Chip Cards

Martyn Williams notes the deployment of chip cards in the U.S. credit card industry.

-DD

Footnotes

Anne Curzan extols footnotes in academic writing.

-DD

Accessible e-Learning

Jennifer Mizrahi blogs about the need to have accessible e-learning.   She advocates for websites to be designed with tabbed navigation and to use alternate text for images.

-DD

iPhone Development Software Hacked

Gregg Keizer reports code for developing iPhone apps was hacked by Chinese distributing adware. The malware has the potential for serving as a back door for exposing a user's data. The good news is that the apps developed with this code seem to be limited to the Chinese market.

-DD

Student Centered Classroom

David Gooblar writes about teaching students to learn . He credits much of his thought on promoting a student-centered classroom to posts by Cathy Davidson.

From just a quick scan of the material, the positive results of the the examplar student-centered classrooms occurred because the students were a small group of self-motivated individuals, whose learning simply had to be directed by the teacher. In more challenging environments, say in a literature survey course with eighty business students, I believe little or no time can be relegated to activities such as "collectively writing a [course] constitution."

-DD

Excellence

Allan Moore offers methods for encouraging excellence .

-DD

Decision Making Apps

Doug Aamoth shares 5 decision making apps .

-DD

Management Skills

Agatha Gilmore interviews Palmer Hartle about key management techiques . He says that employees often end up in management because they are top performers at a task, and are frequently not properly trained for supervision. If employees are asking for permission too often, leaders should encourage independence.

-DD

Mobile Etiquette

Lee Rainie and Kathryn Zickuhr report on a PewResearch Report on mobile etiquette .

-DD

Dennis Lee recommends fifty audio podcasts targeting teens .

-DD

Project Management

Bob Lewis gives tips on project management .

-DD

Apple MacIntosh Users Have the Option of "Browser Fairy"

Jason B. Jones is an evangelist for the Safari app "Browser Fairy ." This allows the user to program which browser is used to open which sites.

I have been frustrated recently that no one browser works with all websites. At my workplace I am stuck with an old machine with two gigabytes of RAM, where having to have three browsers open with active content causes the computer to crawl into virtual memory operation. At least I know about browser incompatibility: I have seen many a computer novice who does not have alternate browsers loaded, and they never see some browser-specific content.

I had to agree with Mike Richichi's comment:
This would be really good as an enterprise licensed version, with a feature that let us push out a configuration file which automatically lets us determine what browser to open an app in. With a proliferation of different administrative apps, all using different plugins, with Chrome deprecating Java, etc., it would be nice just to tell people to use Safari and it would take care of which browser to load based on what it's doing.

-DD

Brand Development

Bradford Shellhammer provides insights into creating a company name and logo for a startup.

-DD

Conflict of Interest and Wikipedia Editing

John Ribeiro reports that Wikipedia is banning editors who are paid for their work by firms who want positive articles.

-DD

Ad-Supported Websites

Dylan Tweney observes that ad blockers are projected to have a major effect on the commercial Internet ecosystem.

My projection is that the result shall be more fees for Web content, whether it be subscription services or micropayments (or both). I suspect investing in micropayment technology would probably wise at this time, if one could pick the vendor which will dominate.

-DD

The Impact of Windows95

Josh Fruhlinger muses about how the Windows 95 user interface has defined the Windows operating systems for two decades.

-DD

Windows 10 Tracks Hardware Configuration

Andy Patrizio warns that replacing a computer motherboard on a Windows 10 computer will force the user to call Microsoft to re-enable Windows . Microsoft tracks the motherboard ID, and if a licensed version of Windows 10 attempts to run on a new motherboard, it shuts down the installation. A call to Microsoft allows the user to obtain an override code.

-DD

Browser Extensions

George Williams asks readers to provide the name of their favorite browser extension . Responses include:

• Adblock Plus by eyeo.com
• Diigo
• Grammarly for Chrome
• Print Friendly & PDF

-DD

Piktochart

Julie Platt shares how she made her syllabus engaging by employing the cloud tool Piktochart. While Platt reports Piktochart is normally $39 annually for an individual subscription, Piktochart is only $15 annually for educators.

-DD

Innovation Requires Resources

Jon Collins notes that innovation requires resources , and thus large companies should emulate Google and fund the development of "impossible" products.

I have actually seen this type of investment in the field of quantum computing, as scientists strive to merge physics and information science in the laboratory.

-DD

Content Blockers for IOS

Glenn Fleishman provides statistics on how Apple's new advertising blocker speeds page rendering . For example, load time for CNN site went from 23 seconds to 5 seconds when a content blocker was employed.

-DD

Rice University Is Developing Open Textbooks

Rice University is developing a collection of open textbooks , e-books developed by a University subsiderary which can be used without charge.

-DD

 

Presentations Which Appeal to All Generations

Agatha Gillmore interviews Chris Ballman about presentations which appeal to a range of generations . Ballman recommends leading with a ten-minute lecture to appeal to baby-boomers, followed by a discussion to appeal to those in generation-x, followed by a poll to generation-y. He also recommends that the moderator explain the schedule of meeting activities, building anticipation.

-DD

 

A Return to Artisanal Goods

Allan Metcalf celebrates the diversity in present consumer offerings . He notes that a generation ago artisanal goods were rare, and most consumer goods were mass produced by a few conglomerates.

I appreciate Metcalf's positive spin on our current world, as our time is so often condemned for lacking diversity and embracing environmental degredation.

-DD

Jesse Bering and Belief in God

Jesse Bering, who begins his collection of articles announcing he is an atheist, then makes the point that he would rather ride with a cab driver who is a believer in God. Bering notes that while he has intellectual reservations about believing in a supreme being, he reports that science experiments show that those who believe "God is watching" are more honest.

Bering also notes that the McClintock effect may exist because physical intimacy somehow expands a woman's connectiveness. Upon reading Bering's speculation, I thought of Genesis 2:24.

-DD

Cheating in MOOCs

Andy Thomason summarizes recent research done by Harvard and MIT on online cheating. Thomson says the study recommends using randomized questions in online tests to minimize cheating by individual students.

-DD

The Future of Education

Jessica Hullinger suggests that in the future universities will focus on competencies and give students more freedom.

-DD

Jargon in the Academy

Jeffrey Young says that jargon is slowing educational innovation . He shares varied definitions for the term "adaptive learning," a phrase that is being used to market a number of initiatives. When administrators apply varied meanings to the same term that designates a methodology, it is no wonder that results differ widely in differing university implementations.

-DD

Internet of Things

Katherine Noyes observed Vint Cerf comment on the 'Internet of Things' at a German conference. Unlike his earlier discussion of this topic (shown below), this time he expressed reservations about the security compromises that could occur.

-DD

 

Childhood Creativity and App Design

Phil Johnson reports that children are especially creative at designing apps . They lack the preconceptions that limit the designs developed by adults.

-DD

Graphic Organizers

David Kapuler offers tips about graphic organizers .

-DD

Windows Vulnerabilities Concealed

Andy Patrizio calls attention to Microsoft remaining mum about the reason for Windows 10 updates . This is a change in behavior from the past, where the firm would indicate which updates were security related. Patrizio believes that corporations and governments want to know what an update accomplishes. It causes me to speculate whether it will accelarate a corporate move to Linux, especially with Web servers.

-DD

DNA for Data Storage

Lucas Mearian reports on Swiss efforts to record and retrieve data stored in manufactured DNA . The technology offers impressive storage densities, but reading a specific files is challenging.

-DD

 

Standards Enabling Open Source Cloud Storage

Lucas Mearian sees large vendors developing standards for open source cloud storage . Mearian explains that new technologies are developing new services that were difficult to index before, such as video and photos. He describes these technologies, which require new data standards and huge storage capacities:

Object-based storage addresses a world of unstructured data where pictures, movies, e-commerce, games, and archives are all searchable through metadata or descriptive data. In the new storage paradigm, information is stored, read and deleted but never modified.

It appears that if these technologies are implemented and open access, information will be far more accessible than using search engines such as the current Google. There will still be a place for knowledge specialists maintaining standard index terms to be used for the metadata, though the indexing itself I envision being done through automation.

-DD

Web Marketing Tips

Martin White has developed a set of research notes that relate to corporate Intranet marketing.

-DD

Windows Ten Development

Tim Anderson questions whether Windows10 developers should write code for ALL Windows 10 devices, or focus on the desktop environment.

-DD

Mozilla Plug-ins

Greg Keizer predicts that creating browser add-ins shall become standardized in the next year.

-DD

Object Identification Using Images

Patrick Nelson has experimented with a new image identification app for smartphones. Photos snapped by the phone's camera are compared with a database to initiate identification and related information.

-DD

Web Browsers Compared

Mark Hachman compares Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Opera.

-DD

Computer Labs in the 1980's

Benj Edwards shares photos of computers in classrooms in the 1980's.

-DD

Maintaining Alertness

Jason B. Jones shares ways to stay awake without caffeine .

-DD

Extend The Talk-Time Of Your Phone

Ryan Whitwam provides tips on extending the useful battery charge on an Android phone .

-DD