Infedelic Ideas

Blog moved

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 9 Oct 2005 15:36:00 +0300

Hello,

I have moved my blog. The new address http://tarina.blogging.fi

Improved lessigian powerpoint style

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:45:00 +0300

I found an excellent presentation by Dick Hardt from Sxip Identity entitled "Identity 2.0". It follows the lessigian powerpoint style but is even quicker (almost every word has a a slide), uses more images, animation (mainly character based) and has white background instead of black. When he says something negative, he flashes the word on black background, which is a nice trick to emphasize a point.

I wonder how he is able to sync his speech with his presentation with that speed. He must have some word lists somewhere or he has just memorized the presentation very well. Great performance.

Securing RSS feeds

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 6 Sep 2005 19:59:00 +0300

Reactivity, Inc. has announced that they have technology to make RSS feeds inside an enteprise secure enough to be used for confidential business information transactions. So far RSS has been hyped only as a news/blog reading protocol, but increasingly RSS is gaining interest in the enterprise. Implementing security in the framework will help RSS to be integrated in the inner communication infrastructure of an organization.

Reactivity solution is properietary and most likely expensive. I bet an open-source alternative will appear soon.

We have made RSS secure in our open-source Dicole platform for internal communication between creative groups of people, but this is not an independant solution for the RSS problem, because the implementation is highly tool spesific. Anyway, our solution is one of the first to enable blogs to be used securely inside an enterprise.

I expect an open-source or otherwise free version for secure lower level RSS work to appear very soon. People at Feedburner, make it happen?

Last major paradigm shift in the computer industry

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 5 Sep 2005 22:51:00 +0300

A post by The NOSE, History of the Computer Industry in One Slide has a very good illustration of the transition from vertical to horizontal in computer industry. This is something that is happening now in businesses affected by new technology. They move from managing the whole supply chain to focus on their core competence and orchestrate the rest in a networked fashion.

CNN vs Education vs Businesses

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 5 Sep 2005 21:50:00 +0300

My friend Alan Levine is on the run, a good article about comparing the excellent description of the CNN news gathering method with the way of education. Regarding learning objects, we are still in the stone age compared to what CNN is doing with their own "learning objects" already today.

Of course CNN operates in a business environment with larger budgets than what education institutions could ever dream about, but in the other hand, these tools are already available. You may create a cheap (in finnish I could say "karvalakki") version of the same thing with Open Source components. Throw in some additional programming and support services and your organization will benefit from the surrounding digital spectrum.

Alan's comparison is reality for many traditional businesses as well. Limited budget or lack of ROI lingo are not available excuses for companies that still operate in even less digitalized world than what educational organizations do. There is a lot for all of us to learn from the CNN model.

Imagine your CEO to edit and feed some live information from a conference he is attending back to the "lab" for packaging and distribution to digital workspaces for all people in the organization to play with. Imagine a salesman communicating new customer requirements in real-time and getting the customized product ready for shipping the next day because he did and the infrastructure supported such a reactive business process.

Before thinking about buying expertise and content from the outside, an organization should look at their own way of creating value out of the information flow they already possess. If flow of knowledge and information is improved, operational sensitivity and efficiency will be much better in the big picture.

New Orleans the Achilles Heel of US economy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 3 Sep 2005 22:30:00 +0300

An interesting article by STRATFOR points to a bigger picture that the mass media doesn't. The devastation of New Orleans and its effect on global economy is not only an issue about oil, but more about the whole agriculture of the Mississippi region. The region had built the US economy in the first place and it's the place where all the rivers - and therefore - all goods flow. Without people operating a port in the mouth of the Mississippi river and absence of a system to support those people, the result will be a disturbing impact not only on the US economy, but on the global economy as well.

Ancient stick-juggling art

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 3 Sep 2005 17:01:00 +0300

Lunastix flowersticks

I'm known for having an interest in learning stuff that only a few number of people can do or even know of. One of them is juggling flowersticks. When I play in public, it's common that people come to me curiously and ask what is that kung-fu stuff you're doing. They have never seen something like that before.

I recommend flowersticks as a hobby to anyone. It's easy to learn, helps you concentrate and throw some incredible tricks. It's simply just cool.

Juggling sticks is an ancient performance art. According to some sources, it even dates back to the ancient Egypt and China. Two handsticks are used to manipulate a third stick that has been balanced with weights in the ends. The flowersticks name and the counterpart, devilsticks are names given by later marketers of this juggling art.

The hobby is quite hippy and geeky, so it suites me very well. I can carry them with me on the beach, park or any other place where I might have some free time to entertain myself. I also use my flowersticks when I'm working, mainly to have a break from the computer to think about some intriguing problems. Playing the sticks while I think helps me to concentrate. Some people smoke cigarettes, I play with my sticks.

In the past I've created my own flowersticks but now I finally ordered a quality one from the Lunastix company. My pefectly balanced Equinox Lunastix comes with an Easton Aluminium core and silicone coating. The endings have cups that improve playability and the shorter length results in faster professional play. The fiberglass handsticks are also covered with silicone and have rubber endings to protect it and give a more balanced feel. The product in quality package came to me here in Finland quickly from Salt Lake City, USA, where the company is located.

Quick testing reveals it's the best pair of sticks I've ever played with. I have tried commercially available sticks from local juggling stores, stuff sold on the streets and a number of my own experiments in crafting one myself. I've created about seven different sticks and this one clearly exceeds my favourite one in both playability and quality.

Here is a video of me having a test-run on my balcony in DivX format.

Make your own Linux penguin

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 2 Sep 2005 00:01:00 +0300

I've written before that as time goes by, we will see distributed Open Source development methodology to emerge in contexts other than content or source code. Some time ago we had free beer, now we have free penguins.. umm soft-toys. This might as well be the ultimate end of the accessorizing business model of Open Source ;)

Behaviour is the missing link of AJAX

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 02:14:00 +0300

Behaviour is very cool. I've been looking at AJAX for quite some time to make Dicole more responsive, just like Flicr or Google Suggest. Preventing code pollution is a worthwhile goal at the same time, so Behaviour is quite handy.

As a side note, I'm starting to blog here once again after a long summer break. I've also been quiet at Flosse POSSE blog. I have a nice blog coming that focuses on social software, knowledge management, experiential learning and stuff like that. I'm also planning a tech-only blog which I will write on the developer site of Dicole. These and some more coming as we go forward. I wonder what happens to this one as I move more focused writings to other sites.. It's likely this will remain as a personal space which is not that much connected to my professional life.

The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:02:00 +0300

Poynteronline features an interesting article titled "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism".
The article suggests 11 different ways to implement Citizen Journalism in traditional news outlets.

The layers are:

Opening up to public comment
The citizen add-on reporter
Open-source reporting
The citizen bloghouse
Newsroom citizen 'transparency' blogs
The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Edited version
The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Unedited version
Add a print edition
The hybrid: Pro + citizen journalism
Integrating citizen and pro journalism under one roof
Wiki journalism: Where the readers are editors

It also discusses the very successful OhmyNews concept from Korea: a news site that has reqruited some 38,000 citizen reporters to write the news along with the pro journalists. Seems like this concept might be the future of journalism, as it's profitable and challenges the traditional media with a distributed model.

In Finland the number of sites which employ citizen journalism is almost zero. I can only think of Vaasalaisia which just started and is obviously small. These citizen journalism concepts have potential, yet even the term blog is unfamiliar to many in our country. There is a lot of discussion about how citizens could take part in city planning, though...

Podcasting and vodcasting

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 23:43:00 +0300

Podcasting is really picking up, so is vodcasting (the same with video). The white paper "Podcasting & Vodcasting" from the University of Missouri looks like a good introduction to the latest cool technology, which is pretty much identified as a functional medium for amateur producers of audio and video programs.

Sidenote: We are currently preparing a new website for our Dicole company. A new logo and updated information of what we are offering is on the way. We are pretty much reinventing ourselves.

We aim to make the site sound as human as possible and encourage a conversation. No static pages. Every page -- be it information about the company, product or foresight etc. -- is almost like a blog, always alive, telling a story and ready for outside comments. I bet it's the first in my country to take a very different approach to corporate identity on the web.

In fact, a corporation does not have an identity, as the corporation is not a human being. Corporations consists of human beings, which have identities. We want to bring the people on the front while pushing that humorlessly crafted corporate identity under the carpet. Everyone should do the same.

Look at your company website. Does it have a spark?

Color pallete tools

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 May 2005 23:00:00 +0300

Mambofrog has collected a set of different color pallete tools. If you have difficulty in finding a good color sheme for your site, here are some tools to check out.

I also might add ColorCombos and I Like Your Colors.

Full-circle gaming

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 May 2005 02:12:00 +0300

I shouldn't promote Microsoft but it seems they are kicking their dog anyway. It's hard times for them ahead.

But Xbox 360 looks neat. Sony, the bar is set. Check out the specs. I can't hardly wait to have Linux up and running on it. Although I might leave that fun for the last generation consoles. Look at the screenshots. Especially Dead or Alive looks astonishing.

Missed the MTV promotion? Check this video. It shows the box and the specs inside out.

Webcam and voice communication while gaming. Cool.

Old media vs. New media

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 2 May 2005 14:16:00 +0300

Ars Technica writes very well in an article about the decline of the newspaper industry and quotes Rupert Murdoch's probably historical speech. The Economist writes about it as well.

A couple of good points from the article:

Top-tier bloggers themselves are better educated than top-tier newspaper columnists

Commentary from trained specialists and insiders instead of professional outsiders (traditional jouralists)

Audience, which is more media savvy is more interested in being treated as a peer by news sources

Treating as peers by allowing posting comments in context and writing in a more personal, conversational tone

If you want to read about the classy journalist trips and how journalists sell their integrity in favor of corporate gifts, see A Sell-Out's Tale.

Single-signon bookmarklet

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 1 May 2005 19:04:00 +0300

Nic Wolff's single-signon bookmarklet is pretty old news but I haven't spotted it before.

It's a brilliant idea on how to manage all those different passwords you have to access all kinds of web pages with a single master password so that each authenticated web page gets a different password derived from your master password. Good for security:

Each page has a different password, so guessing one doesn't compromise every other site you are on

The master password is not stored anywhere and it's not transmitted over the wire

It's easier to remember a single password than several hundred :) I bet many of you use the same password for all web services. That's bad for security.

This is a simple bookmarklet that asks your master password and generates a password in the password field on the site you are on. It's stored in your bookmarks and you use it to generate the password by clicking the bookmark in your browser.

The only thing you have to remember is your master password and the username. Using the same username in all web services helps a lot :)

[: UPDATE :]
Coolest stuff since sliced bread.. A firefox extension is now available in addition to a DHTML version of the same thing. The firefox extension adds an arrow next to every password field for entering the master password. Neat!

Sharing nicely

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 01:51:00 +0300

[Note to self:]Read the latest from Yochai Benkler at some point. Also, the Economist reports as well. Coase Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm was excellent and inspiration for many of my latest thoughts. See also Other publications.

Old boring conference format

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 00:02:00 +0300

Came back from ITK'05, Interactive Technology in Education -conference , which is the largest conference in Finland about information- and communication technology in educational use.

The topic is interactive technology but the conference format is the same as 10 years ago. No interactive technology in sight. No infrastructure to support blogging, virtual meetings along physical ones or any of that kind of stuff.

The place has a WLAN worth 8€ / hour. That's robbery. Doesn't motivate me to write much about the stuff going on there, although I did.

We need a new format and I've got some ideas I've been tossing around with people. Maybe I'll try my ideas next summer of how emerging technologies could change the conference to be more like a conversation, instead of a horde of monologies.

I have nothing against monologies if the presentations are good quality and engaging. and leaves enough time for comments. Unfortunately, I didn't have a very good time this time. Most of the speakers were just reading their bullet points aloud. I was coding a web based RSS/Atom aggregator instead.

Some good things surprised along the way. One of the directors at University of Helsinki, Palmenia continuity centre did some "podcasts" (wavs, not MP3s, though) by recording one minute sessions with various influental people (I'm there, but I don't know if I'm influental) about the future of continuity education (finnish only, sorry). This format kicks bullet points out of the window in no time. Way to go, Mika Tuuliainen, a very good idea. But next time you need a blog to enable a conversation and a way for people to discover your great stuff, probably the best offering at ITK this year.

Lessigian presentation style

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 3 Apr 2005 17:21:00 +0300

Since I saw the great presentation by Lawrence Lessig about free culture, I have been a big fan of his style of using PowerPoint. Well, his presentations are excellent even in voice-only.

Instead of filling half of your PowerPoint slides with meaningless brand-style of your organization and the other half with hard-to-read bullet points, Lawrence Lessig uses black background and no more than six words on every slide. He emphasizes his points with simple words. There is always something happening on the screen. He might have over 200 slides in one 30min presentation. It's almost like an animation. The viewer is always on track and hears every word, instead of getting confused by trying to read every bullet point on the screen.

We are so used to bullet points. The tools for creating presentations always start with templates that have bullet points to fill. We simply don't see other options. The typical use is to fill each slide with the whole story being told. Presenters often just read what are in their bullet points (why should I travel to a conference to hear someone read the bullet points aloud if I can read them myself on the web anyway?)

We should ban the use of bullet points.

They distract our experience on following a presentation. If you want to deliver all your points in your PowerPoint presentation, the notes part of each slide (given to audience along the slides) is for that purpose. When creating your next presentation, see if you can move all the text you have written on each slide to the notes section. Draw an illustration or just leave max six words, instead.

Larry is a PowerPoint virtuoso.

Some have copied his style and received only laughs. In my opinion, it's a good thing that his style is being copied. Everyone should try it, because it's simply just better for the audience.

Here is another great presentation in Lessigian PowerPoint style by Edward W. Felten:
Rip, Mix, Burn, Sue: Technology, Politics, and the Fight to Control Digital Media

It's great. Genius. Funny... and the visual presentation doesn't interfere with the talk.

If you have hard time writing your story, see if the traditional way of writing an act works for you. Some more suggestions from Cliff Atkinson.

Programming language popularity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:10:00 +0300

While reading the Seul/EDU list I noticed a message from Knut Yrvin about OpenOffice API programming language support. We'll that's not the point of my post but the suggestion from Knut to take a look at what are the most popular programming languages based on different measures.

You can see some statistics for example here and here. The result is that Microsoft platform specific programming languages are not even near the top-list. Many of the languages in the top-lists are more often associated with Open Source programming. If Microsoft is ever going t loose the game, it's because of the programmers.

The TOP-5 is:

C
Java
C++
PHP
Perl

I'm of course in love with Perl. If I had to pick three languages from that list I would pick Perl, C++ and C. Java is not very well designed (compared to Python) as an object-oriented language and PHP just produces a horde of horrible scripts (atleast most I have had a look into).

But as with every other tool, you have to know how to use your tool. Knowing Java or PHP is not the same thing as knowing how to program. Once you are able to program, it doesn't matter what language you use. Some have more hype/sex/business value than others. In the middle of everything there is Perl, the duct tape of the internet...

Ruby is something I would like to look into (like everyone else) in addition to Python. Ruby on Rails is a web-application framework and it is almost like OpenInteract (perl). Reading the code of OpenInteract (written by Chris Winters) resulted in big leaps in my understanding of Perl programming. Chris has expectional application design skills (and snappy fingers in glueing together different APIs).

Yahoo taking advantage of Creative Commons

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:47:00 +0200

Some time ago Yahoo acquired Flickr which is the most popular photo-sharing service. What is interesting is that Flickr has built-in support for Creative Commons licenses, enabling anyone to decide on their images how they will be shared. The service has already gathered tens of thousands of freely available images with no copyright lawayers at sight.

Now Yahoo has introduced a Creative Commons search engine, enabling anyone to search the internet for content available in the Creative Commons. Part of the enabling factor is the fact that Creative Commons has introduced a technical concept for embedding the CC licensing information into web pages, enabling the development of such search engines.

Both Flickr CC and Yahoo CC search and remarkable contributions from Yahoo for shared culture. I look forward for Google to take the next step in the realm of Creative Commons.

Survey results of blog readership

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:37:00 +0200

Interesting survey on blog readers at blogads. 30,079 readers filled the survey. if your business is targeting any kind of blog readers, here are some statistics for you to consider about your target market. Some highlights (rounded average numbers):

75% were over 30 years old. Only about 20% are from the 21-30 age group
I think this is pretty interesting. The computer savvy age group is surprisingly less present in these statistics.
43% receive over $90 000 in family incomes
20% of readers are bloggers
Hopefully this number is rising. The more conversations, the better. Yet, every fifth reader might write about you.
75% are males
I remember reading somewhere that most bloggers are females but how is it that there are more males as readers?
Distribution of job titles is very diverse. Not only computer enthusiasts. 10% where students and 8% were computer professionals
This is a good thing. What we need is more blogs about special subjects not related to technology and blogging at all. Like quality savile row suits.
Popular industries were education (15%), technology/computers (10%) and legal (7%)
Hopefully the education sector will grow through more utilization of blogs in education. Despite the fact that blogs were not originally designed for learning, blogs are very simple tools to help with personal learning.
Over 70% read more than 3 blogs a day
I rely on blogs almost entirely of the news I receive about my industry. There are several reasons but the most important one is:
75% read news they can't find elsewhere
Exactly. The mass media doesn't satisfy the general public. My forecast is that the readership of professional print media will drop as people will seek for the information they are interested in through grass-roots blogs.

Acqusition storms

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:20:00 +0200

Crazy things are happening.. The social software industry is reforming.
Why everything at 2005/Q1?

2005/01/05: Six Apart acquires Live Journal, one of the largest weblog communities
2005/02/08: Ask Jeeves acquires Bloglines.com, most popular RSS aggregator
2005/03/20: Yahoo! acquires Flickr, the most popular photo sharing community
2005/03/21: IAC/InterActiveCorp acquires Ask Jeeves, 4# largest search engine (bloglines.com)

Is someone interested in what I'm doing? =)

The Long Tail of software

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 04:51:00 +0200

Phew, lots of work went into our Open Source workshop. Check out the slides. Now it's done but the work continues.

I stumbled upon an article about the Long Tail of software. I've had my eye on JotSpot for quite some time already. It seems interesting but I wonder when the actual "application wiki" features are going to be easy to use for an average user.. or maybe it's targeted for advanced users only, who knows.

Joe Kraus's slides about the Long Tail of software are very nice. My first impression is that actually you could just change JotSpot in this case to "Open Source software", because that's what I agree with: the Long Tail of software is enabled and monetized by Open Source.

FLOSSE Posse, a new blog focused on Open Source in education

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:39:00 +0200

I have created a new weblog which focuses on commentary on Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Education. It's called...

FLOSSE Posse

It's a group weblog consisting of some members of Free and Open Source in Education Association. We also accept guest bloggers.

Our first mission is to do digital audio recordings (podcasts) and analysis of various people in the field of Open Source in education. This is to systematically bring together ideas from people who work on various fields. Open Source in education is a fragmented field. There are certain online communities and mailing lists where people gather but so far not a single weblog has chosen to focus on these issues alone. If you know about one, let me know.

This also means that I'm talking more about Open Source in education over there and the business of Open Source right here.

The first interview is with Alan Levine. I think it came out fairly well. You can hear my compositions in the beginning and in the end of the interviews.

We are starting a conversation here, hop in.

Software should be stuff that gets you laid...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:34:00 +0200

I've been in the business of creating groupware applications and learning management software (LMS, which is the substitute of groupware in the educational world) long enough to understand what they are talking about in the Many-to-Many fame.

Groupware and LMS are both measured the same way: comparing feature lists, amount of features and other parameters useful when selling them to the management.

In the end, the users are not really willing to use these applications unless they are paid for doing so or there is some other benefit achieved through them. There is nothing sexy with a groupware application. Nothings that gets you laid.

Management is not (yet) interested in the social capital some of the software tools might be able to generate or how they are naturally able to network people together. They are interested in how these tools make certain mechanical business issues more efficient (save money and time) and how they are able to control it. They compare feature sheets where the features are listed like..

does it have a Todo application?
does it have a Project Management feature?
does it allow the teacher to track where students are spending their time?
etc.

It's all about increased structure. Control. Features. Cost savings.

Nothing bad about that. What is wrong here is that people stop using when the money stops flowing. That is the brokenated nature of groupware applications.

There is also a problem in over simplifying the process of selecting a tool. You simply just can't make a feature comparison chart and check if a groupware application has a feature or not. For example, if you have a LMS called Fronter in your comparison chart and there is a column called "Weblog", often you simply just check that "Ok, Fronter has a Weblog". *check*.

If you look more closely, the so called weblog you have in Fronter has nothing that makes weblog applications cool, sexy and social. In fact, there is nothing you could brag about: it lacks 90% of the characteristics of weblog applications in general that make them so sexy these days.

It's a poor substitute in the comparison chart simply to get the vendor ahead in feature checklist game as the management is able to say, "We have heard weblogs have benefits in education as our teachers are asking for them and students are already using them in their free time: Fronter also has a weblog". *check*.

The reality is that none of the users are willing to use the weblog tool in Fronter for blogging if they are not paid to do so. They use Blogger, Movable Type or Nucleus instead, software that is truly social software and is able to tap one into global conversations. These tools were built with a different mindset.

Building social capital through the daily use of collaborative software is underestimated these days. What managers are forgetting is that the markets are conversations and thanks to the internet, the markets are getting smarter all the time, requiring smarter conversations between companies and customers. A link between the conversation among the customers and the work that is done internally in a company has to be supported.

Ironical comment in the Many-to-Many blog by Will Davies:

"I gave a talk to a global consultancy firm a couple of years ago about what social software could do for them. I suggested that, given that they have several thousand over-worked employees in one building who never speak to each other, the best way to build social capital would be to create an internal dating site. They thought I was joking."

I have worked on an Open Source groupware/LMS.

Not anymore. Nowadays I'm working on social software.

I'm thinking about social capital and smarter conversations instead. I'm thinking about social added-value and smarter conversations instead of software feature checklists. I'm thinking about how my software could get you laid. I guess I wouldn't be able to think like this if I hadn't first learned everything about groupware and LMS.