure up in quality to devices that specialize in these features. For example the 1 mega pixel cameras in cell phones do not come anywhere close to the 3-8 mega pixel that are on the market, and I don’t think a cell phone could ever complete with Apple’s Ipod. The reason I feel this way is not because of technological reasons but for business reasons. If Apple wanted to they could partner up with a cell phone manufacturer to produce a great cell phone / mp3, but what would be Apple’s motivation all this would do is a cannibalize Ipod sales. I think that this ultimately hurts the consumer because I would rather have a cell phone/Ipod/camera in my pocket as opposed to all three separately. I searched for articles about this on the net, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. What do you think? Are there reasons for firms to collaborate? What would be the long term implications for the industry? Have you seen any articles about this on the web?

In SuperMatt, 12/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

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In del.icio.us/supermatt, 12/11/2005 | Original | Archive

Why Blogging is a GOOD idea

I talked before about the Benefit about knowing 5 languages and while don’t even claim proficiency let alone fluency it has been an interesting semester. It is obvious that learning the 5 languages is a lot like learning a foreign language. I have always felt that it would be easiest for me to learn a foreign language by being put in the middle of a country that speaks the language. The reason for this is that people learn best from multiple sources. Therefore if I was in a foreign country there would be many people teaching me, as opposed to a class room which traditionally has one professor teaching many students. Bud has completely changed this in his class. First he has basically dropped us off in the middle of a foreign country having us dive head first into XML, and just like how we would really be if we were put on a foreign land we were scared and confused as everyone around us was speaking a foreign language, but now just a few weeks later we all seem to have a much better understand of the new languages we are starting to comprehend. Also he has shifting the job of teaching from just him to the entire class. We all help each other learn, in essence making more teachers. This helps in two ways. First whenever I have a question I don’t just have to go to Bud, I can blog about it, or ask a classmate for help. Second, when we help each other or tackle questions together we solidify and internalize concepts. Another idea that makes this class exceptional is the use of the internet in the class. Most classes only use textbooks as reference, but frequently we are encouraged to find websites that provide answers to our questions, references, or further information about a topic. When students find these they post them in their blog. Which brings me to my final point as to why this is a good class. The blog. Sure it is difficult and sometimes unpleasant to post in your blog because we are busy or can’t think of a good topic, but if you look at all of my points you will see they all revolve around blog. Of course, if we were not required to blog or it was worth a little portion of our grade we would not do it, but with emphasis put on it, we are all using it and benefiting from it.

In SuperMatt, 12/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

.XXX is not the answer to a BIG PROBLEM

After readings Dave’s blog, I started to think about the .xxx and pornography websites. I found this site which explains industry statistics on the porn industry. Some interesting facts about the online adult industry are:

1. Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

2. US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion)

3. Child pornography generates $3 billion annually

ast fact is the most disturbing to me. There needs to be a better way to stop children from accessing these sites. However there are some major issues in doing so. The first of which is that children are often better on computers than their parents. If a parent doesn’t understand properly how to properly block their children from accessing these sites the kids will figure it out. Adding complexity to the problem is that computer are becoming completely ubiquitous in our society. When I was growing up there was only one computer in our house and it was in our family room, however with people having multiple computer in the house including laptops children could take computers to their rooms or some place more private to access these forbidden sites. For these reasons it is hard even for the most responsible parent to prevent their children from accessing these sites. I know when I am a parent I will speak directly to my children and educate them about why it is inappropriate for them to visit these sites. I think education is the best hope because with as unregulated as the internet is, it would be virtually impossible to stop a determined teenager if they wanted to find adult content.

In SuperMatt, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

A Perfect Remix Cont…

I agree completely with Matt M when he says

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’d love to see this remix continue and grow once the class is over.

I think we need to continue this site after the class is over. I know FOR A FACT we will not blog 5 times a week, but it would be easy to do, and an exciting way to keep up with each other well after graduation. I’m sure after Project2 or with the help of Bud, any of us could set up a site that would use RSS feeds to pull our articles and put them in a blog. Now this would not need to be fancy, but it would be a easy way to keep up. Not only would this be a fun/social thing, but it could be another networking tool. For example, if in a few years, I want to connect someone with Microsoft, I can simply get on the blog site and I know that at least 2 people reading the blog site will be Microsoft employees. One thing I have learned about networking is the best way to keep up contacts is to remind people of yourself without bothering them. Blogs are a great way to do this. With a blog people always have the option of reading what you have to say without bothering people. I would encourage all of you to even think about creating similar sites with your friends. In my case I was thinking about creating a RSS feed blog site for my business school friends and my fraternity brothers. It is such an easy way to keep contact and with virtually no cost.

In SuperMatt, 12/06/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Adding a counter my second try

Well here I go again, for some reason I’m curious about how many viewers are making their way over to my site. Taking Supriya’s advice, I followed the link in here blog, to get free html text that should display a counter and other visitor statistics about my blog. After writing in my blog nearly 60 times, of course I want to see if anyone is reading. If this works, I suggest that you add it to yours. One thing I have noticed is that everyone in the class is very cognizant of people outside of the class reading their blog. This is another way to track activity.

Website Counter

In SuperMatt, 11/30/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Screen Shots in Posts

In one of Aga’s posts she talks about the idea of using the print screen function. This is a good idea because it saves students time, and ensure an exact replica of text. However I’m worried about the clearly of the reading. Also it is a huge pain to do. In fact, I have tired numerous ways to insert a screen shot and it doesn’t seem to work. This first way I tired was to save the screen shot as a file then insert it in the blog. That did not work. Then I tired to copy and paste the image in, but that did not work either. In both of these tries, the computer basically tries to post a local file into my blog. The only way I figure I could do this is to post the picture (screenshot) on the internet somewhere then have the html code pull the picture from the website where the file is located. All of this is much harder than just coping and pasting the XML text. Does anyone have an easier way?

In SuperMatt, 11/30/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Technorati Search for: www.blogsofwar.com

In del.icio.us/supermatt, 11/26/2005 | Original | Archive

Will the Button Work?

What I can I say, it appears my first FrontPage blog didn’t go as planned. Basically I thought I could insert a counter into my blog by adding the pre-made HTML that FrontPage. However, it didn’t work. So I thought I’d try another function. , I made an interactive button which should act as a link to bring interested people to my blog with the phantom counter. If anyone knows how to add a counter to a blog using HTML I would be interested. Hopefully, this feature will be more successful than my first. I think it will work except that my Button is currently clear. Hopefully I can solve this problem and repost.

In SuperMatt, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

FrontPage - My New Blog Editor

After Kevin , had a problem with his blog. Bud suggested that we use FrontPage to write and edit our blogs so they are neat and organized. This will be my first blog written with FrontPage. Obviously when adapting to new software there will be set backs, but I think FrontPage offers a lot more functionality. It is great for learning HTML because if I can’t figure out how to write something in HTML, I can click on the Design tab, add whatever to the document then click back on the Code tab to see how to do this with html. Of course most of the time I will simply write my blog in WordPress, but every once in a while I will try to add something new. Today’s feature is a counter.

In SuperMatt, 11/16/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

apophenia: justice, fairness, power and privilege

Actually a fairly thoughtful piece on how the cost of blogging is time, and time is the result of having liesure, often a side-effect of privilege.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive

Blog-Spotting With IBM

Not entirely clear how this works. It's not a service. It seems like it is a software that you install and then I suppose set it loose on some set of blogs. Wouldnt' it be better if it were a service, for scalability if nothing else?

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 11/09/2005 | Original | Archive

USATODAY.com - Teens wear their hearts on their blog

Unprecedented numbers of teens are using blogs — Web logs — for: cementing friendships with classmates, seeking new friends, venting, testing social limits, getting support and getting all emo

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/31/2005 | Original | Archive

Matt’s featured Feature

In the spirit of the midterm tomorrow I thought I’d blog about my favorite feature in Oracle the IN operator. Let just say the IN operator did exist and I wanted to list the number, name, and credit limit for each customer with a credit limit of 5k, 10k 15k. My sql script would be:

SELECT CUSTOMER_NUM, CUSTOMER_NAME, CREDIT_LIMIT

FROM CUSTOMER

WHERE CREDIT_LIMIT = 5000

OR CREDIT_LIMIT = 10000

OR CREDIT_LIMIT = 15000;

But thanks to the IN Operator it looks something like:

SELECT CUSTOMER_NUM, CUSTOMER_NAME, CREDIT_LIMIT

FROM CUSTOMER

WHERE CREDIT_LIMIT IN (5000, 10000, 15000);

Anything that saves me typing is a great help. Are you interested in more ways to use the in functions? Check out what these bloggers had to say about it.

In SuperMatt, 10/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Trying to Stop what I’ve Started

When I wrote my last post I was hoping to create some buzz about the grading scale. My complaint was not that it would force or change competition but rather I think that we are all exceptional students and I wish we could all be fully rewarded for that. BIT320 is a unique course that requires more collaboration and multiple points of learning than most courses. To me it is like learning a new language and unless I have someone to practice the language with I will never be fluent. Bud does his best by pointing out in his post that:

the lion’s share of credit in this course is given based on your contribution to the class knowledge

To that end, I would encourage all of you to collaborate as much as possible, and don’t worry about studying for tomorrows quiz, I’m sure we’ll all do just fine.

In SuperMatt, 10/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

SuperMatt is #1 2

After reading Kevin’s #1 blog I thought I’d check the Google-ability of my blog. I was happy to find out that when I searched “SuperMatt” on Google my blog was the first to populate. Unlike Kevin, I have decided not to use my real name in the blog so if I Google my name nothing related to my blog appears. I don’t think any harm can come out of having my name attached to my blog, but to me better safe than sorry.

In SuperMatt, 10/22/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

More on McDonald's intranet blogs

McDonald's is running blogs on its intranet. Makes a lot of sense.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/19/2005 | Original | Archive

Survey: 55% of Corporations Using Blogs

"Maintaining enthusiam and encouraging adoption among contributors more difficult than getting management buy-in." The social aspects are what is hard. People need to work on that. On the upcoming test, if a question asks us to list or count

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/18/2005 | Original | Archive

Weblog Usability by Nielsen

"Quite fun to see Nielsen getting into weblog usability… should really just go check our the problogger but still pretty interesting… how do you measure up?" Well, I'm probably missing one or two.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/17/2005 | Original | Archive

Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, October 2005 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth

The key thing to note is that the number of blogs doubles about every 7 months. Are these new bloggers? or just old bloggers starting another blog? I have around 10 myself.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/17/2005 | Original | Archive

Metrics - Introduction

The intro to a series on blog metrics. Probably worth a read.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/17/2005 | Original | Archive

Classroom Blogging Professionalism / Class Culture

After reading jb’s blog, and other like it. I want to put in my two cents. I think that each class develops its own culture. Last year during core class, every one of us had the same classes with the same students, yet the class acted differently depending on the class and the professor. In my section for example, students were very quiet, attentive, and studious in your finance class, yet one hour later in marketing we were rambunctious. Now in Bit320 our class has its own culture. For example, during class when we have a question we just speak up as opposed to the traditional hand raising. The same applies for blogs. The entire class knows each other, and addresses each other casually. We are still courteous, but casual and friendly.

In SuperMatt, 10/10/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Character Blogs and Ice Cream

I completely agree with Matt when he says:

Personally I think that character blogs are great. They contribute to brand awareness and add a much needed fantasy element to the blog world. In fact, they may even help push blogs from a niche market to the mainstream and validate them as a legitimate form of literature. Am I alone in liking these so-called “fake” blogs?

Ice cream is all about fun, so I do not see the problem with a character blog. I could see a character blog being a suboptimal choice in a political blog, but for ice cream. I think some people are taking blogs to seriously if they are that upset over Denali flavors having a character blog.

In SuperMatt, 10/09/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Doing the numbers on the AOL-WeblogsInc deal

So, this is an interesting take on what the value of a link is based on AOL's purchase of Weblogs Inc., a blog publishing network. Are these the types of metrics we should be using in business? What price visibility?

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 10/08/2005 | Original | Archive

Tigerlily takes charge

Have a peek at this technorati search on one of Tigerlily's posts. She has been found by the world of bloggers.

In del.icio.us/fpgibson, 09/24/2005 | Original | Archive

Remix Site

SuperMatt makes the observation:

Although the Community Engine has everyone’s blog trying to find blog posts of my classmates is still difficult. One solution I had thought of to remedy this problem is to some how split the screen between the blog posts and the my del.clious bookmarks.

following up on the remark in Kevin’s blog:

After two weeks of blogging, I am still not convinced of the benefits of blogs over threaded discussion forums, especially when trying to build an interactive community.

to which Shady Waters said she felt:

en though the structure we have is of little islands of themselves, I think that if we even put everyone in a forum that we would almost end up in the same situation because it does take a lot of time to to look down the long list of posts and figure out what to respond to in either case.

In this kind of situation, we have an incentive to post, but no incentive to interact highly.

I’m glad to see a consensus emerging on this. Here’s the consensus I see:

We’re operating like little islands.
In part, the class is set up to force individual contributions, so it is fine if all I am doing is making my individual contribution.
However, that said, it is sort of frustrating to publish into the void or to have to spend so much effort to just follow the thread.
Maybe there is an interface solution we can try to fix this.
Some interface solutions, like using a discussion forum, may not be as good as we think.

As it turns out, there are a few solutions to this issue. One that we will test out is Matt’s suggestion to filter out the del.icio.us bookmarks on the main page.

In Blogonautic Solutions, 09/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Discussion Forums vs. Blogging

I complete agree with Kevin on his post. Although the Community Engine has everyone’s blog trying to find blog posts of my classmates is still difficult. One solution I had thought of to remedy this problem is to some how split the screen between the blog posts and the my del.clious bookmarks. Otherwise I have to open blogs to find and respond to blogs.

In SuperMatt, 09/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Blogs are Mainstream??

On Thursday night I was watching The OC, which is considered a trendsetter. On this episode they mentioned blogging. I found it surprising that such a mainstream TV show would mention blogging. Which makes me wonder are blogs becoming mainstream? I think that blogs will become well known and most people will at least know what they are. However I don’t think outside of gossipers, egomaniacs, and techies it will become that popular.

In SuperMatt, 09/24/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

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