Act Now

At Save the Internet you can act to notify your specific representatives and senators that you are in favor of network neutrality. The guarantees of freedom of speech that we have in the Bill of Rights should not be up for grabs and are not meant to be applied unequally to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, BellSouth and others. The First Amendment is meant to apply to all Americans equally.

High Tech or High Stress?

A survey shows that IT workers suffer from more stress than any other professional. The study is a general health study, but the IT relevant sections are summarized at BrainFuel: IT Jobs Most Stressful Study Says.

Education and training play a part in this problem: “Kevin Young, managing director of SkillSoft says: “Our research was sparked by a recent Gartner report which claims that the untrained or under-trained desktop user will cost an organization five times more to support than a well-trained worker. This led us to thinking about how much pressure this must also put on the IT professionals who have to provide such support.”

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Event: Web Accessibility Primer on WCAG 2.0

The Scottish UPA events date is May 23, 2006, not much advance warning to arrange a trip to Scotland, I know. Look all the way down the page for future events in the planning stages in the UK.

Out of four listed speakers for this event, two are women! But who’s counting?

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More on Moodle

A few days ago I commented that I was going to be using Moodle. Unfortunately that project got changed to a PHP BB instead of Moodle. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to have the full experience with Moodle.

Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators who want to create quality online courses. The software is used all over the world by universities, schools, companies and independent teachers. Moodle is open source and completely free to use.

I didn’t see how easy or hard it was to upload material, create links, or do other tasks beyond what I already mentioned. However, I did have time to notice that it was much faster and more user friendly than Blackboard. There was none of the irritating and redundant clunkiness that makes using Blackboard so tedious. I also don’t know if Moodle has all the features that Blackboard has, including the ones I especially liked such as the grade book.

Have you had any experience with Moodle? I’d like to know what you think.

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Review: Flash 8 Cookbook

Flash 8 CookbookFlash 8 Cookbook (O’Reilly, 2006) by Joey Lott with Jeffrey Bardzell, Ezra Freedman, Kris Honeycutt and Robert Reinhardt is one of the O’Reilly coolbook series. These books approach the topic as a series of tiny tasks, which they call problems. The solution to each problem is suggested with step-by-step instructions about how to do whatever is suggested. Each problem and solution is a “recipe,” thus the cookbook metaphor. Sometimes there is more than one way to solve a problem. When that happens, each option is explained.

Every aspect of Flash 8 is included. Tools, Libraries, Action Scripts, Variables: whatever it takes is explained. There’s a chapter on “Deploying Flash on Mobile Devices” and one on “Making Movies Accessible.”

This is not the kind of book you go through to learn Flash as a beginner. It’s the kind of book you keep on the shelf and pull out 18 times a week because it quickly explains how to do the one thing you are struggling with at the moment. It’s the kind of book you open first to the Index, then find a page, read for a minute or two, and bingo! you know how to do what you’re trying to do.

I find the clear, easy to understand writing in this book admirable. I know how hard it is to do, and it’s done very well here.

It isn’t a book you could build a semester’s projects around, but I definitely recommend it as a valuable classroom resource and a reference-ya-gotta-have for Flash 8 users who’ve mastered the basics.

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