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Educating the Net Generation and What To Do About Printed Publications?

1/18/2006

There is this new book that you must read. It is edited by Diana G. Oblinger of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, and James L. Oblinger of the University of North Carolina. It's called Educating the Net Generation, and you will find it completely available online, at no cost to you, in HTML and PDF--but EDUCAUSE is not printing, warehousing, and distributing printed copies.

A Dark and Stormy Night, and a Loss

1/11/2006

The loss of a favorite cell phone leads our columnist to experiment with the cool new ones that college kids are using. So far the results are mixed.

Painting and Film Photography for Illustration Are Both Dead. What's Next?

1/4/2006

I think we all knew the writing on the wall was there for traditional photography when eight megapixels packaged with an SLR camera body with interchangeable lenses became available at reasonable prices. And I don't think for a moment that the changes we're going to see in digital photography are even slowing down. It won't be long now until everything, even the buttons in our clothing have high-quality cameras in them.

Wikians R Us and Some Folks Don't Like that Very Much

12/7/2005

In the popular media it was at the same time as the biggest press that the Wikipedia has ever gotten--and pretty negative press at that.

The Turkey Techie and the CIFAC Report

11/30/2005

So, before Thanksgiving I had told myself that I would read the CIFAC Project report and write about it. A quick glance had told me that it contained useful results from research of computer "incidents" and was probably not yet getting the attention it deserved.

$100 Laptops? Ultimately, It Is Not About Machines!

11/16/2005

This morning as I glanced at a news story titled "A Low-Cost Laptop for Every Child," which is about the MIT-related initiative to create a $100 laptop for children in developing countries, the nonprofit organization, One Laptop Per Child.

Bill Gates and the Massively Disruptive 'Sea Change' in IT

11/10/2005

Last week, Bill Gates said the information technology industry is experiencing a "sea change" that will be massively disruptive. He was speaking of the move to online software and services, from the traditional software-in-a-box model of sales and distribution.

I Think I Am in Trouble

11/2/2005

Today, November 3, 2005 is the first annual World Usability Day. I learned of it through a message from a friend directing me to a USA Today article called “Why are tech gizmos so hard to figure out?” The concept resonates with me. More and more I use elaborate converged devices, like my wonderful Treo 650, but I use decreasingly smaller subsets of their overall functionality.

Shock and Awe When the IT Stops

10/24/2005

I have no idea why Mozilla Thunderbird crashed on me this morning. First I could not send any messages, not through my “umich” nor my “scup” identity. Then my inbox disappeared. Then Thunderbird refused to boot up at all yet, when I reinstalled it, Windows told me that I couldn’t install it – because it was already running. Of course, I could not see or use it.

Luddites in Our Midst?

10/19/2005

I have been thinking a bit lately about those poor folks on our campus who for many reasons are not adept with laptops, email, wireless, and some of what are becoming the very basic tools of people who work in offices.

Where Is Away? Or, What Happens When You Flush the Toilet.

10/12/2005

Why should recycling concern campus IT managers and workers? It’s because we design, manage, and use tools which are relatively small yet contain huge amounts of toxic materials.

Campuses Make Way for the Worldwide Wiki

10/5/2005

While it is a trend on college campuses, where it may be bordering on a craze among the millennial generation, you can still get blank stares when you ask a grayer general audience about wikis.

Life As a Series of 'Media Interrupts'

9/28/2005

In the ocean of media that we live in, what we think of as 'life' may already just be a series of 'media interrupts.'

Is Campus IT Ready for Rita?

9/21/2005

Even as everyone engaged by Katrina is still, slowly, realizing the dramatic complexity of the circumstances from that storm, yet another handful of higher education institutions are preparing for a major hit.

One More on Katrina--the Emergence of CampusRelief.org

9/14/2005

Now, campusrelief.org is currently no technological marvel . . . yet. It’s still serving up downloadable Excel spreadsheets rather than through online interactivity, but it’s going to become what we need, and it is intended to be a permanent resource.

For Campus IT: Early Lessons From Katrina

9/7/2005

Disaster planning will undoubtedly be a hot topic for campus IT, following Katrina. What lessons can be learned? What can be done differently? Is it possible to be prepared for every contingency? Some lessons may be fairly obvious. Coming up with better plans and being able to execute them may take more time. Here are a few preliminary thoughts about what we've learned from Katrina so far.

Katrina: What Can We Do to Help; This Time and the Next?

8/31/2005

Well, this year it’s not digital viruses hitting higher ed hard, it’s a hurricane – right as the students returned or were about to. It’s nightmarish to imagine your server room under 30 feet of water; or with its interior exposed to wind and rain because a large tree fell on it.

For Class of ’09 Computer Viruses Are Nothing New or Unusual

8/24/2005

Instead of “hardening of the arteries,” public affairs director Ron Nief, of Beloit College, likes to talk about “hardening of the references.” That’s a polite way to say that some of us get so fixed in how we view the structure of our world that we’re sometimes unable to get into the mindset of our students.

Campuses Getting Greener: IT has a Role to Play

8/17/2005

IT people and sustainability coordinators work across the boundaries between departments and disciplines a lot!

Is Microsoft Ready to Listen to Campus IT?

8/10/2005

Recently, at a different meeting, the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, a number of people were critical of the apparent disappearance of HEAG (Higher Education Advisory Group) and what looked like a tendency on Microsoft’s part to convene conferences and meetings at which it presented, rather than listened.

The NSF May be Measuring Your Institution’s Computing Power

8/3/2005

Almost exactly two years ago I wrote about a forthcoming survey by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which is a biannual event that historically measures research space on college campuses. In 2003 the NSF added an entire section to measure networking capacity and I anticipated that IT folks on campus would be surprised by the request to provide data that had not previously been asked for.

Do You Believe in Magic? Why Millennials Show Little Interest in IT Careers

7/27/2005

There was a sixty percent decline during 2000-2004 in the number of freshmen planning to major in computer science. Bill Gates was recently quoted as saying that he was baffled by that declining enrollment, especially since those same young people just love all of their technology toys.

Report Focuses on How Spyware Impacts Internet Users

7/20/2005

If you want some insight into users knowledge and behavior about spyware and software there's an important white paper you should read.

Doing Something About Spyware

7/13/2005

The work of the Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) in setting definitions, agreed-upon language that can be used to clearly define the myriad of spyware-type threats, is a promising new step in reducing the problem of unsolicited email.

Where Am I? I’m on Vacation, I Think.

7/6/2005

Our IT Trends columnist ponders the meaning of vacation in the brave new world of persistent connectivity.