Web Teacher » News-Politics

Protesting SOPA

vdebolt — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:38:02 +0000

I’m not going dark today, but I am well aware of the potential effects of SOPA/PIPA on web sites. Instead, I choose to share this video that explains the issue. You can take action by signing a petition at Fight for the Future.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

You may also be interested in the lively discussion taking place on BlogHer about danah boyd’s article We need to talk about piracy (but we must stop SOPA first).

As an author, I completely agree with the rights of those who create intellectual property of any kind (words, music, movies, whatever) to be compensated for their work. It’s how we deal with the piracy issue that’s up for debate. That’s what danah boyd is talking about in the article.

Adobe changes approach to Flash Player for Mobile

vdebolt — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:41:27 +0000

Adobe announced yesterday that it will stop developing the Flash Player for mobile devices. They will continue to support the Flash Player on desktop devices.

Their statement said,

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores.

Adobe also claims to be committed to using HTML5 on mobile devices. Adobe has made some moves in the direction of HTML5 in Dreamweaver CS 5 and CS 5.5. (I expect the next version of Dreamweaver to be much more oriented to HTML5.)

When first I “got it” about white privilege

vdebolt — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:37:10 +0000

Have you read the long and extremely well-done post by Adria Richards called Arrington, CNN and Diversity? It speaks to issues of white male privilege from folks like Michael Arrington; it speaks to issues of diversity in tech startups—particularly people of color in tech startups. It speaks to the issue of black entrepreneurs pitching startups at TechCrunch Disrupt. It talks about race-baiting at CNN in the Arrington interview that set this off. Many thoughtful people are quoted on these issues.

This talk about white male privilege reminds me of the first time I sort of “got it” myself. I’m not male, but I am white, and was blithely unaware of what that meant for a good part of my life.

At one point in my life I was consulting the Texas state department of education doing teacher training workshops in cooperative learning. (See my cooperative learning books for an explanation as to why I was doing this.) The two women within the state department of education leading this training were both African American. They set up a training session in a small Texas town for the three of us, plus another trainer who was a high school principal–also African American.

I don’t want to name this Texas town, but I will say they grow some nice peaches down there and they are pretty sure that German immigrants created Texas.

The four of us women drove down together and stayed in a very nice bed and breakfast for the weekend. I remember suggesting we talk a morning walk before the sessions began. I was told that a black woman would have to be crazy to go walking in the street. That sort of set me back and made me think. At lunch, we were to eat in a local restaurant and brew pub. To get to the dining rooms, you had to walk through a bar area. We drove there (no walking) even though it was only about 4 blocks away. Then we made a beeline straight from the front door toward the dining area in the back. A man stepped away from the bar and blocked the progress of one of the women from the state department, asking her what she was doing there.

She told him, rather nicely I thought considering what a jerk he was, and he moved out of the way. I got a glimpse of an idea about attitude among black women and what might generate it.

Our efforts to find an evening meal went well with no trouble from anyone, waitresses included. Then we drove back to the B&B after dark. I wandered across the street to look at a yard full of ceramic frogs that were for sale. All three of the women started yelling at me to get out of there. I asked why–stupidly–and they frantically herded me back into the car talking about fears that the owner would come out with a shotgun to shoot me. They sped off, without even going inside the B&B. It took a while and a stern lecture to me about wandering around after dark before we went back. A lesson learned about the dangers of window shopping while brown.

When we were throwing our luggage in the trunk to go home, a rattle-trap of a pickup rolled by. It backfired. I looked at it, thinking, “Oh, backfire.” All three of the African American women ducked. The instinct to duck was bred from a lot of years of treatment that I had never experienced because of my white skin. Here we were, four equally professional, hard-working women hired to help train the local educators, but three of us were hyper-vigilant and attuned to the possibility of fatal attack. One of us was just beginning to understand what white privilege means.

I wish I could give a weekend like that to a lot of white people I know. There are quite a few men in tech who would benefit from a weekend where they were the only man in a group of women in tech at a conference. I can’t make either of those things happen, but they would be beneficial experiences.

However, I can urge you to read Adria’s entire post and watch her videos and give it some open-minded thought.

You and other bloggers can help generate jobs

vdebolt — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:11:58 +0000

BlogHer is partnering with the folks at Starbucks and Opportunity Finance Network to get the word out about the new “Create Jobs for USA” initiative that will launch on November 1st.

Check out this post by Lisa Stone – Here’s how we can Blog Americans Back to Work.

Here’s how BlogHer explained it.

Starbucks is donating five million dollars to seed a fund at the Opportunity Finance Network, which in turn will provide capital grants to select Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). The CDFIs will provide loans to underserved community businesses, including: small business loans, community center financing, housing project financing and microfinance.

Beginning November 1st, you may donate to this fund through the createjobsforusa.org website, or at Starbucks, and 100% of your donation will go directly to the fund. Donors who contribute $5 or more will receive a red, white and blue wristband with the message “Indivisible.” Every $5 donation will result in $35 in financing to support community businesses, because the CDFI lenders will issue $30 in financing, on average, for each $5 donation. You can read about some of the fantastic success stories at the Create Jobs for America site.

I don’t know about your family, but this economy is having a profound adverse effect on my family. I’m proud of BlogHer for lending their support and their blogging network to spread the word about this project. I hope you will consider giving $5 to this fund.

How Friday Night Lights can Teach us Something about Women in Tech

vdebolt — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:55:40 +0000

Are you a fan of “Friday Night Lights?” Great show, in my opinion. Remember the episode called “Blinders?” That was the episode in which Coach Mac McGill, played by Blue Deckert, made some racist remarks to a reporter. His apology is lame and all the African American players march off the field and refuse to play.

None of the white people on the team, in the town, in the media, and nearly none of the white people on the coaching staff even understand what the black team members are upset about. They just don’t get it – can’t see it, can’t hear it, can’t recognize why it was offensive.

That’s the same situation we have right now with women in tech who are complaining about harassment and sexist behavior from men (both online and in person at conferences). Men in tech aren’t doing much of anything to change the situation. Because they just don’t get it – can’t see it, can’t hear it, can’t recognize why it’s offensive.

What if the men who are online or speaking in public at conferences had to endure vile comments about their appearance, their penis size, their sex partners, their body, who they slept with to get their job, and their gender? Would they get it then?

I think they would. I think if men would stop and think about that for a few minutes – how they would feel if the situation was reversed and aimed at them – they would get it. And they would help change it. If you don’t see it, can’t hear it, and can’t recognize it, you can’t change it.

It’s time to change it.

Cross-posted in a somewhat expanded and altered form at BlogHer.

It’s time to speak up about online harassment

vdebolt — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:25:12 +0000

BlogHer and many other organizations are lining up behind a campaign to stop bullying. It’s called Stop Bullying: Speak Up. You can join in at Facebook and take a pledge to help. You can also get a widget like this one that allows others to participate.

There are a constant stream of blog posts by women in the tech world who have been harassed, bullied, and intimidated by online haters and trolls. I hear about it from women in private conversation again and again.

The tech world loses women because of this – women who are smart and who make valuable contributions. Kathy Sierra is a famous example of the loss of a valuable contributor to the conversation about how to make technology work better for people. (See the recent post: Kathy Sierra speaks out on the nymwars and hater comments.) Women are reluctant to speak at conferences, even when they have something valuable to contribute, because of the online harassment that often follows a woman after a public appearance. Now the tech community is losing Skud, who explains about her harassment and her struggles in this post.

The prevailing wisdom has been “don’t feed the trolls.” But that is changing to a philosophy of calling out names and exposing trolls. Skud is doing just that: giving names, IP addresses, and trying to uncover the hidden identities of offensive online bullies.

Another blogger who is urging women to speak up is s. e. smith from Tiger Beatdown. In On Blogging, Threats, and Silence, she said,

All of the bloggers at Tiger Beatdown have received threats, not just in email but in comments, on Twitter, and in other media, and the site itself has been subject to hacking attempts as well. It’s grinding and relentless and we’re told collectively, as a community, to stay silent about it, but I’m not sure that’s the right answer, to remain silent in the face of silencing campaigns designed and calculated to drive us from not just the Internet, but public spaces in general.

We’ve lived in an online culture where the advice is “ignore the trolls and they will go away.” But that advice isn’t working. Sweeping it under the rug isn’t working. Pretending that it’s okay because it’s directed at women isn’t acceptable. Laughing about it isn’t an option.

Women can’t change the culture of abuse toward women by themselves. Women need men to speak up. Men who will let other men know that online harassment and bullying of women is not acceptable to men.

RIP Steve Jobs

vdebolt — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:48:14 +0000

Image Credit: Jonathan Mak

What’s on your holiday tech wish list?

vdebolt — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:45:31 +0000

It’s about time to start thinking about what to give your favorite tech gadget lover. Or, more importantly, what new tech toy you want for yourself (or your kids, who might let you play along with their new games).

What’s on your wish list?

Facebook will give away ad money to small businesses

vdebolt — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:26:56 +0000

Facebook announced that small business will receive $10 million worth of free advertising on Facebook. The Facebook Small Business Boost program will give $50 worth of free advertising on Facebook to 200,000 small businesses. The program begins in January 2012.

The program is a joint project of Facebook, the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the Facebook announcement, it’s more than just the money – a good thing, because frankly, I don’t see how a mere $50 would be very tempting. The program also involves access to free resources and information on how to use Facebook to grow a business, live webinars, and a traveling roadshow to connect with small businesses.

According to ReadWriteWeb,

This signals a push by Facebook to steer small businesses towards using social as their main advertising category. It also indicates that Facebook is ready to use changes to how Facebook operates to bulk up advertising inventory and its revenue streams.

Sarah Perez at TechCrunch put it in similar terms. She said,

Of course, Facebook is clearly helping itself here, too, hoping to incentivize business owners to move more of their advertising dollars away from search engines like Google and into Facebook’s own network. That said, with Facebook’s now 800 million active users, it’s not exactly a bad move for small business owners to become more educated on how to use the network’s tools to connect with their customers.

At Work at Home Blog, omris writes,

While the benefits of small businesses are pretty obvious, you might ask yourself what is it for Facebook?

First, by providing free ad credits Facebook intend to allure small business owners to allocate more marketing funds to its own advertising platform. Second, by releasing online resources so small businesses will optimize their Facebook pages and such, it serves both parties. Third, cross-country roadshows is a great marketing and advertising concept for Facebook itself.

Facebook urges business owners to get started by creating a free Facebook Page for their business. However the new ad giveaway program will provide display ads rather than interaction with customers via a business’ page.

If you already have a Page for your business, you may have noted that recent changes to Pages mean that people no longer have to Like your page to leave a comment on it. Not having to Like a page, means that the steam from your page isn’t appearing on the wall of people who may want to interact with your brand. Facebook’s solution is for you to use display ads to reach out.

As of yet, there’s no information on where and how to apply to qualify for the free advertising dollars. Keep an eye on Facebook Marketing Solutions for announcements.

I’m wondering how many small business owners will find it worth their time to go through the application process for a potential $50 worth of ads. Access to the resources and information provided in the roadshow might be more worth the effort. Are you a small business owner? Are you interested?

Not Stanford Binet but Browser Choice: Updated

vdebolt — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:18:45 +0000

It turns out that this story was a hoax. Mashable and BBC News have both confirmed it.

Sorry to have fallen for the story along with everyone else. But, I have to say, hoax or no hoax, if it shamed even one person into upgrading from IE 6 to a newer browser . . .

The headline on Mashable was IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers [STUDY]. According to Mashable, it was actually a pretty big study: 101,326 people divided into groups according to which browser they use. That was correlated with the average IQ of the users.

It turns out that all those Internet Explorer for Dummies books weren’t just part of the Dummies series. Yep. All the extra smart people are using Opera. And the longer you stick with IE, the comparatively dumber you get. Or, as the study concludes, “individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers.”

Here’s a chart of the data collected in the study.

The press release from Canadian company AptiQuant who did the study suggests,

Internet Explorer has traditionally been considered a pain in the back for web developers. Any IT company involved in web development will acknowledge the fact that millions of man hours are wasted each year to make otherwise perfectly functional websites work in Internet Explorer, because of its lack of compatibility with web standards. The continuous use of older versions of IE by millions of people around the world has often haunted web developers. This trend not only makes their job tougher, but has also pulled back innovation by at least a decade. But with the results of this study, IT companies worldwide will start to take a new look on the time and money they spend on supporting older browsers.

The study, titled “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” is available as a downloadable PDF document.

Now for the fun. Reactions!

A lot of people were quick to step up and say they’d been using Opera (or Chrome) for a long time. I’m going to ignore them. Let’s get some other reactions.

Oh, so many jokes here. > Study: IE users have lower IQ: http://on.mash.to/pNEwdD (@mashable) #browsers #web #w2pFri Jul 29 16:47:58 via SeesmicTanya Snook
spydergrrl

Hate to laugh, but I am! / RT @mashable: IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers [STUDY] – http://44d.co/fupmFri Jul 29 14:01:45 via HootSuiteStephanie Wonderlin
swonderlin

A recent study confirms what we’ve known for ages: IE6 users are stupid http://t.co/Sd9uVYE Also, @Opera users are the smartest (!)Fri Jul 29 17:05:44 via Twitter for MacLea Verou
LeaVerou

Now there is proof: IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers http://t.co/tWhWfhSFri Jul 29 17:07:26 via webLisa S. Johnson
xmoms

i wasnt going to share this, as to not to offend any IE users, but i realized they are prob. too stupid to read it anyway http://j.mp/qGmwc8Fri Jul 29 15:03:41 via TweetDeckJeff Tierney
jeffreytierney

Well that explains so much! bahahahahahaha http://mashable.com/2011/07/29/internet-explorer-iq/ #idontuseIE #imsmartFri Jul 29 14:04:59 via SeesmicElaine Young
ejyoung67

Like Elaine, I was ROFLMAO when I first read this. For someone like me who makes web sites, IE has been the archenemy for a long time. AptiQuant didn’t make the study to amuse us, however. They were looking for information to help convince corporate decision makers who support older versions of Internet Explorer that it was a bad business decision and that they should move their companies on to something more modern. Kudos to AptiQuant if that is the effect of the study.

What was your reaction? Give us your best IE joke.

Cross posted at BlogHer.