General

Microsoft IE ActiveX Update - Preview

http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Technology/microsoft-ie-activex-update/ Plugins are about to be crippled in IE due to a patent dispute. No autorunning Flash could actually be a blessing, I think.

Information: two approaches

This post has nothing to do with e-learning - or does it? This Michael Crichton op-ed in the New York Times caught my eye this morning. Normally I'm not so much of a Crichton fan - I loved his books when I was younger, but his recent anti-environmentalist

General

Wasting time at the cutting edge

I am hopelessly addicted to Babble. I've always been a bit of a Boggle fan, but having a single puzzle every day that I can log into from any web browser and keep open in the background as I do my work is enough to keep me coming

Bullfighter removes document bull

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/business/fight-the-corporate-bull-with-bullfighter-160740.php Bullfighter is a Microsoft Office plugin that highlights excess jargon and marketing speak. If only we could get a version that worked with people as well as documents ...

Disabled users to test websites

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4816118.stm A very simple way to see if your website adheres to disability law: get someone disabled to test it. A genius business idea and incredibly important in public service web design.

General

PHP hacker reading list

This should be of interest to anyone dabbling in Elgg programming. IBM have put together a recommended reading list for PHP programmers, including suggestions for development environments and server stacks to run your scripts against. There are some interesting integration tutorials linked, as well; if anyone wants to create an

General

Blogs don't have brand identity

There's been a kerfuffle in the wider blogosphere lately about Dave Winer's decision to quit blogging. Basically, there seem to be a bunch of people who can't live without reading Scripting News every single day, and are pretty much begging him to reconsider. Michael

General

Web 2.0 e-learning roundup

That said, here are some web 2.0 services that I think might have their uses in education. As ever, I'm not advocating the use of centralised, commercial applications in education; I believe localised open source software most often provides the best solutions. However, the approaches below have

General

Knowing our place in the learning revolution

Lately I've been feeling more and more jaded about the web.  It's not that it's not an amazing invention that's changing the world - clearly it is, and we've only begun to glimpse the possibilities of a connected world.  The

General

DabbleDB: Online App Building For Everyone

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/03/11/dabbledb-online-app-building-for-everyone/ Create web-based database apps with no programming whatsoever. Nice.

General

Sharing music recommendations

I'm going to break with my usual programming to announce my love for the Magnetic Fields album 69 Love Songs. Normally they're not my thing, and I haven't warmed to any of their other albums, but every single track on this one is just

Ubiquitous computing and the future of the eportfolio

True wireless access to the Internet may be the next frontier in the information revolution. Until recently, wireless access has been purely for the home or business: the connection still ends up at a wireless router, which in turn is connected to the Internet via a wire. We keep ours