vdebolt, Author at Web Teacher

What technology makes possible and a question

I’m reading an inspiring book called What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. It explains all the ways that technology has enabled us to return to “the sharing and exchange of all kinds of assets from spaces to skills to cars in ways and on a scale never possible before.”

At collaborativecomsumption.com there are dozens of examples of websites where you can share, exchange, swap, barter or, sell collaboratively. The list is a gold mine.

Here’s a video explaining what collaborative comsumption is all about.

One thing I searched for on the site and couldn’t find was a recommendation of helpful open source software that might let me build something for my own little neighborhood such as a tool borrowing resource or a ride exchange. Do you know of such a pre-built but modifiable software package? I found a few on Sourceforge, but nothing that looks exactly like what I want.

I’m working on a much more in depth post about the notion of collaborative consumption that will be published tomorrow on BlogHer.com. If you are interested in learning more, check there tomorrow afternoon.

That sense of loss

SXSW swag bags by Virginia DeBolt

I just let go of something I love that has been important in my life for many years. I stepped down from the SXSW advisory board. I am sad about it. I know, come next March, I’ll be kicking myself in the butt.

It was an honor and a privilege to be on the advisory board. It was a thrill to attend the event each year. I feel I’m saying goodbye to an old friend. Dear SXSW, I’ll miss you.

My appreciation goes out to Hugh Forrest for inviting me to be on the board and letting me keep on with it year after year. SXSW informs and enlightens thousands of people. I’m happy to have had a small part in making that happen.

Carry on, SXSW, and continue to be awesome.

Useful links: Long-tail keywords, girls and CS, Dreamweaver

Jill Whalen published an outstanding explanation of what long-tail keywords are and how to discover them in High Rankings Advisor this week: Using Keyword Research to Find Long-Tail Keyword Phrases.

Meet the High School Girls Who Had to Take CS. Interesting comments about what they expected, and what computer science turned out to mean to them.

Why I Madly Love Dreamweaver Today. A programmer’s point of view.

What’s Your Favorite Email Address? Facebook Knows.

Facebook email has been around for a while, but not many people were using it as their primary email. Recently, Facebook decided for you that you would love to have your Facebook email as your primary email on Facebook. Or, as Kashmir Hill, writing at Forbes, put it: Facebook’s Lame Attempt To Force Its Email Service On You. Kashmir explains,

On your profile page, Facebook has taken the liberty of making your Facebook email your default contact address.

Here’s how to change that to the address you want. Start with your own profile page.

On your profile page, find the “About” link and click it. In your profile, find the Contact Info section. You will probably see your email listed as a facebook.com address.

Click the Edit button for the Contact Info. There’s a pull down menu across from any email addresses you have listed. The two options on that menu are Shown on Timeline and Hidden from Timeline.

Choose Hidden from Timeline so that your email of choice is not the Facebook address.

Don’t forget to Save your changes. That’s all there is to it. Facebook’s control over your inbox is vanquished.

At Producer Matthew, who works for Reuters, we can see a letter from Facebook in which they explain their thinking in making this change. From their point of view, it’s just another option you can control on Facebook:

Ever since the launch of timeline, people have had the ability to control what posts they want to show or hide on their own timelines, and today we’re extending that to other information they post, starting with the Facebook address.

Gizmodo called this latest Facebook move “ham-handed” saying,

Facebook, it’s probably safe to say that the way we all had our things before was the “choice” we made about “which addresses…show on [our] timelines.” This wasn’t about choice—in fact, it was the opposite. You chose for us.

Is there anyone who was actually using their @facebook.com address as their primary email and liked it that way? I email a lot of people and have never used a facebook.com address for anyone.

That’s a rather minor point, however. The real point is that Facebook not only expects you to be ever vigilant with your privacy settings (because they won’t) but also to edit your profile with good cheer when they decide to change your primary email choice for you. Without even asking.

[Note: Cross posted at BlogHer.]

Shared spaces and Dreamweaver adventures

The last class to use Dreamweaver on the computers in the lab where I was teaching Beginning Dreamweaver yesterday must have been doing some database work or other advanced stuff with Dreamweaver. Students were getting all sorts of unusual (for beginning Dreamweaver) errors about version controls and testing servers. Took a while to get everyone’s panels and settings back to a really basic spot so what we were trying to do went smoothly.

Dreamweaver does so much that when you are just talking about creating pages, adding text and links and connecting to a server, the basics can be hard to find.

Useful links: Speaker Tips, Facebook email, your Twitter self

So you’ve been invited to speak is from Lea Verou who has some excellent tips for people who are doing presentations that involve coding. Wish her advice about IDEs was tattooed on the brain of every speaker I’ve every watched.

Facebook just changed your email without your permission. Here’s how to get it back.

Lately, I’m sort of obsessed with the idea of analyzing people based on what they post on Twitter. It seems like there’s a website that’s supposed to do that . . . am I making this up or is there such a website?

Useful Links: News Wrap Up

Last week Microsoft announced a new tablet called Surface. Nobody got excited. In fact, some people made it into a joke. But, to Microsoft’s credit, nobody got mad either. The announcement didn’t offend anyone of any gender. Dell should be so clever.

The EU decided to launch a site and video to attract girls into STEM fields. Everybody got excited. Okay – everybody got incensed. Especially female scientists, who raised so much stink that the video was pulled. More stink here.

And finally, in the news, the Michigan Representative who got silenced for using the terrifying word VAGINA in the Michigan House decided to perform “The Vagina Monologues” at the state Capitol with the help of author Eve Ensler. Rep. Lisa Brown for the win.

Oh, and . . . vagina.