Learning Systems Wishlist

February 16, 2008 dispar 2 Comments

In a blogpost, Learning Systems ’08 host Elliott Masie lists 12 features learning management systems could/should have.
Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS – Learning TRENDS – 12 Wishes for Our LMS and LCMS

A summary:

Focus on the Learner
Content, Content and Content
Ratings, Please
More Context
Performance Support Tools
Social Knowledge
Learning Systems as Components
Focus on the Role
UserContent Authoring
Learning Systems as Service
The Lifecycle of Learning Systems
Learning Systems as Human Capital/Talent Systems

While Masie’s focus is on training and learning in corporate situations, many of these ideas are discussed in other types of learning contexts, including higher education. Some of the most cynical of university professors might say that the reason this list could apply to both corporate and university environments is that university are currently being managed like businesses. Yet, there are ways to adapt to some of the current “customer-based” approaches to learning while remain critical of their effects.

Personally, I think that the sixth point (about “social knowledge”) is particularly current. Not only are “social” dimensions of technology past the buzzword phase but discussing ways to make learning technology more compatible with social life is an efficient way to bring together many issues relating to technology and learning in general.

Masie’s description of his “social knowledge” wish does connect some of these issues:

Learning Systems will need to include and be integrated with Social Networking Systems. Some of the best and most important knowledge will be shared person-to-person in an organization. The learner wants to know, “Who in this organization has any experience that could help me as a learner/worker?” In addition to the LMS pointing to a module or course, we need to be able to link to a colleague who may have the perfect, relevant experience based on their work from 2 jobs ago. The social dimension of learning needs to be harvested and accelerated by a new vision of our Learning Systems.

Throughout the past year, I’ve been especially intrigued about the possibilities opened by making a “learning system” like Moodle more of a social networking platform. I’ve discussed this at the end of a longish wishlist for Moodle’s support of collaborative learning:

Another crazy idea: groups working a bit like social networking sites (e.g. Facebook). You get “friends” with whom you can share “stuff” (images, comments, chats, etc.). Those groups can go beyond the limits of a single course so that you would use it as a way to communicate with people at school. The group could even have a public persona beyond the school and publish some information about itself and its projects. Moodle could then serve as a website-creator for students. To make it wackier, students could even maintain some of these contacts after they leave the school.

Or Moodle could somehow have links to Facebook profiles.

My curiosity was later piqued by fellow anthropologist Michael Wesch’s comments about the use of Facebook in university learning and teaching. And the relevance of social networking systems for learning strategies has been acknowledged in diverse contexts through the rest of 2007.
One thing I like about Masie’s description is the explicit connection made between social networking and continuity. It’s easy to think of social networks as dynamic, fluid, and “in the now.” Yet, one of their useful dimensions is that they allow for a special type of direct transmission which is different from the typical “content”-based system popular in literacy-focused contexts. Not only do large social networking systems allow for old friends to find another but social networks (including the Internet itself) typically emphasize two-way communication as a basis for knowledge transmission. In other words, instead of simply reading a text about a specific item one wants to learn, one can discuss this item with someone who has more experience with that item. You don’t read an instruction manual, you “call up” the person who knows how to do it. Nothing new about this emphasis on two-way transmission (similar to “collaborative learning”). “Social” technology merely helps people realize the significance of this emphasis.

I’m somewhat ambivalent as to the importance of ratings (Masie’s third point). I like the Digg/Slashdot model as much as the next wannabe geek but I typically find ratings systems to be less conducive to critical thinking and “polyphony” (as multiplicity of viewpoints) than more “organic” ways to deal with content. Of course, I could see how it would make sense to have ratings systems in a corporate environment and ratings could obviously be used as peer-assessment for collaborative learning. I just feel that too much emphasis on ratings may detract us from the actual learning process, especially in environments which already make evaluation their central focus (including many university programs).

Overall, Masie’s wishlist makes for a fine conversation piece.

advice, Austin, cluefulness, cluetrain, Cluetrain Manifesto, consumerism, respect, responsible drinking, responsiveness

Flying Saucer: Doing the Right Thing

February 14, 2008 dispar Leave a comment

Few things impress me more from management than responsiveness and a sense of responsibility. Contrary to what some people seem to assume when I say a thing like this, the reciprocal isn’t true. There are several things managers can do which disappoint me more than their lack of responsiveness or their failure to take responsibility for something going on in their business. The main point is that I don’t really expect most managers to be responsive or responsible in matters pertaining to their business. Without my noticing it, there might be an implicit indictment of common managerial styles in the way I perceive responsive and responsible managers. But I mostly mean this as praise for what I perceive as proper management.

Now, those who know me would probably shout out that I’m really nothing like the “managerial type.” At best, I’d be the kind of person managers may pay attention to, on occasion. But I like ambivalence and nuance too much to be a “decider.” Since I have never been (nor do I ever plan to be) in a position of power over others, “it’s all good.”

What does any of this have to do with the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, you ask so eagerly I can smell the anxiety in your voice? Simple: Management at FS has just provided me with an excellent example of what I consider to be responsible and responsive management. And this does almost as much to endear them to me than their beer selection. SRSLY!

Here’s the deal…

Went to the recently-opened Austin location of the FS beerpub chain. Based in Houston, the chain has pubs in different parts of Southcentral and Southeastern United States (AR, TN, TX, NC, and SC). Because their beer selection tends to be rather extensive, their pubs are mentioned occasionally in beer podcasts and informal discussions. I was thus enthusiastic about the opportunity to go and sample some of their beers. Anything which brings people to understand beer diversity has my attention.

To make things even more exciting, the pub has a Monday night special (every week, apparently) during which draft beers are sold at $2.50 a pint. There are less expensive beers around (including some carefully crafted beer brewed locally) but given Flying Saucer’s beer selection, the deal sounded too good to be true.

And it kind of was. Not every beer on the draft menu was part of the special. Fair enough, of course. But a bit confusing. In fact, something on their Austin website was slightly misleading. Nothing to sue them over but, still, it’s a bit frustrating to have reality not live up to expectations set up by information given out by an enterprise. (A rare occurrence, right? 😉 )
So I submitted some comments using their feedback form. Because my comments were (hopefully constructive but still) somewhat negative, I sent those comments in the “Criticize Us” category. I tried to make my comments as thoughtful as possible but I did feel a bit silly to criticize a pub for what is objectively a very nice special. It’s probably just something about myself that I like to tell people what I feel about what they do to me. It might even be a Quebecker thing.

Thing is, I didn’t really expect an answer. I was sending comments in the hope that, maybe, it would reach someone who might be reminded of it on an occasion where it might matter, somewhat. I almost sent a copy of my comments as an “open letter” but, probably because I felt a bit silly for sending such comments, I refrained from compulsively blogging the issue.

I sent my comment at 10PM CET. An automatic response told me, in a humorous way, that I should receive a response within 12 to 24 hours and, failing this, I should send another message. I don’t even expect that kind of a response time in time-sensitive situations (say, a moving or a courier company) so I really didn’t expect a response in that timeframe. But this auto-response did prepare me to get some kind of reply (probably a generic response) at some point in the not-too-distant future. Again, this wasn’t something I was really expecting when I submitted my comments.

What I still wasn’t expecting after receiving the automatic response was what actually happened. By 4:30AM CET, a message was sent to me by someone at the Austin management for Flying Saucer. That message was CC’ed to other people but was clearly addressed to me. No form letter here. In fact, the message was directly addressing the issues I had raised, in exactly the right tone and most appropriate way. The person who sent the message took responsibility for the misleading statement and pledged to rectify it right away. In fact, by the time I read that message, the actual webpage had in fact been updated, and the statement I had quoted had been replaced with a claim that I find humorous, honest, and quite appropriate.

Wow!

Of course, it didn’t take them too much of an effort to make these changes. And they might have acted so quickly for fear of legal issues (even though my message wasn’t at all meant to be threatening). But I’m still very impressed by the responsiveness and sense of responsibility displayed by management at Flying Saucer Austin.

To remain in the corporate mindframe, it reminds me of ads for a fast-food chain in which people act in a “refreshingly honest” way. Though I’m certainly not going to eat fast-food because of ads like these, I definitely appreciate the concept. Openness, transparency, effectiveness, responsiveness, responsibility… Taken together, these qualities make for a very pleasurable experience, even when they relate to relatively large institutions. I sincerely think that if more managers were like that, many problems could be solved.

Now, if I can only get Texas to change its beer import laws… 😉

The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium – www.beerknurd.com

Apple, cellphones, Crazy Predictions, open-source, ramblings, software, software development, speech recognition, techno enthusiasts, techno lust, technological determinism, technology, voice, wishful thinking, wishlists

Free As In Beer: The Case for No-Cost Software

February 14, 2008 dispar 3 Comments

To summarize the situation:

Most of the software for which I paid a fee, I don’t really use.
Most of the software I really use, I haven’t paid a dime for.
I really like no-cost software.
You might want to call me “cheap” but, if you’re developing “consumer software,” you may need to pay attention to the way people like me think about software.

No, I’m not talking about piracy. Piracy is wrong on a very practical level (not to mention legal and moral issues). Piracy and anti-piracy protection are in a dynamic that I don’t particularly enjoy. In some ways, forms of piracy are “ruining it for everyone.” So this isn’t about pirated software.

I’m not talking about “Free/Libre/Open Source Software” (FLOSS) either. I tend to relate to some of the views held by advocates of “Free as in Speech” or “Open” developments but I’ve had issues with FLOSS projects, in the past. I will gladly support FLOSS in my own ways but, to be honest, I ended up losing interest in some of the most promising projects out there. Not saying they’re not worth it. After all, I do rely on many of those projects But in talking about “no-cost software,” I’m not talking about Free, Libre, or Open Source development. At least, not directly.

Basically, I was thinking about the complex equation which, for any computer user, determines the cash value of a software application. Most of the time, this equation is somehow skewed. And I end up frustrated when I pay for software and almost giddy when I find good no-cost software.

An old but representative example of my cost-software frustration: QuickTime Pro. I paid for it a number of years ago, in preparation for a fieldwork trip. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do, especially given the fact that I was going to manipulate media files. When QuickTime was updated, my license stopped working. I was basically never able to use the QuickTime Pro features. And while it’s not a huge amount of money, the frustration of having paid for something I really didn’t need left me surprisingly bitter. It was a bad decision at that time so I’m now less likely to buy software unless I really need it and I really know how I will use it.

There’s an interesting exception to my frustration with cost-software: OmniOutliner (OO). I paid for it and have used it extensively for years. When I was “forced” to switch to Windows XP, OO was possibly the piece of software I missed the most from Mac OS X. And as soon as I was able to come back to the Mac, it’s one of the first applications I installed. But, and this is probably an important indicator, I don’t really use it anymore. Not because it lacks features I found elsewhere. But because I’ve had to adapt my workflow to OO-less conditions. I still wish there were an excellent cross-platform outliner for my needs. And, no, Microsoft OneNote isn’t it.

Now, I may not be a typical user. If the term weren’t so self-aggrandizing, I’d probably call myself a “Power User.” And, as I keep saying, I am not a coder. Therefore, I’m neither the prototypical “end user” nor the stereotypical “code monkey.” I’m just someone spending inordinate amounts of time in front of computers.

One dimension of my computer behavior which probably does put me in a special niche is that I tend to like trying out new things. Even more specifically, I tend to get overly enthusiastic about computer technology to then become disillusioned by said technology. Call me a “dreamer,” if you will. Call me “naïve.” Actually, “you can call me anything you want.” Just don’t call me to sell me things. 😉

Speaking of pressure sales. In a way, if I had truckloads of money, I might be a good target for software sales. But I’d be the most demanding user ever. I’d require things to work exactly like I expect them to work. I’d be exactly what I never am in real life: a dictator.

So I’m better off as a user of no-cost software.

I still end up making feature requests, on occasion. Especially with Open Source and other open development projects. Some developers might think I’m just complaining as I’m not contributing to the code base or offering solutions to a specific usage problem. Eh.

Going back to no-cost software. The advantage isn’t really that we, users, spend less money on the software distribution itself. It’s that we don’t really need to select the perfect software solution. We can just make do with what we have. Which is a huge “value-add proposition” in terms of computer technology, as counter-intuitive as this may sound to some people.

To break down a few no-cost options.

Software that came with your computer. With an Eee PC, iPhone, XO, or Mac, it’s actually an important part of the complete computing experience. Sure, there are always ways to expand the software offering. But the included software may become a big part of the deal. After all, the possibilities are already endless. Especially if you have ubiquitous Internet access.
Software which comes through a volume license agreement. This often works for Microsoft software, at least at large educational institutions. Even if you don’t like it so much, you end up using Microsoft Office because you have it on your computer for free and it does most of the things you want to do.
Software coming with a plan or paid service. Including software given by ISPs. These tend not to be “worth it.” Yet the principle (or “business model,” depending on which end of the deal you’re on) isn’t so silly. You already pay for a plan of some kind, you might as well get everything you need from that plan. Nobody (not even AT&T) has done it yet in such a way that it would be to everyone’s advantage. But it’s worth a thought.
“Webware” and other online applications. Call it “cloud computing” if you will (it was a buzzphrase, a few days ago). And it changes a lot of things. Not only does it simplify things like backup and migration, but it often makes for a seamless computer experience. When it works really well, the browser effectively disappears and you just work in a comfortable environment where everything you need (content, tools) is “just there.” This category is growing rather rapidly at this point but many tech enthusiasts were predicting its success a number of years ago. Typical forecasting, I guess.
Light/demo versions. These are actually less common than they once were, especially in terms of feature differentiation. Sure, you may still play the first few levels of a game in demo version and some “express” or “lite” versions of software are still distributed for free as teaser versions of more complete software. But, like the shareware model, demo and light software may seem to have become much less prominent a part of the typical computer user’s life than just a few years ago.
Software coming from online services. I’m mostly thinking about Skype but it’s a software category which would include any program with a desktop component (a “download”) and an online component, typically involving some kind of individual account (free or paid). Part subscription model, part “Webware companion.” Most of Google’s software would qualify (Sketchup, Google Earth…). If the associated “retail software” were free, I wouldn’t hesitate to put WoW in this category.
Actual “freeware.” Much freeware could be included in other categories but there’s still an idea of a “freebie,” in software terms. Sometimes, said freeware is distributed in view of getting people’s attention. Sometimes the freeware is just the result of a developer “scratching her/his own itch.” Sometimes it comes from lapsed shareware or even lapsed commercial software. Sometimes it’s “donationware” disguised as freeware. But, if only because there’s a “freeware” category in most software catalogs, this type of no-cost software needs to be mentioned.
“Free/Libre/Open Source Software.” Sure, I said earlier this was not what I was really talking about. But that was then and this is now. 😉 Besides, some of the most useful pieces of software I use do come from Free Software or Open Source. Mozilla Firefox is probably the best example. But there are many other worthy programs out there, including BibDesk, TeXShop, and FreeCiv. Though, to be honest, Firefox and Flock are probably the ones I use the most.
Pirated software (aka “warez”). While software piracy can technically let some users avoid the cost of purchasing a piece of software, the concept is directly tied with commercial software licenses. (It’s probably not piracy if the software distribution is meant to be open.) Sure, pirates “subvert” the licensing system for commercial software. But the software category isn’t “no-cost.” To me, there’s even a kind of “transaction cost” involved in the piracy. So even if the legal and ethical issues weren’t enough to exclude pirated software from my list of no-cost software options, the very practicalities of piracy put pirated software in the costly column, not in the “no-cost” one.

With all but the last category, I end up with most (but not all) of the software solutions I need. In fact, there are ways in which I’m better served now with no-cost software than I have ever been with paid software. I should probably make a list of these, at some point, but I don’t feel like it.

I mostly felt like assessing my needs, as a computer user. And though there always are many things I wish I could do but currently can’t, I must admit that I don’t really see the need to pay for much software.

Still… What I feel I need, here, is the “ultimate device.” It could be handheld. But I’m mostly thinking about a way to get ideas into a computer-friendly format. A broad set of issues about a very basic thing.

The spark for this blog entry was a reflection about dictation software. Not only have I been interested in speech technology for quite a while but I still bet that speech (recognition/dictation and “text-to-speech”) can become the killer app. I just think that speech hasn’t “come true.” It’s there, some people use it, the societal acceptance for it is likely (given cellphone penetration most anywhere). But its moment hasn’t yet come.

No-cost “text-to-speech” (TTS) software solutions do exist but are rather impractical. In the mid-1990s, I spent fifteen months doing speech analysis for a TTS research project in Switzerland. One of the best periods in my life. Yet, my enthusiasm for current TTS systems has been dampened. I wish I could be passionate about TTS and other speech technology again. Maybe the reason I’m notis that we don’t have a “voice desktop,” yet. But, for this voice desktop (voicetop?) to happen, we need high quality, continuous speech recognition. IOW, we need a “personal dictation device.” So, my latest 2008 prediction: we will get a voice device (smartphone?) which adapts to our voices and does very efficient and very accurate transcription of our speech. (A correlated prediction: people will complain about speech technology for a while before getting used to the continuous stream of public soliloquy.)

Dictation software is typically quite costly and complicated. Most users don’t see a need for dictation software so they don’t see a need for speech technology in computing. Though I keep thinking that speech could improve my computing life, I’ve never purchased a speech processing package. Like OCR (which is also dominated by Nuance, these days) it seems to be the kind of thing which could be useful to everyone but ends up being limited to “vertical markets.” (As it so happens, I did end up being an OCR program at some point and kept hoping my life would improve as the result of being able to transform hardcopies into searchable files. But I almost never used OCR (so my frustration with cost-software continues).)

Ah, well…

Academia, academic institutions, academic publishing, news, OA, open access, openness, scholarship

The H-Bomb in Open Access to Scholarship

February 13, 2008 dispar 6 Comments

As confirmed in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has just adopted a groundbreaking mandate “that requires faculty members to allow the university to make their scholarly articles available free online.”

Some coverage elsewhere:

Peter Suber’s blog is a comprehensive source for Open Access news. Some of his posts covering the Harvard mandate:

Why are those news so important? Well, it’s the first such university mandate in the United States, so it does set a precedent in and of itself. (The UC system might be the second one.) But, of course, Harvard’s prestige is an important factor. Hence the “H-bomb” title: just mentioning “Harvard” has a very strong effect, so much so that some Harvard graduates refrain from mentioning their alma mater. As Suber assesses, Harvard’s support for Open Access makes it unlikely that publishers would refuse articles from Harvard faculty. Personally, I would even go so far as to say that the FUD spewed by “academic” publishers might become much less effective than it has previously been.

In other words, this is a big victory for scholarship. Too bad publishers see it as a defeat. Maybe like “content” lobby groups RIAA and MPAA, publishers will finally be hit by the “cluestick” and will begin to understand that it is, in fact, in their best interest to embrace openness.

Yes, call me naïve.

WiFi

Free WiFi through AT&T

February 12, 2008 dispar Leave a comment

Starbucks ditches T-Mobile for AT&T | Crave : The gadget blog

Too bad it’s Charbucks but it’s still a bit of good news, especially for us AT&T Broadband subscribers. In fact, I even thought about going to spend a few minutes at *$ because of this news item. But since there are plenty of much superior cafés around town and that they all provide free WiFi, I just ended up bringing the MacBook to a few nice cafés, feeling all good inside (and outside: cafés have patios, here).

So, the deal is more an inspiration than anything else. Same thing about the *$/Apple deal for music distribution. The concept sounds good but the specific partnership would have been better if it had been made with places where people care about real coffee. Or about local music scenes, for that matter.

Of course AT&T’s WiFi services are much broader than this deal. I’ve already talked about my positive experience with AT&T customer service. I recently talked about configuring AT&T’s DSL to work with my Belkin WiFi router. So I probably sound like an AT&T shill, at this point. But I’m just a happy customer and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that. Right?

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Austin, restaurants

Tex-Mex Mile?

February 6, 2008 dispar Leave a comment

Haven’t found many details on the so-called “Tex-Mex mile” but it does sound like an interesting concept (and the series of restaurants is right by my place).

Here’s the best definition I’ve found so far (as part of a description of Jovita’s):

a one mile stretch of South First Street that has 11 Mexican Restaurants, a Mexican Bakery, Mexican Curios, Bar BQ, and a Funeral Home, just in case things get a little too spicy!

Honky Tonk Texas, USA – Austin Restaurants

Another description, found in a mailing-list thread:

Tex-Mex Mile has a variety of inexpensive dining options, not all of which are nuclear hot
Tex-Mex Mile is S. 1st street from the river to Oltort, parallel to S. Congress, 2 blocks west

Comments on the following blog post mention a few places in connection with the “Tex-Mex mile” expression:

In The Pink Texas » Blog Archive » Holy Guacamole

While they don’t use the same expression, food reviewers at the Austin Chronicle have described a stretch of South 1st in terms of its Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants. That was a few years ago and it’s quite possible that the “Tex-Mex mile” expression was coined later to describe pretty much the same series of restaurants. Included in the Chronicle‘s coverage was a convenient map.

So, according to the Austin Chronicle, we had (going South on S 1st Street):

El Mercado
Jovita’s Cantina
Mercedes Martinez
La Reyna
La Mexicana bakery
Polvo’s
Little Mexico
Tex-Mex Bar-B-Q
El Borrego de Oro (now on South Congress)
Taqueria Arandas #5
El Nopalito

Some of these places may have closed in the past few years. There probably are a few new places too. Also, it sounds as though the “Tex-Mex mile” may have been replaced with South Congress (SoCo). The Chronicle has another convenient guide for SoCo dining, complete with map and semi-witty comments.

Will have to investigate.

Austin, Beer, Blogging, craft beer, glocalization, homebrewing, social butterfly effect, social networks, Yulblog

Austin Bloggers

January 31, 2008 dispar 2 Comments

Been missing Montreal’s blogging community a bit but it sound like Austin also has something going on in terms of blogging.Met two local bloggers yesterday at the Austin Zealots‘ Roaming Happy Hour:

Lee: I Love Beer
Ed: Extra Dive NanoBrewery

Not only am I able to add these guys’ blogs (and a few of their favorite blogs) to my own blogroll, but I get a better impression of what Austin’s blogging scene might be like.Of course, Austin has some Metrobloggers. It’s quite possible that these folks may meet occasionally, thereby providing the local blogger with a YulBlog-like experience. But it’s still more fun to meet bloggers with whom you share some interests (in this case, respect for craft beer).After all, it’s all part of the social butterfly effect.

Facebook, Montreal, Québec, rants

Comportement dans le métro de Montréal

January 28, 2008 dispar 6 Comments

Quelques principes de base qui peuvent aider à diminuer le niveau de stress de tout le monde.Facebook | LES RÈGLES DU MÉTRO – “ÇA SE FAIT PAS, ÇA !”J’ai partagé ce lien sur Facebook et un de mes amis m’a répond que cette liste de règles semblait assez agressive.Ma réponse à ce commentaire:

Ça ressemble à de la frustration accumulée. Mon attitude est en général moins agressive mais je peux comprendre que quelqu’un soit réellement tanné.En fait, quand je voyais du monde adopter les comportements décriés dans cette liste, je souriais en me disant que le monde se donnait pas le tour pour être de bonne humeur.Par exemple, le coup du sac à dos. Ça m’est déjà arrivé d’être avec une personne que j’apprécie beaucoup et qui était enragée avec le monde du métro. Cette même personne portait un sac à dos et dérangeait le monde sans s’en rendre compte.Ou le truc de rentrer dans un wagon avec les autres soient sortis. Ceux qui le font ont souvent l’air tannés eux-mêmes. Mais s’ils attendaient trois secondes, ça prendrait moins de temps pour tout le monde.J’aurais des choses à ajouter à la liste mais comme je suis plus dans le réseau Montréal, je peux pas m’inscrire.Un de mes “pet peeves” c’est le fait qu’à Berri, dans l’escalier entre les directions Côte-Vertu et Angrignon (vers l’arrière de la trame), les gens prennent l’escalier à gauche comme à droite de la rampe, ce qui fait que ça prend beaucoup plus de temps pour tout le monde. Et c’est souvent du monde pressés, fatigués, tannés…Sinon, il y a ceux qui laissent leurs «poussettes de compétition» en plein milieu du wagon, en pleine heure de pointe. Ça m’a déjà fait écrire un “rant“.

Évidemment, ça me fait un peu drôle de penser à tout ça alors que je suis à 2000 miles de Montréal… 😉

Austin, WiFi

AT&T Yahoo Pro DSL to Belkin WiFi

January 27, 2008 dispar 4 Comments

Doh!

Was trying to set up my Belkin Wireless G Router (F5D7230-4) for use with our “Pro DSL” broadband connection from AT&T Yahoo (with a Motorola 2210 ADSL modem). It always stopped at authentication even though both of our computers (a MacBook and an eMachines H3070) could use the connection directly. Tried just about everything I could from doing a manual setup or resetting the router and the DSL modem, to updating the firmware or changing the connection’s password.

Most Web searches led me to irrelevant results. Nobody seemed to be having the same problem as I was. To be honest, my frustration was mounting. I almost called tech support!

Then, I noticed that the following forum post kept creeping up in search results, even though it didn’t have anything to do with AT&T.

Belkin F5D7230-4 Can’t See Comcast Cable Modem – dslreports.com

It then dawned on me that the problem may be simpler than I thought. Maybe my assumption was wrong, that this connection was using PPPOE like Sympatico, my previous ISP.

So, pretty much on a whim, I tried changing the connection type from PPPOE to Dynamic IP. And everything worked flawlessly.

Apart from experience with Bell’s Sympatico service, I was probably misled by the fact that this AT&T DSL connection was configured for use with a special @att.net account and a password. AFAICT, this att.net account isn’t necessary for the connection (but is provided with the connection).

After setting all of this up, I set up my Fonera WiFi router. “But you’re already using the Belkin Wireless G Router!,” you say? Well, yes. But I’m using the Fonera so I can easily share my connection with other Foneros. There’s already a few of us, Austin members of the Fon Movimiento. Not that we know each other. But we all share our broadband connection for free.

Why would we do such a thing?

Because we can.

Austin, bloggers, Blogging, journalism, new media, Old Media, podcasting, ramblings, wishful thinking, wishlists, WordPress, WordPress.com

New/Old Media: NYT Groks It

January 24, 2008 dispar Leave a comment

As an obvious example of “Old Media” in the U.S., The New York Times is easy to criticize. But the paper and the media company have also been showing signs that maybe, just maybe, they are home to people who do understand what is happening online, these days.

Back in September 2007, for instance, the NYT decided to make its content freely available. While The Times wasn’t the first newspaper to free its content, the fact that the “newspaper of record” for the United States went from a closed model (TimesSelect) to an open one was quite consequential. In fact, this NYT move probably had an impact on the Wall Street Journal which might be heading in a similar direction.

The Times‘s website also seems to have progressively improved on the blogging efforts by some of its journalists, including composer and Apple-savvy columnist David Pogue.

Maybe this one is just my personal perception but I did start to read NYT bloggers on a more regular basis, recently. And this helped me notice that the Times wasn’t as “stuffy and old” as its avid readers make it to be.

Possibly the silliest detail which has been helping me change my perception of the New York Times was the fact that it added a button for a “Single Page” format for its articles. A single page format is much more manageable for both blogging and archiving purposes than the multiple page format inherited from print publications. Most online publications have a “printer-friendly” button which often achieves the same goal as the NYT’s “single page” button yet, quite frequently, the printer format makes a print dialogue appear or is missing important elements like pictures. Not only is the NYT’s “Single Page” button a technical improvement over these “printer-friendly” formats but it also seems to imply that people at the Times do understand something about their online readers.

This “Single Page” button is in a box, with other “article tools” called “Print,” “Reprints,” and “Share.” The “sharing” features are somewhat limited but well-integrated. They do make it easy for some social networkers and bloggers to link to New York Times content.

FWIW, my perception of this grande dame of print publications is greatly influenced by my perception of the newspaper’s blog-friendliness.

Speaking of blog-friendly… The major news item making the New York Times Company seem even more sympathetic to bloggers is the fact that it has contributed to a round of funding which provided WordPress.com’s parent company Automattic with 29.5 M$.

Unsurprisingly, Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg blogged about the funding round. Candidly recounting the history of his company, Mullenweg whets our appetites for what may be coming next in WordPress and in other Automattic projects:

Automattic is now positioned to execute on our vision of a better web not just in blogging, but expanding our investment in anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more — small, open source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought us this far.

While some of these comments sound more like a generic mission statement than like a clear plan for online development, they may give us a glimpse of what will be happening at that company in the near future.

After all, chances are that integrating technologies will be one of the Next Big Things. In fact, some other people have seen the “social networking” potential of WordPress.com, though this potential is conceived through a perspective different from my original comments about WordPress.com’s network effect. Guess I’ll have to write a wishlist for WordPress.com features (including support for ubiquitous social networking, podcasting, and learning management).Still, what the funding announcement means to me has more to do with the integration of “Old Media” (print publications like The New York Times) and “New Media” (online services like WordPress and WordPress.com). As luck would have it, I’m not the only blogger who thinks about the positive effects this Old/New Media integration may have.

As an aside, to this Austinite and long-time sax player, Matt Mullenweg’s Texas and saxophone connections are particularly endearing. Good thing I’m not an investor because I would probably follow my gut feeling and invest in Automattic for such irrational reasons.