If you are a contented user of TweetDeck who, like me,  got excited when the iPhone app came out a while back, you probably also like me, found yourself wondering what the iPhone app the desktop app had to do with one another besides branding.  They had the same color scheme and logo, but aside from that there were at least half a dozen Twitter apps for iPhone that were as good or better when it came to interacting with twitter.  There’s a lot of competition in that area.  And TweetDeck for iPhone didn’t interface with Facebook either.  That  was one of the best things about the desktop app.

But now there is a new version.  I’d written the iPhone version of TweetDeck off and was waiting for Seesmic to launch their iPhone app, but I was told I should try it, I did, and it has much more in common with the desktop app than just branding.  Just check out the web page for the app and all the features marked with “new” tags.  You’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and I should also mention that in TweetDeck on the iPhone you can update your status using Arabic script or any other alphabet with characters that still don’t display when used in the desktop app.

Ok, so some students at Johns Hopkins University are upset that a new movie The Social Network, is being filmed on their campus. Their beef is that Johns Hopkins is standing in for Harvard in the movie, which is based on the true story of Mark Zuckerberg, who is credited with being the creator of Facebook while he was a student there.  My first though was that they must have chosen Johns Hopkins because it is in Maryland and therefore at least a few degrees warmer than it is up here is in Massachusetts.

But it wasn’t climate of even budget that took the films’s producers to Hopkins.  It seems that Johns Hopkins was something of a second choice for the movie producers because it wasn’t possible to film on location at Harvard. The Baltimore Sun’s article on the controversy is funny, albeit quite sarcastic.

The movie, like some Hopkins students, couldn’t get into Harvard, which has a longstanding policy against commercial filming on campus. So the production has opened some old college-admissions wounds.

“The general consensus is, a lot of kids are not pleased,” said Lorre Atlan, 20, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering. “It’s obvious they [the filmmakers] could get Hopkins and not get Harvard.

Apparently students all over campus are wearing Johns Hopkins t-shirts and hoodies, hoping one of them will get into a shot and be missed in editing so they show up in the film.

continue reading "Is Your College Just an Understudy for Harvard?"

This is the NITLE Professional Development News that went out today. It focuses on my programs for the coming two weeks. They are going to be be keeping me busy. But they are interesting programs, so they should be fun.

Dear Colleagues,
As campuses continue to respond to the challenges of globalization as well as on-going economic restraints, I wanted to take a moment to call your attention to three upcoming NITLE programs relevant to both situations.

Using media elements with an international perspective to introduce complex issues such as research ethics can offer a new dimension to the lab-based science class, stimulating and enriching discussion. Faculty members in the natural and social sciences who want to integrate an international perspective into lab-based curricula in this way are encouraged to sign up for “Science and International Perspectives.”
continue reading "NITLE Programs This Week and Next"

“This represents one small step for ICANN, but one big step for half of mankind who use non-Latin scripts, such as those in Korea, China and the Arabic-speaking world, as well as across Asia, Africa and the rest of the world,” said ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom just before the vote, according to an Associated Press story.
–via ICANN Approves Use Of Non-Latin Alphabets In Web Domain Names, Channel Web

I thought that was a good quote. I’ve been following this story for a while. I was also interested to learn that Chinese and Arabic domain names are in the highest demand. These are also the two languages that I have been noticed have seen a great deal of increased demand in undergraduate education. This isn’t the result of any systematic study, mind you. It is purely an observation. Governments or their designees can begin submitting requests for specific domain names in non-Latin scripts on Nov. 16.

I just read a post on ArabCrunch about a Twitter Desktop app called Kzalek that displays Arabic correctly. This is big news.

I’m of the opinion that Twitter is really close to useless without an app or client, either on a portable device or on your desktop, to help sort through and manage tweets. And the more people begin to use twitter, the more necessary a tool becomes. For the most part, though, these tools could not display Arabic correctly. They either displayed the characters a disjointed when they need to be connected, or they didn’t display them at all. Kzalek does that. It’s a bit clunky and not as attractive as TweetDeck or Seesmic, nor does it allow you to post to other sites at the same time, but it works and it is only a beta version. A breakthrough one, at that.

Read more here.

ArabCrunch also reported today that Jeeran is launching a Creative Commons channel (CC) that aims to spread Open Source culture in the Arab world.

(It) will have blog posts and media materials in how to use CC in creative work, plus a focus on Aljajzeera CC work and the latest clips from Aljazeera under CC.

Jeeran.com, launched in 2000, is a social networking platform developed to serve the Arab world.

Read more at ArabCrunch.

So, you want to borrow money from me? Sure. I’ll just need you to fill out this very brief application.

Name: ____________________
EMail: ____________________

Thank you.

Find out why a new report from Credit Karma suggests this just may be enough via a post at Mashable.

This is a clever little widget. It’s created to convey how major telecommunications corporations are using fake grassroots organizations as fronts to advance their agenda and block telecommunications reform.

It comes from FreePress.net. Free Press has criticized the FCC for its handling of its hearings regarding National Broadband Policy, saying the meetings have not been announced far enough ahead or through appropriate publicity vehicles so that the public knows they are happening and can show up.

The criticisms are valid, but it is also true that most people aren’t at all aware that there is a policy debate or that anything is at stake. It’s a complicated and confusing issue and the big media companies have all the resources to make their case. They control the airwaves, pipelines and broadcast networks the would be needed to carry an opposing viewpoint, an increasingly, the same media companies own print media outlets as well. There is an outstanding and enlightening tool for finding out which companies own which media on the website of the Columbia Journalism Review.

The folks at FreePress have some good resources on the issue. They are, of course, a group with a political agenda, but the resources are good and the facts are, by and large, accurate.

Take a look at the International Broadband Charts. You may be surprised to learn that the US is far from being the leader in Broadband technologies. Indeed, in general we pay more for slower network connections than quite a few other countries, ones that might surprise you. We are also lagging behind in terms of the rate of broadband penetration. These are facts. No politics are involved in producing these statistics, just empirical evidence. No wonder the administration of President Obama is concerned about our National Broadband Strategy.

They just need to do a better job of getting the public involved.

I’m not one of those who get’s all his news from The Daily Show, I swear, but as Jon Stewart points out in this segment, it’s hard to get it anywhere else.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

But at least they are making sure Saturday Night Live gets the facts straight.

And then there’s this guy. Look what he did with some scraps that, quite frankly, a junkyard owner wouldn’t have bothered to save.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

He did all that based on images in a library book? It took me hours to set up the surround sound in my family room, and I had diagrams and specific color coded cables! I’m calling William Kamkwamba next time. You know all those leaks in the Big Dig Tunnels Here in Boston where I live, they should have just told William Kamkwamba what they wanted done. Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost because they confused Metric and Imperial measurements? Maybe William Kamkwamba should have taken charge. I’m exaggerating, of course, but this kid’s story does make you wonder, if he can do that with what he had, what would he do with all the benefits I have. As he says in the interview, what if he had Google?

The text below provides some statistics about “gadget-savvy online individuals” under the age of 35 surveyed on behalf of the website Retrevo.com.  The first percentage is shocking, the second frightening, the third not a bit surprising and the last, well, what’s the big deal?

The younger crowd is also quite keen on tweeting, texting, and checking Facebook after sex (36%), while driving (40%), while at work (64%), and when on vacation (65%).

via Young Social Mediaphiles: 36% Tweet and Check Facebook After Sex.

It isn’t so much the numbers themselves that are surprising.  The survey is, after all, a survey of gadget-savvy people,  so one would expect the numbers to be higher than they might in the general population.  So that 64% of respondents use these tools at work or on vacation seems reasonable.  In fact, it surprises me the number isn’t higher.

Tweeting, texting and Facebook?  That’s a lot of tools.  Increasingly people use one or more of those tools for work.  As for using them on vacation, they are called social networking tools, and socially is how most people started using them.  It is their use for business and professional purposes that is new.  So why wouldn’t they be used on vacation.   I like to be unplugged on vacation sometimes, but that’s because I work online.  Many people are thrilled by the possibility of posting their vacation snapshots while on vacation.  And , if family members went off to do different things during the day of a family vacation, it can be awfully handy to text them if you want to change the meeting place for dinner.

It’s the social networking after sex thing that boggles the mind.  Exactly what message does one post after sex?  Does one provide comments or ratings of the experience?  Or maybe the texting is just a substitute for the post-coital cigarette–something to do with the hands?  The group with this high percentage is under age 35.  Maybe some of the respondents are too young to drive, so they are texting someone for a ride?  I wonder what percentage post or text during?

That leaves only the driving to talk about.  Tell me more please.  Where were those numbers highest?  Certain states?  Cities?  Do they drive more at certain times of the day?  Do they use highways or byways more?  Tell me all you can.  ‘Cause I want to do all I can to be OFF THE ROAD whenever and wherever they are!

NB: This entry has bee corrected in response to the comment below. (10/13/2009)

I’ve got an iPhone app! I don’t mean on my iPhone. I’ve far too many of those and probably should delete some so I have to flip through fewer screens to get to the one I need. I mean that is I have created an iPhone app…kind of.

What has really happened is that a book I helped edit has been turned into an application. The volume comes out, in part, from a conference on Islam and Africa I helped organize under as a graduate assistant under the direction of Ali A. Mazrui for his Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University. Before leaving the Institute when I began working for NITLE, my colleague and I had edited a number of those papers and begun initial steps toward a volume on the topic. But as the volume was not to be simply conference proceedings, but rather a truly cohesive collection of essays on the subject, the project wasn’t finished.

I wasn’t sure what had happened to the project until Professor Mazrui recently sent me the book. I discovered the app by accident when I was searching for applications that might be useful for the teaching of Arabic.

Though I am far from an impartial critic, I found it is an interesting and impressive volume, composed only in part of essays developed from papers delivered at the Islam and Africa conference. Thus I can’t take a great deal of credit for the final volume. It was, as Professor Mazrui so graciously acknowledges, a team effort, but it is really his vision, engagement and leadership that originated the project and saw it through to its completion.