eRhetBlog http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/ This is a collaborative blog for Stanford's Winter 2006 eRhetoric class, part of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric. en Copyright 2006 Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:39:47 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.16 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Lifehacks I recently ran across the New York Times article Meet the Life Hackers. (if you don't have a New York Times account, go to BugMeNot to grab a pregistered account & password. This is not illegal because registration is free). The web meme "lifehacks" is a back to the basics movement among high-tech professionals. These people feel that the culture around technology has led them to frantically multitask and paradoxically get less done (and be more stressed), and advocate simplifying your life- often in the most geeky way possible (like the people who have written programs which prevent them from checking their mail more than once an hour).

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/lifehacks.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/lifehacks.html individual posts Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:39:47 -0800 Why the wiki worked and the blog didn't Most of this has allready been said before, but it is allways good to point this out. The wiki became important in our class because it lent itself well for group work. The ability to change each other work, and thereby allowing people to communicate what they wanted easily to the rest of their group. This helps build a sense of community, which I feel, the blog does not.

Why is that? Because, despite how it was attempted to be in this class the blog is more of an individual concept. In a blog we each make a post, and they are split up from each other. People can make comments, but they still feel seperate from the origional post. In the wiki, I edit a page, but that doesn't make it my page. It makes it our page. That sense of group ownership does not come up in the blog.

In class Christine asked if there was some way to get people to use the blog as much as they did the wiki. After thinking about this for some time, I eventually decided that this really wasn't possible. As I said before, the blog is oriented much more on the level of the individual. It is much more interesting to say something on a wiki and have people change it and edit it. You make something grow. On the blog, the best you can hope for is comments.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/why_the_wiki_wo.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/why_the_wiki_wo.html individual posts Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:26:20 -0800 ISP under fire for hate content Although we might feel like we are being anonymous and untraceable on the internet, that really is a false sense of security. We discussed in class how people have gotten in trouble because of the content they posted on their blogs, but now it’s not just the people responsible for the content that are to blame. A Canadian court fined an ISP for hosting hate content against blacks, Jews, and Muslims based on the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act prohibits the communication of messages over the Internet likely to expose people to hatred or contempt based on religion or race, treading the line between free speech and security. This was the first time a ruling of this kind was ever made, and is proof that ISPs can no longer pretend to be ignorant of the content that they are hosting.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2006/03/11/1482485-sun.html

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/isp_under_fire.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/isp_under_fire.html individual posts Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:19:18 -0800 A New Science of Love People in our section have presented really interesting research on meeting people through the internet as well as computer simulations of social interaction. The other day I was reading an Atlantic Monthly article that talks about how a growing number of internet dating sites are relying on academic researchers to develop "a new science of love" and how this could result in an enormous online social experiment.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/a_new_science_o.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/a_new_science_o.html individual posts Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:59:22 -0800 Group Presentations Everyone's hard work on the group presentations really has paid off -- I was really impressed by all the presentations delivered today.

I would love for you all to take a minute and comment here on what you found exemplary or memorable about today's presentations.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/group_presentat.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/group_presentat.html Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:51:35 -0800 [SPAM]****: Recently, I've become more annoyed (or rather... more aware) of an issue
that has snuck its way into our everyday lives. We've been dealing with
this problem for about a decade now, but, in these 10 years, its presence
in our lives has been constantly growing. I am talking about the problem
of e-mail spam. How conscious are we of this issue? Probably... some of us
are more annoyed of this issue than others. Or maybe... this issue has
become so integrated into our e-mail activities that we no longer take
notice of it.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/spam.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/spam.html individual posts Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:09:29 -0800 Free books I don't know if any of you have heard of Project Gutenberg. It is a public domain database of eBooks. Its been around for a while now, but in the past it was still in its prematured form. The database contains electronic versions of classics and other historical documents that are free to the general public. Yesterday, the Gutenberg Project released a CD/DVD image project, in which they compiled selections of their database on ISO formate. I've downloaded the CD version and its very cool. Like wikipedia, Gutenburg Project puts so much information at our finger tip. I'm really looking forward to seeing more development of this kind and perhaps one day we can really transition to electronic books just out of convenience.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/free_books.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/free_books.html individual posts Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:21:52 -0800 The State of Macintosh Security Before last month, Macs were indisputably the safest computers to own and use. Note that I am not arguing that they were inherently the most secure; I am saying they were the safest to use: there were no known Mac viruses. Before last month, the last Mac virus was written sometime in the early nineties. The only things Macs could be infected with were M$ Office macro bugs. Mac infections were so rare that it was the official policy of Chesapeake Systems, Inc., the Apple reseller I work for in Baltimore, to disable or remove any antivirus software installed on a Mac a client brought in for repair. The "protection" these programs provided was simply not worth the ridiculous slowdowns they caused. The antivirus makers like Symantec and Virex extorted money from Mac users who naively believed that viruses were as much of a problem on Macs as on PCs.

And then, on February 15, 2006, an anonymous poster uploaded a file called "latestpics.tgz" to the MacRumors.com forums...

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/the_state_of_ma.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/the_state_of_ma.html individual posts Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:06:52 -0800 Wikis and collaborative writing What I've been really obsessed with lately is wikis and the act of collaborative authorship. Again, I would love to hear your insights into this topic. What has it been like to do group work centered around a wiki site? How has it changed your assumptions or practices of authorship? How can wikis be best used in the classroom?

Again, any insights you have on the subject of the relationship between wikis and writing, especially in an academic context and as a mode of collaboration, would be greatly appreciated!

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/wikis_and_colla.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/wikis_and_colla.html individual posts Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:23:59 -0800 Collaborative blogging I know that everyone's busy and focused on their individual projects ... and, tonight, so am I -- focused on my own project, that is, rather than all of yours :). Right now, my individual project is an evolving presentation/article on the use of collaborative blogs as well as wikis in the writing classroom.

If you have a few minutes, I would really appreciate your feedback on the issue of collaborative blogs. How useful are they in an academic context? How can they be best used in the PWR classroom? How does participating in a collaborative blog -- a blog with multiple authors -- affect your experience of writing and your practical understanding of authorship? Does the collaborative blog differ at all from a coursework forum discussion? How? For the better, for the worse? Any other related insights?

I would appreciate any feedback that you have the time to give ...

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/collaborative_b.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/collaborative_b.html individual posts Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:16:21 -0800 Bookmarks are del.icio.us! My secret mission is to get everyone tagging bookmarks on del.icio.us. Tagging involves putting multiple labels on items; Gmail labels & facebook picture tags both work off the same principle.

Why tag bookmarks, you ask? If you like to surf the web, del.icio.us is a place to quickly dump things that you might want to refer back to. You'll find that its ease of use will have you quickly racking up many more bookmarks than you keep in your browser folders. Since you tag based on whatever pops to mind, it's likely that you'll be able to find an item easily, based again on the first things that comes to mind. You can access your bookmarks from anywhere that you have an internet connection, instead of having it restricted to one computer. And you can easily share bookmarks with friends (whether or not they have an account); just point them to your user page. You can even stalk someone's del.icio.us collection obsessively through RSS feeds.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/bookmarks_are_d.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/bookmarks_are_d.html individual posts Sun, 05 Mar 2006 02:11:21 -0800 Thoughts on Apple's Hi-Fi, and a broader movement My individual blog post has to do with the latest news from Apple, announcing the Sunnyvale-based computer giant's foray into home entertainment. The iPod Hi-Fi music system is basically a single unit: three high quality drivers (two wide-range and one woofer) inside a compact black box that has a "dock" on top for the iPod. The primary advantage, Apple advertises, is the unit's compact size while providing high quality sound.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/thoughts_on_app.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/thoughts_on_app.html individual posts Sat, 04 Mar 2006 17:41:57 -0800 I got arrested because of my MySpace! A month and a half ago, in the middle of January, we discussed an example of a woman who lost her job because of the risque and explicit content on her personal blog. That is old news.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/i_got_arrested.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/i_got_arrested.html individual posts Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:32:43 -0800 Wikipedia Reaches One Million Articles From Slashdot: "At 23:09 UTC, the one-millionth article was created in the English-language Wikipedia. The milestone was reached with the creation of an article about Jordanhill railway station in Scotland. Congratulations to all the Wikipedians, especially Nach0king who wrote the millionth article and Mészáros András who in November 2004 correctly predicted that it would be created today."

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_Publishes_Millionth_Article

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/wikipedia_reach.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/wikipedia_reach.html Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:15:55 -0800 Persuasive videogames Remember at the beginning of the quarter when we looked at persuasive computer games (think Esuvees and September 12th)? Well, I was doing some research for my upcoming presentation on collaborative blogs and wikis (yes, PWR instructors write too), and I stumbled across a link through Matt Barton's TikiWiki (a wonderful site, worth exploring in it's own right).

Here's the link -- it's what he calls a Rhetoric Videogame about McDonald's. I don't quite get how to play it, but I completely agree with his assessment that it will be taken down shortly. In any event, it's interesting to look at right now and to think about the ways in which it is using eRhetoric, computer graphics, and the user interface to make an argument about the McDonalds corporation.

]]> http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/persuasive_vide.html http://www.stanford.edu/~steener/eRhetblog/archives/2006/03/persuasive_vide.html individual posts Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:16:49 -0800