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Twitter Announces Changes in the Works for Retweets, Trending Topics

Paul Lilly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:04:10 PST

Some changes are coming to Twitter that the microblogging site hopes will help curtail the amount of spam that flows through its Trending Topics area, the social networking site announced in a blog post.

"As Twitter grows and the number of tweets each day continues to astound us, we’ve noticed an increasing amount of clutter in the public timeline, especially with trending topics," Twitter noted. "Trends began as a useful way to find out what’s going on but has grown less interesting due to the noisiness of the conversation."

Twitter's solution is to start experimenting with ways of ranking retweets, though the service didn't say how this would work. If we had to guess, we'd say it would be based on some kind of algorithm that gauges a user's popularity, among other factors, rather than a manual approach.

According to the blog post, any initial changes will be minor and "the improvement won't be very noticeable at first."

Image Credit: causecapitalism.com

Rel rond Buma/Stemra nog niet voorbij

Tonie van Ringelestijn — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:06:28 PDT

De Buma/Stemra-rel is nog niet voorbij: de rechtenclub ziet in bijna alles bedrijfsmatig gebruik.

Buma/Stemra ziet sites met een enkele advertentie als bedrijfsmatig. Dat betekent dat blogs met Google Ads straks ook een torenhoge rekening tegemoet kunnen zien, volgens de omstreden hoge tarieven voor het embedden van muziek en filmpjes die Buma/Stemra per 1 januari wil gaan heffen.

Dat blijkt uit de woorden van Buma/Stemra tegenover VPRO's muzieksite 3voor12. Hoofd juridische zaken Cees van Rij zegt nu: 'Onze fout is misschien geweest dat we dachten dat bloggers altijd niet-bedrijfsmatige gebruikers zijn.' Elke site met inkomsten is de klos: 'Winst is geen vereiste, het gaat ons om inkomsten', aldus Van Rij.

Afgelopen week probeerde Buma/Stemra de commotie vanuit de online wereld en politiek Den Haag, te sussen door een persbericht te versturen waarin stond dat de embedtarieven niet voor particulieren gingen gelden. Daarmee leek de ergste storm van protest te zijn gaan liggen. Maar het gemor neemt nu alweer toe, nu blijkt dat de rechtenorganisatie nog altijd vele honderden sites in het vizier heeft, ook kleintjes die nauwelijks met hun Google-ads de kosten voor de hosting terugverdienen.

Actiegroep Bits of Freedom is verbolgen door de uitspraken van Buma/Stemra tegenover 3Voor12 en gaat weer de barricades op. 'De eerdere suggestie dat Buma internetgebruikers tegemoet komt is dus misleidend, en Buma komt terug op eerder gedane toezeggingen', stelt BoF donderdag.

Volgens de actiegroep moet 'een belangrijk deel van de bloggers en sociale netwerkpagina's toch voor het embedden van audio- en videomateriaal gaan betalen'. 'Daarnaast zullen poppodia moeten gaan betalen voor embedden. Ook gaat Buma er ten onrechte vanuit dat, omdat over licenties voor ander gebruik dan embedden geen vragen zijn gesteld, deze door de markt geaccepteerd worden.'

Ot van Daalen van Bits of Freedom: 'Dit soort gedraai is niet acceptabel, en we hopen dat hieraan aandacht wordt besteed tijdens de hoorzitting op 15 oktober (..) in de Tweede Kamer.'

Het bedrijfsleven is intussen ook een offensief tegen Buma/Stemra gestart.

8 reacties

Windows XP vs Windows 7 – Who Won?

Steve Wiseman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:57:22 PDT

I installed Windows 7 on my ASUS Atom N270

Before I did that, I recorded how long it took to do a few things:

-Copying a 45 MB file over the network
-Boot Time
-Shutdown Time
-Memory used at idle, after startup
-IE Launch time

Then, after I installed Windows 7, I did the same, and recorded how long it took. I was curious to see if Windows 7 was faster or slower than XP.

Keep in mind this is not scientific, but just a simple test I did on my own computer.

Here is what I found:

Boot time under Windows 7 was 22 seconds faster:

Shutdown time under Windows 7 was 20% faster:

What about the time it takes for Internet Explorer to Launch?

Windows 7 was faster there too:

Amazingly the memory usage at idle was less in Windows 7, than in Windows XP. I should do this article again with Vista. I am sure that number in Vista is over 1GB

Another test I did was copying a 45 MB file over my wireless network.

Look at the difference:

This was an amazing result. I had to try it a few times to make sure it was not a mistake. It took Windows XP almost a minute longer to transfer that same file.

Amazing. Windows 7 is faster on all of my tests. Not only has it won this little test, but instead of wanting to remove it after 2 weeks (Like with Vista)…I want to install it on all of my computers!

It’s Time To Hide The Noise

Erick Schonfeld — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:58:02 PDT

A few days ago, Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur (@Loic) sent out a retweet with a link to a screenshot of his CTO’s Seesmic Web client showing 1,200 Tweets across nearly 20 columns. The joke was that his CTO was trying to achieve a “world record” for how many Tweets could be loaded up into a Twitter client at one time. (It’s not a world record. Competitor TweetDeck can display an unlimited number of Tweets and columns as well). If you click on the screenshot and pan across the enlarged version of it, there you’ll find a dialog box with Loic’s old avatar doing a hang-10 while kite surfing. The juxtaposition is comical, if a little sad—poor @Loic lost in the overflowing stream of Tweets his company is trying to tame.

The image reminded me of another screenshot (see below, click to enlarge) that I once took of an earlier Twitter client called Twhirl, which Seesmic bought before developing its current product. About a year and a half ago, I complained that Twhirl took over my desktop when I first installed it with a constant stream of pop-up messages. I wrote in that post:

This highlights a bigger problem with the Web today. There is too much to pay attention to and not enough ways to reduce the noise.

It’s 18 months later and the problem hasn’t been solved. The screenshot I took back then still resonates because the noise is worse than ever. Indeed, it is being magnified every day as more people pile onto Twitter and Facebook and new apps yet to crest like Google Wave. The data stream is growing stronger, but so too is the danger of drowning in all that information.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been considerable progress in stream readers since that time. Containing 1,200 Tweets within neatly defined columns is definitely better than 1,200 separate dialog boxes taking over my screen, and these apps today are much more able to handle massive amount of messages. But the fact that Seesmic or TweetDeck or any of these apps can display 1,200 Tweets at once is not a feature, it’s a bug. Again, what I said 18 months ago is just as true today:

I need less data, not more data. I need to know what is important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know.

One the main methods emerging to cut down noise in your personal stream is to set up different groups of people or keywords (via search) to follow. Twitter is going to tackle this problem with its new “lists” feature. Seesmic and TweetDeck already address this problem by creating a new column for every group or category you want to follow.

But as the image above makes clear, that strategy breaks down fairly quickly. I have ten columns in my TweetDeck, for instance—one for my personal Twitter account, one for the TechCrunch account, one for my Facebook stream, one for mentions of “techcrunch”, another for mentions of my name (so I can respond to people trying to talk to me whom I don’t follow), another two columns for direct messages, and so on. I rarely look at more than two columns. It’s just not an efficient way keep track of all my different interests in the stream.

And if you think Twitter is noisy, wait until you see Google Wave, which doesn’t hide anything at all. Imagine that Twhirl image below with a million dialog boxes on your screen, except you see as other people type in their messages and add new files and images to the conversation, all at once as it is happening. It’s enough to make your brain explode.

What these services should strive to do instead is hide the noise, keep it simple. Letting me sort through the stream by creating different groups and lists and columns of things and people I want to pay attention to is great, but it hardly solves the problem. Finding that one great Tweet from @Loic or anyone else I follow shouldn’t be a game of Where’s Waldo?

Really, all I need is two columns: the most recent Tweets from everyone I follow (the standard) and the the most interesting tweets I need to pay attention to. Recent and Interesting. This second column is the tricky one. It needs to be automatically generated and personalized to my interests at that moment.

It would definitely include the most retweeted messages from people I follow over the past 24 to 48 hours because I miss these things during those hours when I am not staring at the stream. (And I stare at my stream more than most people). It would also prioritize tweets from people I follow based on who I pay attention to the most, based on my past history of retweeting, replying to people, or simply lingering over a Tweet while I’m reading. Look at my behavior, and then create a favorites list of sorts out of that.

And if those two columns aren’t enough, then there’s always search. Except search is broken on Twitter. Unless you know the exact word you are looking for, Tweets with related terms won’t show up. And there is no way to sort searches by relevance, it is just sorted by chronology. Maybe Twitter can use some of its $100 million in new funding to fix that, and solve the noise problem while it’s at it.

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Free Business Book (PDF) - Rip-Off! by David Craig

Karen in TN — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:33:50 PDT

Rip-Off! The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine ($19.62 paperback), by David Craig, is available as a free PDF download from the Simple-Talk website. I did wonder if it is an abridged edition, as the paperback says it has 320 pages, while the PDF has 167, but it appears to just be a formatting issue due to page size differences. David Craig is a UK author and the book concerns UK (and EU) business practices, but is relevant in the states as well (years ago I worked with a local television station - they had new managment consultants at least each year and the only sure thing is that current one's advice would contradict whatever the last one told them).

Book Description
Who are management consultants? What power do they have? How can they charge so many millions for their services? Do they really deliver any value? Why do organisations use them? * Every single working day, British companies and the government pay over GBP30million for management consultants' advice * Each year Management Consultancy creates more millionaires than the National Lottery * A leading consultancy recently repaid USD54million to a client after allegedly defrauding that client * Confidential surveys show consultants believe that about half the work they do is of little value to clients and a further 20 per cent is "junk" At last, an insider takes the lid off Management Consulting and reveals how too often this vast and secretive business has become a licence to siphon off almost unlimited quantities of clients' money. In Rip-Off! the author shows that there can sometimes be truly great management consultancy. However, he also reveals how most of the world's major management consultancies have become vast and incredibly profitable factories churning out thousands of almost identical "warm bodies", whose time must be sold to clients, whether clients have problems to be solved or not.

Click HERE for the download.

Apple continues to rip Windows…

(auteur onbekend) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:26:45 PDT

This is funny either way, but can anyone confirm it’s actually genuine? (update: apparently so…)

via

Authors Guild accuses Amazon of “breathtaking” hypocrisy

Paul Biba — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:42:09 PDT

There isn’t much to say here, the post speaks for itself. You can find it here.

September 2, 2009.

Amazon made it official today, filing a brief in the Google case claiming that someone else might gain a monopoly in bookselling. It seems we’re compelled to state the obvious:

Amazon’s hypocrisy is breathtaking. It dominates online bookselling and the fledgling e-book industry. At this moment it’s trying to cement its control of the e-book industry by routinely selling e-books at a loss. It won’t do that forever, of course. Eventually, when enough readers are locked in to its Kindle, everyone in the industry expects Amazon to squeeze publishers and authors. The results could be devastating for the economics of authorship.

Amazon apparently fears that Google could upend its plans. Amazon needn’t worry, really: this agreement is about out-of-print books. Its lock on the online distribution of in-print books, unfortunately, seems secure.

The settlement would make millions of out-of-print books available to readers again, and Google would get no exclusive rights under the agreement. The agreement opens new markets, and that’s a good thing for readers and authors. It offers to make millions upon millions of out-of-print books available for free online viewing at 16,500 public library buildings and more than 4,000 colleges and universities, and that’s a great thing for readers, students and scholars. The public has an overwhelming interest in having this settlement approved.

Uitzending Gemist geweigerd door Apple

Edward Neve — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:04:41 PDT

De makers van de Uitzending Gemist-app voor de iPhone hebben via hun Twitter-account laten weten dat de applicatie geweigerd is door Apple. De reden hiervoor lijkt te liggen bij het gebruik van 3G-netwerken in Nederland. Ze zijn momenteel in gesprek met Apple om meer duidelijkheid te krijgen. De release loopt hierdoor meer vertraging op, maar de ontwikkelaars laten weten wel vertrouwen te hebben in een goede afloop.
(...) Lees de rest van dit bericht op iPhoneclub.nl: Uitzending Gemist geweigerd door Apple

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Tags: geweigerd, uitzending gemist

Wikitude Drive Android App Does Turn-By-Turn, Augmented-Reality-Style [Android Apps]

John Herrman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:00:00 PDT

Mobilizy's Wikitude, an augmented reality app that overlays Wikipedia links onto your camera's viewfinder, is still one of the most amazing apps in the Android Market. Wikitude Drive, which does the same with turn-by-turn directions, does it one better.

As you can see in the video, Mobilzy's take on the turn-by-turn video overlay isn't the most refined—a nod to Blaupunkt on that one—and it seems a little distracting to use, as is. But that's not to say that the concept isn't fantastic, for one simple reason: Your eyes never really leave the road. Normal nav apps just show you a static, mapped representation of what's coming, which does fine on the directions-giving front, but utterly fails on the helping-you-not-run-over-children-on-bikes front.

Aside from the AR feature, the app is a little bare, it requiring a data connection at all times, supporting voice commands only via a separate voice engine, lacking most of Wikitude's other over features, though informational overlays probably aren't too wise on a turn-by-turn HUD. Mobilzy says it's coming "soon," hopefully alongside a partnership with one of the big map data suppliers, so we can actually use this thing. [Mobilzy]

Sony/Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t work on the Mac, reports Chamber Four

Paul Biba — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:47:14 PDT

This is a major problem if Chamber Four is correct. Sony proudly announced a Mac version of its library software at its press conference last week and many of us were delighted. Since I no longer have a working Sony Reader I downloaded the software to my Mac but I haven’t tried it out yet. Now, Chamber Four is reporting a major problem. If Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t work on the Mac. then all us Mac users are left out of a lot of the new stuff Sony announced. Here is the report from Chamber Four. Mac users should read the full report because Chamber Four had other major problems as well:

… In the 8 months between then and now, I’ve switched to a Mac laptop, and Sony’s had plenty of time to improve their software and finally, finally make a Mac version. So my first question is this: is it better? My second, more realistic question: is it even usable?

The short answers are no, and not really. Even worse, Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t recognize the Reader, so Sony’s newly hyped library ebooks won’t work on Macs. The long and the short of it is that Mac users should think long and hard about getting a Reader.

Let’s get into the details.

Library eBook support: F- Does not work on Macs

Adobe Digital Editions, which enables the DRM on PDF and ePub library ebooks, doesn’t recognize the Reader at all. This isn’t a bug, or an oversight; this is a known issue, as Adobe said when I started a support thread on it.

This is slightly shocking, seeing as library ebook support was the issue of the day at Sony’s big announcement Tuesday. You’d think they’d at least mention somewhere that it won’t be available on Macs.

It also means that Sony’s vaunted content “relationships” are unavailable for Mac users. Without ADE, you can’t buy books from any store but Sony’s.

Can any of our readers help clarify this situation?

David Byrne Reviews the Kindle DX

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:20:27 PDT

Reviews for the Kindle seem to pop up from some of the most unexpected people. One new response to the Kindle DX comes from David Byrne, the front man of the legendary Talking Heads (and one half of the duo responsible for last years phenomenal Everything That Happens Will Happen Today). It might seem a [...]

TokBox Adds Document Collaboration Powered By EtherPad

Daniel Brusilovsky — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:49:04 PDT

TokBox, the web-based video chat application, has announced that it has partnered with EtherPad to bring document collaboration straight into TokBox. Now, all Tokbox users can simultaneously collaborate on one text document or “pad”, while chatting in a video call. What’s cool is that when multiple people edit the same document at the same time, all changes are instantly reflected on everyone’s screen who is in the document. Once your done with your document, you can save it for later use.

Essentially, you start a call on TokBox and invite up to 20 friends or coworkers to the call. You then put in your URL for EtherPad in an existing URL pad.

After speaking with TokBox CEO Ian Small, TokBox wants to focus more on collaboration, and they have started a great relationship with EtherPad. Small also mentioned that EtherPad will be integrating TokBox into their service in the next couple of weeks. According to Small, EtherPad will be able to collaborate on documents with the addition of voice and video chatting powered by TokBox.

It’s still unclear what TokBox’s business model is, but they’re possibly positioned well because they are not limiting their service to an operating system, but just to the browser. TokBox also recently laid off 50% of their engineering team, and all the companies founders have left the company.

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Kindle UK release date – Sept 9?

switch11 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:45:51 PDT

Stuff TV is quoting ‘well placed sources’ on an early September Kindle UK release date – they think it might be as soon as the IFA conference which runs Sept 4th to 9th.

Stuff TV think Amazon want to steal a march over the Sony Reader Daily Edition -

It could be that Amazon is hoping to get the Kindle over here as quickly as possible in order to win over the market before the launch of Sony’s Daily Edition, announced in the States yesterday.

They then themselves point out that Sony has said that it might be a year or two until the Sony Reader Daily Edition is launched in the UK.

Its more likely that Amazon finally figured out the wireless part.

Rumors about Amazon Kindle seeing a UK release have been making the rounds since April 2008. Both end 2008 and early 2009 there were claims that Amazon talked with wireless providers and negotiations failed.

Kindle UK Release – the long struggle

Its been quite a struggle for Amazon to get all the content deals done, and negotiate terms with a wireless provider. A September Kindle UK release would be a relief to customers who’ve been waiting forever and to Amazon.

A release in 1-2 weeks would mean -

Amazon got a wireless provider deal done.
PVI managed to ramp up production of the eInk screens.
Book and Content Deals for the UK got done.
Perhaps, that Amazon feels it needs to step in and get a lead before Apple, Sony and Plastic Logic arrive in full force.
Perhaps, that Amazon thinks the new Sony Readers might capture a bigger share of the market.

In mid July Mobile Today had claimed that Kindle UK manufacturing etc. had been handed over to Qualcomm -

Amazon is understood to have outsourced all aspects of manufacturing for the Kindle in the UK to Qualcomm, including securing ‘connectivity’ with
a mobile operator in the UK.

Amazon is understood to be frantically working on having the Kindle ready for launch before Christmas 2009 and has already secured agreements with book publishers.

The online retailer is known to have discussed a potential MVNO deal with the likes of Vodafone, Orange and 3 around six months ago, but discussions broke down.

Well, if we get Kindle UK soon, Mobile Today’s sources will have been spot-on.

Will Kindle UK be a hit?

Without a Doubt.

The only threat to the Kindle would be a 2009 Apple iTablet release or if Sony magically releases the Daily Edition in UK this December.

Both currently look doubtful which would leave Amazon as the best eReader this Christmas season. There’s also a lot of pent-up demand as readers have been waiting forever for the Kindle to make the jump across the pond.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Kindle UK sell out.

Posted in availability, kindle

Librarians' delight: A device that helps readers borrow e-books

matthew_hamblen@computerworld.com (Matt Hamblen) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:13:00 PDT

Sony this week unveiled a Library Finder tool to help readers locate popular e-books in their local libraries that can be downloaded onto PCs and then loaded onto the company's new Reader Daily Edition device.

Wedstrijd: Make-it-Mobile

(auteur onbekend) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:43:00 PDT

Heb je een idee voor een mobiele versie van een bestaande educatieve online applicatie of website? Doe dan mee met de wedstrijd Make-it-Mobile! Het SURFnet/Kennisnet innovatieprogramma roept docenten, studenten, leerlingen, ict-coördinatoren en managers afkomstig uit alle sectoren op om een voorstel in te zenden.

Per onderwijssector wordt uiteindelijk één winnaar aangewezen. De jury let vooral op de educatieve meerwaarde van het mobiel aanbieden van het lesmateriaal. Ideeën voor laptops en Ultra Mobile PC's als dragers zijn uitgesloten. Het gaat echt om het gebruik van smartphones, PDA's en mobiele telefoons. De winnende ideeën zullen met ondersteuning van het SURFnet/Kennisnet innovatieprogramma uitgevoerd worden. Inschrijven en meedoen kan vanaf 1 september tot 3 november 2009.

Het SURFnet/Kennisnet programma is in 2008 gestart met het onderzoeken van de mogelijkheden van mobiele applicaties in het onderwijs. Op deze website vind je de resultaten van onderzoeken en pilotprojecten die wellicht inspiratie kunnen bieden. Bekijk bijvoorbeeld het filmpje over WRTS mobiel, een mobiele versie van een bestaand online overhoorprogramma om woordjes te leren.

Lees verder op mobieleonderwijsdiensten.nl.

Sony Reader Daily Edition – 7″ PRS-900

switch11 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:30:04 PDT

Sony announced their new Sony Reader PRS-900 this morning – with a 7″ screen, a $399 price, and 3G wireless from AT&T. The Sony 900 also has a touchscreen.

The Sony Reader 900 will be available starting December 2009 -

Sony Reader PRS-900 - The Hidden One

Sony consider this a rival to the Kindle 2. Which is strange considering its $100 more expensive. Shouldn’t they be going after the Kindle DX with this?

Sony had a press conference this morning in New York – 10:30 am EST.

The items announced were -

Sony PRS 900 Reader – A 7″ eReader with 3G wireless and Touch capabilities.
$399 price and a December release.
That publishing deals will be announced in the next few weeks.
8,500+ retail outlets will be carrying Sony Readers this holiday season.
Includes Best Buy, BJs, Borders, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target, WalMart, and Toys ‘R’ Us.
The 40,000 books of the New York Public Library will be available to readers.
Library Finder that supposedly lets you find a local library and then check out books in ePub and Adobe DRM.
Library eBooks Expire in either 21 or 30 days.
The Library books initiative is in conjunction with OverDrive.
AT&T provides the 3G. Wireless Syncing is included.
The Press Release clearly says readers will be able to download newspapers and magazines.
Free basic wireless connectivity for Sony Daily Edition.
Landscape Mode.
16 levels of grayscale.
Sony PRS-300 and Sony PRS-600 are now available for purchase.

The Conference was supposed to be August 24th and then moved by a day for some reason.

This Sony Daily Edition Press Release has the scoop.
Teleread are attending the conference and will have updates. CrunchGear are live blogging.

How does this compare with Kindle 2? With Kindle DX?

Well there won’t be a Sony Reader PRS-900 review till December. Given the details of the Daily edition, my thoughts are -

Doesn’t really compare with the Kindle 2 as $100 extra for the solitary benefit of the touchscreen is too much.
Things get very interesting with the Kindle DX. The question is whether the screen size will be enough.
The addition of AT&T sponsored 3G wireless is the big new feature. If AT&T doesn’t mess it up, this will be a huge factor once the Daily Edition releases.
The addition of the Library Finder is another big feature.

Make no sense for a company selling ebooks to add Library access.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see the Main Stream Bloggers fall in love with the Daily Edition and the Touch Edition given their Kindle hate. The Engadget people were already talking about how the Daily Edition looked pretty slick - based off of a blank screen non-working prototype.

Posted in sony reader

The Pirate Bay offline gehaald door Zweedse provider - update

Dimitri Reijerman — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:24:04 PDT

De Zweedse provider Black Internet heeft onder druk van een hoge boete de toegang tot de website van The Pirate Bay afgesloten. De torrentsite en de bijbehorende trackers zijn offline, maar de eigenaren zeggen snel weer online te zijn.

UPC knijpt bandbreedte in piekuren

David Lemereis — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:50:20 PDT

Mocht je het idee hebben dat je UPC-verbinding opeens trager wordt, dan kan dat wel eens kloppen.

Na herhaalde klachten over trage verbindingen bij p2p-diensten en nieuwsgroepen had UPC eerder deze maand aangekondigd netwerkwijzigingen door te voeren die de snelheid van hogere internetabonnementen moest opschroeven. UPC heeft deze wijzigingen nu in heel Nederland doorgevoerd en beweert dat de snelheid bij het gebruik van nieuwsgroepen significant is verhoogd.

De praktijk blijkt echter anders. Op het webforum van belangenvereniging COAX klagen UPC-klanten vanuit heel Nederland dat UPC hun verbinding tussen 12 uur 's middags en middernacht tot een derde van de beloofde snelheid voor alles behalve http dichtknijpt.

Voorheen omzeilden een aantal klanten het netwerkmanagementsysteem van UPC om sneller te kunnen downloaden uit nieuwsgroepen. Dat is nu echter ook niet meer mogelijk. De gebruikers voelen zich belazerd door UPC. Waarom zou je een duur maar snel abonnement nemen als de beloofde snelheid niet wordt gehaald, is de teneur van de klachten.

Zo vraagt een boze klant hoe Diederik Karsten, directeur UPC Nederland, 'het zou vinden als hij voor de helft van zijn werktijd maar 1/3 van het salaris zou krijgen van wat hij normaal krijgt'.

'Om al onze internetabonnees zo goed mogelijk van dienst te zijn, vindt UPC het belangrijk om de activiteiten die real time plaatsvinden op drukke momenten met voorrang af te handelen. Door het managen van ons netwerk willen wij voorkomen dat excessief internetgebruik door een zeer kleine groep klanten leidt tot filevorming voor de andere 99 procent', laat Bert Holtkamp namens UPC weten.

'We hebben in de afgelopen periode verscheidene wijzigingen in onze netwerkmanagementinstellingen doorgevoerd. Het doel hiervan was onder andere om de snelheid bij het gebruik van nieuwsgroepen te verbeteren. Dit is en blijft echter een continu proces', vervolgt Holtkamp. 'In de komende periode staan verdere aanpassingen gepland.' Hij ontkent dat er sprake zou zijn van vaste instellingen die UPC vanaf heden zou hanteren.

22 reacties

Digital Textbooks Continue to be Implemented at More Colleges

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:12:08 PDT

Flat World Knowledge, a provider of cheap digital textbooks, has grown dramatically over the summer. This fall semester, over 40,000 college students will use Flat World’s textbooks. This is 40 times as many people as in the last spring semester. This is cool for a number of reasons. First of all, Flat World’s text books are [...]

Drie webteams in je klas

Remko Boers — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:12:57 PDT

Alan November geeft in een film op mobilelearninginstitute.com drie suggesties om de technologische mogelijkheden in je klas te benutten. Hij heeft het over het formeren van teams van leerlingen. Mijn interpretatie is als volgt:

1. Zoekers
Per dag wordt er een zoeker in je klas aangesteld die bij alle vakken zoekopdrachten op internet uitvoert. De relevante resultaten worden door de zoeker opgeslagen zodat die bronnen nadien te raadplegen zijn door de overige leerlingen (en de leraar) uit de klas.

2. Besprekers
Wekelijks wordt er in teamverband door een aantal leerlingen gewerkt aan een verslag over wat ze de week ervoor geleerd hebben. Hij spreekt in de film over het maken van een podcast (die dan door de andere leerlingen op hun mobiele telefoon geluisterd kan worden). Mijn inziens kun je dat verslag ook op andere manieren vormgeven. De kracht zit hem waarschijnlijk in het achteraf (online) kunnen delen van het verslag: er valt te denken aan film, tekst of audio. En dat zou je dan via de schoolwebsite kunnen delen.

3. Notulisten
Niet iedereen maakt aantekeningen voor zichzelf, maar er wordt een team van notulisten (aantekeningenmakers) geformeerd. Die leerlingen zetten hun aantekeningen online via een samenwerkingstool waarna de rest van de klas daar aanpassingen in kan maken.

Hoewel ik nog wel obstakels zie met betrekking tot de praktische uitvoerbaarheid binnen het basisonderwijs, vind ik zijn ideeën niet slecht. En zeker het proberen waard. Eerst maar eens gaan bespreken met de werkgroep mediawijsheid.

(plaatje via mijnkindonline.nl)

Meer lezen
Mediawijsheid verzameling
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Dyslexie lettertype

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