The 6 Books That Had the Most Influence on Who I Am Today
Arjen Vrielink and I write a monthly series titled: Parallax. We both agree on a title for the post and on some other arbitrary restrictions to induce our creative process. For this post we agreed to write about the 6 books that had the most influence on who we are today. For each book we include a first read section. You can read Arjen’s post with the same title here.
Writing about books that you like is one thing, writing about books that supposedly have changed your life is another. The influence of books on one’s life is very indirect. Books might change your beliefs, they can change your disposition, they might even influence your decisions and change the path of your life course. I found it hard to pinpoint books that really did any of this for me. However, I did try. In chronological order of when I first read them:
The Blind Watchmaker
The Blind Watchmaker – Richard Dawkins
Although this is not my favourite Dawkins book (that would be The Selfish Gene), it is the one that got me started on his writing and has instilled in me a love for popular science. This was the first time I read a science book that was written with such clarity and eloquence. Evolution theory is incredibly compelling, as it is capable of answering many questions about who we are today and why we are like this. Dawkins showed me the value of a good metaphor (“the blind watchmaker” is one of them). Many of his metaphors have stayed with me for years. His books are an excellent introduction into the scientific method: nobody is better at explaining how progress is achieved in the scientific enterprise. After reading this book I went on to read Dennett, Hofstadter, Pinker and others. Their books satisfy my personal curiousity, helping me understand how humans work in this world. I still read every book that he publishes, but get increasingly irritated by the presence of his arrogant personality in his writing.
First read: 1993
History of Western Philosophy
History of Western Philosophy – Bertrand Russell
This book is one of the reasons why I studied philosophy (an inspiring teacher being the other). The full title of the book is History of Western Philosophy: and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Russell manages to not only give a relatively objective and complete overview of western philosophy, he also infuses the book with historical anecdotes and his personal opinion. This is a big book (800+ pages) and the scope is immense. It is not just philosophy, it is also a history of the ancient Greeks, Christianity and the enlightenment. Here is his definition of philosophy from the introduction:
Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or revelation.
What a brilliant writer and thinker! By the way, in the “atheist manifesto” category, I far prefer Russel’s Why I am Not a Christian over Dawkin’s The God Delusion.
First read: 1994
Catch-22
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
No other book has shown the absurdity of war better than Catch-22. I couldn’t stop reading when I first read this and it is one of the only books that I have read twice. I barely ever remember the names and personalities of characters in novels, but Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder (“Everybody has a share”) are still clear in my mind. As a critique of bureaucracy, Catch-22 is even more compelling than Kafka’s The Trial. Here is the explanation of the title:
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. ‘Orr’ was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.
This is probably the funniest book I have ever read, I can’t wait to read it again..
First read: 1994
If This Is a Man/The Truce
If This is A Man/The Truce – Primo Levi
If I was allowed to set the curriculum for all schools in this world and could only put one book on it, this would be it. Levi was an Italian chemist who got deported to Auschwitz and lived to tell the tale. For the rest of his life he struggled with his fate and self-perceived guilt (survival was only possible if you inhibited the gray area of collaboration in the camps). If This is A Man was written right after the war and describes his time in Auschwithz. The Truce is a book about his months long travel home after liberation. Both these books show humanity in its most naked form. I read these books in complete shock. They give an insight into the darker side of the human psyche, while at the same time proving that human dignity can prevail in the harshest of circumstances. This is as close to understanding the human condition as you can get.
First read: 1995
Charley Dancey's Encyclopædia of Ball Juggling
Charlie Dancey’s Encyclopædia of Ball Juggling – Charlie Dancey
I taught myself how to juggle one holiday in Prague. I believe juggling is a very healthy activity. The symmetry of the movement and the required concentration provide for a liberating workout (see The Zen of Juggling and Lessons from the Art of Juggling). Charlie Dancey’s book brought my juggling to the next level. Dancey is an excellent writer, illustrator and juggler. His goal was to provide an encyclopædic overview of all ball juggling tricks. The form of the book is very suitable for jugglers: it is wide enough to stay open by itself. Not only did this book teach me a lot of new tricks (e.g. Mill’s mess, blind juggling, the box, orangutan, juggling with children, eating the apple, etc.), it also gave me a firm understanding of the mathematical underpinnings of juggling (e.g. measuring difficulty, siteswap and ladder notation) and it served as an introduction into the juggling community. I still cannot juggle five balls, but have recently picked up the book again and am sure I will eventually get there with Dancey’s humourus advice!
First read: 1996
Le Ton Beau de Marot
Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language – Douglas Hofstadter
This book is unlike any other. Hofstadter set out to write a book that could convey his passion for language. While writing the book his wife died of cancer. Parts of the book were turned into an eulogy for his wife, giving the book an emotional depth that it would not have had before. This book had to compete with Metamagical Themas to be included on this list. Metamagical Themas is collection of incredibly diverse essays, including my favourite essay about the nuclear arms race. Le Ton Beau de Marot wins out, because of the unity of its message: language is fascinating and translation is not just about function, but also about form. The core of the book is 72 different translations of a poem by Marot from French into English. Hofstadter comments on each of these and encapsulates them in an exploration of literary language. On the journey we encounter an immense amount of word-play, Eugene Onegin, machine translation and much more. He vigorously argues for giving due attention to the non-semantic aspects of the written word. This is masterful book in both its form and function (or medium and message if you will).
First read: 1998
New Paradigms for Course Delivery
The Ministry of Instructional Design
As I write this I am participating in two exciting courses. Each course is an example of how new paradigms for course delivery are coming to the fore in this online world. I will probably write more about both of them in the near future, but will kick off today with just a simple explanation of both courses.
Rapid eLearning Development
LearningAge Solutions has developed an online course about Rapid eLearning Development. I am a participant in the pilot group: I don’t have a course fee to pay, but have committed myself to giving weekly feedback so that the course can be fine-tuned.
The “Ministry of Instructional Design” (LearningAge Solutions)
Part 3D computer game, part social network, part collaborative learning, the ReD course will teach you how to build effective elearning and informal media using leading elearning author tools.
Designed by Rob Hubbard of LearningAge Solutions with input from some of the smartest people in the elearning industry including Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart and Patrick Dunn. This is a course unlike any other, designed to show how great elearning can be and built using tools that you too can master.
The way that this course is created/structured is smart and inspiring (regardless of the content which is good too). The course is made from a loosely coupled set of (mostly) free online web applications.
The core of the course is a private Ning network which has links to all the other parts of the course. This is the place where participants do reflective blogging and where people hand in their assignments and comment on other people’s assignments.
Mindmeister is used for mindmaps that contain the learning objectives for each module, ClassMarker contains a couple of knowledge checks/assessments, Dimdim delivers the web conferencing functionality and there is a 3D game made with the gaming technology from Thinking Worlds.
To me this type of course design shows that it is not necessary to assume that one single tool should deliver the full learner experience. It is perfectly viable to use a collection of tools and use each for its strengths. Once I have finished the course I will post a bit more about my experiences.
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge
This is the second year that George Siemens and Stephen Downes (actually my two favourite learning gurus) organise the ”rather large open online course” Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. It is their attempt to destabilise the concept of a course.
The course is open to anyone. You attend freely if you do not need any university course credits, or you pay if you do. The course is decentralised (or maybe “loosely federated” is a better word): the two facilitators set out reading materials and organise a couple of webcasts every week, but the meat of the course is to be found in the discussions that participants have (online in Moodle forums) and the reflections that participants post on their blogs.
A single tag, CCK09, is used by all participants for their posts. This pulls the all the course activity together and makes it easy to find course related postings (e.g. on Twitter or in the blogosphere). By connecting to people with similar interests, it is possible to go on a tangent and explore the things that you want to work on in relation to connectivism and connective knowledge.
A daily newsletter is sent out. This is an edited version of the aggregated posts and discussions and includes commentary by Stephen Downes. Just reading the newsletter is already incredibly valuable.
I tried to actively participate in this course last year, but was not able to keep up with it. It requires a lot of discipline to study this way: there is no passive consumption of information. Instead it requires a lot of effort to select what you want to read and post your reflections. I hope I will be able to do better this year (although things are already not looking good right for that to be the case)!
My Top 10 Tools for Learning
Number 10 by Flickr user Downing Street, CC licensed
Jane Hart does the educational technology community a big favour by compiling top 10 lists of learning tools which are send to her by educational professionals from around the world. She creates a top 100 list that is an interesting reflection of current (and past) popular technology in education and learning.
Each year you get a chance to update your own list. I haven’t done that this year, so here goes:
- Moodle – This open source course management system is still very much my bread and butter and has led me into the free software world. Its community of teachers and its enlightened leadership is second to none.
- Google Reader – The only way that I am able to keep up with the things that I want to read. Outsourcing my subscriptions and read/unread statusses to Google makes it possible for me to use my laptop, my cellphone or any random computer and see the same information.
- Ubuntu – My operating system of choice. Not only does it give me the freedom to use it how I want, it is also the source of much learning about how computers work. I see it as a critical enabler.
- Google Search – Still the best search technology around. I have a couple of stock queries that I do all the time like “better than x” if I want to find an alternative to x and I can usually find what I need in one or two queries.
- Wikipedia – More and more the easiest way to find a piece of factual information. I use a lot of materials from the Wikimedia Commons in most things that I create. Wikipedia has been decisive in many kitchen table arguments.
- WordPress – I have been blogging for over a year now and the process of writing for an audience has forced me to think deeper about my profession. Writing blogs could a central part of many courses. It really is a heavily underutilised pedagogical tool. I have to admit I don’t run my own installation, but trust the excellent WordPress.com service.
- Chromium – Most of the work that on do on my computer is done in a browser window. Google’s open source effort is now my default browser. This is mainly because of it’s amazing speed and the Omnibox. Read this blog post for more of my reasons.
- LAMP = Apache, MySQL, PHP – This technology makes it trivial for a non-programmer like me to create my own tools that do what I need them do. Using the APIs of the different web services I can create my own mashups.
- Youtube – This has become an indispensable resource. Stuck in a level on a Nintendo DS game? Type the games name and a level to see a walk through. There are endless tutorials on anything that you might want to learn.
- Delicious – The social bookmarking site not only remembers all I have seen that is interesting on the net, but it is also an excellent way of finding many good sites on a topic. My slowly expanding network of del.icio.us friend tag interesting pages for me to look at.
It wasn’t intentional, but I now notice that the only things that are not web applications are an operating and a browser (the bare essentials). That must be of some significance!
What on Earth is RSS Cloud?
Arjen Vrielink and I write a monthly series titled: Parallax. We both agree on a title for the post and on some other arbitrary restrictions to induce our creative process. For this post we agreed to write about a new technology using Linux Format’s “What on Earth is …?” style (see example on Android). We did not agree on a particular technology and we would get bonus points for a nice pixellated image to accompany the post. You can read Arjen’s post with the same title here.
RSS Cloud
RSS Cloud? I am getting a bit tired of this cloud computing trend.
Yes, I also think that cloud computing is slightly over hyped. However RSS Cloud is not about cloud computing. It is about bringing real-time updates to the RSS protocol.
I have only just grasped what RSS is. Only the technorati seem to use it, normal computer users have no idea.
Indeed: most people have no idea what RSS is or how they can use it. They still visit all their favourite news sites one after the other to check whether something new has been posted. However even people that don’t understand it often use it. If you download podcasts through iTunes you are using RSS technology. Furthermore RSS is the technological glue for many of the popular mashup sites. You don’t need to understand a technology for it to be useful to you.
Fair enough, so how would you explain RSS Cloud to a lay person?
Sites that have content that changes often (think blogs or news sites) publish an RSS feed on their server. Whenever a new item is posted it will be added to the feed, usually dropping the oldest item from the list at the same time. If you are interested in those news items you can use a news reader (also called an aggregator) and tell this news reader to check whether new items are added to the feed, if there is an update, then the news reader can retrieve it. A news reader typically does this every fifteen minutes or so. This means the news can be 15 minutes old when you get it. RSS Cloud makes it possible for news readers to subscribe to the updates of a feed. Whenever something new is added the feed, the RSS Cloud server notifies all subscribers so that they can pick up the content immediately: in real-time.
Another buzz word! What is the benefit of real-time? Can’t people just wait a couple of minutes before they get their news?
People listen to the radio so that they can hear the sports results in real-time. Weren’t you upset when all your friends knew about Michael Jackson’s death earlier than you, because they heard it on Twitter? The success of Twitter search and trending topics shows that people want to know about stuff as it happens and not fifteen minutes later.
Now that you mention it: Twitter indeed works in real-time. Why do we need something else, what’s wrong with Twitter?
Twitter actually also uses a “polling” model for its content. Each single Twitter client will have to access the Twitter API to see whether something new has been posted by the people you are following. This is a huge waste of computer resources. All these clients asking for new information even if there is none. It is a model that does not scale well. A “push” model actually works much better in this respect.
Oh, so it is a bit like the difference between getting your email once every couple of minutes and getting it immediately on your Blackberry?
Yes, that is a nice analogy. The Blackberry uses push email. You get the email as soon as it hits the server, because it is pushed to your phone. Traditional email clients, like Outlook, go to the server once every couple of minutes to see whether something new is there.
So what large company is trying to push this idea?
This time it is not a big company trying to establish a standard or protocol. The RSS Cloud protocol is designed by Dave Winer who also drafted the original RSS specification.
Dave Winer, isn’t that the guy that loves to rub people the wrong way?
He is a controversial character and is certainly very vocal and opinionated. At the same time, he is a true pioneer and one of those people that embody the values of the Internet. His vision for Cloud RSS is not about blogging. Instead, he wants to provide a decentralised architecture for microblog messages. To him the fact that Twitter centralises all the microblogging activity is a real vulnerability. His goal is to create a network that can work alongside Twitter without being in the control of a single company.
Talking about companies. I suddenly remember hearing about a similar technology. One of these cute names with many vowels?
You probably mean PubSubHubbub. This is a Google sponsored protocol that has already been implemented in Google Reader.
Great: another standards war. VHS versus Betamax, RSS versus Atom, Britney versus Whitney. Will we never learn?
This shouldn’t become a problem. RSS and Atom for example live happily next to each other now. It is easy to implement both. PubSubHubbub has a slightly different goal in comparison to Cloud RSS. It focuses mainly on blogging and associates itself with Feed Burner. The two technologies should be able to live next to each other, at least that is what Dave says.
Well, let’s hope he and you are right. By the way, isn’t this Cloud RSS just another sneaky way to measure subscribers, generate some statistics and store information about where they are from and what they are doing?
It is true that an RSS reader will have to register itself with the the RSS cloud for the protocol to work. However the RSS cloud forgets about the RSS reader if the registration isn’t renewed every 24 hours. You also have to remember that many people will use readers that do not support RSS Cloud. There are much better ways to get statistics.
Aren’t you a learning technology person? What does this have to do with learning?
I am very interested in Cloud RSS because I am a learning technologist! Like all new Internet based technologies it will only be a matter of time before some smart developer finds a way of using this in some unexpected fashion. Remember: technology creates feasibility spaces for social practice! Just think of what kind of course delivery models RSS has made possible: the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course could not run without it for example.
You are a Moodle evangelist. Does Moodle support RSS Cloud yet?
I haven’t checked, but I doubt it. It is very new and the Moodle developers are focusing on getting Moodle 2.0 to a beta release. However, I am sure that in the future, parts of Moodle will move towards real-time. Imagine how Cloud RSS could be used to create activity streams or notify people of comments on their work. It could effectively bridge the gap between asynchronous activities like discussion forums and assignments and synchronous activities like web conferencing.
Ok, you have managed to pique my interested. Where can I go if I want to start using it?
There are two ways of using it. First, you can make your own feeds RSS Cloud enabled. If you have blog at WordPress.com this is automatically the case. You can opt-in if you host your own WordPress blog. The other way of using it would be to have an RSS reader that supports the protocol. Currently only River2 supports it and Lazyfeed has announced that it will support it too. Only web based readers can support it, as the RSS Cloud server needs to be able to ping the reader with the update.
Are there any sites that can tell me a bit more?
The current home of the protocol is http://www.rsscloud.org. Here you will find news about the protocol and an implementation guide. The Wikipedia entry could be better. Why don’t you help fixing it?
Why Isn’t There a Wealth of Business Transparency Literature?
The Naked Corporation
In March 2007 I read an article in Wired magazine titled The See -Through CEO. It introduced me to the concept of radical transparency. Ever since then, I have seen transparency as a business value that should be able to provide significant competitive advantages in this digital world. Wired obviously thinks along similar lines. Quite recently, for example, they wrote about how transparency could have prevented and might solve some of the problems that we are encountering in our financial systems: Road Map for Financial Recovery: Radical Transparency Now!
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and find some books that might explore these concepts further. To my surprise I couldn’t really find much. The most interesting book that I could find was The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business. Tapscott and Ticoll’s wrote this book in 2003. They tried to create a conceptual framework for transparency in the corporate world. In the book they build a rationale for companies to embrace transparency as the basis for a couple of new business integrity values.
To build trusting relationships and succeed in a transparent economy, growing numbers of firms in all parts of the globe now behave more responsibly than ever. Disgraced firms represent the old model – a dying breed. Business integrity is on the rise, not just for legal or purely ethical reasons but because it makes economic sense. Firms that exhibit ethical values, openness, and candor have discovered that they can better compete and profit. [...] Today’s winners increasingly undress for success.
[...]
Today’s economy depends on knowledge, human intelligence, agility and relationships inside and outside the firm. The fuel is information, and the lubricant is trust. The revolution in information and communication technologies is at the heart of these changes. The Internet and other technologies enable thinking, communication, and collaboration like never before.
They define transparency as the accessibility of information to stakeholders of institutions, regarding matters that affect their interests. The book is chock full of examples of how companies can be successful by being open and transparent. It will help you attract the best employees for example, or can take inefficiencies out of the supply chain preventing overstocking. My employer, Shell, is mentioned in complimentary terms many times in this book (I didn’t realise this when I bought the book…):
Shell’s brand has always stood for reliability [...] and consideration [...]. Today, Shell places integrity at the center of its brand. Shell is now asking consumers to trust it not only to provide good gas but also to steward the environment and be socially responsible. It positions itself as an honest, transparent corporate citizen. Some critics allege that this is pure window dressing and that Shell’s commitment to advertising how well it behaves is greater than its commitment to behaving well. But there is no comparison between the genuine shift in thinking and behavior at Shell and the thinking at other companies such as Exxon that have just begun to make the turn.
(Look here for a slightly more neutral point of view on Shell’s corporate responsibility. Also check Shell’s values, especially the General Business Principles are an inspiring read.)
The book could have used some heavy editing (honestly: typos??), but still the authors manage to build a convincing case for more transparency and integrity in the corporate world. In short form: a firm should always try to do the decent thing. Doing the decent thing is not always easy and means you have to weigh options and make choices. Only by being clear about why certain choices are made can a company win the trust of all stakeholders: employees, business partners, customers, communities and shareholders/owners.
So back to the title of this post: Why Isn’t There a Wealth of Business Transparency Literature? I think this thinking is still ahead of the curve. Tapscott seems to have a talent for catching on very early (he wrote The Digital Economy in 1996, Growing Up Digital in 1998 and Who Knows: Safeguarding Your Privacy in a Networked World in 1996). When will we get a clear discourse on this topic? I predict it won’t take much longer: expect to hear more!
I would be very happy with any good reading tips on this topic in the comments.
Some transparency from my side: If you click the link to the book you will be taken to The Book Depository. If you then decide to buy something there, I will receive a 5% commission through their affiliate programme.
The Book Depository is a great online book store that has free shipping worldwide and a giant selection (bigger than Amazon as it will allow you to buy Amazon’s collection through its site). Try it…
Why Chromium is Now My Primary Browser
Arjen Vrielink and I write a monthly series titled: Parallax. We both agree on a title for the post and on some other arbitrary restrictions to induce our creative process. For this post we agreed to include our personal browser histories in the post. You can read Arjen’s post with the same title here.
Chromium Logo
If you are not interested in Browsers and/or usability, I would suggest you don’t bother to read this post.
I cannot exactly remember the first time I used the Internet. It probably was in 1996 in the library at the Universiteit Utrecht. I wasn’t particularly aware of the browser I was using, but I am quite sure that is was Netscape Navigator with which I did the Altavista searches. I used Netscape throughout my education, only to switch to Internet Explorer 5 when I got my own computer with Windows 98 and a dial-up Internet connection. I then used nothing but IE until I read about Mozilla Firefox in a magazine in 2004. Through Moodle I had started appreciating open source software and I liked working with Firefox and its tabs. I stuck with Firefox for a year or so, feeling quite the rebel whenever a site would only load in IE. At some point I noticed how much faster IE was than Firefox. That is when I switched to Avant Browser, a freeware skin around the IE browser engine which included tabs and some other advanced features. A little while later (somewhere in late 2005 or early 2006) I learnt about Opera. Opera had a lot of appeal to me. I liked how their developers pushed so many innovations in the browser space: tabbed browsing, advanced security features and mouse gestures were all inventions of Opera. I loved how fast it was and how many features they managed to cram in so little megabytes. Its cross platform nature allowed me to stay with Opera when I permanently switched to Ubuntu in the summer of 2006. I switched back to Firefox in early 2007 because of my slightly more hardcore open source attitude and because of its wonderful extensions. The latter allowed me to keep all the functionality that I loved about Opera and more.
About two weeks ago I switched to Chromium. This is Google’s relatively new open source offering in the browser market. I am able to automatically download new builds every day through the PPA for Ubuntu Chromium Daily Builds. Even though it is still beta alpha software, it is highly usable.
So why did I switch? I think there are three reasons:
1. Performance
Since a couple of months my private computing is done with a Samsung NC10. This Intel Atom based netbook is slightly underpowered. You really notice this when you are doing things like recoding a video or doing some CPU intensive image editing. I also noticed it terribly in Firefox. Things like Google Reader, DabbleDB (watch that 8 minute demo!) and the WordPress admin interface were nearly unusable. A cold start of Firefox (the 2.x version that comes with Ubuntu 9.04) takes nearly a minute. Chromium on the other hand starts up in a couple of seconds and is very spiffy with Javascript-heavy web-apps.
I tried to quantify my unmistakable feelings with some benchmarking. I used Peacekeeper, but Firefox could not finish the benchmark and would crash! I then used the Sunspider Javascript benchmark and got a total score of 3488.8ms for Chromium and a total score of 18809.6ms for Firefox. This means that in certain cases Chromium would load something in less than one fifth of the time that Firefox 2.x will load it.
While writing this post I decided to try installing Firefox 3.5 (without add-ons) and see how that would perform. After a sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5 I could start Firefox by selecting “Shiretoko Web Browser” in the “Internet” menu. The total score was 5781.2ms, a major improvement, but still more than one and half times slower than Chromium. Its interface is also still less responsive than I would like it to be.
Another nice aspect about Chromium’s performance is that each tab is its own process. This so called Multi Process Architecture isolates problem webpages so that one Flash page crashing does not affect the other browser tabs, something that happened very often to me with Firefox.
2. Screen Real Estate
Another thing that a netbook lacks is pixels. My screen is 1024 pixels wide and 600 pixels high. Especially the lack of height is sometimes taxing. I have done a lot of things in Ubuntu to mitigate this problem (if you are interested I could write a post about that) and I had to do the same with Firefox.
In Firefox I used Tiny Menu, chose small icons, used no bookmarks and combined many toolbars into one to make sure that I have more content and less browser. To my surprise I had to do nothing with Chromium and still got a bigger canvas with a bigger font in the address bar! Compare the screenshots below to see the differences:
Screenshot Firefox (click to enlarge)
Screenshot Chromium (click to enlarge)
Chromium shows more of the page and accomplishes this by doing a couple of smart things:
- There is no status bar. I could have turned the status bar off in Firefox, but I need to see where a link is pointing to before I click on it. Chromium shows this information dynamically as soon as you hover over a link. When you don’t hover it shows nothing.
- The tabs are moved into the title bar. It looks a bit weird for a while, but it uses some very valuable space.
- Some things only appear when you need them. The bookmark bar, for example, only shows up when you open a new tab.
3. It is a fresh look at what a browser should/could be
Most of my time behind my computer is spent using a browser. More and more of the applications I use daily have moved into the cloud (e.g. mail and RSS reading). It is thus important to have a browser that is made to do exactly those functions.
The developers of Chromium have looked at all aspects of a traditional browser and have rethought how they work. A couple of examples:
- The address bar is actually a tool with four functions. It contains your web history, typing some terms will execute a search in your default search engine (saving me two characters compared to how I search in Firefox), you can type a normal web address and you can use keywords to search. If I type w chromium in the address bar it will search for chromium in Wikipedia. The keyword search also works in Firefox, but Chromium has a prettier and more clear implementation.
- When you open a new tab, you see a Dashboard of sites you use often (a variant of another Opera invention). That page also conveniently displays recently closed tabs with a link to your browsing history. The history page has excellent search (it is Google after all!) and has that simple Google look.
- The downloads work in a particular way. They automatically save in a default location unless you tick a box confirming that you always like to open that type of file from now on. This takes a little getting used to (I like saving my downloads in different folders), but once again the download history is searchable and looks clean.
In conclusion: Chromium is a browser in which some hard choices were made. No compromises. That means that I, as a user, have to worry about less choices and settings and can focus on being more productive. Making tough interface design choices can be a very successful strategy: witness Apple’s iPod.
For now I will be using Chromium as my primary browser and will use Firefox when I need certain functionalities that only Firefox add-ons can provide.
I am looking forward to what the browser future holds!
10 Things to Like About Moodle
It was always my intention to write a post summarising last April’s Moodlemoot in Loughborough in the UK. It was a highly enjoyable event with many Moodle luminaries present and there was much to write about.
However, I doubt I will ever write that post, so I have decided to share the presentation that I did titled 10 Things to Like About Moodle. It tries to describe the factors that have contributed to making Moodle such a success in the seven years of its existence. The audio is sometimes a bit hard to understand (too much hand-waving on my part), but overall it should still be valuable to many people.
Free Software in Education and Implementation Scenarios for VLE’s (in Dutch)
Van twaalf tot achttien
About one and half years ago I wrote two Dutch articles for Van twaalf tot achttien, a magazine catering for teachers in secondary education. These articles were the first in this magazine to be published under a Creative Commons licence. This means that I can publish them on this blog and that you will be able to reuse what I have written (as long as you comply to the license agreement).
The first article is titled Vrije software in het onderwijs is een must (Free software in education is a must). It tries to explain not only the benefits of free software (yes, free as in speech, not free as in beer) but also touches on open standards and open educational resources. The article has a companion webpage which is still available here.
I have always believed that is very strange that our government subsidises many schools and teachers to create learning materials, but that these organisations and people are not required to share these materials under a free license. This has mainly to do with a lack of awareness of this problem and I am hoping that this article increases knowledge about the importance of free licensing of software and content.
Note how the designer who laid out the page wasn’t very interested in the contents of the article. His or her thought process must have gone something like: “Ah an article about software… let me find an image of a CD… yes, great Adobe Creative Suite CS2″. Really fitting for an article that talks about the Gimp!
The second article was co-written with Leen van Kaam (at the point of writing a colleague at Stoas Learning). It is titled Scenario’s voor de implementatie van een Elektronische Leeromgeving (ELO) (Scenarios for the implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)) and describes a maturity model for implementing virtual learning environments in secondary education. It can be used to set goals and manage expectations in schools and should make it easier to understand why certain parts of a VLE implementation are successful and other are not.
Hope you enjoy the read!
Outsourcing to the Customer
Arjen Vrielink and I write a monthly series titled: Parallax. We both agree on a title for the post and on some other arbitrary restrictions to induce our creative process. For this post we agreed to write an essay of no more than 500 words discussing the title in relation to Knowledge, Innovation and Quality. You can read Arjen’s post with the same title here.
Ikea by Flickr user splorp, CC licensed. Anybody interested in co-authoring a book titled: "Ikea for Dummies, Guerilla Shopping for the Whole Family"?
Outsourcing, the process of subcontracting to a third party, is mostly discussed in the context of large businesses offshoring some of their work to other countries. Reasons for outsourcing can vary, but usually have to do with saving costs, getting access to proprietary knowledge, improve quality through standardisation or help with research and innovation.
I have also seen the term used in two other contexts:
- People now outsource part of their brain functions to technology. To use myself as an example: a lot of my memory is now outsourced to my mobile phone (much more than the phone numbers of my friends; also reminders, lists, pin codes, etc.).
- Smart companies outsource a lot of their work to their customers, saving costs in the process. The most brilliant example is Ikea. In the old days furniture was delivered fully assembled and straight into your living room. With Ikea you drive your purchases home yourself and then spend hours putting it all together. Ikea takes this very far, letting you tap your own soft-icecreams.
“Subcontracting” to the customer has become very pervasive in the Western world. You take your own groceries from the shelf (in the past somebody got them for you) and in some supermarkets you are the one scanning them at the cash register. Full service gas stations don’t exist anymore. Money is taken out of ATMs, not at a teller and in many restaurants you have to clean up your table yourself.
There are two types of outsourcing to the customer:
- Things that are just as fast and convenient when you do them yourself as when they are done by somebody else. The ATM is an example. This type is usually made possible by technology and will keep expanding in our society.
- Things that are more inconvenient or take more time to do yourself, but that allow the service/product to be cheaper. Gas stations are an example of this. This is only interesting for a customer if there is an attractive balance between time lost and money saved. When time is very valuable, paying a bit extra to get service becomes interesting. That’s when you decide to get your groceries delivered for a fee or pay somebody in India to research and book that next trip abroad. As long as the costs of labour in the BRIC countries stay much lower than labour costs in the US and Europe I foresee more and more cases of individual customers offshoring what was outsourced to them.
If I had more words, I would have tried to explore what these trends might mean for the way that we teach, train and learn. I can imagine that learners soon will be asked to assemble their own curricula, find their own sources and even assess themselves. In that sense there are parallels between outsourcing to the customer and the shift from “push” towards “pull” in learning.
Maybe in a next post?
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick to the self-imposed rules in this post. But Lars von Trier didn’t do that in most of his Dogme 95 movies either (and he took a “vow of chastity” which cannot be said of me!).
Authenticity: There Ain’t No Party Like a Leela James Party
Leela James by Flickr user Pieter Baert
Ever since I attended a conference in a Disney World resort in Orlando I have been meaning to write a very cynical post about how authenticity is disappearing from our society (think Epcot: I visited Germany, Japan and Coronado Springs in twenty minutes total). In the post I would lament on how nothing is real anymore and that everything is fake. Have you looked at any ad in Wired recently? 100% photoshopped. Have you been to the great wall of China? No part of it is really old, it has all been “renovated”. Whenever I go anywhere or look at anything the experience that is delivered to me seems over-engineered.
I have decided not to write that post. I experienced some authenticity tonight: Leela James in the Melkweg in Amsterdam. This is the best concert I have ever attended. It was better than John Legend in Bruxelles, better than Postmen in the Melkweg. Even better than Zap Mama in the Westergasfabriek. Leela rocked the house for over two hours and showed that we still have artists that can express true feelings on the stage (shame on you Maxwell). The intensity of her show was incredible and her voice is truly exceptional.
Thank you Leela for keeping it real.
