Computing

Topics related to computers and computing

The road to content management

Educause has a paper published in 2003 about Gonzaga's move to a content management system. The article details the perils of starting with a centralized system and then realizing that a monolithic organization can't handle the publishing for the many small units, groups, departments etc. that make up a modern university. Sounds eerily like the state of affairs I'm familiar with.

By the way, this problem is not unique to universities. I've been with several companies that struggle through the same thing. Having built a system for content management using text files in 1996 it's odd to see organizations trying to figure out, nearly a decade later, what the solution is.

Many technologists begin to think the world is about their technology. They jealously guard the company product - "we use product X" the line goes. (Though in higher education the product portion is often left out.) In their view the world begins to revolve around their product. They stop seeing faculty and staff members as organizational peers who have needs that might be met by technology and begin to see users. Part and parcel of this shift is the view that product X can do everything any user might want. If it doesn't then the user is mistaken about what they want. The conversation shifts from being driven by the question "What do you want to do?" and is replaced by "You need to use product X."

Emails 'pose threat to IQ'

Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College, London University, has done some research suggesting that emails, text and phone messages have a negative impact on IQ. In fact the average IQ loss in the studies commissioned by Hewlett Packard was 10 points, or more than double the average loss in studies of pot users.

It gives a whole new meaning to smoke breaks. In the information technology age workers might have to smoke a little weed every once in a while to get their brain cells back. That is not the exact conclusion the study draws, but the implications are widespread. Other findings mentioned in the article include that a third of respondents felt that answering text messages and emails during face to face meetings with other people had become acceptable and is seen as a sign of diligence. And the finding that two-thirds of respondents look at their work email while they are off or on vacation.

Battle of the code-names

Michael Hyatt says of the Longhorn moniker for the someday possibly released version of the Windows Operating System "Sadly, some would say that this aptly describes what Windows has become. A bloated cow that, when provoked, can become 'dangerous and uncontrollable.'"

It was particularly fitting after participating in this thread via email today. It is probably a good thing then that Copeland never made it out the door.

Google Satellite Maps and American History

It seems that Apple once was forced to remove references to Groom Lake from its products. I wonder if Google will have to do the same with this map. Google has done a great job of adding satellite images to their mapping product. I wonder what the aliens will do now that their once secret landing spot is so readily visible? :-)

Don Park has another use for Google Maps, picking out bicycle routes.

Update: Some truly amazing images can be seen in looking at the history in this view of the history of atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site. Subsidence craters from many of the hundreds of underground nuclear tests conducted by the United States and United Kingdom are visible.

KISS

I spent some time this evening searching for the way to repeat the mac to mac migration that is offered the first time you launch a new macintosh computer. Several web searches and delving into /System/Library/Core Services were not productive. However, sitting right there in the Utilities folder is Setup Assistant which is for just this purpose. Remember to Keep It Simple Stupid!

DirecWAY, Ground Control & XML-RPC Redux

I've written previously about the problem with DirecWAY which I purchase through their reseller Ground Control. DirecWAY has a problem with their web accelerator that breaks XML-RPC calls between this site and others. Today I found it breaks XML being sent to eBay through the eBay API as well.

The first response I get when I tried to approach them is that the application I'm using must be the problem. Since they don't know that XML-RPC is they figure it must be me. So, here's what I did. Setup a web-proxy that sends web-requests on a port other than port 80. XML-RPC calls work just fine when using the proxy. Switch to port 80 where DirecWAY has Web Accellerator running and see the web surfing speeds remain the same but now all your XML-RPC calls will be truncated.

Sometimes a VAR such as Ground Control can be very helpful in these situations. On the other hand they can do what Ground Control has done and say that well, they're not sure what to do. DirecWAY tells them everything is working correctly. So, of course it is. Neither Ground Control nor DirecWAY seem to understand networking well enough to appreciate the testing that I've done and accept the meaning of those results. I guess it is time to redouble the effort to get DSL out here.

Open source

As I noted recently I'd had some difficulties with closed-source software. I also worked with some open-source software that I had a problem with. The difference in the two ended up being that with the closed-source software I spent several weeks trying in vain to get the problem resolved (which I did today). With the open-source I posted here and within an hour had the answers and a great new place to find information.

The decline and fall of the Google empire

Dave Winer says "the thing that made Google different is that you treated us decently while the earlier search engines forgot who we were, and were treating us like eyeballs, not people."

The comment is part of a discussion on the way Apple is treating some of it's supporters in suing them for releasing trade secrets. I had a conversation earlier with a librarian blogger about the decline and fall of Google. I didn't start using Google because they treated anyone decently. I started googling things for the same reason I imagine most of their other users did - consistently better search results.

TimeMatters on OS X

I've been wrestling the last few weeks with TimeMatters on OS X. It seems to almost work. I've put together a long list of the fixes that are necessary to get it running. Too bad they're not documented on the TimeMatters site yet. I'll get them posted as I can. After a complete re-install today the administration tool does not seem to be communicating with the database. Drat. Almost had it licked.

When I get a bit more time too I'll write about last night's marathon Sandy Valley CAC meeting. It is pretty wild to see the numbers of stop-n-shop stores that developers try to convince us the town can support. I fear a few years down the road we'll look back at all the abandoned strip malls and rotting gas pumps and wonder what ever possessed us to allow such a thing.

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