Category: Uncategorized

Podcasting Professor Has Website Suspended

Post ImagePodcasting and education – I think it’s only a matter of time, once the issues that make educational institutions uneasy are worked out. And to be sure, educators are already experimenting with podcasting, like communication and technology professor Robert Schrag. The problem is that he decided to charge for his podcasts, and NC State University didn’t like that too much (via Podcasting News):

Schrag had made his lectures available to students and the general public online for a fee of $2.50. The University questioned whether this practice was ethical, referring to the inconsistencies in opinion concerning intellectual property and decided to ask Schrag to suspend the Web site until copyright-issue clarifications could be made.

Besides wanting to make a small profit, I don’t know why Schrag was charging for his podcast. I highly doubt he gave the money to the university to cover his (probably very small) bandwidth costs. Interestingly enough, when he asked his class about the situation, only four of them said the podcasts should be free, and no one said the site should have been taken down.

This situation brings up a bunch of questions. As a paying student, is recording what the professor says for my own consumption any different than frantically trying to write everything down? Does the university own the content that the professor delivers, or does the professor himself/herself retain ownership? Why should I as a student have to pay extra to get an audio file of the lecture?

And perhaps most important of all, is podcasting just something universities need to embrace in order to keep up with the times? I think it might be, kind of like replacing blackboards with whiteboards or overhead projectors with digital projectors and computers. Schrag has the right idea:

“I’m not sorry I made the choice and I hope I can get back to giving the information,” Schrag said.

After all, isn’t the primary function of a university to disseminate information? We call it teaching or learning, but really, a university is just a fancy way to spread information and knowledge to the population. Podcasting then should be viewed by universities as just another tool to help them spread information.

Read: Technician Online

NewsGator Desktop Sync Beta

Post ImageToday I started using a new aggregator for my web feeds. Well, sort of. I downloaded and installed the beta of NewsGator’s Desktop Sync, and now I can read all of my feeds inside IE7 RC1. It’s beautiful! Here’s the details on Desktop Sync:

Desktop Sync is a system tray application that keeps your feeds, folders and read states synchronized between NewsGator Online and the Windows RSS Platform. This means that any application that uses the Windows RSS Platform will be automatically synchronized with your NewsGator Online account!

Yeah baby! That’s what I’m talking about!

The product is the evolution of a demo that NewsGator head honcho Greg Reinacker did back at Microsoft’s MIX06 conference.

I have now used NewsGator Online, NewsGator Inbox (formerly Outlook Edition), FeedDemon and Desktop Sync. As you can see, having the synchronization story that NewsGator provides is incredibly important. Of them all, I think I like Desktop Sync the best. It allows me to read my web feeds in IE7, which means I can take advantage of everything I have inside my browser like favelets and other tools, but without losing the sync capabilities of NewsGator Online.

The application seems really solid for a beta, give it a try!

Read: NewsGator

Apple Podcasting Site Broken!

Post ImageThe new nanos are great, Apple still rules digitial music with the iPod and all that, but they’ve broken podcasting. Well, they’ve broken their own podcasting site anyway. I went to look at the iTunes Podcasting spec, and noticed that the page can no longer be found! Seems the redesign for the new stuff broke the website. Well done Apple!

And it’s a shame too, because http://www.apple.com/podcasting was such a nice URL, wouldn’t you say?

A search for podcasting on the support site only gives the Podcasting FAQ. And the link on that page to the podcasting page remains broken. Fortunately, Google comes to the rescue. You can see cached versions of the podcasting page and the tech specs.

Maybe they are going to be updating the spec?

Great Canadian Inventions

Post ImageAs usual (well when he decides to post anyway), Dickson has an interesting post up on his blog, this time about the CBC’s poll of the greatest Canadian inventions. There are 50 different inventions on the list, and CBC wants you to cast your vote. A special two-hour show featuring the inventions and a bunch of famous Canadians will air on January 3rd, 2007.

Here are my top ten picks (in no particular order):

  • Bloody Ceasar – Seriously, where would we be without this fine drink?
  • Canadarm – Showing them how it’s done in Space, since 1975.
  • Zipper – It’s the one thing I can properly operate after all those Caesars!
  • Poutine – When made right, super yummy.
  • Electron Microscope – Don’t forget about the small stuff!
  • Snowblower – Nothing says Canadian like a huge machine to move the fluffy white stuff around.
  • Insulin – A very worthy invention. Until the next major breakthrough renders it obsolete.
  • Wonderbra – I feel very proud to be Canadian right now.
  • Instant Replay – Though less important now thanks to TiVo and other PVRs, this is still a pretty cool invention.
  • Java Programming Language – Java is important to me for two reasons: it’s initial success partially led to the creation of .NET, and it’s continued bloat/politics/other problems clearly demonstrate why .NET is so much better now 😉

There’s some really interesting inventions on the list, some really old, and some more modern. It will be interesting to see how they are compared on the show.

What are your favorites?

Read: CBC

Lonelygirl15 dances with Tucker Carlson!

Post ImageI was just watching The Tonight Show, and Jay Leno did a segment called “videos we found on YouTube”. Of course, he showed one of lonelygirl15’s videos (not sure who I am talking about? read this NYTimes article…it will bring you up to speed). And right after that, she came out on to the stage! She basically confessed everything we already knew (well if you have read the article linked above anyway). Then she said she wasn’t so lonely anymore, and Tucker Carlson (who Jay had made fun of earlier for getting kicked off “Dancing with the stars”) came on stage and they danced! It was pretty funny. Even though I really don’t like Tucker Carlson.

Lonelygirl15 is actually aspiring actress Jessica Rose (and she’s 19, not 15). Apparently she’s pretty amazed with the attention she is getting. There’s lots of commenters out there who just keep calling her “fake” and are angry that they were led on. I say, does it matter? Her and her three buddies have done something pretty amazing! I can’t wait to see what else is created now that they have “broken new ground” in a sense. You can’t be mad at them for being creative!

Here is lonelygirl15’s page on YouTube. I can’t seem to find a clip from tonight’s show, but by the time you read this, it’ll probably be up on YouTube somewhere.

REVIEW: Cheyenne Kimball's debut album

Post ImageI’ve been listening to Cheyenne Kimball’s debut, titled The Day Has Come, and I really like it. I guess I am a sucker for her brand of “not quite bubblegum pop” but I’m okay with that. You’ve probably heard the first single, “Hanging On”, on the radio. You might even have seen her reality TV show on MTV if you’ve been channel surfing. It seems she’s everywhere!

The album contains 13 tracks, but one of them is a short “Intro”. My favorites, aside from the first single, are “Hello Goodbye”, “Good Go Bad”, and the title track which according to Wikipedia will be her next single. There isn’t really a song on the album that I dislike – they are all fairly catchy and happy-sounding.

Cheyenne is only sixteen years old, and unlike JoJo, on some songs you can tell. There are times when she sounds much older, with a powerful voice. But there are also times when she really does sound like a sixteen year old. I don’t think this is a bad thing necessarily, but I do think it means that she has room to grow as a singer.

It’ll be interesting to see where she takes her career. I wouldn’t consider her in the same category as Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan, but you never know. There’s lots to like about Cheyenne though. She’s pretty, she has a very unique name, she seems like a natural-born performer, and best of all, she’s a podcaster! And she has a blog too, but it doesn’t appear to be updated regularly.

Read: Cheyenne Kimball

Zune – it's what I want for Christmas!

Post ImageMicrosoft officially launched the Zune today with a press release, and a bunch of photos. All of the specifications are pretty much what Engadget and others have been reporting for weeks, but the one big surprise is the color lineup: white, black, and brown. Yes brown. Engadget has some more details:

They also finally let slip the screen res — an unsurprising QVGA — and some better news on the codec front: the Zune supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA. As for ballyhoo, wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing is where the real action is at, and it works pretty much like we’ve been hearing: you can share a full-length track with a friend, and they’ve got three times to listen to it over a three day period, after which they can flag the song for purchase on the Zune Marketplace — unless they’re an unlimited “Zune Pass” subscriber, of course. You can also share playlists and pictures with your buddies, along with what we suppose are “unprotected” homemade recordings.

You might remember that I got the Creative Zen Touch for Christmas two years ago, and it has worked great for me ever since. I still use it every day. But two years is a long time in the world of technology! A brand new Zune, with it’s color screen (my Zen is just blue), video, and wireless capabilities (among other things) might be in order don’t you think?

The white one would match my Xbox 360 quite nicely!

Read: Engadget

Has TechCrunch lost its edge?

Post ImageI’ve been subscribed TechCrunch for quite a long time, and I rather enjoy reading about the various companies and technologies they profile. Lately though, I’ve noticed that TechCrunch seems to be reporting on “big company” or “big media” things far more than the little stuff. A good example of this is what happened today. I opened up my aggregator for the first time today, and there were five posts in the TechCrunch feed:

  • Live.com and Yahoo! bulk up for local search brawl
  • Zune Unveiling Tomorrow
  • NBC to put new primetime shows online for free
  • Major Google/Intuit Partnership
  • Skype Video For Macs Launches Today

See what I mean? These look like headlines from CNET News.com, not TechCrunch! Now don’t get me wrong, these are all very interesting posts, and TechCrunch always has some inside information or extra analysis which is worthwhile, but they didn’t get to 113,000 subscribers by covering the big guys. They got there by finding and sharing the smaller companies and products that no one else could find.

Which begs the question – is TechCrunch becoming more like a mainstream business news site? Can we expect more of the “big company” type posts? Has TechCrunch lost its edge?

How can a company use podcasting?

Post ImageI came across this post from Karl Long today, titled “Uncommon Uses: Podcasting” in which he suggests some interesting ways that podcasting might be used. The basic idea is that we tend to use new technologies in similar ways as the old ones (using a podcast like a radio or TV show) because it seems natural, but that there are far more creative ways to take advantage of the new tech.

Karl focused mainly on individual scenarios, like learning a language or taking an audio tour, so I thought it would be interesting to come up with some company-focused ideas:

  • The most obvious use is public relations…audio-visual press releases!
  • Replacing a conference call with a podcast (IBM has already done this, for example)
  • And a related item…use a weekly podcast to cut down the number of emails that are sent, by summarizing the important things in audio form
  • Keeping your customers up-to-date on new product releases
  • Setup a podcast (or ability to track podcasts) so that potential job candidates could post audio-visual resumes
  • Keeping project members up-to-date on recent developments
  • Company training materials could be turned into podcasts, with the idea that all employees subscribe and information is added and updated over time
  • Certain meetings could be podcasted, like an AGM or shareholder’s meeting
  • In larger companies, new employees could be required to add an “introduction” to the internal “new hires” podcast – great way for people to find out about “the new guy/gal”
  • In a company like Google, employees could post a “pitch” for an idea they came up with or project they have in mind to an internal podcast

You’re limited only by your creativity! Any scenario in which information might be distributed over time is probably a good candidate for podcasting. Can you think of any other ways?

Comparing Windows Live Search and Google

Post ImageAfter less than a year in beta, Microsoft is set to release the final version of Windows Live Search tonight (actually it’s no longer marked beta for me). The search engine will now power MSN Search too. With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to compare Live Search and Google (currently my default search engine). How does it stack up? Could it possibly be my new default search engine? Let’s find out.

First off, please note I am focusing only on the basic search functionality – load up the site, type something in the box, and press enter. Both Live Search and Google have a bunch of other options (and Live Search’s macros and other things are especially neat) but right now I am just interested in the search results I get. I will say however that I really like the look of Live Search. And that it loads just as fast as Google does.

1. hello world
First search is for what else but hello world (Live, Google)! This is a hard one. While the results are similar, I like Google’s better. Why? The top result is for a .edu site, talking about “hello world” program examples. The second result is for the Wikipedia entry on “hello world” programs. Live on the other hand, returns HelloWorld.com (which appears to be a streaming video site) for the top two results. Google has this one too, but at #3.
# of identical results in top 10: 5
winner: Google

2. mastermaq
Next up is a little vanity search, for mastermaq (Live, Google). I keep track of this search at Google fairly often, and it usually alternates between some Brazilian company and my blog as #1 (oddly enough my blog is down at #6 today). There’s a clear winner here, and it’s Live Search. Why? Well because all of the results but two are created by me. Google lists my profiles at other sites far higher than it does my own sites. Something created by me is far more important don’t you think?
# of identical results in top 10: 4
winner: Live

3. podcast spot
How about a search for Podcast Spot, since we’ll be releasing it soon enough (Live, Google). So these results suck on both sites, but that’s probably because you can’t actually get to Podcast Spot right now without a password. Despite that, Google delivers much better results. I don’t know how the first two results in Live even matched (some random color video and an article on GM podcasting). Google is at least smart enough to put our login page at #1. The category for Podcast Spot at the Paramagnus blog is #3 on both sites.
# of identical results in top 10: 2
winner: Google

4. britney spears
She used to be one of the most frequently searched for celebrities (Live, Google). The results start out almost identical on both sites, then Google goes downhill. “The Mystery of Britney’s Breats”, some crappy fan sites, and a Google page at #10 pretty give Live the win. With the exception of only the #9 result, everything Live returns is appropriate.
# of identical results in top 10: 6
winner: Live

And now for a tie-break!

5. ventureprize
Let’s see what turns up for the business plan competiton we competed in this year (Live, Google). What a terrible query for the tie-break! Anyway, it seems that Live is really showing Paramagnus the love, with five of the top ten results from sites belonging to us (I include my Flickr page here). Google seems to prefer the University of Alberta and City of Edmonton sites. While I love being higher in the search engines, I have to give this one to Google, for having the most relevant first result.
# of identical results in top 10: 4
winner: Google

So there you go, a very unscientific comparison of Google and Live. I am impressed enough by Windows Live that I’m going to try and use it for a week or so, to see if I feel anything is missing. The thought of not using Google does seem strange though! I am really happy with the speed of Live, because one of the main reasons I started using Google was that it is damn fast. The Live Search team was wise not to ignore this.

What has your experience been with these two search engines?