See also my resources on interactive fiction (text adventure games), programming in Inform 7, making games in Scratch, and coding hypertext stories in Twine.
I always felt like computers were meant to be used with at least a hand poised on the home row, because without that arsenal of verbs things just take too long. As a power user, watching someone who isn’t familiar with all the shortcuts can put your patience under observation. To some folks, everything about…
I’ve checked into the hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, in order to read the AP English Literature exams. People on the shuttle and in the dining hall are very friendly. I’ve nothing to do for the rest of the day, and am just chilling in the hotel room. My laptop logged into the hotel’s WiFi network…
The Library of Congress has nearly 150 million items in its collection, including at least 21 million books, 5 million maps, 12.5 million photos and 100,000 posters. The largest library in the world, it pioneers both preservation of the oldest artifacts and digitization of the most recent–so that all of it remains available to future…
Seton Hill University was recognized by IvyWise, a New York-based counseling company, in its “Top Five” list created to assist college applicants in choosing schools that leverage the power of mobile devices to store and deliver recorded lectures, syllabi, homework, tests and a host of other information that can be accessed anytime, anywhere on campus.…
In 2001, I posted a brief item on “The Last Page of the Internet,” a meme that was already well-established at the time. I did a quick Google search, posted what I found, and added a few comments. knowyourmeme.com used my page as a starting point for a recent item that traces the meme much…
06 Jun 2010 (updated); by Dennis G. JerzUsability Testing: 8 Quick Tips for Designing Tests If you already have a prototype and you want to conduct a usability test, and you’re eager to learn how to make the most of your opportunity to learn from your users, then this document is for you. Keep the…
In theory, technology lets people make and distribute perfect copies of digital artifacts. In practice, we compress our media, which introduces imperfections. YouTuber canzona recorded a short video, uploaded it to YouTube, then downloaded it and uploaded it again. Here’s what happened on the way to 1000 iterations. (Apparently, he turns into a Tholian.) …
Let’s begin not with humanity’s love for games, but rather its love for stories. Certainly we can see a trend in certain kinds of art toward the telling of stories in ever deeper and more immersive ways. A few hundred years ago the novel came along, introducing the interior monologue; as time went on, novels…
Authors and publishers have besieged Google’s plan to digitize the world’s books, accusing the company of copyright infringement. The legal limbo that has tied up a settlement of their lawsuits is hanging a question mark over universities’ plans to build centers for research on the books Google scanned from their libraries. Another complication: Worrisome questions…
Reblogging this excellent set of ProfHacker productivity tips on Evernote.
Using my iPad, I can’t seem to copy and paste an excerpt, so I’ll just recommend Ian Bogost’s essay. http://www.bogost.com/writing/we_think_in_public_1.shtml
I just donated the cost of a cafeteria meal. I’d rather have my stomach be grumbling a little over a missed lunch than sick over the latest Facebook shenanigan.
Burdened as they are with these “legacy” print costs, newspapers typically spend about 15 percent of their revenue on what, to the Internet world, are their only valuable assets: the people who report, analyze, and edit the news. Varian cited a study by the industry analyst Harold Vogel showing that the figure might reach 35…
Matt McKeon has posted a striking series of images uses the changing default settings of Facebook to visualize the number of users who can see a Facebook user’s data. You can, of course, change the settings, but Matt’s charts remind us… we are the product Facebook is selling to its advertisers. http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/
I don’t proclaim to be “holier than thou” by leaving Facebook. And I’m not a Luddite–I blog and make Flash videos and stay informed about the latest and greatest with my favorite gadgets. But I was there when Facebook fell apart in the face of its greed. I didn’t like what I saw and took…
The Crackberry-addict-in-chief warns graduates about a bunch of different, non-Crackberry gadgets, that are bad, apparently because they aren’t Crackberries. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than…
Clearly Facebook has taught us some lessons. We want easier ways to share photos, links and short updates with friends, family, co-workers and even, sometimes, the world. But that doesn’t mean the company has earned the right to own and define our identities. It’s time for the best of the tech community to find a…
Facebook’s increasing breeches of user trust have even spawned a new term, “zuckering,” as in “That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos,” inspired by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who once used private Facebook data to access email and other accounts of classmates while at Harvard. —NBC Bay Area
The data suggest that 80 percent of professors, with little variance by age, have at least one account with either Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, Slideshare, or Google Wave. Nearly 60 percent kept accounts with more than one, and a quarter used at least four. A majority, 52 percent, said they used at…
Today in class, I caught the same student texting three times, within ten minutes. I used nonverbal responses and slowly escalated, in order to keep my reaction from interrupting the flow of the class discussion. Yes, we want to treat students like adults; yes, whatever was distracting her may really be serious; yes, she has paid…