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Formerly known as “Readability 2,” this project uses code unceremoniously lifted from the original Readability. For more information, see the post here. If you’re an iPhone user, be sure to check out Clippable Mobile.

As of 11.03.09 I’m referring to this as “Clippable” to avoid stepping on the toes of the original [...]]]> http://brettterpstra.com/share/readability2.html

Formerly known as “Readability 2,” this project uses code unceremoniously lifted from the original Readability. For more information, see the post here. If you’re an iPhone user, be sure to check out Clippable Mobile.

As of 11.03.09 I’m referring to this as “Clippable” to avoid stepping on the toes of the original project and their potential future naming schemes.

The application is also portable and can run either on your local hard drive or your memory stick.

There is a solution that won’t cost you a dime, though. It also won’t get you an iPad, but [...]]]> Although experts have been congratulating Apple on how competitive the iPad prices are, when you actually have to part with 500 bucks or more (if you want 3G, which is a must-have for such a device), it hurts.

There is a solution that won’t cost you a dime, though. It also won’t get you an iPad, but you can perhaps fool someone with poor eyesight into thinking that you have one, at least for a second. I am talking about a paper iPad.

To make one yourself, you’ll need these two PNG files: the front and the back. Print them, cut them out, and voila — your brand-new paper iPad is ready to… well, it can’t really do anything except sit on your desk, but considering the price is zero, I won’t hold it against it.

You might have already heard about this YouTube video as several higher ed bloggers (mstonerblog, The Old College Try and edustir among others) and twitterers have mentioned [...]]]>

This article is reposted from CollegeWebEditor.com.   Please read the original article and follow the comments and related articles there, this repost is for use in my class.

You might have already heard about this YouTube video as several higher ed bloggers (mstonerblog, The Old College Try and edustir among others) and twitterers have mentioned it this week.

President’s Day at Macalester College is a 5-minute online video featuring President Brian Rosenberg.

Not your traditional college president video at all.

This online video is a humorous insider’s tour of Macalester College where the president does all sort of things to showcase the school and its spirit.

Take the time to watch it now if you haven’t yet.

Released on President’s Day – just 4 days ago, the video has more than 15,000 views – it’s not a huge hit in YouTube terms, but it’s definitely a popular video that resonated with the MAC community as some of the comments on YouTube prove it.

Here are just a few among the 22 that were posted on YouTube at the time of this writing:

• I love this video! It makes me proud to be at Macalester. I think it takes courage and ability to look at things in a fun manner to do something like this. I am extremely proud to be a part of this community and I want to thank people whose creativity and hard work makes this college one of the most amazing academic environments in the country.
• That was great! ….. Makes me even prouder to be a “Mac Dad”!
• It’s this kind of self-aware humor that makes the Mac community awesome.

Since I know you are always interested in learning more about this kind of initiatives, I contacted Amy Phenix, director of Communications and PR at Macalester College, yesterday and asked her a few questions about this original video.

1) Can you tell us a bit more about this video? How did you get the idea? How did you convince your president to go for it?

The video was truly a collaborative effort with the president. We knew that we wanted to do more video as another way of engaging alumni. The communications team got together and brainstormed five concepts that we shared with the president and vice president for Advancement. I continued the brainstorm with them and we settled on President’s Day as the hook for a humorous look at campus and student life today, through the eyes of President Rosenberg. From the very first conversation, President Rosenberg was engaged. He came up with some of the funniest bits. No convincing was needed, which is a good thing because I don’t think it would have worked with a reluctant star.

2) How long did it take to create this video? How big was the team and how much did the video cost?

We shot all but one scene in a day (probably about 6 hours of shooting), and we turned it around edited in a week. It was a very fast production process and the shoot was well-orchestrated so we were able to stay on schedule.

The team included four people on our staff, plus an alum we hired to shoot and finalize the script.

It was very low-budget. Other than a freelance videographer, who spent about 40 hours on preparation, location scouting, script and shooting, we did all the work in house. Total cost was about $2,500.

3) How did you promote this video?

We sent it to our alumni (about half of whom we have email addresses for), friends, and current parents, promoted to the campus community, and posted on Facebook and Twitter. We also shared with reporters who cover higher education.

4) This video generated a lot of buzz (15,000 views and many mentions on blogs, etc.). Has it met its goals? Have you noticed a bump in donations or requests for information from prospective students yet?

We are extremely gratified with the response and have exceeded our goals. Because this is the first time we’ve done something like this we didn’t know what to expect. We have seen a bump in donors and donations. The impact on prospective students is a bit more difficult to gauge this early.

Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has conducted research revealing that while social networking sites allow us to maintain more relationships, the number of [...]]]>

WE may be able to amass 5,000 friends on Facebook but humans’ brains are capable of managing a maximum of only 150 friendships, a study has found.

Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has conducted research revealing that while social networking sites allow us to maintain more relationships, the number of meaningful friendships is the same as it has been throughout history.

Find the entire article at TimesOnline http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6999879.ece

Related articles

• Facebook friends are virtual, finds Oxford University study (telegraph.co.uk)
• Friends and Facebook (herd.typepad.com)
• Why Dunbar’s Number is Irrelevant (socialmediatoday.com)
• The Economist, Facebook and the Dunbar number (thumbmusings.blogspot.com)
• Is Social Friending Scalable? (webmetricsguru.com)

The following archival copy is only in the event the original article disappears, I use this blog for my classes.  Please go back and read the full article from the original site.  It is simply a matter of honorably allowing the advertisers to provide their services and pay for this kind of well written article.  I will also add that the related articles and comments are the best part of the online experience and not reproduced here.

Dunbar developed a theory known as “Dunbar’s number” in the 1990s which claimed that the size of our neocortex — the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language — limits us to managing social circles of around 150 friends, no matter how sociable we are.

These are relationships in which a person knows how each friend relates to every other friend. They are people you care about and contact at least once a year.
Dunbar derived the limit from studying social groupings in a variety of societies — from neolithic villages to modern office environments.

He found that people tended to self-organise in groups of around 150 because social cohesion begins to deteriorate as groups become larger.

Dunbar is now studying social networking websites to see if the “Facebook effect” has stretched the size of social groupings. Preliminary results suggest it has not.

“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” said Dunbar.

“People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.

“There is a big sex difference though … girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together.”

Dunbar’s study is due to be published later this year.