Apple announced that a patch has been issued for the recently discovered security vulnerabilities. The majority of the acknowledged problems concerned the failure of iChat and Safari to properly validate downloads.
Spyware Study
One of my favorite “sources” on all things digital is Leo Laporte (of TechTV fame). I listen to his TWIT podcast whenever possible.
In support of his preference for FireFox in comparison to IE, Leo described a University of Washington study on spyware. I searched Google for the University of Washington and spyware and found descriptions of the study. The “executive summary” (the link I provide) outlines how frequent spyware seems to be based on the research and describes the types of sites that seem most likely to distribute spyware. The full study (available in pdf form) gets into the issue of browsers.
iLife Podcasting
I like the new iLife ’06 suite. My latest experiment made use of Garageband to generate a podcast (focused on social bookmarking if you care to give a listen).
Garageband has a special podcasting “track”, allows images to be brought in from iPhoto as chapter art (see image below or the sample above), and publishes to iWeb or iTunes.
Now, I need to work on my “fm” voice. There were some options for manipulating voice characteristics so I will have to experiment with sound quality next. It appears there are options for sounding mellow, but nothing available should I want to sound exciting.
EduBlog post on a similar topic.
Tech slows productivity?
C|NET News has an interesting piece on the ways technology REDUCES our work efficiency – too many demands, too many options, too many distractions, and way too much time writing blog entries.
Maybe the issue should really be the blurring of that line dividing work and life. The line “I have a life …” has become my favorate annoyance. The utterance is often used to explain why a task has yet to be completed or why an interesting opportunity is being ignored. It is almost as if work is something that is a nuisance and the required activities should be dispatched as quickly as possible. So, while I do listen to Internet radio or an audiobook while I work and that probably reduces my productivity a bit, I also answer email while at home because I assume the person who sent the note would prefer a rapid reply. The total time involved is greater and the productivity per minute might be lower but that is fine with me.
SimSchool
SimSchool, a simulation activity intended for use by preservice teachers, is now online. This project results from the PT3 grant program (for those of you who were involved in this funding opportunity a few years ago).
The most basic version of the activity is available at no cost, the more advanced version costs $12 (I have not paid for the full version). I have no opinion at this point regarding the value of this sim to students at this cost. I guess that depends on the depth of the experience.
Project leaders are continuing to improve the resource and welcome those with ideas for collaboration.
Contribute Some of Your Behavior
When I do repetitive tasks, I am able to listen to audio books. It is my purposeful way of expanding the breadth of topics I think about. The latest effort of this type has involved John Battelle’s book on “Search”.
After listening to this book, I have decided to purposefully contribute my behavior to the cause. Here is what I am doing and why.
I conduct frequent searches as part of my work and all other aspects of my life. I assume you do the same. I have fallen into the habit of using Google for these activities. I regard it as the most useful search engine.
I have decided to use a greater number of search engines. I used to do this as a way to explore what different services had to offer. I now intend to to so for a different reason. I am convinced the search industry needs samples of my behavior. These data will be helpful in determining how people like me use the Internet and then using this information to improve the experience for all of us. I have made contributions of this type before. I have created several web sites that link to other web sites. Google has analyzed my decisions and has combined my “votes” on what web resources are valuable with the votes of many others to generate its page rank approach to ordering the results of your web searches for your consideration.
Contributing examples of my “click stream” works in a somewhat similar way. The terms I use in my searches and the sites I visit when receiving results from my searches are data that may somehow be useful. Such data represents a compliment to data on how the web contributors have cross linked their resources. On one side there is a system for prioritizing what providers have to offer and on the other a system for contextualizing what searchers are looking for and use.
You can contribute too (or just explore some new ideas if you see things in a different way). Try:
1) the A9 toolbar
2) Yahoo Y!Q
ACMSIGGRAPH
It’s Saturday morning and you don’t feel like watching cartoons. What to do? How about watching a few of the presentations from ACM SigGraph. More than 250 hours of content (including the George Lucas keynote) are available. You will first be required to download special software (I am guessing because someone wants to show off an application) and then enter a guest name and password provided on the page I link above.