Inside View from Ireland

Family road trips

KILKENNY -- People with digital cameras should consider how they archive the images they take of family holidays. My family (seven people bundled up in a station wagon) trundled west from Pennsylvania every five years, taking trips that coincided with the purchase of a new company car. Next month, I want to locate the trays of slides from those epic trips because they represent a tapestry of life, interwoven with the spirit of the 60s. I'm motivated by Grandma Knapp, who took pictures of her road trip in 1937. Her photo journal is online for all to see and read.

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Hallmarks of technology hellhole

KILKENNY -- Ernie the Attorney got me thinking about what makes a technology hellhole. I think one hallmark is community resistance to mobile communications technology. I think another indicator is long queues at community welfare collection points.

Schools need Wi-Fi

KILKENNY -- People ask what single ingredient would catapult school IT infrastructure farthest ahead for the money spent. Answer: a wireless campus network. The Constortium for School Networking shows a massive uptake in this area. According to Wi-Fi Networking News, "In a survey conducted by Quality Education Data, 68% of U.S. school districts own wireless networks, up from 39% in 2002."

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Essential ingredients of our e-learning portal

KILKENNY -- During our short dabbling with Moodle, an Open Source e-learning system, we have learned essential items concerning sustaining our vision of a viable e-learning portal. Some of these points are evangelised by students using the system.

1. The suits must support it. If upper level management doesn't care about it, you won't get money to support it.
2. You must delegate content creation. Lecturers know enough about creating quality learning materials and they need to upload, revise and archive their own materials.
3. Search is a key feature. It must be pervasive, easy, accurate and powerful. We need more search capability for our implementation.
4. Moodle must export down to a digital dashboard for students. It does not do this. Yet.
5. Moodle must enhance information flow between modules, courses, streams, and degrees. It is not just about accommodating rewarmed courseware.
6. Good e-learning portals guide users into acquiring information that matters, not just lists.
7. A good e-learning portal strategy revolves around three things: learning requirements, information architecture, metadata.
8. As Natasha Kiely is prone to advise: process mapping identifies unmet needs. When lecturers turn to Moodle, they focus on identifying how the information flow works for students, understanding technophobic stressors, and working to develop virtual signposts to ease the journey for new students.
9. We measure Moodle's success in how it connects people to content, how it connects people to people, and how it connects students to experts.
10. A good k-logging network supplements the Moodle portal experience by offering yet another route to collaboration and revision.

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Sent mail2blog by Nokia Communicator TypePad Vodafone service from The Hibernian Hotel, Kilkenny, Ireland.
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Spiders in IRC

KILKENNY -- Google's spiders visit IRC channels. This may unsettle those slating Mike Fagan in Ireland, thinking their comments were ether-thin. Now you can imagine them sweating if Mike cops onto power-searching the Web archive.

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Aaron Swartz -- "Google into IRC"
Sent mail2blog using TypePad Vodafone service from The Ground Floor, Kilkenny, Ireland.
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Three changes in 2003

KILKENNY -- People ask me to name three notable changes that have occurred in my electronic office in 2003.

1. I browse the Web less because I use news aggreagtors more.
2. I save nearly every item worth reading in askSam and can find everything worth reading.
3. Superficial synchronicity is down because I filter my e-mail a minimum of four times before each piece lands in view and I filter my phone calls by the sound of distinct ringtones. I have discovered I don't know about meaningless meetings because their invitations normally die in holding on account of their HTML, attachment-laden format.

I believe these three things have made me more productive each day.

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The most talked-about Scoble comment this month concerns browser share and some of those thoughts relate to the decline of the influence of new browsers.
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Dave Winer gone crass

SCRIPTING -- I no longer view images on Dave Winer's top-ranked blog because his new look degrades his compelling content. I cannot afford to prejudice collegues on the eclectic value of blogging by exposing them to the new look of Winer. But you should judge for yourself.

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Robert Scoble -- "I'm not sure I like it."
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RFID Privacy Issues

SUNTIMES -- While IT managers see immediate supply chain benefits to RFID, some privacy advocates send up red flares in warning. The Chicago Sun-Times uncovered a test done by Wal-Mart in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where RFID tags on Max Factor Lipfinity lipstick containers alerted Procter & Gamble researchers when the lipstick left the shelf. Hidden webcams could be used to view consumers in the aisles as part of the test. Wal-Mart cancelled a test of its RFID tags in a Boston store prior to acknowledging the Oklahoma activities.

Dan Gillmor thinks "we need a law to regulate the use of these radio tags," perhaps "technology that lets consumers turn them off when they leave stores."

Should we publish the names of the merchants who publicly announce they kill RFID emissions at the cash till?

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Dan Gillmor -- Wal-Mart, P&G Snoop on Customers"
Chicago Sun-Times -- "P&G, Wal-Mart store did secret test of RFID"
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Lo-call Nodes Enhance Local Internet Services

KILKENNY -- People visiting Kilkenny need to know how they can set up and use high-speed data services in hotel rooms, conference venues and on the street. We have Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, American, Australian, Canadian, German, French, Dutch, Romanian, Albanian, Nigerian, Lithuanian, South African, and Flemish here because I have seen all these nationalities strolling through the Kilkenny Castle last week. Plus the token Scot, Brit, and Kerryman. All of them need to know the least expensive means of business communications in the city.

Too late for Sun

FORTUNE -- Although Scott McNealy thinks he can pull off another miracle and rejuvenate Sun's fortunes in the marketplace, many analysts have major reservations. "When we get focused, when we put all the wood behind that arrowhead, we're going to cause some damage out there. A lot of people keep forgetting that," McNealy says. Actually, that's not quite right. As Fortune pointedly says, "People haven't forgotten; they just no longer believe him."

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Fred Vogelstein -- Scott McNealy's lonely battle against Eternal Night" in Fortune, 27 Oct 03
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