What feed are you using to read Web Teacher? – Updated

Feedburner may have been shut down by Google. It was supposed to happen on October 20, but may have happened today. It’s a little unclear right now and there’s no official word yet from Feedburner or Google.

In the meantime, how about some preventative action among subscribers to this blog.

I’ve had a Feedburner RSS feed link on the blog for years, along with a regular RSS link. I removed the Feedburner link in the recent switch to the new theme.

You may not remember if you subscribe through Feedburner or to the regular feed. From now on, everyone will have only the option of the regular feed.

Here’s the normal RSS feed for the blog. You may want to switch to it. I’m letting you know as a housekeeping measure. Plus, I don’t want to lose you, dear reader. So, please, resubscribe if you think you may have been getting the feed through Feedburner.

If you were receiving Web Teacher posts by email, you were definitely using a Feedburner feed. They only way to keep getting the news is to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Thank you for sticking with me. I appreciate it.

UPDATE: Finally some official word has come down on the issue that made everyone think Feedburner was dead. This simply means the previously announced October 20 date is still valid. I’m not switching my feeds to FeedBlitz or Google+ or anywhere else. My only feed will be the WordPress one I asked you to switch to.

Useful links: media queries, landmark roles, structural elements

CSS Media Queries is a Mozilla Dev Network basic tutorial on media queries.

Usable landmarks across desktop and mobile is from Henny Swan about which ARIA roles are the most useful and when to use them.

The truth about structuring and HTML5 page at .net magazine is sure to be controversial, as is the book it’s an excerpt from. Be sure to read it.

Useful links: Flipped Classroom, The Web Behind

A Flipped Classroom Model for Higher Education is a slide deck from Jackie Gerstein.

I keep forgetting to mention the new project from Jenn Simmons and Eric Meyer called The Web Behind. As Eric described the podcast project,

The goal of this podcast, which is a subset of The Web Ahead, is to interview people who made the web today possible. The guests will be authors, programmers, designers, vendors, toolmakers, hobbyists, academics: some whose names you’ll instantly recognize, and others who you’ve never heard of even though they helped shape everything we do.

The Web Behind podcasts come from 5X5 and would be good for any educator teaching one of those Introduction to the Internet classes to keep an eye on.

Useful links: BioWare, targeted ads, headers on Twitter, Coursera

BioWare Co-Founders step down. Gaming has been good to these two, who are retiring from the company they founded to do other things.

Rob Weychert used his turn on The Pastry Box Project this month to talk about Hulu advertising and how it is supposed to be tailored to individual interests but fails at the task. Makes me think about how Klout is often spectacularly wrong about your influence or how Facebook shows you ads for things you absolutely hate.

Guess you heard the news that Twitter is now using a header image something like Facebook’s big one. I already changed mine to something similar to what I use on this blog. You’ll find the option in Settings > Design and then scroll down the page to find Header.

Coursera is growing. If you are an educator, you need to be keeping an eye on it and what it means.

Why every front end developer should work for Marissa Mayer

iPhone 5
iPhone 5 image from apple.com

Business Insider just published an article with the misleading headline Marissa Mayer Just Gave Every Yahoo Employee an iPhone 5. Every Yahoo employee worldwide is getting a new smart phone. The choices do include the Apple product mentioned in the headline, but are actually these:

  • iPhone 5
  • Samsung Galaxy S3
  • HTC One X
  • HTC EVO 4G LTE
  • Nokia Lumia 920

Mayer stated the reason for these company issued phones – which are replacing Blackberries – by saying,

Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.

My headline for this article was a bit of an overstatement as well. (Sorry.) I don’t really think every web dev needs to work for Marissa Mayer. But I do think she’s on to an essential principle of creating for the modern web: mobile rules the experience for many people.

Her move is fairly dramatic and will emphasize to all her employees that the mobile experience should be considered in everything they do. The mobile first, responsive design notion is gaining ground in the web design world, to be sure, but a dramatic move such as Marissa’s on the part of web educators to emphasize the concept is called for as well.

In computer labs all over the world, teachers could show budding developers how to put a shiny new web site on a server. Show them how to find it in a browser. And, as a standard practice in the classroom, have them look at it in their smart phone too. Students and front end developers need to look at their web sites with devices similar to their users just like Yahoo employees.

Are any web educators out there already making like Marissa Mayer and doing this in their classrooms?

Now Google will figure out a Bacon number

Remember that game where you figure out the number of degrees of separation between some celebrity and Kevin Bacon? Well, now Google has a search function that will do it for you. It’s called “Bacon number.”

Type Bacon number and some celebrity’s name into Google and you’ll instantly get that person’s Bacon number. I tried some names I thought were pretty far from connected to Kevin Bacon and couldn’t find anyone with a number higher than 2. Here are some examples. Click on a thumbnail to embiggen.

IMDB shows 74 titles in Kevin Bacon’s filmography. That must connect him to absolutely everyone.

Go try it. It’s fun. If you get a number higher than 2, please share who it was.

Innovative Marketing & Research: Using Google Street View for Real Estate

Never before has there been a tool that allows us to explore the Earth’s surface in such detail, so it’s not surprising that millions of people use Google Street View every day for a myriad of reasons. With its deep detail and worldwide scope, anyone with a computer and an internet connection can explore everything from the pyramids to their potential new home with a few clicks of a mouse.

With the idea of searching for a new home from the comfort of your old home in mind, here are some of the ways that you can use Google Street View to aid in your real estate ventures:

1. Inspect the Property

Google Street View’s level of detail in most major cities is truly astounding, enabling you to see even small items on the ground in many cases, and this means that you’ll be able to lay a close eye on the details of the property in question. From taking measurements to understanding the layout, you can zoom in and out as needed to get information on even the tiniest details.

Google Street View

2. Inspect the Neighborhood

The above advice extends also to the surrounding area and neighborhood. The level of detail provided by Google Street View is enough to search for junk, badly kept properties and other negative drawbacks while also giving you an idea of the local road network and building layout, providing you with unique insight into the entire package that you simply cannot obtain anywhere else.

3. Inspect the Key Features

Google Street View

Many homes are sold at a higher price because of their proximity to local draws like schools, parks, shopping centers and more, and Google Street View’s flexibility will easily allow you to fly from place to place in a local area, gathering intelligence on the city or town in question as you go.

Like all aspects of a Google Street View inspection, this promises to save a tremendous amount of time simply by making you aware of the details without the need to travel; if your purchase hinges on a nearby beach but you find in Google Street View that the beach is far too small and crowded, for example, you’ve just saved yourself an unnecessary drive!

Check Out Listed Properties in 3D with Trulia

While a visit to the premises will be in order before you start signing mortgage agreements, Google Street View is an excellent way of paying a quick virtual visit to a property that you have your eye on! With the ability to zoom from address to address, your travel time is near zero and the amount of detail you can discern is surprisingly high; you can inspect a roof, measure a yard, check out included trees and foliage – the list goes on!

Truliaadd-on

If you want to take your Google Street View real estate inspections to a new level, consider the Truliaadd-on, a piece of software that will turn your virtual trips into fully 3D affairs, allowing you to better understand the dimensions and layout of the areas you’re looking at. The add-on includes the millions of real estate listings handled by Trulia and allows you to search for locations based on available properties, quickly immersing you in accurately detailed 3D representations of all buildings.

Because it is connected to Trulia’s listings via RSS, the add-on will stay updated, ensuring that you’ve always got access to the latest listings!

Guest Author Jessy is the blogger for TalkToTucker, the innovative Indianapolis Real Estate company.