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Zoho Tools

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I might enjoy Zoho more than I thought I would. In a browser (like Firefox 2) with a “spell as you type” mode, it can be fairly useful.
However, the desktopization of Zoho Writer (a widget which allows users of Zoho Writer, Sheets, or Show to edit files offline) wasn’t working for me, just now. The other desktop widgets did work and the add-ins for Microsoft Excel and Word also seem to work. Strange there doesn’t seem to be a PowerPoint add-in, but maybe that’s coming.
At first glance, Zoho Writer seems more feature-rich than Google Docs. It also works in browsers to allow for opening online documents, which can be quite useful. But Google Docs has the advantage of Gmail integration…
Actually, I just received a Word document which was to be co-edited with members of a group I’m a member of and I decided to open it in Google Docs. And I then shared it through Google Docs. Maybe because I thought it would be easier for the “collaborators” to recognise what this was supposed to be. But I guess I should have used Zoho Writer.
Ah, well…

I’ve been using Zoho Show for lectures and it does work fairly well. I wish it worked a bit more like an outliner with different output options (screen display, outlined notes, etc.) but it works quite well as a PowerPoint replacement.
The advantage, for me, is that I can edit it on any computer and know that it’ll be available for classroom presentation. Perhaps a less important point but it also means that I only log in to my Zoho Show account, from the classroom computer.
An issue I had while presenting was that read-only presentations were too slow to go from one slide to another. Another issue I have is that Firefox isn’t keeping the classroom computer awake and the screen sometimes goes black if I spend too much time on the same slide (which might happen on occasion).
I just wish I could synchronise things with my Clié so that notes I take while reading some things can be transformed into lecture notes more easily.

All in all, Zoho’s online tools seem to be fairly well adapted to my workflow.

Digital Life, DRM, music, students

The Quest for Student Ears

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College students take to Ruckus | CNET News.com

(Also talks about other music-related services showed at the Digital Music Forum – East.)

Talked about Ruckus and music discovery on one of my other blogs. Still like part of the system as a way to explore musical diversity (especially if they get more diverse music).
The idea, here, is to hook students-as-music-consumers to a music delivery system. Not even sneaky. But a bit ill-advised, IMHO.

democracy, politics, U.S. politics

Closer to Fair Use Codification?

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Digital Fair Use bill introduced to US House (sans teeth)

If passed, the FAIR USE Act will amend the DMCA to codify recent exceptions granted to the anti-circumvention rules by the Register of Copyrights, which include some allowances for obsolete technologies and cell phone unlocking.

Doesn’t sound like a whole lot, especially since the bill specifically does not address some of the most controversial parts of the DMCA. But if codifying fair use is the goal (as fair use is not yet guaranteed, in the United States), maybe this bill can shake things up at least a bit.

It’s quite interesting to see how a large majority of citizens agree that things need to change yet a handful of corporate entities enforce the status quo without much apparent effort.

It’s also quite funny how many bills in the U.S. have acronyms designed to work as expressions. This one is:  Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007. Catchy!

Beer, Communities, craft beer, cultural identity, individualism, networking, podcasts, social networks, United States

Self-Help and Sociology

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On a recent episode of his video podcast, ze frank made some parallels between “changing your life” and “being perceived by others”: the show with zefrank: most popular.

To me, ze’s ideas connect the sociological perspective on “labeling” (especially in Howie Becker‘s approach) with the notion of “networking for social mobility” in the context of “self-help” or “self-improvement” (typical of U.S.-style Calvinism).

What struck me is that these ideas are quite related to what I perceive to be at stake in much craft beer culture, especially in terms of cultural and social identity.

Canada, CBC, constructivism, mass media

CAs and Heroism

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Watched George Stroumboulopoulos’s The Hour last night. He did an interview with Canada’s Auditor General Sheila Fraser who is widely known for her role in unveiling the sponshorship scandal which rocked Canadian politics during the past few years.

Not sure what other people’s reaction has been but, the first time I saw Fraser, her approach and behaviour impressed me as heroic. I don’t tend to have heroes, idols, or even role models (apart from my mother, my paternal grand-mother, and my wife). But I’m touched by people’s sense of duty and Fraser seems to have exactly that.

This isn’t to say that Fraser is a better person than anybody else. But there’s something truly glorious about her work. Maybe there’s something in her attitude which oozes both self-confidence and selflessness. At any rate, I get the feeling that we need more people like her. And I wish she won’t go into partisan politics.

What’s interesting here is that, in her interview with Stroumboulopoulos, Fraser addressed the issue of how chartered accountants (CAs) are perceived. Typically, accountants are thought to be boring, uncool people. Currently, there’s a campaign in Quebec to fight this perception. Some ad agency (Cossette, most likely) has been putting posters in metro cars with actual CAs pictured as glamourous Stars on the covers of fake gossip magazines. There’s also a TV show about CAs (haven’t watched it but it seems to approach the same idea of glamour).

Can glamour backfire on the definition of what a CA should be?

In anthropology, we often have the “Indiana Jones Effect” as people take anthropology to be all about a sense of adventure. There’s also the “CSI Effect” about forensics, which influences the way some people interpret forensic evidence.

Mass media may tend to produce heroes of a specific kind. Is this process detrimental to the type of heroism displayed by Sheila Fraser and, say, Louise Arbour?

Is heroism defined by the epic genre or is the epic genre defined by heroic characters?

cuisine, Food, food and culture, glocal, hedonism, Montreal, pleasure, Québec, Québécois, restaurants

Food and Satisfaction

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Catherine and I have a lot to celebrate. Her recent offer from Austin, her less recent doctoral defense, ten years of living together… We had promised ourselves one truly good restaurant meal. In fact, this promise was made several times over the past year or so but we had never been able to fulfill it. Continue reading Food and Satisfaction →