Is a balled mouse the new rotary phone?

That being said I thought I would share this goolgle search for obsolete technology.

I particularly like the wired article's section on telegraph. STOP

I guess I can't do much about the old leather smell. Perhaps there will be a scented add on. And I'm going to have one empty library with a lone e-book on the shelves... but it would still be nice to have a literal "page turner" that reacts in the same way as paper. Thoughts?

But what scares me is that I downloaded Firefox 3 beta for the mac a couple of weeks ago and did not have a good experience - the mac didn't seem to like it at all, with kernel panics, freezes, shutdown woes and cpu running at 50% with no apps open. I ended up doing a restore with Time Machine (which works great, by the way, and only took an hour to restore a 60 GB system; the downside to doing too many of these is that the next TimeMachine backup after a restore takes a while because it backs up everything again, taking up another 60 GB of my backup drive).

So someone with a Mac running Leopard - test Firefox 3 for me and let me know if it's safe to go in the water again.

Let me know your thoughts!

Does this move by Facebook position it to be the next Google where everything and everyone develops applications and services that allow upstarts and fringe services to piggyback on the success of the giant?

For example I used Remember the Milk for a while as a todo list but discontinued use because it was one more place to log into and manage. Recently, I came back to "rtm" and realized that it added a ton of features that lets me use the services through other technologies, which make "rtm" more useful than a paper and pencil todo list.

Of the various options for integration here are a few that I am looking at -

• Jott™ - Official Site
• Netvibes
• Twitter
• rtm Browser Bookmarklet

I am going to give "rtm" another go based on this new knowledge and let you know how it works.

So there was an article recently disparaging Facebook, where "Fake Steve Jobs" refers to Facebook as "Webkinz for adults". Tim's daughter was showing me Webkinz a few weeks back, so the connectiong definitely clicked for me as soon as I read the article. All of this fuss about Facebook, FSJ was pricking a well deserved pin into the inflated worth of Facebook.

So being a regular user of Facebook, I updated both my Twitter and Facebook status to "FSJ says Facebook = Webkins". Short and to the point, and something that I thought might provoke some thought. This was Friday.

On Saturday, I get an email saying that "Siooma" was now following me on Twitter. I immediately recognized "Siooma" as being associated with the Fake Steve Jobs blog. (You will have to research the meaning of "siooma" for yourself...) The only connection I can make is that somehow my Twitter status with FSJ in the text must have triggered some kind of bot or just someone manually searching for it causing me to be added...

It's not that big of deal, it just took me by surprise and I thought I would share the experience.

I am sorry to add this extra barrier to participating in the discussion. But the comment spam became too much in the last few days which necessitated the change.

Thanks for joining the conversation.

The browser is to now, what the OS was to the late nineties, which is something that used to be cool, but now is just tech. :) I remember being psyched about Windows95, but by the time Windows98 came out, people just wanted the damn thing to work so that they could get out to the internet.

I missed much of the practical nature/reality of what he was saying until I started to play with Netvibes. Netvibes allows users to create a page that allows you to bring in the various pieces of the web that you use regularly. Thus, now instead of needing to be on a computer with a browser that has all of the preferred plugins I only need a browser and my netvibes. My plugins are any where I am.

I have not figured out the universe - ecosystem thing yet but which I think is the key to making it "social" but that would be icing on the cake. Any one else with experience with netvibes? I would like to compare notes.

Hat tip to Jason...

...Well, for the time being.

While this isn't the most innovative thing, (I'm sure many campuses have implemented at least some kind of remote classroom access...), I can't help but believe that something is very, very wrong with the model that U of I has implemented.

Three Million Dollars for TEN students? They've estimated that their break-even point will come with 700 students, meaning each class would cost roughly $4300/semester. It's not a particularly busy time of year for this sort of thing, (enrollment and such...), but the article mentioned they are targeting non-traditional students.

While this sort of thing doesn't really apply to us, I think its still exciting to see how campuses are shrugging physical campus limitations and expanding through technology. It will be interesting to see how different generations respond to this sort of learning. (Right now, targeting the non-traditionals of Gen-X and Gen-Y might not be the correct fit. I'd imagine the younger Millennials who have grown dependant on computers might be a better marketing target...)

Thoughts? Will Allegheny College ever go global with a remote classroom model?

For those who don't feel like clicking the link and reading through the comments, here are darrenh's comments:

"Do you really think this is new thing? Your blog is really good to me, I
read it to get useful info, but sometimes I'm bored to tears."

Alas, Darren. It's not just this blog. Anyone reading the story of my life would find this comment very apropos.

It's interesting how spam is getting cleverer and cleverer. The fact that this comes from China makes me consider the world at large, and how 19th century Europe used to snicker and look down on the American nouveau riche. I'm certain that most Chinese "Engrish" is far better than my Mandarin.

And back more towards IT, you never really hear about viruses much anymore. Did they go away? Or are they just good enough at writing them that you no longer notice them anymore... Are typical users of the internet getting savvy and not clicking on offers too good to be true?

I'd write more, but I've got to get back to work. Today, life is good to me, but sometimes I am bored to tears. In the mean time, I must advocate the forward click of travel if one has great mind adventure fortitude to Diarrhea Bear.

Imyt hav2 break dwn n gt txtn on my ph.

Then, boy, does Korea have the answer for you! Introducing the Miu Hybrid Dual PC! (HDPC)

Impressively, the 'Dual' portion of the product's name originates from its dual OS configuration. Each Miu is loaded with XP and linux Qplus. Users simply choose their OS upon booting the device.

The only drawback is the unit's size. 6.4" x 2.6" x 1" portable devices will only fit in the pockets of most NBA centers. In addition, the HDPC weighs a few pounds, so you'll also have to invest in a new belt to hold those pants up.

Basically, the name of Miu's game is flexibility. The HDPC is the Swiss Army Knife of mobile technology. Don't start drooling yet: It's only available in Korea, and plans have not yet been announced for a US release. But, if you have $400-$500 US burning a hole in your pocket, and you're fluent in Korea, have at it!

Has time changed our reaction and/or position?

Recently, several of the blogs I read linked to the articles outlining a its practical applications, here is one such article. And I found a good description of what twitter actually does thanks to the CommonCraft Show on youtube

But I am still working on how to integrate it naturally into work flow. My best guess is this - create twitter accounts for a couple of the web logs we use to keep the campus informed of computing news and workshop information and see how many "twits" start to follow. (Thanks to Richwalsky I found a tool that will take and rss feed and create twitter tweets.)

Do we want the same for technocool?