Mega Drop-Down Navigation Menus Work Well

Big, two-dimensional drop-down panels group navigation options to eliminate scrolling and use typography, icons, and tooltips to explain the user’s choices. — Jakob Neilsen Similar:Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Minecraft Stylehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti…Aesthetics‘WarGames’ and Cybersecurity’s Debt to a Hollywood Hack After finishing his synopsis, Reagan…CybercultureA Quick and Comprehensive Guide to Type A Quick and Comprehensive Guide to T…AestheticsI don't…

Star Trek The Exhibition at The Franklin Institute

Set phasers to “meh”! My wife arranged a visit to The Franklin Institute a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t actually know that this Star Trek exhibit was there. I was ready to pass, in favor of the more educational exhibits, but my wife made it a Father’s Day treat and shelled out enough gold-pressed…

Chris Anderson’s Free Contains Apparent Plagiarism

Chris Anderson is best-known for championing the long tail (marketing to the niche customers who fill out the trailing end of a demographics chart, rather than trying to create products to please the mass market) and has been promoting a book on the topic. One of the early reviewers for his book identified great swaths…

AP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff

Woah! Trying to charge bloggers who quote more than 5 words was bad enough (I no longer quote from or link to AP stories). But the most contentious element in the new policy, which the union also decried as “vague,” gives this instruction to employees using Facebook: “Monitor your profile page to make sure material…

Twittering The Machine

I’ve never been a phone guy. My voicemail recording advises people to e-mail me rather than wait for me to remember to check my messages. Around 2004, I told a class of students that I didn’t use instant messager because I would have nobody to talk to. I got a generous “awww!” of pity from…

Twitter on the Barricades – Six Lessons Learned

But does the label Twitter Revolution, which has been slapped on the two most recent events, oversell the technology? Skeptics note that only a small number of people used Twitter to organize protests in Iran and that other means — individual text messaging, old-fashioned word of mouth and Farsi-language Web sites — were more influential.…

In Depth: Return to the lost civilisation of Usenet

Long before web forums, blogs, Twitter, and in many cases, the web itself, Usenet was where the internet gathered to shoot the breeze about anything and everything under the sun. — Koala eye Similar:Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and Museum Another visit to Pittsburgh with my his…CultureMy Summer Project: A WordPress Website for Stage Right, a…

The truth about game physics

A few years ago it was enough for a game world to look realistic. Now, in its every action and reaction, it must behave realistically. Physics is what graphics was ten years ago – a yardstick to judge and compare games.– Keith Suart, Guardian The first article in a series. Similar:Twitter, Fix Your Cropping AlgorithmWhen…

Flu, Babies, and Joy

Sore throat. Sinus pressure. Upset stomach. Exhaustion. I’m sitting at home recovering from the flu, which I started to come down with during the Computers & Writing Conference this weekend. I had planned to attend Digital Humanities 2009 in Maryland, where I’m part of a group that’s presenting tomorrow. The group will survive without me as…

Surprising Sexist Statement from a University Professor

Here’s a surprising statement I found in a news article, quoting a Yale psychology professor. “Moms vary markedly in their roles as breadwinners from no income at all to really helping dads,” The language implies that money-making is the father’s responsibility, and the best rating on the scale that a woman can achieve is “helping”…

Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind Your Manners

“You’ll have half the participants BlackBerrying each other as a submeeting, with a running commentary on the primary meeting,” Mr. Reines said. “BlackBerrys have become like cartoon thought bubbles.” Some professionals admitted that they occasionally sent mocking commentary about the proceedings, but most insisted that they used smartphones for legitimate reasons: responding to deadline requests,…

Kindle's DRM Rears Its Ugly Head… And It IS Ugly | Gear Diary

I have not yet bought a Kindle, though I’d like one. However, this bit of news gives me pause. It’s exactly the worry that has kept me from sinking money into a proprietary format. Here’s Dan Cohen, explaining what he learned from an Amazon customer service rep, after some of the books he purchased failed…

Town Hall III: @ School, Work, and Play — Computers and Writing 2009

I’ll have to leave this panel before the end in order to catch a ride back to the airport. I’m going to try at least to summarize what each speaker says at the beginning, which will no doubt leave the impression that this was a one-way event. (I’ll also miss the digital arts display this…

Open Source, Open Access, and Commons-Based Peer Production: Creating a Sustainable University Culture — Computers and Writing 2009

Roundtable Chair. Charlie Lowe, Grand Valley State University Scott Banville, University of Nevada, Reno David Blakesley, Purdue University How can open source software, open access publishing, and commons-based peer production (CBPP) principles help us to create a sustainable university? How can they positively impact the social and economic development of the university and expand the…

Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers

The rise of online media has helped raise a new generation of college students who write far more, and in more-diverse forms, than their predecessors did. But the implications of the shift are hotly debated, both for the future of students’ writing and for the college curriculum. Some scholars say that this new writing is…

Audience and Surveillance: Who is Watching? Who is Reading? — Computers and Writing 2009

I arrived late and completely missed the first talk, so I’ll start with the three I did see. Surveillance of Power and the Power of SurveillanceMike Edwards, United States Military Academy at West Point Hansel and Gretel in Cyberspace: Following Breadcrumbs in a Forest of HypertextMary Karcher The Digital Emergence of the Public/Private AuthorityCasey McArdleBall…

The Work of Writing in the Age of its Digital Reproducibility — Computers and Writing 2009

Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Began by noting the strangeness of talking to an audience about social media, while also seeing faces lit by computer screens suggesting multi-tasking. Referenced new translation of Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility” (note the shift in the more familiar title). His talk…

John Lovas Memorial Academic Weblog Award — Computers and Writing 2009

Today, at the Computers and Writing conference, the Kairos editors presented Jerz’s Literacy Weblog with the John Lovas Memorial Academic Weblog Award. (I knew about it in advance, and was able to get funding to attend thanks to the CIT department at Seton HIll.) Lovas was a dedicated teacher, an accomplished administrator, and a patient…

Sustainable Blogging: Problems and Promises for School, Work, and Play — Computers and Writing 2009

Chair. Gian Pagnucci, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Process-Blogging: A Sustainable Foray into Collaborative Writing Sabatino Mangini, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Jessica Schreyer, University of Dubuque Endings: The Problem of Sustained Blogging Steve Krause, Eastern Michigan University Keeping a Blog as Chair: Sustaining Public Discourse in a Private Job Gian Pagnucci, Indiana University of Pennsylvania What…

Textbook 2.0: Open Source Textbooks and Multimodal Composition Programs — Computers and Writing 2009

Chair. Bonnie Kyburz, Utah Valley State University Planning for Sustainability in Multimodal First-Year Composition Programs Michele Ninacs, Buffalo State College Fast, Free, and On the ‘Net: The Story of a Self-Published Textbook Steve Krause, Eastern Michigan University How College Textbook Publishers Will Thrive in Ubiquity. Or Die Trying. Nick Carbone, Bedford/St. Martin’s Similar:Seton Hill Student…