• Jokosher
  Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio. With it you can create and record music, podcasts and more, all from an integrated simple environment.
  (tags: music software opensource audio linux ubuntu sound)
• NeC’réation – La boutique – SLOP
  SLOP is a tool that converts builds made into Second Life or OpenSim in a format that is compatible with either one of the worlds.
  (tags: secondlife opensim software tools)
• Livestation | Watch instant, interactive, live TV on your desktop
  Watch the world’s leading TV channels in the highest quality plus your favourite web channels, all in one free player.
  (tags: video web2.0 software tv)
• SCHOOL for TOMORROW :: ▪ About Us ▪
  School for Tomorrow (SFT) is a private, nonprofit secondary school (grades 6-12) opening in September 2009 in Montgomery County, Maryland with a one-of-a-kind, cutting edge education model designed for the 21st century.
  (tags: education learning school)
• edtechpost » PLE Diagrams
  As preparation for a workshop I am giving this fall I thought it would be interesting to collect together all the diagrams of PLEs I could find, as a compare and contrast sort of exercise. Dave Cormier.
  (tags: web2.0 education learning elearning ple)
• Learning Technologies Centre Research Blog » Systematization of Education: Room for PLEs?
  LMS’ speak the language of the current power structure in education: control, accountability, manageability. PLEs, in contrast, are concerned with individuals and personal learning – at least a partial return to ancient education models. Most discussions of PLEs address the individual learning opportunities they afford…but fail to move into a discussion of the reasons why they are still fringe tools. And will continue to be so until power relationships change.
  (tags: education learning elearning ple lms web2.0)

• | The Public Domain |
  James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception.
  (tags: opensource creativecommons copyright)
• Prof tries to dial down greenhouse emissions from cellphone use
  A report by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative says the power it takes to send and receive signals from cellphones and other wireless electronics creates the same amount of carbon dioxide per year as that generated by the aviation industry. According the report, 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is generated worldwide each year to keep communications towers buzzing.
  (tags: technology mobile sustainability)
• The Internet Tidal Wave
  Bill Gates wrote a paper titled The Internet Tidal Wave in 1995. It’s a concept that’s been used quite extensively since then. This was the document used as prove of the real concern od Bill Gates about Netscape's browser (Navigator) on the Anti-trust process at the and of the Browser War I.
  (tags: internet software)
• ViOS – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  ViOS (Visual Internet Operating System) was a client-server software system designed by Julian Lombardi in the mid-1990s and built by a team he led at ViOS Inc. from 1999-2001 as a way of spatially organizing all Internet-deliverable resources (including web pages) into a massively-scaled multiuser 3D environment with users of the system represented as customizable avatars. The basic concept behind the "ViOS 3D Internet Viewer" was to take the virtual world of the entire Internet and adapt it to a physical representation of large virtual landscape, complete with mountains, rivers and cities. This approach was taken because of the belief that virtual landscapes resembling our physical world are more conducive to exploration and social interaction than the flat and abstracted world of the current document-based Internet.
  (tags: internet virtualworlds metaverse 3d interface)
• One in five teens engaged in 'tech sex' – web – Technology – smh.com.au
  One in five US teens has sent nude or partially-clothed images of themselves to someone by email or mobile phone and twice as many have sent sexually suggestive electronic messages, a survey shows.
  (tags: onlinesafety technology teens)
• Export your Tumblr blog to WordPress « Web 0.2 – Hao Chen
  Fresh off the press, just finished coding a tool to that will export all the posts in your Tumblr blog into an XML file. You can then import that XML file into your WordPress.com blog or self-hosted WordPress blog.
  (tags: tools wordpress)

In (belated) honour of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here is the document presented as an infographic movie (with a political message about Aung San Suu Kyi at the end):

via: information aesthetics

It’s important to bring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into the forefront of our awareness from time to time, as the fight to bring human rights to all is still an ongoing process.

• KickYouTube – Download YouTube Videos
  KickYouTube serves up an elegantly simple solution: simply go to the YouTube video you’d like to download and insert the word “kick” at the start of the URL. The final url would look something like http://kickyoutube.com/watch?v=39pZ1r3MG2Q, and options to download the clip are provided at the top of the page.
  (tags: video webtools web2.0)
• Real Life will Trump Second Life, Microsoft Says – PC World
  Microsoft's Craig Mundie has dismissed the potential of "synthetic virtual worlds" like Second Life, saying that the potential for immersive environments will be likely realized through 3D tools that capture and model the real world.
  (tags: secondlife virtualworlds metaverse augmentedreality mirrorworlds)
• Hillary Clinton and the Action Bias
  The action bias, or the desire to do something rather than nothing when you have just been through a terrible experience, plays a powerful role in our lives. It influences individuals and companies, investors and leaders. You can see the action bias on display in current thinking on the housing and economic crises, in the bitter debates over the war in Iraq — even in discussions about how to fix a football team that's a perennial loser.
  (tags: psychology economics)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman (pdf)
  The waning days of the 20th century seemed like an Orwellian nightmare: laws preventing publication of scientific research on software; laws preventing sharing software; an overabundance of software patents preventing development; and enduser license agreements that strip the user of all freedoms—including ownership, privacy, sharing, and understanding how their software works. This collection of essays and speeches by Richard M. Stallman addresses many of these issues.
  (tags: software philosophy foss)
• Exploring Second Life with Viwogeo
  Use ViWoGeo to find places of interest that exist in the real world as well as out in the digital metaverse. At current the database contains links to Second Life.
  (tags: secondlife virtualworlds metaverse 3d maps mashup mixedreality)
• Foreclosure Alley – SoCal Connected
  SoCal Connected tracked down some surreal sights associated with the crisis – a company that specializes in removing whatever people leave behind in their foreclosed homes. The process is called a “trashout” – a term the company came up with because it perfectly describes what happens. Everything that’s left is dumped in a trailer and taken to the landfill.
  (tags: trends economics video)

The Blog is Dead! – SlideShare

To watch a video of Yongfook’s presentation you will have to go to: Ustream.TV: Yongfook talks about the move from blogging to lifestreaming and his Sweetcron, as I can’t embed ustream.tv videos here on WordPress.com (sigh).

You can read more on his blog post: The Blog is Dead! › Yongfook – Web Producer

I agree with what Yongfook is saying in this presentation – that people are using blogs less and other online services more.

I’ve come to realise that this situation suits me fine. I’m not much of a blogger, but I like capturing, sharing and somtimes commenting on what I find on the Web. I prefer to keep my blog for longer reflections.

You may have noticed that I have been a lot more active on the web of late. I’ve been Twittering more, I’ve been saving my bookmarks to delicious.com again and I’ve started a tumblelog at tumblr.com (which posts to Twitter via twitterfeed, via my identi.ca account). I’m currently streamlining my workflow so I can easily capture and share everything I come across on the Web that I find interesting or potentialy useful.

Eventually I’m going to move away from hosted Web 2.0 services (more about why I’m doing that later). I’m currently setting-up my own self-hosted online tools, using free and open software wherever possible. As part of this process I will be experimenting with Yongfook’s lifestreaming software, Sweetcron.

As an aside, I agree with Yongfook when he says WordPress is bloated. It’s become overly complicated and slow to use (on WordPress.com, at least). It’s suffering from featuritis (they’ve even added an RSS reader called “Readomattic” – only for WordPress.com blogs!) It makes a great Content Management System, but is not so good for quick and easy posting. It seems to be trying to be everything to everybody.

This is why I like microblogging with Twitter and, more recently, tumblelogging with tumblr – they are so much easier to use.

• Soon it will be time to start over, again (Scripting News)
  We're now reaching the end of a cycle, we're seeing feature wars. That's what's going on between Facebook and Google, both perfectly timing the rollouts of their developer proposition to coincide with the others' — on the very same day! I don't even have to look at them and I am sure that they're too complicated. Because I've been around this loop so many times. The solution to the problem these guys are supposedly working on won't come in this generation, it can only come when people start over. They are too mired in the complexities of the past to solve this one. Both companies are getting ready to shrink. It's the last gasp of this generation of technology.
  (tags: technology trends web)

If you are interested in community formation and have an hour to spare you should check out this presentation by Seth Godin on Vimeo where he talks about the ideas in his book Tribes.

Here are the slides from the presentation:

Seth Godin on Tribes – SlideShare

Update – 13/12/08: As per Andrew’s comment below the Vimeo embed is working now. Thanks to Andrew for posting the video online. See Seth Godin On How To Build And Lead Your Tribe. : Mixergy.com

I would have embedded the video here as well, but when I tried I got this message:

Seth Godin on Tribes–via Mixergy.com

Some “feature”! I’m not sure what Andrew Warner has against WordPress.com. At least Seth lets me embed his slides.

• Who Runs Ubuntu Linux: The Works With U 1000 | Works With U
  The Works With U 1000 identifies businesses and organizations across the globe that have made the move to Ubuntu on servers, desktops and/or mobile devices. We are not suggesting that Ubuntu is the best solution for all companies and organizations. Rather, Works With U strives to help organizations identify how, why and where Ubuntu is gaining critical mass.
  (tags: ubuntu opensource linux software directory)
• The Levelator from The Conversations Network
  So what is The Levelator? It’s software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It’s much more than those tools, and it’s much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler’s application window, and a few moments later you’ll find a new version which just sounds better.
  (tags: tools software audio)
• Technology Enhanced Learning » Publications Education 2.0? » Designing the web for teaching and learning.
  Despite valuable early contributions to the web 2.0, much of the discussion within the education community has been speculative. This Commentary sets out to challenge the confident portrayal of web 2.0 by many educationalists in terms of an imminent transformation of learning and teaching. Careful thought has therefore been given to how technologists, educators and learners can best shape the fast-changing internet in the near future. It aims to explore how education can change the web, as well as how the web can change education.
  (tags: elearning education research web2.0)
• Posthaste WP Plugin » jon.smajda.com/blog
  WP plugin that adds a Twitter-style quick post box on your blog. Inspired by the Prologue theme.
  (tags: wordpress plugins themes)
• ePresence / Webcasting
  The world’s first rich media webcasting solution – and it’s open source.
  (tags: web2.0 webcasting streaming opensource)
• EDUCAUSE Review Magazine, Volume 43, Number 5, September/October 2008 | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
  “Back to <virtual> school”. Issue on education in virtual worlds.
  (tags: virtualworlds secondlife education elearning web2.0)
• AT&T : Wholesale : Trends White Paper : Executive Summary : The Business Impacts of Social Networking
  Social networking fosters collective intelligence, collaborative work and support communities. Tools and behaviors from the consumer world are now making the transition to the corporate world, with diverse implications for changing the way businesses operate. This paper explores 10 opportunities presented by social networking, along with 10 associated challenges.
  (tags: socialsoftware socialnetworking research)
• NMC releases Horizon Report focused on Emerging Technologies in Australia & New Zealand | nmc
  The NMC today released the first in a new series of regional and sector-based Horizon Reports with the Horizon Report: 2008 Australia-New Zealand Edition.
  (tags: elearning education technology)
• The eLearning Guild : Research
  Home of the Guild Research 360° Reports. Our reports illuminate best-practices, trends, benchmarks, and industry suppliers and are based on data collected in more than 32,000 member profiles and by in-depth surveys on various topics of critical importance. Each survey we conduct is designed by a crack team of industry thought leaders.
  (tags: elearning education research)

via English :: “El futuro del dinero” which has the text version.

YouTube – SekaiCameraDemoVideo of TechCrunch50

via Learning Matters

A fascinating comparison between Obama’s bottom-up leadership approach and open source software.

Via Matt Assay who provides the transcript:

(Obama) said his campaign began with a simple idea: “Change begins from the bottom up.” That’s not the way the U.S. government works. The seminal essay–this is a little wonk-speak here–in computer software architecture is called The Cathedral and the Bazaar. And the cathedral is the old way of doing things. It’s the way Microsoft builds software. We’re going to do it our way, worship at our church or you don’t get to do it at all.

But the open-source movement in computer engineering is people get together from all over the world and build computer software bottom-up. Is Barack Obama going to be the old top-down industrial-age cathedral leader, or is he going to be the fellow we heard tonight, this new generation of leadership that is very bottom-up for the communications age?

As Matt Asay puts it:

For those who missed CNN’s coverage of the U.S. presidential election, you missed a real treat. Alex Castellanos, a Republican consultant, discussed President-elect Barack Obama’s “bottom-up” approach to leadership, comparing it to the open-source movement (and chiding traditional Washington “top-down” government as akin to the “old way” that Microsoft builds software).

It’s an open question as to whether Obama will actually live up to his hype, and Castellanos’, but I agree that Obama’s groundswell approach to leadership, along with his call for help from the masses to construct the government they desire, is very open source.

Indeed. Here’s hoping this approach he used so successfully in his campaign will be continued in his approach to governing.

Edit: Oh… I forgot to say: Yay! (regarding Obama’s win)

A great little animated film by Leo Murray about climate change, and the urgent need to take action to reduce our carbon emissions if we are to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

Read background information, read the script or download the film at Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip.

Sick of Twitter going down all the time? Sick of the sight of this annoying Fail Whale error message?

(Image by daysies – CC-by-nc-nd)

Well, I’ve got more Fail Whale than you can poke a harpoon at today!

Irritating as it is to see the mighty Fail Whale, I have always thought the image itself was quite beautiful. It turns out the artist – Yiying Lu – is living right here in Sydney. The original image and the rest of her work can be found on her website.

What I was surprised to discover (not that surprised though, since this is the Interwebs after all!) was that there is a Fail Whale Fan Club – a site for “one of coolest whales we know” and a place to “poke fun at the people who seem to take online social network downtime a little too seriously.”

There’s a gallery showcasing a whale-load (yuk yuk) of brilliant Community Generated Fail Whale Art on Flickr. A full text search for “failwhale” on flickr reveals heaps more. It seems we have a meme!

What’s your favourite piece of Fail Whale user-generated art? I particularly like this one by GioLovesyou:

Considering the dramas Alan Levine has been having with trying to get an iPhone (and coverage where he lives) he might appreciate this version by SeanOsteen (CC-by-nc-sa):

There’s also a lot of sexy Fail Whale merchandise.

There’s even a Fail Whale party!

Seeing all of this user-generated art makes me wonder… is this how people empower themselves when they feel disempowered by a site they have no control over, but have come to depend on for some of their social connection, goes down?

Of course, if you really want to empower yourself and avoid the Twitter Fail Whale you could start using Laconica – the distributed, open source alternative to Twitter.

(Image by camera obscura – CC-by-nc)

I’m a big believer in open source philosophies, free software and decentralised systems, so I want to do my bit to give a plug for Laconica – a microblogging system that offers an open source, distributed alternative to Twitter.

So, what is Laconica?

According to the article, Twitter for the enterprise:

Laconica is an open source microblogging platform—a network service software that allows participants to post short messages on a Web page, which then can be read by peers and other interested parties. The messages can also be sent out to instant messaging clients, to cell-phones as a short message service (SMS)-based dispatch, and to other conduits.

Laconica is different from Twitter for several reasons. One is that it is available as a stand-alone software platform available without cost under an open source license.

So anyone can setup a Laconica server. There is a growing list of Laconica servers here – http://laconi.ca/Main/ListOfServers. Currently the most popular service is identi.ca. My account there is http://identi.ca/seanfitz.

Twitter is often down due to scaling problems, and they have reduced the number of features to reduce the load. For example, they removed the useful “With Others” tab that allowed you to view someone else’s conversation with their friends. With anyone being able set up their own Laconica server many of these load-related problems should be avoided.

Laconica also can offer federated messaging: Two different installations of Laconica can be linked so that a message on one service can be relayed to users of the other service.

It’s this federated messaging that really excites me. It means I can follow someone on any Laconica service, not just the one I’m registered with. This is pretty cool. Laconica is a truly distributed microblogging service.

Laconica also supports OpenID, the single log-on identity service, which is another plus.

See a full list of current and upcoming features here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconica

Content on Laconica is Creative Commons licensed

This is the only thing about Laconica I don’t feel 100% comfortable about – when you sign up for identi.ca you agree to license your contributions under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license.

Don’t get me wrong, I support the idea of producing work under Creative Commons licenses, it’s just that I would rather have choice over which license I apply to my content, like I do at flickr.

Besides, even though my microblogging may not produce any great works of art, I prefer to put a by-nc-sa license on my content because I don’t want to see it being restricted for commercial use and potentially sold back to me.

Private microblogging networks

Being able to host your own Laconica server means that you can create your own private microblogging network. As the Twitter for the enterprise article points out, this could have some important uses in business:

Deploying Laconica within an enterprise can help employees from different parts of the organization share information, Prodromou said. The software can partition off different user groups for collaboration, or have users communicate with the world—or organization—at large. Organizations can also set up conduits to personnel at other organizations running their own microblogging services.

Laconica in an educational setting

Being able to set up your own server also means it may have some uses in an educational setting. As a general rule I support web services being on the open web, but there are some instances in educational settings where private services are appropriate, such as with younger students, or vulnerable students, or other areas where Duty of Care is an issue. I’m a realist, so I also accept that sometimes private networks can provide a stepping stone for institutions that are just too nervous to let their students use tools on the open web.

A Laconica network could be a great way to provide a peer learning support network. As SMS support is improved (it only works with some networks at the moment) a Laconica network could also potentially be used to broadcast information to students.

Supporting the distributed microbloggerverse

I hope more people jump on board with Laconica and identi.ca and help create a distributed microbloggerverse. As an open source project the more people who get involved the faster it will improve.

If nothing else, even if Laconica doesn’t replace Twitter, or become anywhere as big as Twitter, it should at least keep them their toes knowing that they have an open source competitor.

So I think it’s worth checking out at least. And besides, if this really is Lawrence Lessig on identi.ca (thanks gnuchris), then all the really cool people will be there.

By the way – if you use FriendFeed it’s now possible to follow identi.ca updates over there.

(Image by sridgway – CC-by)

From time to time I’m going to post a bunch of links to news items that I find interesting, want to draw attention to and make some brief commentary on, but that don’t warrant a post of their own, and that I don’t necessarily want to post to del.icio.us for later reference.

Welcome to my inaugural “Quick Links.”

****************************************

TechCrunch – Is This The Future Of Search?

Google is testing a Digg-like interface for search, where users can vote search results up or down and add comments. The human element is added to Google’s magical secret search algorithm.

****************************************

TechCrunch – Google Walks Away From Digg Deal

Google had been in negotiations to acquire Digg, but the deal fell through.

As I read about the negotiations I couldn’t help but think about that famous Epic 2015 video in which Google merges with Amazon to become Googlezon, takes over the online world and develops a “social recommendation engine.”

Oh well, at least Google have their own social search engine experiment from the previous item to fall back on.

****************************************

MySpace support bolsters OpenID, but the logins won’t be portable

Popular social networking site MySpace said Tuesday it will join the open source authentication platform OpenID, further bolstering the idea of a unified system to carry online identities between Web sites. But for now, MySpace’s OpenID accounts cannot be used elsewhere.

So the good news is… one of the largest web services is supporting OpenID, joining Google, Yahoo!, AOL and other big players, but the bad news is…

However, the implementation of OpenID on MySpace is still incomplete.

The social networking site is what is called a “provider,” which means the site can create new OpenIDs. But to actually use that OpenID login created on MySpace on another OpenID-supported site, MySpace needs to become a “relying party.”

Apparently Yahoo! is only a provider too, at this stage.

I didn’t know that about OpenID… you learn something everyday. Hopefully MySpace and Yahoo! will come on board and become relying party and make OpenID really useful.

****************************************

New Foundation Wants to Bridge the Gaps Between Open Web Tools

Speaking at the OSCON Open Source Convention, Six Apart’s David Recordon recently announced the Open Web Foundation, a meta-standards organization dedicated to smoothing the way for large businesses to embrace open web standards like OAuth, OpenID and more.

While there is already the Data Portability Workgroup, which acts as an open standards evangelist, the new Open Web Foundation aims to do the behind-the-scenes dirty work. The goal is to ensure that the various standards, like OAuth and OpenID have consistency, a legal framework and communication between them.

Sounds like a great idea… I wonder if they will be covering open standards for the metaverse.

****************************************

IBM says traditional e-mail, phones and desktops will go away

I agree with IBM that 3D immersive environments are going to play a big role in work place communication.

IBM foresees the demise of e-mail, phones and desktops as unified communications makes it possible to replace them with laptops and other mobile devices.

Instant messaging will step up as the preferred means of written communication around which other communications modes – voice, video, conferencing – will revolve, he predicts.

Rhodin demonstrated a virtual conference using technology similar to Second Life that creates a conference space that becomes familiar and in which participants feel comfortable. In combination with other unified communications features, this can make for more productive conferences, he says.

Toward that end, IBM announced at VoiceCon that it is teaming with Forterra Systems to integrate Lotus Sametime with Forterra’s graphical collaboration software. The goal is to create a virtual environment in which groups can meet to run through simulations of physical events and draw on relevant experts as needed.

****************************************

ABC launches free net TV service

THE ABC’s voracious and highly successful push into the digital domain has taken another mighty leap with the launch of ABC iView.

The free internet TV service, which went live last night and is available at abc.net.au/iview, is the first real attempt by an Australian network to deliver comprehensive content online.

So our very own Aunty (as the ABC is affectionately called here in Australia) is making as many of its TV shows available for online streaming as possible.

Surely this is the future of television.

Unlike the BBC’s iPlayer, the ABC’s iView does not consolidate the public broadcaster’s television content with its radio content; but like iPlayer, the in-built video player is geo-blocked, or unable to be accessed internationally.

Disappointing, but I guess they have their reasons.

ISP provider iiNet also announced last night it would include the ABC’s new iView service quota-free for all customers.

Woot! Guess who’s with iiNet?

I don’t see Bananas with Pyjamas up there yet.