Posted 5:28 PM by George Siemens
Digital Dashboards, Dirty Dishes, Messy Desk, Workspaces and Web Logs
Quote: "I find it helpful to look locally when trying to understand and define design goals for use when creating “everyday software”. I look at the way we handle information in our house. The information on my refrigerator door is different from the information I retrieve looking out my kitchen window and different from what kind of exchanges I get at the dinner table. In every day life we aim to weave our information seeking activities to many different single starting places."
Comment: This short (disjointed) article offers some good perspectives on how we aggregate and use information. Well worth the read...

Flash to .pdf
Neat tool that "converts pdf files into swf files and makes them browsable and printable."...all you need is Flash player to view .pdf's online (and much smaller size than .pdf)

Posted 5:16 PM by George Siemens
Freedom Under Threat at Cambridge? via FOS News
Quote: "Freedoms at Cambridge University are under threat. A policy change proposed by the University's Vice-Chancellor will have a number of serious consequences for academics, for the student body and for the wider community.
Previously, the copyrights and other intellectual property rights in academic work at the University belonged (with a few narrow exceptions) to the people who did the work. The Vice-Chancellor's proposals will turn that round completely:"
Comment: Rights seems to be the cry of education/entertainment these days. Seems to be at odds with much of what the Internet is about. Sharing and building resources together is (from my perspective) far more effective than having one person do it all. However, even then, I guess someone has to own it. Seems whacked that institution and instructor can't work out an arrangement that acknowledges each other's rights/needs (sort of like joint copyright).