Super Ginormous

Category: Technology

Articles on Technology, Gadgets and more.

  • Wherefor art thou, Basecamp?

    UPDATE: It appears the problem has been resolved. Though I am still curious to know what happened…

    Is it just me, or is Basecamp (and all of 37Signals’ websites) down now? None of their sites is resolving for me now. I know they just moved their servers recently…and perhaps this is related to that move somehow.

    A TraceRoute is showing that one of their servers is unreachable…

    69.36.39.150 ASN=18462[Destination Unreachable] burnham.37signals.com.

    I’m sure similar tests on other URLs would yield similar results.

    This outage concerns me because we use the Premium level Basecamp plan to manage all of our projects. When Basecamp is offline, it effects our ability to work efficiently (especially given our dependancy on this app now…) It begs the question now … what will 37Signals do to compensate users effected by their outage? And is a hosted offsite solution really the best thing for our business? I’m not sure, but ActiveCollab is looking pretty good right now…

  • New Media and Higher Ed

    As a geek, I take for granted the technology that I use on a daily basis. I read RSS feeds through FeedDemon several times during the day. I blog occasionally. I visit Wikipedia several times a week either to look up information or to make sure spammers aren’t screwing articles of interest to me. I also listen to a number of podcasts, such as Desiring God Radio and LostCasts. I use these technologies to stay abreast of the latest news, trends and technology out there that is important to me. Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis: these are all “tools” that would be extremely beneficial for use in Higher Education.

    In preparing for my speech I learned a lot about new media technologies and their use in higher education and, frankly, I was surprised by what I learned.

    Of the 35 colleges and universities in the University System of Georgia, only three had a publicly available (i.e. on the homepage, news or admissions page) RSS feed – Armstrong Atlantic University, University of West Georgia, and Darton College. Only two of the 35 schools had podcasts – Armstrong Atlantic University and Georgia College and State University.

    Why aren’t schools taking advantage of these new technologies? Based on the feedback I received from workshop attendees it comes down to:

    • Cost
    • Server Capabilities/Restricitions
    • Technology Access
    • Knowledge/Implementation Limitations

    The good news is – many are in the process of implementing some or all of these tools into public and private portions of their website. This is good news for students, faculty and alumni alike.

    By utilizing technology that is out there, and gaining in popularity, they can avoid having to play catch up once the general public “adopts” them.

  • Fear

    We all fear something, be it death, snakes, spiders, etc. My fear is public speaking. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, though, “the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
    I conquered my fear by giving a presentation at the Georgia Educational Advancement Council Summer Conference at Augusta State University this past Friday. I’m still amazed I agreed to speak at the engagement with so little time to prepare, but given the topic – New Media 101 (Blogs, Wikis, Chatrooms, and more) – I felt like I could handle it. In attendance at my workshop were 40-50 University System of Georgia employees from institutions all over the state. I had no idea what their depth of knowledge would be, no idea what the format of the discussion would be… I just showed up to do my best. A few minutes in, it was pretty evident that there would be a consistent back and forth between what I was presenting and questions from the attendees. This worked out perfectly.

    I was worried going in about doing well, mis-speaking, getting something factually wrong, etc. – but in the end, I did okay. I built all of these “worse case scenarioes” up in my mind trying to defeat myself before I even got started. As my boss told me before going into this… “You’re the expert here. You know this stuff. You’re going to do alright.” And he was right.

    I survived the presentation, got over my fears of speaking in public, and sent people on their way equipped with the knowledge I shared in my presentation. Thank God. :)

  • Flock Revisited

    Last October, I blogged about the availability of the first Flock Developer Preview. After several months of silence, the Flock team just unveiled the first Public Beta (0.7) of Flock.

    With the new release, Flock’s also inveiled a new site design (Nice work, Mr. Veloso.) What sets Flock apart from other browsers is the inclusion of “social” web services within the browser. The tight integration with del.icio.us and flickr and blogging are pretty sweet.

    My initial impression of Flock was that it was a nice browser – and the social aspects of it definitely set it apart from Firefox and Internet Explorer – but I’m not sure how well the general public will take it. I’m not sure how I feel now.

    Because it’s been quite some time since I last used Flock, I’ve decided to give Flock another try. We’ll see how it works out…

  • New Media 101

    I just found out today that I’ll be making a presentation at the Georgia Education Advancement Council (GEAC) Summer Conference on the campus of Augusta State University next Friday. I’ll be speaking about “new” technology – blogs, wikis, podcasts, chats, etc. – and how they can improve an institution’s ability to communicate with alumni, prospective students, etc.

    I’m looking forward to the opportunity.

  • MacBook, Whoa.

    MacBook from AppleSo, let me get this straight, Apple… It’s $1299 for the top-end white MacBook, and it’s $1499 for the black MacBook, and the only differences being the enclosure color and 20Gb extra hard drive space? You’re not serious, right? Should we expect black to cost more in the future on all Mac products?
    Sure, one could argue their supply of black MacBook’s will be in higher demand, hence the higher price… but it couldn’t be that much more to produce … Certainly not $200 more to produce. What’s the deal here???

  • Seven

    Internet Explorer 7 Logo

    Microsoft just released Windows Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2.

    I’ve had some issues with past releases, so I am going to approach this latest release with a bit more caution… I can’t really get away with a statement like that without clarifying, can I?

    I installed IE7, Beta 1 and a subsequent candidate release… It worked great, for the most part. My problems with it started when Network Neighborhood in XP started to crash every time I launched it. Then other things tied in with the browser started acting buggy… xml rendering, printing, etc. I finally decided to remove it. Had a heck of a time doing so. After two unsuccessful uninstallation attempts I was able to get it off of my machine. I’ve still had some issues with my system ever since IE7 left its mark… but it’s at least been more stable.

    So, as I said earlier, I’ll approach this new release with some degree of caution. Beta software means not ready for primetime. I gotta remember that :)

    I am certainly intrigued by what’s being offered now… Microsoft has setup a site devoted to IE7 Add-Ons, with plugins galore to help you extend Internet Explorer. CSS rendering was improved in the last release candidate… but that enhancement should be present in this latest release – and probable refined even further. Add to that tabbed browsing, web search right from the toolbar, advanced printing, easy discovery, reading and subscription to RSS feeds, and much more and IE7 is quickly becoming the browser most of us had hoped it would become five years ago.

    I won’t bash Microsoft (much) for slacking off of IE development for as long as they have. I’m sure they had their reasons. I’m glad they’ve decided to refocus their efforts and truly make IE7 a better product than its predecessor.

    Will I switch back to IE from Firefox? I dunno. Not any time soon. (And definitely not on my Mac.) But I can sleep better at night knowing that IE7 is going to be better for all of us.

  • Blinksale

    Blinksale Screenshot

    Blinksale 2.0 just launched (unofficially). I’ve been using it for since June 05, and I love it. It’s easy to use. Easy to maintain. I forget what I’ve got out there without it. It’s well worth the monthly investment.

    Blinksale is perfect for someone like me who doesn’t do enough work to justify the expense of something like QuickBooks to manage invoices, payments, etc. I’d definitely check them out if you’re in the market for an easier way to send out invoices online. Click here for more info on Blinksale.

    (more…)

  • Bootcamp

    Apple BootcampIf you’ve been on the fence – like a lot of people have been – about buying one of the new Intel Macs, Apple’s come through in a big way today, to make that decision a lot easier for you. Enter Apple Bootcamp, a new technology that will be present in OS X 10.5, but is now available for Intel Macs. Now you can dual-boot Mac OS X with Windows XP. (The End Times are near, I can feel it.)

    Now that this is available, I can’t help but ask myself: Is a Mac Intel in my future? (I’ll have to ask my wife, hehe.)

  • Mobile Post

    I figured I’d give mobile posting a try while I mess with WordPress. I’ve already noticed a few issues I’ll need to address, but they’re relatively minor.

    • The frontend needs a handheld styleshhet. It didn’t render quite the way I would have hoped in PIE.
    • The admin login doesn’t bring you into the Admin section after logging in. This hould be relatively easy to fix.
    • I also need to tweak the design further. I love the Hemingway theme, but I need to make it more my own…

    I am still on track to launch this site on 5/1, along with the Spring 2006 CSS Reboot. But I am looking to push it live a little earlier without the final look in place, just so I can reestablish a presence, albeit a very small one, online. Make sure you sign up to receive updates via the signup form at cdharrison.com.