Web/Blog Tools

Various learning management systems (LMS) like Moodle allow you to create online activities like quizzes and polls as part of the course content and engagement. But what do you do if you need something like that but you don’t have access to an LMS that does it or you need to put that content in an environment outside of the LMS.

I’ve been playing around with Hot Potatoes which gives you some of this functionality. It feels a bit clunky in places, but it will certainly get the job done if you want basic multi-choice quizzes, crosswords and matching exercises.

If course if you want to create a quiz that logs the results against the student (say for assessment purposes) then you’ll need to step up to something more like an LMS.

Useful Problogger article on different ways of getting a design for your blog - from the free through to the expensive. See Problogger: How Do I Get a Professionally Designed Blog?

Turning MS Word files into web pages can be a really painful experience - particularly if you have to go through them by hand looking to change or modify them. I’ve had some days when I’ve given up trying to get Word content into a nice web format and just gone and recoded the content from scratch. However, I might give some of these tools a trying in future - Convert Word Docs to Web Pages - Wired How-To Wiki.

Adobe make a version of Photoshop - Photoshop Express - available as a free web-based application adding yet another application type to the burgeoning area of free web apps offered to allow companies like Microsoft, Google and Adobe carve out their own corner of the internet - and hence a source of consumers to manage and advertise to.

After being initially released (see Adobe’s Photoshop Express and the big picture | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com), the terms of use has quickly been updated in the face of criticism from potential users - Report: Complaints trigger rewrite of Photoshop Express terms | Tech news blog - CNET News.com.

Ernesto comments on using it over at Ernesto Burden | Photoshop Express — Sweet, Free Photo Editing Tool With Social Media Extensions.

I’ll be interested in checking it out - I don’t know how many times I’ve been away from home or the office and needed to edit an image and had an internet connection but no image editing application in the computer I’m using.

Problogger, Darren Rowse, publishes his list of useful blogging tools for Mac OS X. I use (or have tried many of them) - Ecto (article editor which I have on both Mac and Windows), CyberDuck (FTP client), ImageWell (for quick manipulation and posting of images) and Firefox. I prefer TextWrangler over TextEdit though (I used BBEdit Lite from way back)

The full list is at 14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers

There’s no standalone newsreader application in there though because he uses Google Reader to do that. See Greenflame · NetNewsWire (Free now!) for my preference there. I used the Sage plug-in for Firefox for ages, as well as Bloglines, but I really like having one app that does a single job well, but can talk to other apps if need be.

I use NetNewsWire Lite to keep up with my blog feeds, though I’ve never felt the need to upgrade to the full version. Now, however, the full version of NetNewsWire is being released for free as its developer focuses upon growing their online services. So, if you you’re running Mac OS X 10.4 or later you can grab the latest version and take it for a spin.

More information at: RSS Reader for Mac - NetNewsWire

Hat tip to: TidBITS Networking: NewsGator Turns NetNewsWire Loose for Free

(Of course, I’m still stuck in 10.3.9 for the foreseeable future [anyone want to donate me a MacBook?:-)] and will be plodding along with the old Lite version just fine.)

After some initially using the PHPWebsite content management system way, way back as a proto-blog I shifted to using Blogger, and then over to Movable Type 2 because it afforded me more control over the blog (and added things like categories). And then Movable Type 3 arrived and the licencing became confusing and more restrictive so I just kept on chugging along using the functional, but now relatively obsolete, MT 2. Finally I came to WordPress (via some playing around with Drupal and Mambo/Joomla) and it works pretty well (especially with Ecto).

Now, in part in response to the success of WordPress, there’s an open-source version of Movable Type 4 available, which might just make me go back and have a look at it if I need to set up a new blog on my own server. I quite liked MT - and back when it was more widespread there were all sorts of interesting sites providing helpful tips and themes etc. (Just like for WordPress now).

More details at: Six Apart Reinvigorates Movable Type with New Open-Source Release | Compiler from Wired.com and Movable Type Open Source - MovableType.org - Home for the MT Community.

BTW - I see PHPWebsite continues to evolve. I liked using the early versions, and I might have a look at it again next time I need a CMS.

I was wondering yesterday, with the Wifi and Safari built into the iPod Touch, whether you could blog from it. It appears you can, and there’s a WordPress plugin to format posts for the iPod Touch/iPhone screen size. See Wordpress for Ipod Touch (iWPhone)

If you’re publishing stuff on your blog or web site and you’re concerned about other people misusing your content then ProBlogger has a useful little article on how a terms of service page can help with that. See: Nip Problems in the Bud with a TOS Page.

A couple of useful web development and design articles I came across the other day.

A List Apart: Articles: Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman (Nov 20, 2007)

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Some good points about thinking about how web content is both similar to and different from other forms of content creation.

A List Apart: Articles: How to Size Text in CSS >by Richard Rutter (Nov 20, 2007) contains some useful reminders that all browsers do not render text the same, even if you’re being careful with the CSS.

Interesting article over at TidBITS Networking: An Electronic Book Giveaway: 2003, a Disaster; 2007, a Pittance which notes the decline in internet traffic costs over the past few year, and some things to be aware of if you’re going to make something available for download that might be (very) popular - in their case, a free eBook.

Short but helpful article by Darren at ProBlogger on How I Produce Video Blog Posts.

As part of some part-time work I’m doing at the moment I’m doing some distance/flexible learning implementation using Moodle (a free, open source course management system for online learning). So here’s a few links I’ve found useful over the past couple of weeks.

• Moodle: Teacher’s manual 1.6 (Introduction) from Lappia - The Municipal Education and Training Consortium of Kemi and Tornionlaakso (Finland). An older version of Moodle but still helpful.
• Course: Moodle Features Demo from @berNET (Aberdeen)
• Course: Introduction to Blogging in the Classroom from @berNET (Aberdeen)
• Teaching FAQ - MoodleDocs on the Moodle web site
• Using Moodle book - MoodleDocs on the Moodle web site. Again, an older book but some good examples of what’s possible.
• Moodle: Moodle 1.8 Teacher Manual from Sweet Briar College, Virginia

In my wanderings around the net a while back I came across this issue of Theological Education which looks at the role/impact of digital technology upon theological education. Looks like a helpful selection of articles.

See Theological Education 41/1 (2005)

Related links:

• Greenflame · Technology and Theological Education
• Greenflame · New media literacies and collaborative work in academia and ministry

I’ve thought about putting Skype on the iBook and wondered about Mac-compatible hardware to support it - yelling at the laptop didn’t seem ideal. But really had no idea where to start. I’ve found in the past that quite a few USB devices (speakers, keyboards etc,) do work in Mac OS X but the boxes never say that because it’s unsupported. However TidBITS (which I’ve been reading since it used to be distributed as HyperCard stacks) has a recent, helpful breakdown here of some options.

See TidBITS: Choosing Mac-Compatible Skype Hardware.

Blog statistics. Some people admit to looking at them, others won’t (even though we know they do :-)) For some they can become the all-consuming passion - especially if you’re trying to monetarize your blog.

Lorelle on Wordpress has a very useful page that collects together the various different plugins and schemes for WordPress that collect statistic. See Counting WordPress: Statistics WordPress Plugins « Lorelle on WordPress.

I’ve been wondering for a while how many words I’ve written each year, and now I can find out.

Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Nine to Noon : Wed, 18 July had an interesting section from their employment lawyer Andrew Scott-Howman on employers and potential employers using information available on employees (and potential employees) on social networking sites. Audio link here.

A selection of links that intersect around the role of new media in educational environments. Henry Jenkins has an essay (in two parts) that looks at the tension between participatory media and traditional educational models, and in particular emphasises the critical application of the following skill set:

1. Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal.
2. Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information source.
3. Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize and disseminate information.
4. Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative sets of norms.

See:

• Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART ONE)
• Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART TWO)

Connected to this, is Mary Hess’ post about a review of her book on theological education promoting this type of critical engagement with new media by teachers and students. See:

• Tensegrities » Struggling to respond… and Tensegrities » A response to a review
• Tensegrities » Teaching/learning in theological education

Then AKMA has this post on reflecting on a meeting to discuss related matters - AKMA’s Random Thoughts - Retrospect and Prospect.

And then Tim chimes in with this post (connected to AKMA’s) - SansBlogue: Bible, Babel and Web 2.0. (Some long comments there - including some from Mark which he refers to here: E-BCNZer: Brighouse - “On Education”).

The integration of digital technologies, with existing pedagogues and technologies, will be here for a while yet. I know that I’ve found it frustrating as both a student and teacher that the roles I’m being trained for/are training people for are collaborative - they stand or fall based upon healthy, dynamic relationships (both in IT and religion) - and yet the systems promote individualism (for assessment particularly) and work to stamp out collaborative efforts (it’s called cheating). Intellectual property discussions (esp. academic ones) also connect here. There must be a better way.

Playing around with the news feeds for the site. Should be no hassles, but let me know if there are.

Felt the need to move to a cleaner, less busy blog theme and so have moved to Tarski · An elegant, flexible WordPress theme.

Had a few hiccoughs with author name of posts etc. needing tinkering but it seems to work now. I like how the stylesheet modification are moved to a separate stylesheet that is overlaid on top of the master stylesheet. Keeps the upgrade easier and the style more manageable.

I’ve been skimming through John Waters’ book The Real Business of Web Design over the past couple of weeks. It’s been a refreshing change to read a book that talks about web design from a perspective that isn’t bogged down in the ‘how’ of what technologies will be used, but rather concentrates much more on the human dimensions of good design. You can find an excerpt from the book here at DMI eBulletin - The Information Age is History.

On design, Water’s writes:

It is not the singular quality of line, or form, or color in the Apple products or the Turkish tiles, or in any product or message for that matter, which we respond to. It is the totality of those elements—the way line, form, color, texture, pattern, purpose and meaning all fit together—that creates a whole far superior to the sum of its parts. Design is a holistic language that speaks not just to emotion or just to reason, but to both sides of the human brain.

 

Like Web services, the new metalanguage—a transformative language about language—which allows computers to speak to one another, design may be thought of as a metalanguage for humans, one which speaks more clearly, more universally, more comprehensively than any other language we have. A language that may be used effectively on the Web to help us cross borders, not create them. A language that may help us preserve cultural characteristics while sharing universal concerns. By thinking of design as the metalanguage of humans, the circle of language on the Web can be expanded to include everyone. (p.222)

Reminds me of the Mutton Birds song, ‘A thing well made’, which includes the lyrics:

Can you see the man who made that?
Can you see him putting it down and standing back?
Can you see the moment when he said “That’s it. That’s perfect.”?
At a time like that you wouldn’t care about your job,
Or your mortgage, or the fight you had with your wife.
‘Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There’s connection,
There’s completeness when a man holds a thing well made.

Now in the song, the items in question are rifles, which reminds us of the ambiguity of human creativity— the human capacity to be creative and innovative in design, and yet to use that capacity for both good and evil. And also of almost transcendent power found in things that are well-designed, and how that addresses something deep within us.

The Wordpress Theme Generator is a helpful tool for quickly putting together a WordPress theme by selecting template options. Seems like it might be useful.

Related link: Movable Type Style Generator

I’m a big fan of software applications that concentrate on doing one task in an exemplary fashion. Probably a throwback to my UNIX script programming day when I’d connect lots of small single purpose applications together to work on my data. Which is why this interview caught my eye (Mozilla: Why Desktop E-Mail Crucifies the Browser). I loathe web email - I use it, but it’s never a pleasant experience no matter what system the provider is using. Maybe if I was getting mail only on one address, and maybe if I was getting only a few emails a day, but with lots of mail accounts for different purposes it really doesn’t work well.

I tried an early version of Thunderbird years ago and it didn’t quite satisfy me. Maybe it’s time to try it again - especially with better web email support.

Paul’s posted a copy of his Refresh article BLOGGING – A CREATIVE WAY OF EXPLORING SPIRITUALITY & SPIRITUAL FORMATION? over on Prodigal Kiwi(s). Well worth having a look at.

Connects also with the following article published a couple of years back in Stimulus (NZ journal/magazine):

Bednar, Tim. “Blogging: Report from a Grassroots Revival.” Stimulus 12, no. 3 (2004): 24-30.

Similar to Rob Moll’s article in Christianity Today if you have access to their web portal - see Blogger Predicts Revival via Web - Leadership journal - ChristianityTodayLibrary.com

Tim Berners-Lee, credited with inventing the World Wide Web, on the initiative to create a discipline (or inter-discipline) to examine the the social aspect of the Web and the Web’s impact on society. A kind of new “Web (Social) Science”. See Berners-Lee, universities launch ‘Web science’ initiative - Internet - News - ZDNet Asia.

As an aside, Tim Berners-Lee provides an interesting example of the integration of religious stories and cyberspace. In his book describing the origin of the web and its possible future, Berners-Lee connects Unitarian Universalism with how he thinks the web should function. Unitarian Universalism’s pragmatic appropriation of features from various religions and philosophies serves, he argues, as a useful metaphor for the World Wide Web. Provided one maintains mutual respect for each other’s traditions and beliefs, be they religious or technological, then the web will function harmoniously.

(See: Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Fischetti, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 207-09.)

Hat tip to Jonny Baker for this link to the Guardian’s focus on Web 2.0. See Weekend Magazine web 2.0 special | Weekend | Guardian Unlimited.

A whole bunch of related links that I don’t have time to flesh out.

From Paul there’s fishers, surfers and casters » Web Ministry 101 and fishers, surfers and casters » Sydney Anglicans’ new site.

Related to this is an older article by Stephen Downes - Stephen’s Web ~ Turning God and Learning into Commodities.

And let’s cap it of with the cartoon on this page about God and brands.

Related other links:
Greenflame: Marketing Jesus - Aussie style.

Before & After magazine has a few PDF articles that you can download - teasers to get you to subscribe to the magazine. One of these free articles is a nice one on choosing a readable typeface for a publication/presentation.

Via ProBlogger: Which Font is Best for Blogging?. Darren has a few extra comments there too.

If you use iPhoto and post images from it to a Gallery2 website then Karl’s post here might be of interest. See XK72 Spacelab - blog of Karl von Randow » Blog Archive » Gallery iPhoto Exporter

Gallery iPhoto Exporter

Gallery2Export is a plugin for iPhoto that enables you to export photos directly from iPhoto into your Gallery2 website. It was originally developed by Dustin Brewer, based on the Flickr and Coppermine iPhoto Exporters.

BTW - Gallery is an open-source web-based photo album organiser. (You don’t have to run iPhoto to use it).

An interesting article from a while back (2000) by Jeffrey Rosen on the loss of privacy in cyberspace. See The Eroded Self

In cyberspace, there is no real wall between public and private. And the version of you being constructed out there - from bits and pieces of stray data - is probably not who you think you are.

Something to think about.

Full reference: Jeffrey Rosen, “The Eroded Self”, New York Times Magazine (Apr 30, 2000).

Inspired by jonnybaker: if you want me to read your blog posts… I have hacked the RSS feeds (both RSS1 & RSS2) to include the full content of blog posts. Been meaning to do it for a while now, but needed a push from somewhere to do it.

The resulting changes looked okay in NewNewsWire Lite but if any problems let me know. Of course, if there’s a significant problem you won’t be able to read this if you use a news aggregator/reader.

Did not touch the Atom feed. (Does anyone use it?)

As an aside, Blogger’s atom feeds seem to be painful in the newsreader all the time. Lack of titles, constantly refreshing the feed so I get large numbers of past feeds marked as new, etc. Almost makes me think twice before subscribing to someone’s Atom feed.

This looks interesting. An open-source IDE for creating Web 2.0 type applications. When I have time I’ll download the Mac version and have a look. See Aptana. From the web site blurb:

Aptana is a robust, JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications. Highlights include the following features:

• Code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, including your own JavaScript functions
• Outliner that gives a snapshot view of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code structure
• Error and warning notification for your code
• Support for Aptana UI customization and extensions
• Cross-platform support
• Free and open source. (Source available soon)

consequently.org/news • Well, that was easy… on using an RSS feed and iTunes to distribute PDF files through syndication.

This looks like getting the old grey cells buzzing. Always interested in seeing where people across the spectrum think digital culture will go. See Aula Network.

Helpful little article on getting a WordPress installation going under WindowsXP. See [Geeks are Sexy] technology news: Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP.

Some Radio NZ programmes at now available as podcasts. Check out Radio New Zealand - Podcasts.

Interesting little article on whether the sustained use of internet connections due to downloading of video and like will screw up internet service providers’ models for provisioning of services. See Wired News: Could High-Def Choke Internet?

SEOmoz Blog | Interviewing Web Developers - 20 Good Questions to Ask has a good list of questions to ask someone selling web development expertise - especially if you’re interested in hiring one.

A brief article on some new web site monitoring software that allows salespeople to monitor pretty much everything you do on a web site to tailor return sales calls to you. See The case of the spying salesman - Alpha Blog - alpha.cnet.com. I agree with the author that it breaks some sort of social contract because the monitoring is undisclosed.

Problogger notes that the new version of Drupal (4.7.0) is out now. It has some nice videos on installation and features. A while back Drupal made my short list when I was looking around for a CMS. Now the new version is out I’ll have a look and compare it with Mambo (another on the shortlist).

The title says it all. Go have a look at TechToolBlog » 195 Free Online Programming Books.

Karl, Kim’s cousin and web developer, makes it onto one of Wired.com’s tech blogs at Monkey Bites : Charles the Debugger with his incredibly useful web proxy debugger and testing tool : Charles : Web Debugging Proxy | HTTP Monitor | HTTP Proxy | HTTPS/SSL Proxy | Reverse Proxy.

One of its features is to allow you to set the web proxy to simulate different network speeds, e.g. 56K modem or 256K DSL, so see how your web site works at those speeds. That’s pretty neat and I would have thought essential for testing the usability of web sites (along with things like testing cross-browser and operating system performance).

I’d imagine it would be extremely useful for testing e-learning system where distance students don’t always have the latest and greatest internet connections.

Karl blogs here at XK72 Spacelab - blog of Karl von Randow and you can find out more about the other stuff they do at Cactuslab > Standards-Compliant Web Site Design > Content Management > Auckland NZ.

Back last September I posted about the Nature comparative survey of Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica (see Greenflame: Who’re you going to call (or rather, look up)?). Now it looks as if things are getting a bit nastier with Britannica taking out newspaper ads against Nature and its survey. See,

• The Times : Britannica hits back in Wikipedia row
• The Times : Britannica ’still rules’ over web rival
• Independent Online Edition > Media : Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy.

Britannica’s defense is here (PDF). And the responses from Nature are here - Britannica attacks : Nature and Nature’s responses to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Related link: Guardian : Reboot : Is Wikipedia a reliable source of information?

Today’s posting inspired by the UserFriendly cartoon here.

An article by Guy Kawasaki on generating community - Let the Good Times Roll–by Guy Kawasaki: The Art of Creating a Community. Aimed primarily at generating communities to support business it has some points that would translate into building communities - particularly online ones - for other purposes. The article is being updated and revised every so often too. Here’s a list of points raised that are expanded in the article.

• Create something that’s worth building a community around.
• Identify and recruit your thunderlizards—immediately!
• Assign one person the task of building a community.
• Give people something to chew on.
• Create an open system.
• Welcome criticism.
• Foster discourse.
• Publicize the existence of the community.

(BTW - a “thunderlizard” is like an “evangelist”)

Interesting article over at Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom : Caring About the Content about children, blogs and community.

Looks good - when I have time I’ll download these lectures on web technologies and education. See Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes: Grande Yellowhead Seminar. (Hat tip to Tensegrities: Stephen Downes seminar)

Area51 (A NZ site/blog focused on “up to date medical technology news with a New Zealand focus where possible.”) has a link to and a brief summary of an article in Nature about scientists using blogs and Wiki’s to share information and collaborate with others. See Wikis and Blogs by Scientists - a new way to communicate science | Area51.

AJAX seems to be flavour of the month while everyone makes up their lists of what was significant in 2005 or will be in 2006. Rachel mentions it here and here and TallSkinnyKiwi here and here.

So for all of you out there looking for how to distinguish an ordinary household cleaner from Asynchronous JavaScript and XML here are some helpful links:

• State of Ajax: Progress, Challenges, and Implications for SOAs (web2.wsj2.com).
• The Incredible Ongoing Story of Ajax (web2.wsj2.com).
• Ajax (programming) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• Web 2.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• Review of the Year’s Best Web 2.0 Explanations (web2.wsj2.com)

Updated - See also Cre8d-design blog: What is AJAX?

From some reading I was doing today.

Technology never escapes politics. The fiction of cyberspace is useful precisely to the extent that it allows it allows its proponents to imagine an androcentric reality in which a threatening, messy, or recalcitrant (and invariably feminized) nature never intrudes. In this respect, cyberspace is consensual primarily in its insistence that technologically mediated experience can transcend the ecological and economic constraints that have shaped and continue to shape human culture. It offers the fantasy that the more technologically sophisticated our society becomes the less it has to worry about the distribution of wealth and resources.

From: Robert Moss Markley “Introduction: History, Theory, and Virtual Reality.” In Virtual Realities and Their Discontents, ed. Robert Moss Markley, 1-10. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. (p.4)

This book is a collection of essays from writers who are more critical (even cynical) about the benefits offered by virtual reality and cyberspace, and the myths spun by the proponents of the technology.

See SansBlogue : Amos: Hypertext Bible Commentary all go! for Tim’s news on the Amos hypertext commentary.

Go to www.bible.gen.nz to have a play online.

The following blogs that I read have moved to new locations (mostly to WordPress or WordPress 2.0). Update your links for Musings of a Postmodern Negro and Rachel’s cre8d design blog.

Rachel’s back blogging more regularly and has some good material and links up for blogging, web design and general internet thoughts.

Interesting posting on storytelling and digital creativity at Craig’s blog - mountain masala: the hyperrhetoric of the quilt of the quilt.

Tim finally publishes his thoughts on the interaction of RSS and commenting on blogs. Namely that the more RSS and its analogues (e.g. Atom) are used to “consume” blogs the less one is inclined to comment directly on the blog being read. A quick skim and if it’s interesing a link from your own blog to it. Thus Tim asserts a “death of comments” theology, so to speak. See SansBlogue : Web 2.0 and the Evils of RSS. (I’m sure I’ve talked to him about this before but it’s nice to see him put it down in some concrete form.)

One of the things that initially attracted me to blogging, both as an author and reader, was the interaction based around comments and trackbacks. Now spam dealt to the trackbacks on this blog but the comments are still there because I think it’s important for the opportunity to add another voice to be there. But with the advent of RSS aggregation I think that’s a thing of the past - so many blogs, so little time. Software such as Carnglas Software’s iFeedPod only increased the point of aggregation being getting the information/data down to me not creating a two-way or multi-way network.

Personally, I think things like RSS are brilliant at getting subscriptions to content like news and podcasts, but I’m still not convinced that it’s the best way to read blogs. There’s something about going to the front page of a blog and seeing what else has changed (comments, polls etc) apart from just the next post.

Anyway, over to Tim’s blog to post a comment…

Tony Long (The Luddite) in his column at Wired writes on reducing the hype around technology. See Wired News: Dark Underbelly of Technology.

And that’s the reason for this column: to lend a contrarian perspective to a world besotted with technology and all its bright, glittery appeal. This is not, as some of my colleagues have characterized it, an “anti-technology” column. I’m not, strictly speaking, anti-technology. I just don’t treat it like a freaking religion. So this is a “perspective” column.

Just got round to listening to the podcast Open Source » Blog Archive » Google Sociology. Downloaded it a while back but never got around to listening to it. So I left it playing while working on some AI stuff and tuned in when things caught my interest.

Google is changing the way we understand knowledge and the world. And this show we’re asking what we can learn about ourselves by understanding what we’re looking for.

A discussion with John Battelle and David Weinberger.

In this week’s NZ Listener Russell Brown’s column “Wide Area News” is mostly dedicated to the ongoing tensions, or should that be conflict, between established providers of information (i.e. encyclopaedia publishers) and projects like Wikipedia. Some interesting points about Wikipedia and its like being open to the placement of “viral marketing.”

See: NZ Listener - Wide Area News - 10 Sept. 2005 (You’ll have to scroll down past the David Kirk bit and it flows over onto the next page).

Here are some relevant links. The first two were cited in the paper edition of the article but ironically left out of the online version. I’ve added the latter two because, while mentioned in the article, they weren’t linked to at all in any version.

• TCS: Tech Central Station - The Faith-Based Encyclopedia : Robert McHenry’s (ex-editor in chief - Britannica) critique of Wikipedia.
• Free Software Magazine - The FUD-based Encyclopedia : Aaron Krowne’s reply to Robert McHenry.
• Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia.
• Wikipedia:Errors in Wikipedia that have been corrected in the Encyclopædia Britannica

Update - some more links that go with the above ones.

• On Getting It – A follow-up response by McHenry to his own article above.
• McHenry responds to Aaron Krowne.

Also check out these posts by Tim (especially the comments sections). See “Wikipedia vs Britannica” and “What matters about an encyclopedia?“

Okay, so I’ve installed WordPress 1.5 and it works well. No problems with the install on my web host, it connects to Ecto fine and from the comments in the blogosphere is handles spam well. Plus it has a polling module which I want to add.

But getting it to look like I want could be a problem and looks to be one place that Movable Type 3.2 (but not necessarily 3.1 or 2.6) has over it. A nice simple 3-column layout would be nice, with easy to configure parameters. MT3.2 support for alpha, beta, gamma and delta models is a big plus here. Instead it looks like I’ll have to find someone else’s WordPress theme they’ve made available for download and then hack that to get it how I want. And what’s with all the themes that put the two sidebar-type columns both on the right?

Looks promising - Greasemonkey - a user-centric model for controlling the content you see in your web browser. See Wired 13.09: START : Monkeying With the Web.

Arvind at Movalog notes that the new MT 3.2 styles and layout lend itself to Greasemonkey style hacking.

I’ve been playing around with this over the past few days. Looks like it will be a toss-up between WordPress and the new, improved Movable Type for this blog. Only have one author for this personal blog so licensing isn’t the issue it might be for multi-author type blogs. The style management in MT3.2 looks really good - providing you forget a lot of the 2.6 and 3.1 stuff and start again. Now standardised across Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal.

Movable Type 3.2 (Check out the style library)
WordPress