Tangled up in Purple » Linkeracy

Linkeracy 22 May 2011

nix — Sun, 22 May 2011 05:34:41 +0000

The Facebook” Dislike” button is a scam … so don’t push it, forward it to your friends or give it any of your time. Via Mashable

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ReadWriteWeb reports a French study that says that people scan newspaper articles more quickly than iPad articles. Apparently newspaper readers retain more information than electronic readers. What are the implications of this research? Should we be thinking about what skills are required to read from a screen? Are students disadvantaged when they complete tests using a computer? Food for thought.

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Three Basic Rules for Online Safety from Krebs on Security. In a nutshell …

“If you didn’t go looking for it, don’t install it!”
“If you installed it, update it.”
“If you no longer need it, remove it.”

Simple really!

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Instructions for removing Mac Defender if you have been infected with the little beastie. I saw a case of this earlier this month and while it’s not difficult to remove it does give people a fright. It’s easy to stop this kind of thing in its tracks by opening up Safari’s preferences and removing the tick that allows “safe” files to open automatically.

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Linkeracy 28 May 2010

nix — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:19:21 +0000

Let’s see if we can get a new word into the online vernacular – linkeracy. Linkeracy, as defined by me is the currency of links.

Here goes!
Kevin Kelly on Wired Magazine‘s early predictions …

… it is clear that all predictions of the future are really just predictions of the present.

Read the post, it’s an insight to what was imagined in the mid-nineties. Some great sound text-bytes for a journey in your head.

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The Oatmeal on why it’s better to pretend that you don’t know anything about computers …

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ZScreen – an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. Really simple to use!

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And … check out @Astro_Soichi’s Twitpic stream for the most out of this world photos around at the moment.

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The Mystery of QR Codes Revealed!

nix — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:31:47 +0000

I’ve seen the idea of QR Codes coming up a few times recently. There was a piece by Gina Trapani and some discussion around the issues with their use at SXSW.I thought it might be time to do some looking around.

QR (Quick Response) Codes have been around for about 15 years (Wikipedia). They are a black and white image that can be found on all sorts of things. When I thought about it I realised I had seen them on posters and packaging for quite some time. Apparently they are very popular in Japan – while the rest of us have been slow to catch on.

Like any barcode, you need a scanner to capture and decode the information. My Nokia E71 has a barcode scanner and I wondered why it didn’t work on ‘normal’ barcodes. It’s because it’s a QR Code Reader. There are lots of QR Code scanners out there! i-nigma make applications for lots of phones. Their Symbian Series 60 application is a lot faster than the one that came with my E71.

So what can you embed in a QR Code? Quite a bit of information! Many companies simply embed a website address so that a consumer can use their mobile phone to scan the barcode and see extra product information immediately. Someone like me could add a QR Code to a business card. Some one who sees my card could scan the code, go to the website and see an up to date resume or contact details. The embedded data could contain competition information or treasure hunt clues.

Download a QR Code scanner for your phone and scan one of the codes on this page – better yet make your own!

Note: The two codes on this page were made with two different generators. I used http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for the top one (which links to a page about my work) and I used http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ for the second code (which is a message about my Twitter accounts).

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Linkeracy 25 September 2009

nix — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:10:27 +0000

Remembering Sir Howard Morrison who died in his sleep this week. My ex-mother-in-law maintained that he and John Rowles were relatives of the family. Fairly tenuous relationships but who was I to argue with a magnificent old kuia?

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Speaking of Kiwi Culture, said ex-mother-in-law’s eldest child was Pixie Wiliams who was the vocalist on New Zealand’s first ever ‘pop song‘ Blue Smoke. I took this photo of Ben with his Aunt’s record on a visit to Te Papa a couple of years ago.

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The Creative Freedom Foundation has had lots to talk about this week. Earlier it was the way that school students have been fed one side of the copyright debate. By the end of the week they were looking more deeply at some of the Public Library copyright tensions.

Linkeracy 13 September 2009

nix — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:23:32 +0000

This Google document is a sortable spreadsheet of all of the TED Talks made available up to 2nd September 2009. It’s a great way to see who and what you missed.

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How many people remember DOS? Or shoulder pads? A quick blast from the past at Everything is Terrible.

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Should Twitter monetize? Mashable asks their readers what they think in the light of Twitter’s expanded Terms of Service.

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And a reminder …

Linkeracy 21 July 2009

nix — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:39:43 +0000

Nathan Barry exposes how experienced web developers happily allowed someone else access to their Twitter network. Wth the exponential growth of Twitter and other Social Networking applications, people are excitedly giving away their passwords in order to quickly jump on the latest trend.

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I’m really excited to be attending Wordcamp NZ in a couple of weeks time. I started using WordPress in August 2004 just love the way that it can be manipulated and stroked into amazing websites. I might not be the best manipulator or stroker but I still thik it’s the best blogging software out there. I’m really looking forward to meeting other WordPress geeks and afficionados.

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Another favourite, MetaFilter, celebrated its ten year anniversary last weekend. MetaFilter is the best community out there – bar none. The site is not a Web 2.0 site and that’s one of the best things about it. The community is intelligent, snarky and real. They are (mostly) self-moderating, full of real personalities and a site with really interesting subsites.

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Download Wired editor Chris Anderson‘s Free, for free.

But the funny thing about waste is that it’s all relative to your sense of scarcity. Our grandparents grew up in an age when a long-distance telephone call was an expensive luxury, to be scheduled and kept short. Even today, many find it hard to keep people of that generation on a long-distance call for very long—they still hear a meter ticking in their head and rush to finish. But our kids are growing up in an age when long distance is free on their cell phones. They’ll happily chat for hours. From the perspective of 1950s telecom costs, that’s incredibly wasteful. But today, when those costs have fallen to near zero, we don’t give it a second thought. It doesn’t feel like waste at all. Wired Magazine

And there is much, much more.

Linkeracy 18 January 2009

nix — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:48:45 +0000

Obama’s Social Media Toolkit – how to grow a brand / use new media technologies effectively / the crawl, walk, run, fly philosophy – from Steve Rubel

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The next step in applying Gladwell/ Tipping Point theories to twitter users. An interesting look at the Tipping Point and Twitter. Are you a connector, a salesman or a maven?

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The Official Google Blog reports that there are now more that 100,000 knols. What’s a knol? It’s a unit of knowledge, an article written by someone who is an authority on a topic. Better, worse or different to the Wikipedia?

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Check out the VisualWikipedia for a mashup of the Wikipedia, pictures and videos. Might be worth keeping an eye on.

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Why translating need to be taken seriously. A good laugh from the BBC.

Steal This Comic

nix — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:58:27 +0000

… you can’t win either way … Steal This Comic from xkcd

Linkeracy – 21st June

nix — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:18:25 +0000

Poetry 180 has a poem for every day of the (American High School) year.

Welcome to Poetry 180. Poetry can and should be an important part of our daily lives. Poems can inspire and make us think about what it means to be a member of the human race. By just spending a few minutes reading a poem each day, new worlds can be revealed.

It’s definitely a site that needs a good look.

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Newish CD / DVD technology originally developed by HP – LightScribe discs are able to have designed etched on them by the writer itself. Check out the Wikipedia article for more information. I’ve made a few lightscribed discs recently and they can look stunning. NZ Teachers if you have an HP S/TELA laptop – you might just have a LightScribe capable writer – all you need are the disks …

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Pendrivelinux for Linux on a 1GB flash drive. With the price of memory keys these days this is super easy to do. Too bad that I just downloaded Ubuntu Server, Desktop and Edubuntu and need to keep an eye on my broadband cap.

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Photoshop Disasters is a great laugh. Look for missing bellybuttons, bad reflections and the strangest shaped limbs. Not always safe for the work internet connection.

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I came very close to uninstalling Firefox 3 when I discovered that Tab Mix Plus wasn’t going to work. Then I found a development version of the extension and browser sanity was restored. I can’t surf happily without my favourite extension.

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And, lastly, in the spirit of something for everyone … here is a YouTube for the littlies. Totlol is a moderated aggregation of videos suitable for 6 month old babies to six year old children. Not that many under two year old that I have met have wanted to sit down long enough to watch something on a screen (and long may that continue).

A 21st Century Prayer

Anniversary

nix — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:34:50 +0000

Today is a special anniversary.

Thirty-five years ago today our family arrived in Wellington, capital city of New Zealand. We were probably a fairly typical bunch of Poms setting out on a new life in a bright new world. From what I can remember we were all very thin and quite pasty. We’d flown for what seemed like days and we were exhausted.

I don’t remember much about the journey … new crimpolene and polyester outfits … climbing onto a rickety old Viscount at Teeside Airport … vague memories of Heathrow … my little brother destroying a cardboard travel cot … damp heat and guns at Bahrain … a cherry flavoured fizzy drink, boys kick boxing and strange toilets in Hong Kong – or was it Bangkok? … Brisbane and Sydney were a blur … a bumpy, windy landing at Wellington.

I remember boarding one last plane and flying to Napier. We were met at the airport by my father’s new employers and taken to a large home on Bluff Hill for dinner. Apparently we four kids were pretty dismally behaved and there were incidents with nutcrackers and someone put her feet up onto the table.

We spent the next week in a motel in Hastings. I was overwhelmed by winter sunshine and the sight of a clear blue sky. There were lemons, oranges and grapefruit growing in ordinary gardens. I tried to work out if the 50 cents pocket money my parents gave me compared favourably with what I received back in England. While I didn’t miss my old home I did miss my grandparents.

Thirty five years is a long time. Along the way I have collected (and consequently shed) a husband. I have kept my three beautiful daughters and wonderful son and they make me a very proud Mum. Some of them have, in turn, started families and from small beginnings we have grown into a real Kiwi whanau. We tragically lost my cot-busting brother and sometimes family relationships have been fraught with the usual difficulties. Now though, I have a fabulous partner and we have a calm and peaceful home. I’m lucky enough to have some very special people in my life – both family and friends.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff. Many of the things I have learned in my thirty five years in New Zealand I have changed my mind about and deliberately unlearned. That’s been true particularly with some of the attitudes and values that I, and my family, learned early on in our new homeland. Many of the skills that I have are self taught and because I’m an impatient and poorly focussed student I have a wide (but not always deep) knowledge base (I’m having ‘professional’ guitar lessons … again). I did get a degree and spent a few years teaching primary school children. In recent years I stepped out of the classroom and started a business – still working in education but as always I can’t quite define what it is that I ‘do’.

Thirty five years ago my parents literally turned my world upside down because they had a vision of a new life in a land that offered us all new opportunities. I didn’t participate in that decision but I am very glad that Mum and Dad made the choice they did. In the years since, I have made some similar life changing decisions and in each case I have never had any regrets. I hope my own children see the opportunities in the choices that I made on their behalf.

Today is a special anniversary and I thank my parents for their foresight and their courage.

“To understand your parents’ love you must raise children yourself.“ - Chinese Proverb

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