Mobilemind

Story, Comics, Manga and Elearning

2008-03-08T19:22:00.001-08:00

People pay money for stories. People tell stories. People learn from stories. What is the story in recent elearning you've taken or developed?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Dan Pink cites a great quote from Ursula K. Le Guin:

The story—from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace—is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind for the purpose of understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no great societies that did not tell stories.

Stories are powerful things. I love hearing, learning from and re-telling (sharing) stories. Last October, I met Dan Bliton of Booz Allen Hamilton at Learning 2007. We'd just seen Dan Pink's presentation and Mr. Pink (there are 2 Dan's in this story, but "Mr. Pink" sounds so Pulp Fiction) mentioned his upcoming book on manga. Manga had been on my radar for about a year and this seemed like an interesting area, and an area of shared interest with Dan Bliton.

One thing led to another, and now Dan Bliton is going to share a presentation he's done on on Stories, Comics, and Manga - Oh My! Making Learning Stick For Your Audience! Dan's presentation shares insights and lessons learned in several markets and from Booze Allen Hamilton's award-winning learning organization. A take-away job aid and web site references summarize the approaches discussed and list additional resources

The live e-seminar will be this coming Thursday, March 13, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT (yes, daylight savings time, the USA switches this weekend) and you can register for the e-seminar for free here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=472090

As always, I'm looking forward to the presentation. Dan (Bliton) has a lot on stories and will even have a web comic embed in the live presentation. We might even riff a bit on manga and comics as catalysts for elearning storyboarding and user-contributed content.

I'm quite interested in the read-write nature of manga in Japanese culture. In fact, I'm already going to pre-order Dan Pink's manga book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need which is due out on April 1, 2008 (no Foolin).

A shame I won't have this in time to chime in with and ask for comments on Johnny Bunko from the other Dan. That said, the session will still be really good, and is always better with the discussion with the live audience.

The interaction, the audience and the re-telling (or the desire to re-tell) is part of what makes an event a story, and what makes the word transcend the page. With fond memories of reading The Left Hand of Darkness in my high school sci-fi literature class, I'll close with another Le Guin quote.

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

—Ursula K. Le Guin

Elearning Events Calendar Updates

2008-03-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

I updated the public Elearning Events Google Calendar with major industry events from April through October 2008.

Updates and additions include CLO Spring Symposium, Learning Systems 2008, WATS, Training Leadership Summit, and Learning Impact Summit, as well as events in the early Fall.

Update: CNET Reports Gizmodo Banned

2008-01-11T16:23:00.001-08:00

Unsurprisingly the CEA (CES organizers) have banned Gizmodo and are looking at further sanctions.

CEA's take on CES Gizmodo prank: Banned!

This results from the earlier presentation-fouling pranks, Gizmodo CES horseplay reported all over the web.

Lesson learned for presenters & trainers, prepare for the juvenile-- turn off IR ports/devices/remotes you don't need or tape them over, or make sure they provide some basic security. Require pairing for BlueTooth devices, turn off the "Discoverable" setting, and so forth. Mac users should pair their infrared remote or even disable it if not used. Wired connections are preferred.

I'm almost surprised there haven't been widely-publicized incidents with wireless mics at conferences, yet. I guess we'll all need secured ultra-wide band wireless microphones soon.

Rapid Syndication Surfing: FeedDemon & NetNewsWire

2008-01-10T16:00:00.001-08:00

Reading blogs has become a primary source of news for me. I sorely missed FeedDemon when I switched to Mac. Then I found about about NetNewsWire, but dawdled on buying it. Surprise, BOTH are now free. My favorite apps list just got bigger and free-er. I'll expand on the details of each below.

Feed readers make your blog reading more productive. Yes, I know about Bloglines and Google Reader (and other web-based readers), but these desktop readers are my preference for a few reasons. Those who live in the browser or bounce between machines may prefer web-hosted solutions. However, putting me in front of a browser, leaves me itching to hit a few favorite bookmarks, check AdSense, frequent flyer miles and other BBADD ideas (Browser-based Attention Deficit Disorder). Plus, lately I've been getting paranoid about having ALL my data at Google, so I spread the data to make the harvesting a little harder, even if that expands the password/identity hassles/risks.

The "fog of surfing" quickly crushes my plans for focused RSS raids in Firefox (apologies to Carl von Clausewitz). In contrast, I find that FeedDemon gives a comforting and quick "customized newspaper" my favorite feeds. NetNewsWire has a little different interface paradigm, but I can still sail through feed faster than plain surfing, Firefox Sage extension surfing or using Bloglines and succumbing to BBADD temptations.

UPDATE 1/11/07: Nick Bradbury himself discusses, Why Use a Desktop RSS Reader? (Note he does NOT make it a all-or-nothing argument like some).

Windows RSS Reader: FeedDemon now $0
FeedDemon comes from the genius of Nick Bradbury, who also developed the original HomeSite HTML editor. I bought FeedDemon years ago when he sold it directly. I've always loved the newspaper view and the innovative blog-search-results-feed. The search lets you create a "feed" that is the dynamic results of searching across blogs-- VERY handy when you want to stay on top of emerging news on a few related topics of interest.

Mac RSS Reader: NetNewsWire now $0
This one is a little newer to me, but I'm liking it a lot after 2 days of heavy use. NetNewsWire has the features you'd expect and a nice capability to open posts in either your preferred browser or the built-in browser. Opening things in the built-in browser reduces the clutter, while still letting you easily read the full-featured verison of the posts. Besides an nice Outlook-eque 3 panel view, the NetNewsWire browser pane also includes sharp, useful thumbnail views of each open "tab" of blog posts content.

Both readers really shine if you use the feature to clean-out infrequently read feeds (literally NetNewsWire "dinosaurs"). For further blog-reading productivity boosts, you can become a FeedDemon speed demon by applying the Inbox Zero techniques from the 43 Folders organizational site to RSS reading. I've tried it and it works great!

Speaking of BBADD behavior, have you seen the Gizmodo CES horseplay? I'm not sure I'd be proud of that.

Applications I Loved in 2007

2008-01-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here is the promised new year follow-up with applications I really like and use.

Open source stuff [Windows & Mac]: Firefox 2, Flock, Thunderbird 2, FileZilla, and Audacity
All of those worked great on Windows and great on Mac. In 2004 when still using Windows for daily work, I dumped IE & Outlook and switched to Firefox and Thunderbird and have never regretted it. [OK, Calendaring needs work. Will Sunbird/Lightning ever break out like Thunderbird?]. In 2005, I even switched my wife's machine and my father-in-law to Firefox/Thunderbird. Works great, with no trouble for me or them. Soon, I'll blog about my favorite must-have Firefox extensions and Thunderbird extensions.

In 2007, these open source apps eased the transition to Mac. I just copied directories over and installed the Mac version and voila, it all worked. Well, I didn't bring Flock data over from the Windows machine-- I just installed it after Firefox and let it pick up my bookmarks from there.

With FileZilla, I did need to re-enter my servers and passwords, but I work with only a few FTP sites. However, all the application UI and workflow experience transfers back-and-forth just fine. Over time, I expect I'll go buy YummyFTP since it is incredibly fast, efficient and more Mac-integrated. In terms of features/version, Audacity lags a bit on the Mac, but it worked fine for my needs. TUAW recently posted a call for Mac developers and hopefully it will catch-up soon.

Finally, Flock turned out to be a great tool for blog surfing and blog writing and social surfing. It is especially strong with del.icio.us, Facebook, flickr, and ma.gnolia and twitter.

Password Managers [Windows, Palm, PocketPC]: Ilium eWallet $30
I used Ilium eWallet with Windows and a Palm V... then PocketPC... then a Treo. It worked great and provided a fantastic way to secure and manage tons of passwords, PINS, access codes and WPA codes. With the availability PocketPC and Palm applications and synchronization it also provided a way to securely access information on Windows or take-it with me.

Password Managers [Macintosh, iPhone]: 1Password $30
I ordered a MacBook Pro in May both to jump on the Switcher bandwagon and in anticipation of having a more iPhone-friendly platform. Much to my surprise, I came to love the Mac and abruptly ended my initial affair with the iPhone after 6 days. 1Password from Agile Web Solutions turned out to be both a password manager and the friend that helped reunite me with iPhone (OK Steve Jobs and a $200 price break helped too). 1Password manager is great because it secures data leveraging the Macintosh keychain system, works simultaneously across multiple browsers (Camino, Firefox, Flock, Safari), and syncs with the iPhone via a clever use of encryption with a Javascript bookmarklet that keeps your portable data secure.

XML, XSD and XSLT [Windows]: Altova XMLSpy $500
I would hate to do any XML heavy-lifting without the latest version of Altova XMLSpy. If you're going to make or edit XSD schema files or make or edit XSLT, just get it. Generally, the Professional version is recommended. I've never needed more, but I haven't worked with WSDL. The Altova site offers a confusing array of offerings, but just look for the basic version of Altova XMLSpy Professional [30 day trial here]. It is expensive, but well worth it.

Manipulating any sort of text file [Macintosh]: TextMate $60
TextMate sings with any sort of text file you can think of editing. Built-in bundles and extensibility make it fluent with everything from Actionscript to XML. It is a ninja at replacing, reformatting, realigning and re-anything with text-based content in a single file or across a multi-file project. Using Textmate I've munged .htaccess, Javascript, PHP, plain text, robots.txt, sitemap.xml and big gnarly text file hairballs of data, with preternatural alacrity. Be sure to check out the author's blog and the Textmate in Action screencasts for some great tips and speed editing demo's.

Blog writing [Windows]: w.bloggar [donationware]
w.bloggar on Windows was my favorite, but fell into disrepair by October 2006 (and didn't resurface until a year later). I have not used it since late 2006, but development seems to be on once again. The December 2007 update looks promising and I may pop it on a USB thumbdrive for some portable client-side blog editing on Windows Machines.

Blog writing [Macintosh]: Ecto $18
Ecto rocks! I've been using Ecto 3.0 since it went alpha and am very happy with it. Ecto offers round-trip editing with WYSIWYG and HTML source views. You'll find tons of handy features to paste URL links and automate entries. Ecto really shines if you contribute to 2 or more blogs, and want local editing, saving drafts, and automatic publishing. One cool feature I've come to appreciate is the way it automatically submits the post title and a TinyURL link to twitter

Sitemap Utilities [Macintosh]: Rage Google Sitemap Automator $30
If you're responsible for 2 or more public-facing websites with at least dozens of pages each, then get Rage Google Sitemap Automator now to improve your search engine optimization and indexing. It is rare for a niche need and a solution to exquisitely and harmoniously unite as a solution. Rage Google Sitemap Automator does just that and kicks asterisk. Point the Rage Sitemap Automator at your web site and it scours the bugger for every possible page that could be submitted to Google sitemaps or Yahoo Site Explorer. Then you can easily add filters to set the refresh frequency and priority of whole batches of those pages (or even exclude some). It is highly configurable letting you easily add extensions to exclude (or include), which came in very handy for adding pages with a ".pl" extension from a site that uses YaBB. Sitemap Automator also does more than typical sitemap generators by letting you easily make batch changes the sitemap without rescanning the whole site. If you're responsible for 2 or more public-facing websites with at least dozens of pages each, then it is well worth the $30 to get Rage Google Sitemap Automator [or at least use the trial version].

Services/Web Solutions I Loved in 2007

2008-01-02T09:31:00.001-08:00

Year transitions mean two things in the media (and the blogosphere)– old year recaps and new year predictions. I predict that I will get to prognostications for 2008 in a future post. I also predict I will love these things in 2008. Meantime here are some great web tools/services I had the pleasure of using in 2007.

Jott
Call an 800 number and send a transcribed message via SMS text or email to your contacts or a group lists (or even twitter, tumblr, a blog or group, or remember the milk). Jott is fantastic for me. It is quite good at speech recognition for transcription, and Jott offers the option of including a link to original audio.

I stumbled on to this service via the task manager iGTD and a since-abandoned integration that allowed you to Jott to yourself and have to-do items automatically show-up sorted, classified, and scheduled in your task manager. Now I am thinking it will be a fine way to avoid entangling myself with the new 2008 Washington State Law against texting while driving. (I admit I've done this at stop lights and clogged-up off-ramps, but at freeway speeds or in moving traffic, txt'ing and driving is insane.) With Jott, you just speed dial an 800 number and speak what becomes that SMS saying/sending "I'm still stuck in traffic" message to an individual or group.

OpenDNS
Basically, OpenDNS runs a network of high-speed DNS servers. Things like MySpace pages and Facebook may call content from tens of different domains. Every millisecond needed to resolve each of those domains slows down the page loading. OpenDNS is free, fast and has nice instructions to setup a Windows or Mac computer to use it or even setup a router. SOHO or small business system administrators can also use it as a sort of filter to reduce phising scams, filter "adult" sites, provide some 'branding' for DNS errors and more. Simple to setup up, and for me, faster internet at home.

Plaxo
Yes, this former scourge has become indispensable. Remember when Plaxo seemed like a virus, always pinging you about someone who wanted you to update your contact info. All better now, they are much less invasive and more useful. I do contract work and my client has me using Outlook on equipment they provide. With Plaxo, I'm able to sync calendar and contacts between Outlook, Thunderbird, Google Calendar, Palm Contacts, Palm Calendar, and eventually Macintosh Address Book and iCal. and iPhone. I'm calling it a service, but in this case I also use Plaxo client add-ins for Outlook, Thunderbird and Address Book / iCal.

Pobox
Imagine having the same home email address for 10 years. I have had just that, despite using 3 different dial-up services, 2 cable companies and a DSL service. Pobox is a sort of email forwarder that gives you a stable address for receiving (and sending) email, no matter how many times you change the forwarding account where it ultimately lands to get read.

Can you also also imagine having 99%+ of your spam stopped at the server and never reaching your "real" address, during that entire time? Pobox does that too. The Pobox spam filter set is amazing-- it can be very automatic or let you fine tune the settings. It combines already powerful filters like Sender address verification, SPF, black hole listings, SpamCop, Cloudmark, HELO tests, and even region-based flagging and bouncing. Bouncing is great, it makes your pobox email look failed/dead to spammers. I used the basic service at $20/year for several years, but have upgraded to more expensive service for the last few years.

Family members have been happy with the $20-- even those "backending" it with Gmail (already excellent spam filtering), because they feel free to switch services anytime without having a forced address change. Me? I'm happy to have 7 inbound email addresses from 3 different domains filtering through Pobox to one forwarding account. I just did a report and in the last 30 days there where 0.001% false positives where mail was blocked that should not have been blocked. Meantime, I got 4 spam emails in the last 7 days, and see only 6 "possible spams" that were held and not bounced.

PublicVPN.com
I'm getting paranoid about WiFi hotspot security. PublicVPN gives me a nice no-fuss solution for securing transmission of personal data over public wireless (or wired) connections. I tactically purchased a 30 day subscription to cover time when I was going to be out-of-town at conferences. As my subscription approached expiration, I got a renewal notice offering 10% off. I deferred a bit and once again renewed to cover 2 more conferences. PublicVPN service worked great from St. Louis, Orlando, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, San Jose and Seattle. When the next renewal notice (and discount offer) arrived, I re-upped for a full year at $55. It feels good to support a relatively local (Oregon) company and secure my data. All this without the hassle of adding VPN firmware to a Linux-based router and configuring/maintaining it, OR buying an expensive SOHO-solution.

Bunches of things Google
Google Search, obviously. But I've also benefited from and used Google Alerts, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google AdSense, Google Sitemaps (Webmaster tools), Google Analytics and Google Talk.

Hmm, that's a lot of my data. Can you see why I'm hesitant to jump on with Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation. So far, online spreadsheet EditGrid (online spreadsheets) seems just fine and offers VERY iPhone-friendly version. Plus I'm not chained to Microsoft Office, and am really enjoying using Apple iWork '08 with Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets & light data, and Keynote for world-class presentation capabilities-- and all for a total investment of $80.

That reminds me...

Apple Quick Tip of the Week via web or iTunes
Short podcasts/video-podcasts (most are less than 1 minute) that give you easy-to-follow and very useful tips for Mac OS X and Apple software. <blockcomments>Jeff Burton</blockcomments>

Oops, looks like I squeezed in some references to applications. Seems like that could be a whole other post. Look for that one soon.

Quick Firefox Tip: Open Location + Address Completion

2008-01-02T08:16:00.001-08:00

Here is a quick tip for Firefox: Enter Ctrl-L company Ctrl-Return. [Use Command-L and Command-Return on Mac.]
Bam! Firefox completes it as http://www.company.com and goes there.

Here is how it works. You use Control-L to automatically place the cursor in the URL address field and highlight all the text. Then type just the company name for a website (say "Amazon") and do a Control-Return.

Firefox completes it as http://www.amazon.com and goes there. This doesn't work for "non dot com" domains like .edu, .gov, .org etc. So I still have to fully type http://mobilemind.net for instance or start typing m-o-b-i-l... and use autocompleting when it finds a match.

This combination works great because the Open Location shortcut (Control-L or Command-L) does the effort-saving act of getting the cursor in the address bar ready for a new address, and the URL-entry + completion shortcut (Control-Return or Command-Return) skips the "Google-search + 'I feel lucky'" default behavior of entering just a word in the address bar. This combo also bypasses issues with proxy servers or use of the OpenDNS service, which might otherwise bring up some sort of results page to disambiguate your entry.

I now use this all the time. It saves fishing for the mouse to go to the address bar, and it is s a wonderfully handy speed combo when you're behind a proxy server on the corporate intranet or at a hotel hotspot. No mouse fishing and you avoid that disambiguation/search results page.

Baby Got Backlinks

2008-01-01T22:19:00.001-08:00

OK, I just watched the last 2 segments of VH1 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's on Tivo, so please forgive the back-dated back reference. Maybe I should have gone with "D'oh, FINALLY Got Blogger Backlinks Working."

Using RAGE Google Sitemap Automator has been all the rage with me during the holiday break, but I kept learning from Google Webmaster Tools that I was getting pages with weird links ending with %3C$BlogBacklinkURL$%3E. It turns out that Backlinks have been broken here since forever. However they are now fixed, thanks to the informative (but 2 year old) post I found at A Consuming Experience, Display links to your posts via Blogger Backlinks, Icerocket Link Tracker etc. If you're having a problem like this, you probably have a customized Blogger template, so you should see the section titled Blogger: backlinks for custom templates.

Watch for some real content to appear here soon.

OLPC Arriving Soon, Mosquito Nets Already in Mali

2007-12-23T19:24:00.001-08:00

Two cool updates with cool videos too. First off, the OLPC Give One, Get One 'XO' laptops are on their way. I got an email note on Saturday morning indicating mine should arrive by January 15. Coincidentally, I just stumbled on to a fascinating video with XO designer Yves Behar describing key features. Watching the video and understanding the thoughtfulness of the design, I couldn't help but think of A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink. Subtle features and textures abound and combine to an air of quality even at a low price. Who knew Bono and The Edge did the start-up sound for the XO? Who new the camera could easily link up with a simple malaria self-test?

What a segue. the Malaria No More bed nets made it to Mali Africa almost 2 weeks ago. Soon after they arrived, Elliott Masie posted a few interesting videos about the impact the nets will have and even some information on how local health advocates engage in learning and training. Here's an interesting video on the train-the-trainer and communications for the "Health Relays:" Field Lessons. There are other interesting observations and videos on the Learning Gives Back blog , that address everything from differences in mobile phone culture, to holidays, and even a bit on the Amazon Kindle.

One more bit on the One Laptop Per Child. Read what children and teachers are saying about OLPC and the XO at Learning Around the World. If you miss the December 31, 2007 deadline for Give One, Get One and are still interested, there are other Ways to Donate.

Google Trends: Authoring Tool Trends

2007-12-17T22:51:00.001-08:00

I used Google Trends to plot search popularity of Authorware, Toolbook, Lectora, and Captivate since 2004. It may not be a direct correlation to sales or interest, but there seems to be some consistency with gut-level reactions for industry positions. Authorware trending down since 2004, Toolbook relatively stable but lower, and a pretty good horse race between the seemingly indirect competitors of Captivate and Lectora. A sample image follows below, along with links for some other interesting plots.

Authoring tool comparative search popularity plots

Authorware vs ToolBook: http://www.google.com/trends?q=authorware%2Ctoolbook
Camtasia vs Captivate: http://www.google.com/trends?q=camtasia%2Ccaptivate
Lectora (Publisher) vs Captivate: http://www.google.com/trends?q=lectora%2Ccaptivate
Authorware, Camtasia, Lectora, Captivate, Toolbook: http://www.google.com/trends?q=authorware%2Ccamtasia%2Clectora%2Ccaptivate%2Ctoolbook

Obviously, the comparisons depend on having a rather specific and unique search term. I unsuccessfully tried doing a comparison of AICC and SCORM, but things like All India Congress Committee (AICC), Antwerp International Cat Club (AICC) and other AICC's left me feeling like it was inconclusive regarding LMS specifications. Through my work with one AICC (Aviation Industry CBT Committee) I've already seen seasonal variations in web traffic due to All India Congress Committee and election cycles. However, I wonder if occurrence/popularity of a common word (e.g., Captivate) is relatively stable in the common usage and in that case product references might drive dynamic changes to indicate realtive changes.

TryPhone or iPhoney = iPhone + Lost in Translation

2007-12-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

The TryPhone site run by MobileComplete is very nice if you want to check out the menu structure and general user interface of most popular cell phones. It breaks down a bit on more complicated user interfaces with gestures, button double-clicks and shortcuts. It gives you the general idea, but the graphics are a little coarse and something is definitely Lost in Translation compared to an actual iPhone.

They do have some Captivate-esque animated demos, but they seem to be driving the TryPhone simulation rather than playing animated captures or video of the phone. Anyway, check out TryPhone if you're looking at a new mobile for a Christmas gift. Just be aware that the iPhone emulation gives a weak impression of the experience.

Mac users- If you're developing pages to be viewed on iPhone, check out iPhoney from MarketCircle. It is basically a shell around WebKit that acts like the iPhone browser, Mobile Safari. It isn't exactly like iPhone (address bar can't scroll, not multi-touch obviously, and adds scroll bars in many cases were iPhone wouldn't). That said, it is a nice way to get a quick "iPhone Preview" of any site from your laptop or desktop computer. You can even rotate the phone to vertical or horizontal/landscape view.

Tip: I found that I get more "iPhone-like" results with iPhoney by using a custom user-agent. The one below matches exactly what a web server sees my iPhone user agent as, whereas the iPhoney returns a slightly different version. Just use the appropriate menu item to enter the text below as "Custom User Agent".

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3

Easily Create iPhone Bookmarklets

2007-12-08T19:58:00.001-08:00

Not sure if I got frustrated, creative, generous, or all of the above. I made a web form called iPastelet Maker that lets you easily create custom bookmarklets that paste text into web forms on the iPhone. Use it to create bookmarklets for common recurring entries, like user ID's, email addresses, IP addresses, host names, etc. You might even create a bookmark folder called 'Scrapbook' and keep a bunch of common text snippets there. If you have a few services/servers you log-on to and use the same email/ID's over & over this can be really convenient.

Since they are bookmarklets, they obviously only work in a browser, and work best in Safari/Mobile Safari. However, it is best to create them with your desktop browser (preferably Safari on Mac and IE on Windows). Then, use iTunes to sync your bookmarks over to the iPhone and voilá.

It's free stuff, so feedback is welcome, but support is nil. Thanks to TUAW and Erica Sadun for awareness, code and inspiration.

Kindle Review for the Masie Consortium

2007-12-07T17:49:00.001-08:00

I've had an Amazon Kindle for a week now. In fact, I've even read a book already and passed it on to friends and colleagues to get their feedback.

It was kind of cool to get the jump on folks like ZDNet and have real Amazon Kindle review done by last Monday. Their "initial impressions" reviews just showed up in my inbox today. However, last Monday, Elliott Masie shared his take on the Kindle in a video posted for the Masie Learning Consortium and also posted a PDF of my review. Recently the same material was also shared with the broader learning community via the Learning TRENDS Newsletter he publishes. Here's a quote from the December 5, 2007 entry:

Kindle Reader from Amazon - Perspectives: We have been testing the new Kindle Reader device recently released by Amazon. This is the latest in a series of e-book readers that we have seen and reviewed at The MASIE Center. While the new device has some flaws and usability challenges (including the absence of a touch screen), it is an important "baby step" towards the dream of more accessible digital content. Just as Apple's iPod and the iTunes site popularized the concept of buying and downloading a song for a dollar, Kindle is aimed at doing the same for books. Our Learning CONSORTIUM will be doing a series of experiments with the Kindle and other e-Readers to see how they could best be integrated into corporate learning. You can take a peek at our work by going to http://www.masieweb.com/kindle.

Elliott has a nice 6 minute video overview on the page at the link above, which also has a link to a PDF that he has referred to as, "[Tom King has done] a more technical, in-depth "first look" at content models for the Kindle as well as human factor issues." Cool and not even entirely self-promotion for me. :-)

Speaking of promotion, if you plan to purchase a Kindle, please consider using the link below so that I will receive an Amazon Associates referral fee. Thanks.

Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

Dear WebEx, It is 2007

2007-12-06T09:27:00.001-08:00

<rant> Dear WebEx, please help your product become less sucky. We live in a web world. People use different web browsers, different Java versions, different OS platforms, and some people even (gasp) have smartphones. I had a horrible experience with your product today. Bad enough for me to spend the time writing this rant. Bad enough that I will now to my best to cancel or avoid any meeting requiring me to join a WebEx meeting.

I think we've all had other challenges and bad experiences with your product in the past. For me this relationship has got to end unless you can change. I 'll no longer budget 10 extra minutes to get into a WebEx meeting, and then be distracted for the first 15 minutes of my co-workers actual meeting as I install, cancel, uninstall, reinstall, check and change browser settings, get Java versions, then download WebEx Meeting Manager, deal with WebEx support and eventually give up on the WebEx meeting.

The recurring Java and ActiveX hassles I had with the WebEx Windows versions a few years were a recurring mild annoyance. The fact that it is 2007 and WebEx still offers only a 2003 "PowerPC" version for Mac was the last straw. You've known about this for quite awhile. It's embarrassing. You are no longer the only one scaleable and available. Have a little respect for yourself and your victims/users. You are Cisco now for heavens sake. It is not me, it is you. Yeah, sure, maybe we can still be friends.

PS: WebEx competitors, no need to get all smug and happy yet. I'm still looking for something that will exceed WebEx features and works reliably and well on Mac and Windows and Linux, with at least 2 browsers on each platform.

PPS: Besides geeks like me, a couple hundred thousand kids will get OLPC Linux machines. They're selling USD $2 million worth of those things each day for the last few weeks with Give One, Get One. Look into getting those kids and their governments a solution. Might even be good for your business. Even Microsoft is starting to think that way about OLPC.

PPPS: The world has a couple billion mobile phones. Pretty much enough for each of us who can use one, to have two. We use them. A lot. Please figure out how to easily, centrally (?automatically) mute the call from the guy walking past the leaf blower or breathing like Darth Vader. When you've got that licked, see about getting at least a slide show or still shot screen sharing on 3-4 types of Smartphones-- a couple million of us will be happier.
</rant>

OLPC GO,GO Extended and/or Help Stop Malaria for $10

2007-11-23T18:10:00.001-08:00

Last night on TV I saw am advertising spot for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative that featured Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura from NBC's Heroes) and then I went and checked online and it looks like the offer is extended through December 31, 2007. If you'd still like to try out the Give One, Get One ("GO,GO") offer, then follow the link or see my previous post. I'm also including links here if you want to learn more about the OLPC initiative or the technical specs of the 'xo' laptop.

While we're all in a thankful and charitable mood, how about helping to stop malaria for $10?

In many developing areas a simple mosquito net can help save children's lives by protecting them from nocturnal mosquito bites (ok, technically mosquitoes are crepusclar instead of nocturnal, but who knew that). Insecticide-resistant mosquitoes are emerging and a cheap $10 net can be quite effective at protecting vulnerable young children when they are most likely to be bitten. Malaria No More is a non-profit that helps procure and distribute such nets. I was lucky enough to be able to donate at Learning 2007 and have gone back and donated again since then.

Malaria No More - Education and Donation Information

Awesome One-Laptop-Per-Child Charity Option

2007-11-20T19:39:00.001-08:00

I'm probably late to the party, but there is an awesome charity opportunity for anyone supportive of the OLPC One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative. I just found out about this through the JiWire newsletter, and it seems to be a great thing for anyone who is both involved in elearning and a charitable individual. Here's the link to Give one, Get One. This offer runs until November 26, 2007 for US and Canada. Now the description from the JiWire Newsletter

After several years of development, MIT's One Laptop Per Child initiative to put computers in the hands of children in developing countries has started to become a reality. And now that manufacturing has started, there's just one week left to give an OLPC laptop to a child in a developing country, and get a matching one for yourself (or for your favorite kid). For $399, the two-for-one deal also includes a huge sweetener: a full year of T-Mobile Hotspot Wi-Fi service, a $360 value in itself (normally $29.99 per month with a 1-year contract). If you already subscribe to T-Mobile, why not take advantage of the special deal, then cancel your current plan? Throw in the $200 tax deduction for the donated laptop, and you may even come out ahead of the game. Not to mention you'll have a great gift for a lucky kid, and do a good deed. Note that is will also be the ONLY chance that US buyers have to purchase an OLPC laptop directly.

Just remember to sign up by Monday, November 26 at LaptopGiving.org. While you're considering it, check out Laptop Magazine's review of the OLPC hardware, especially the 8-year-old's viewpoint!

Elearning Events Public Calendar Updated for 2008

2007-11-15T12:48:00.001-08:00

I just added or updated 8 events from January to June of 2008 in the Elearning Events Calendar. If you have additional events to add, please contact me at mobilemind@pobox.com.

See the blog sidebar for sample HTML to embed the calendar, or click the link button below to view the calendar as a full page in a new tab or window.

Adobe Solutions Panel for Authorware

2007-11-14T06:38:00.001-08:00

Short notice, I know, but there is an Adobe online eseminar today (November 14) at 11:00am Pacific time that will essentially repeats the DevLearn discussion panel on Authorware End-of-Development issues that occurred last week at the Adobe Summit. Also worth noting is the availability of preliminary results from the AICC Survey on Authorware End-of-Life Issues and Impacts.

Adobe Panel Webinar on Solutions for Authorware Users › Wednesday, November 14, 2007 11:00AM - 1:00PM US/Pacific
Preliminary Authorware Survey Results [PDF available at that link]

As I understand it, the panel discussion will be recorded. I will post a link to the recording area when or if it becomes available to me. The PDF with the AICC survey information has data from about 40 responses. Since last Thursday there have been about a dozen additional responses. The AICC post indicates that the survey will be open for data collection until November 16, 2007 and provides a link to access the survey.

Learning from Navisite Failures

2007-11-04T12:08:00.001-08:00

Because of Navisite, what was supposed to be a 14 hour over-night change for 5dollarhosting.com became a 34 day tragic comedy of errors, with 200,000+ sites besides mine down about 3x longer than expected. Not a big deal for me; I have my own email elsewhere and you all surviced fine without this web site available. But perhaps this was a good lesson from a bad example of communication and collaboration.

After repeated postponements Navisite still messed up royally on the relocation that was supposed to happen from 10pm Friday night to noon Saturday (Eastern time), instead starting late, encountering challenges, messing up on communication and taking from 10pm Friday until ~~2:30pm Sunday~~ mid-morning Monday.

What was scheduled as 14 hours expanded to ~~41.5~~ 60+ hours including the shift-off of Daylight Savings. Adding insult to injury Navsite was ill-prepared with IT security systems with a claimed DDoS attack happened early Sunday too. Oops. [In hindsight, reading the playback, I wonder if this 'attack' was actually just lots of traffic their own servers generated due to configuration issues]. Recurring missed deadlines, calls after-the-fact, and weak assurances after trust was lost didn't help anyone. Read the saga at 5dollarbackup.com/blog if you like.

It's an old lesson, and a good reminder for me- Trust is important. Be prepared. Make commitments you can keep. Communication is critical; stay in contact with your customers.

I am going to give 5dollarhosting a chance to treat customers like me better than the poor way that Navisite has treated them. That said, I do have calls in to AN Hosting, BlueHost, DreamHost and Host Gator. Maybe this will be an opportunity to switch off of Blogger to another blogging system, and maybe even try out Joomla or Ruby on Rails.

Let me know if you have feedback on hosting services, blogging systems (not clients though, I use ecto 3 and LOVE it), or Joomla and lightweight content-management systems. I think Mobilemind is due for an upgrade in late 2007 or early 2008.

UPDATE: Monday, 8am Pacific time– Internet technology resilience proved itself again yesterday. My blog was only online briefly Sunday, but feed readers picked up the RSS. Servers were online and offline sporadically for hours at a time. Even with the server down I was contacted via LinkedIN and twitter messages from friends and colleagues. Thanks to Aaron and others for their empathy and advice. I just got an email from a reporter in Boston who wants to talk to me. It is a very connected world.

UPDATE 3: Thursday, November 9– (Yes, that is update #3, update #2 got lost due to Blogger being unable to reach downed Navisite servers on Monday.) It is 6 days later and 16,000+ web sites are still down. Go Navisite. I'm just not saying where they can go. :-)

Elearning, Machinima and the Law

2007-11-02T12:11:00.001-07:00

One of the great take-aways of Learning 2006 for me was Machinima. Now there's some IP follow-up that is due for anyone considering using Machinima content for training. I think machinima is a powerful, effective and low cost alternative technique to "from scratch" 2D/3D animation, graphics and video production for e-learning. However, as always, one needs to be respectful of intellectual property (IP). A blog posting that I recently found is a good reminder of that.

But first, a little background. In February of 2007 I posted some information on machinima when I was fortunate enough to snag Tom Crawford as a guest speaker for an Adobe eLuminary web seminar titled Machinima: When Video isn't Video [description at bottom of page here, direct link to recording here (free registration req'd)]. By the way, Tom did the best job I have ever seen of formatting/encoding machinima clips for use inside Adobe Connect, but that may be a whole other seminar topic.

Since then I have been openly wondering about using imagery and recorded screen captures of Flight Simulator X and other tools for training. Hopefully, Microsoft and other vendors will make their IP policies clearer regarding this use case. It seems the use case for the elearning developer is not to use game storyline, but to co-opt it as a graphics or animation generator. I'm really not sure how this plays into their IP policies.

In August of 2007, Mark Methenitis of The Vernon Law Group posted some informative discussion and commentary on Microsoft and machinima on his blog Law of the Game. from the original post, Microsoft's New Content Usage Rules: A Small Step for Machinima –

Microsoft has set forth an interesting new content policy, found here, that seems to be giving the non-profit machinimist a break. In fact, I would go as far as to say this is really what needed to be done, but only addresses half of the issue.

The rules boil down to this: You can use the following games:

Age of Empires (all versions)

Flight Simulator (all versions)

Forza Motorsport (all versions)

Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 (when released)

Kameo

Perfect Dark Zero

Project Gotham Racing (all versions)

Rise of Nations (all versions)

Shadowrun

Viva Piñata

to make machinima, provided you put the following disclaimer on it:

[The title of your Item] was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from GAMENAME, © Microsoft Corporation.

The blog entry goes on to list the rules Microsoft requires (which you really should read from the Microsoft Xbox.com page), but I prefer Mark's witty Carlin-esque summary.

Consider these the 7 Deadly Sins of Microsoft Machinima. In short, they are:

Hacking

Obscenity

Profit

Audio

Other IP

Fanfiction

Piggybacking

When using machinima techniques, I doubt that corporate trainers will ever intend to hack, cuss, directly profit, pirate audio, abuse IP, craft fan fiction or support derivative works (piggybacking), BUT even the best of intents doesn't mean that use for corporate training is legally acceptable to the IP owners. I hope that Microsoft will clarify the IP issues regarding use of game-generated images or image sequences for non-game corporate training purposes at the upcoming Microsoft DevCon 2007 or the related/co-located AvSim 2007 conference & exhibition.

In an interesting and relevant turn, the AvSim 2007 conference features guest speakers including both Capt. Mark Feuerstein, the Project Pilot for Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ 747-8 program and commercial pilot and flight instructor, Erik Lindbergh– grandson of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I wonder what their thoughts on training "fair use" might be.

Live from Learning 2007 (twitter and wiki)

2007-10-19T22:23:00.001-07:00

I'm already at Coronado Springs for Learning 2007. I doubt that I'll really do much blogging at all while I'm here. However, as a Masie Fellow, I try to dabble in what may be avant-garde for learning, so I'll try to update my own twitter more often. I also created a L07 (L-zero-7) twitter at http://twitter.com/L07 so folks can follow or @reply.

If you're not familiar with twitter yet, I have some links to share to help you understand twitter or even activate twitter for your phone. You can also find people/events to follow without signing-up.

It is far less avant-garde now, but still quite useful to use a wiki. I'll also try to update the Learning 2007 wiki for session that I am facilitating (or even those I attend) That's all the best of intent though. We'll see what really happens as I head into the blizzard of ideas and activities that seems to define a Masie Learning event.

Here are the wiki pages for the sessions that I am directly involved with:

e-Learning 101: Fundamentals and Futures (with Tomás Ramírez) [Sunday - 9:00am to 3:45pm]
iPhone and Learning (w/ Ez Yap & Jared Frisby, both from Apple, and Masie Fellow Judy Brown) [Tuesday - 1:30pm to 2:30pm]
SCORM: 10 Years After and 10 Years Ahead (hmm, lets see who I can get to guest star. Any volunteers?) [Wednesday - 8:30am to 9:45am]

I think Larry Israelite has made me a (dis)honorary member of the Liars Club (Learning Edition), so I may be a drop-in at his More Lies About Learning session too. (btw, check out his Lies About Learning book now in paperback).

Whew. It's late here (1:20am Satuday) and I have lots to do tomorrow.

Please consider contributing to any of the wiki pages, or sending a tweet. I'm interested to learn what ideas you might have for the L07 twitter and how we could use it. You might even comment here on the blog.

A Friend Passes

2007-10-07T11:35:00.001-07:00

Artist, inventor, innovator, collaborator and colleague Philip V.W. Dodds passed away on Saturday morning. Please help me recognize and celebrate his accomplishments and the lives he continues to touch.

I tried to write this yesterday and just couldn't. I truly believe the elearning community would not have SCORM as it is today without Philip's contributions as a visionary thinker, organizer, architect and evangelist. He was a man of art and a man of science. He loved technology, yet took great pride and active participation in true and faithful restorations to his historic home. He was drawing electronic circuits on blackboards at an early age, did R&D at ARP Instruments and Kurzweil Music, and led the charge to make CD-ROMs and sound cards a standard part of personal computers through his efforts with IMA and the MPC "Multimedia PC" standards efforts in the late 80's and early 90's.

I'd encourage you to learn more about him real soon now, courtesy of a page available through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Meantime, here is what Elliott Masie had to share about Philip in a message to the Learning Consortium:

"What are we saying to each other?"
That was a single line, spoken by the sound engineer at the end of Close Encounters of a Third Kind, as he played chords and a friendly alien spaceship played music back.
The role was played by a young sound engineer who was spotted by Steven Spielberg and given the on-screen role to be the interface between these two worlds. That man, Philip Dodds, was still young and inventing, as he passed this Saturday morning.
Philip Dodds was the Chief Architect of SCORM and the force behind sharable and reusable content. He was deeply involved in the evolution of interactive multimedia and expanding the possibilities for learning via technology.
If you use a Learning Management System, author an interactive learning module or talk about the future of Web 2.0, take a moment to thank a man who you probably never met. Philip's work was KEY and CRITICAL to the exciting world of learning, knowledge management and collaboration that we take for granted.
Philip's dreams were to create a global set of standards and specifications that would allow content to be searchable, reusable and expandable.
Philip, we thank you for all that you have done and we'll keep asking that question: "What are we saying to each other?"
With respect and sadness,
Elliott Masie
P.S. wikipedia reference at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Dodds

UPDATE: I cross-posted this to the AICC News Blog, and received a comment that suggests we share our memories of Philip there. If you'd like to post a comment on this topic, please do so at the corresponding post on the AICC News Blog- The Passing of Philip V.W. Dodds.

Authorware Impact Survey

2007-10-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

The AICC (Aviation Industry CBT Committee) is hosting a discussion forum on Authorware End-of-Development and developing an Authorware Impact & Issues Survey to help assess the impact and move towards solutions for heavily-invested corporate customers. A presentation used for live discussion is available from the AICC site, as are the AICC Meeting Minutes with additional notes on the matter.

If the Adobe end-of-development of Authorware will have significant impact for you or your organization and you might have helpful feedback or are looking for information, then please visit the Authorware End-of-Development Discussion Forums.

The AICC deadline for feedback on survey questions is October 9, 2007. See this AICC News Blog entry for information on participation.

Elearning Events Updates

2007-10-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

I added a few more items to the Elearning Events Calendar (to subscribe via iCal or view HTML see this entry). Recent additions include:

Adobe eSeminar: Gaining Efficiency with SME Captivate Use, Friday Oct. 19, 2007 (register here)
Workforce ADL Co-Laboratory, Elearning Summit, Oct 29-30, 2007 in Memphis, TN
AICC Meetings January 28, 2008 - February 1, 2008, hosted by Adobe Systems in San Jose, CA

More iPhone Tech Talks

2007-09-24T13:29:00.001-07:00

It seems like just a month ago (ok 2 months ago) that Apple sent me an email with information on the first iPhone Tech Talks. Now more iPhone Tech Talks are scheduled during October and November for Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Atlanta. As a bonus, despite the proximity to his residence, I can assure you that my friend and anti-fanboy curmudgeon Jeff will not attending the Minneapolis session.

See Apple iPhone Tech Talks for details.

Boston, MA 10/09
Philadelphia, PA 10/11
Washington, DC 10/12
Seattle, WA 10/22
Minneapolis, MN 10/25
Atlanta, GA 11/05

I'm excited to be going to Learning 2007, but sad that the iPhone Tech Talk in Seattle conflicts with it.

PS: Yes Jeff, I do have an iPhone once again, even if I am not sorry that I returned my initial iPhone after 7 days. It did help that it was now $200 less. Note that unlike others, I am NOT whining about price slashing. I love the new price, and I paid activation twice and a re-stocking fee once-- unlike the loudest whiners. Also, unlike them, I'll cheer when the price goes down again. So there. Don't complain about what you paid then or others pay now. The parable of the workers in the field strikes me as somewhat relevant. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? -- see Mathew 20.