the ADMIN pages

I feel very geeky.

I'm a fan of the TechLearning Blog. The writers are all mostly top-notch bloggers, and the conversations they generate in the comments section are just as good as the posts themselves. The problem with the TechLearning Blog (and the entire web site) is that it appears to be stuck in the past. The blog runs a version of the Movable Type blog software that was released in July of 2006. My personal problem with this is that there is no way for me to keep up with comments: no e-mail subscription to comments on a post, and certainly no comments RSS feed.

So I made a comments RSS feed for them. Like I said, I'm feeling very geeky right now.

You may use it, but of course, I reserve the right to take it down any time I please. A big disclaimer: my script is extremely mean to the TechLearning server (and my script itself is very slow), so when I start getting cease-and-desist notices, I'm happily complying.

I also threw the master feed into Yahoo Pipes, in case you're only interested in a particular post's comments.

techLEARNING Blog Comments: http://rss.walterk29.com/techlearning.com.php
Yahoo Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/kevinwalter/techlearning

For the Yahoo Pipes page, you just need to input the URL of the post, and it will filter only the comments on that post.

A few other notes:

• Only comments on the most recent 15 posts are shown, because that's how many posts TechLearning puts in their main RSS feed. This also means that if a post isn't in the most recent 15, the Yahoo Pipes filter won't do you much good.
• Dates are formatted to whatever TechLearning uses on their site, which I'll guess is GMT.
• Comments in the RSS feed are ordered by post (most recent), and then by comment (most recent).

Enjoy the conversation. You're welcome.

Because I just spent a highly frustrating 45 minutes troubleshooting a PHP script I'm writing for use with Gmail's IMAP access, here's an overview of what the IMAP command for "deleting" a message will actually do in Gmail:

Delete a message from the INBOX: Archive message
Delete a message from a label: Remove the label from that message
Delete a message from the /Spam or /Trash folders: Delete the message permanently

Source

Answering the call of the "EduTwitterVerse," here's a work-up for integrating Skype and Ustream.tv.

First, a little background: Skype is a software program that allows you to (among other features) make free phone calls to other users of the program. Ustream.tv is a web service that allows you to broadcast an audio/video feed live from your computer. Apparently, there is a desire for audience participation in Ustream.tv shows, and the edubloggers are all big Skype fans as well.

It's actually quite simple. The broadcaster/presenter of the Ustream.tv feed needs only to open Skype on the same computer they are broadcasting from, and start a conference call with select viewers of their Ustream.tv feed who wish to participate. Viewers of the Ustream.tv live feed would need to open Skype, join the phone call with the presenter (and other viewers), and... talk. The call audio would get picked up by the presenter's broadcast window on Ustream.tv.

Presenters: If you use a headset microphone, only plug in the microphone portion (if it's a USB headset mic, you'll need to play with your Windows sound settings), and use desktop speakers. In my case, I'm working off a laptop with integrated speakers and microphone, so the setup is minimal (or rather, non-existent). Using desktop speakers and a desktop microphone would be best. If your Ustream.tv viewers can't hear the Skype call, just turn the computer volume up. Keep in mind, also, that any sound your computer emits will be broadcast, so close those videos and IM sounds while you're broadcasting.

Viewers: If you are participating in the conference call on Skype, mute the Ustream.tv audio. You'll hear everything on Skype anyway. If you are just watching the feed (and not using Skype), just watch through the web normally.

Keep in mind, Skype has a 9-person limit on conference calls, but I'm not sure you'd want more than 9 people talking at once. Also, Ustream.tv has a very slight time delay in broadcasting, but it's not too bad. Skype callers will see the presenter talking after they hear it, but regular audience members will be fine.

For the more technologically advanced, you can play with audio cables going from your line out to line in on your PC, or a software-based solution like this.

I've been TwitterBusted by Dave Jakes for ditching school:

Yes, the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has been leaked onto the Internet. No, they aren't fakes.

I personally have completely rejected the temptation of reading the book early (I will be purchasing my copy at 12:01 am tonight), but I couldn't help but notice The Pirate Bay's logo on their homepage today:

Of course, in the spirit of the Google Doodles, which are linked to relevant searches regarding the subject of the drawing, TPB's logo is linked to a torrent of the book.

An article in the Wall Street Journal today discussed the increasing prevalence of "widgets" in marketing. More and more mainstream companies are turning to the small, embeddable, interactive tools as advertising media for their products. The article mentioned the web site for the upcoming film The Golden Compass, which allows users to create their own "daemon" (an animal spirit from the film/book) and post it on their blog or social networking profile.

As with all advertising, it isn't a sure thing. The film Hoot apparently had a downloadable owl that would float around a user's desktop (sounds pretty annoying to me), but the film was a box office failure.

Social networking sites that run traditional banner ads on users' profiles are understandably concerned with the onset of widgets, because they are out of the advertising loop. Traditional banner ads pay to the web site, but the advertisers behind widgets pay to the widget's designer. (The designer, therefore, must make the widget creative enough to appeal to users and make them want to put it on their profile.) From MySpace's ToS:

MySpace.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting... [such as] commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com

In layman's terms, MySpace can remove widgets from your profile on their site.

The idea behind widgets, while not necessarily new (affiliate codes and embeddable HTML have been around as long as the web itself), associates with the much-hated buzzword "Web 2.0". The social aspect often allows for personalization, and end-users must choose to place the widget along with the assumedly related content on their profile. These end-users dislike banner ads for the same reason: they can't choose the content of such forced ads.

A couple friends of mine are involved in a "top-secret" venture at the moment, making widgets for use on social networking sites such as MySpace. They're working with an industry veteran, who has started successful online businesses in the past, selling them for millions. His former ventures were in the online auction industry, but he's a businessman and long-time Internet user above all else. They're in the process of securing VC funding, and are programming using ActionScript and Flash for their widget designs. It's still in the early stages of development, so I can't give a link or name.

I myself designed a set of widgets (again, still "beta") for counting down various school-related events. There's no ad revenue involved, just a link back to the homepage. This particular one counts the days until I return to school:

Article: Steel, Emily. "Young Surfers Spurn Banner Ads, Embrace 'Widgets'." Wall Street Journal 02 July 2007: B3. (sorry, no URL-- the Journal's web site is a paid subscription service)

In this two-man show, Dean Cameron reads the actual e-mail transcripts from his communications with a Nigerian 419 scammer. Cameron portrays his Floridian alter ego: a wealthy, cat-loving father with a penchant for young boys from the Philippines. This persona apparently kept the scammer going for 9 months.

My friend Sam and I attended tonight's show at the Lakeshore Theater in downtown Chicago. It was a riot. (Not to mention the first "play"-type event I've attended of my own free will.)

Official site.

Promo video:
Continue reading ‘The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam’ »

I'm finding myself nodding in agreement with this manifesto on Internet April Fools' Day jokes.

Regarding the DGS MIDI Music Podcast:

I produced today's episode last Friday when I did the first one, and I uploaded and scheduled it to be available on Monday the 19th (yesterday). It all worked fine, until just now when I noticed a tiny bug in the way Blackboard handles timed content. It appears the pubDate element in the RSS feed it generates for the podcast reads from the upload time Blackboard has for the content, not the time it was scheduled to appear.

From the feed: <pubDate>Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:35:26 GMT</pubDate>, which is the time I uploaded Episode 2 (adjusted for GMT).

From iTunes:

In short, the scheduling feature of Blackboard works. It didn't show the content I uploaded a second earlier than I wanted. However, the published date in the generated RSS feed should reflect the time the content was displayed, not the time it was uploaded.

Just a little bit more freedbacking for the Blackboard dev team. After all, the Podcast tool is a beta product.

UPDATE: (February 21, 2007 @ 10:34 pm) Due to a technicality in the first two episodes, I had to reproduce and upload new versions of each file today. It turns out that the RSS feed's pubDate doesn't necessarily refer to when the file was uploaded, it refers to when the content item (podcast episode) was created.

This semester, I've been aiding for Mr. Kowallis, the MIDI Music teacher at my school. He's a great music teacher, but not exactly the best at computers in general, so I've been helping with the more technical things during class (I took it last semester). Various duties such as setting up the shared class folder, troubleshooting synthesizer and software problems, and working on his Blackboard course.

I've never been a fan of Blackboard, mostly hating it on principle because it's closed source, poorly designed, and uses frames. But after poking around behind the scenes at the class control panel, I can see why every class I have that uses Blackboard is so poorly set up. The Blackboard control panel that teachers use is ridiculously counter-intuitive (not to mention insecure, but I won't talk about that). New "content areas" are created by adding a link on the side menu, which itself defaults to include such options as "Course Documents," "Course Information," and other poorly-worded names that seem to show up in every one of my Blackboard-enabled classes.

The "tools" are managed from three separate interfaces, none of which have an obvious purpose and function defined. And why does adding a new Announcement take two additional clicks (into control panel, then under the "Manage Tools" area), while the Discussion Board (where are my move and merge features, by the way?) can create new forums straight from the standard interface accessible from the side menu? Maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal, but for someone who doesn't have hours to spend playing around with the Blackboard control panel (like I do) or attend one of the district training classes, I can see how it'd be pretty hard to grasp.

Bugs I've discovered with the "beta" podcast tool:

• Linking to an external URL for the podcast enclosure breaks the entire Java application and causes an internal web server error
• Editing an episode (i.e. its name and description) after it's already been uploaded causes the direct MP3 link to disappear
• The M3U playlist that is supposed to stream all the podcast episodes is completely broken

Another quick gripe: why do podcast "episodes" need to appear in both a "content area" and the "tool" area for the show? Why can't I upload them directly into the tool interface?

Ugh.

Well, I've managed to overcome these annoyances and publish a podcast through the Blackboard course for MIDI Music. Introducing... the DGS MIDI Music Podcast (hosted by Kevin Walter). Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I'll feature a new project from one of the students in the class. I've got a verified list of all the students who signed the district web release form, so there won't be any questions there.

I can't track episode downloads (even though Blackboard goes out of its way to let teachers track every other bloody content item), which I hope they implement in a future release. I guess I should remember this is a beta application, and not everyone has as perfect betas as Gmail did. However, I am pleasantly surprised at the ability to put time restrictions on content (such as podcast episodes), so I can upload future episodes as I produce them and schedule them to automatically appear in the RSS feed and the episode list at the right time.

Speaking of RSS, YES, Blackboard generates a (semi-valid) RSS feed for the podcast tool. It even creates an iTunes-friendly auto-subscribe link.

So check out my first podcast:

• RSS feed (put this URL into iTunes or another podcasting program to automatically download all the latest episodes): http://bb.csd99.org/webapps/lobj-podcast-bb_bb60/feed/2007.I352.KO70/podcast.xml
• Episode 1: http://bb.csd99.org/webapps/lobj-podcast-bb_bb60/files/_122073_1/episode01.mp3