Random

Phil Wainewright on Wi-Fi

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AppSwitching Diary: Web Based Applications With Wi-Fi WiFi's combination of broadband and wireless fundamentally changes the equation. Once you can take your broadband connection with you, then the balance tilts decisively in favor of web-based applications that you can access wherever you are, irrespective of their or your location.

In this post, he mentions his experience using a T-Mobile Hotspot at a Starbucks. I have had an account for a few months and find it quite useful. When traveling between schools, or between meetings, I find myself with some time to kill. I can now easily stop at a Starbucks, have a cup of coffee, and catch up on email, or other such work.

Just recently discovered that a coffee shop near my school has free Wi-Fi. That is where this post is coming from.

O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference

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O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2003 Join the leaders from the many worlds of pervasive computing to explore and invent the new Internet infrastructure and culture. Speakers include: Howard Rheingold, Alan Kay, Clay Shirky, Eric Bonabeau, Tim O'Reilly, David S. Isenberg and many others.

I attended last year and found it to be one of the better conferences I have ever attended. This year's lineup of speakers and topics looks even better. While the registration fee is a bit steep compared to regular education conferences, they do offer a 50% discount for academic instructors. From talking to conference chair Rael Dornfest, teachers qualifiy for that. Now I need to find some funding.... :-)

Pointer to Discussion Board Reviews

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Discussion Boards
Found this nice Hot Scripts site on discussion boards today. It offers a nifty little quick review that covers features, platforms, cost (all have free versions), ratings, etc. on over 150 types of boards. You also get links to the download and home page sites for each board. I'm setting one up for my sons' ball team to use. [The Educator Asylum News] This reference points to a listing of many discussion boards. Have been looking for such a resource and found it this morning thanks to NetNewsWire, and The Educator Asylum....

Portland's Budget Woes Make the NY Times

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New York Times: Schools Ending Year Early to Cut Costs But nowhere except Oregon have so many districts announced plans to severely shorten the academic year. The superintendent here, James R. Scherzinger, has ordered administrators to prepare to cut 15 days from the calendar, and he said that unless voters approve a tax increase in a referendum on Jan. 28, a prospect pollsters say is quite unlikely, he will urge a cut that totals 24 days.

The nation learns that Oregon can't fund its schools...

Customer Owned Networks vs. Telcos...

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Shirky: Customer-owned Networks and ZapMail To understand what's going to happen to the telephone companies this year thanks to WiFi (otherwise known as 802.11b) and Voice over IP (VoIP) you only need to know one story: ZapMail.

The business Fred Smith imagined being in -- build a network that's cheap to run but charge customers as it if were expensive -- is the business the telephone companies are in today.

Another interesting article by Clay Shirky about the growth of Wi-Fi and Voice Over IP and how the proliferation of these technologies is challenging the business models of phone companies....

Apples New Laptop...

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Apple's New iSUV By Paul Boutin Jobs and company have hit the same consumer brain button that keeps the H2 on backorder. While everyone else was out cost-cutting, Apple built a lust object. Sitting among the rows of jaded industry journalists at Jobs' feet, two things were obvious: Nobody, but nobody, really needs this computer. And everybody wants one.