The Computer Next Door

The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls: A Great Online User Experience

Sometimes Google gets it right - really, really right.

Like their recent collaboration with the Israel Museum to digitize the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It's a great online experience, and an educational one.  I perused the version with English language online tour of one of the scrolls - The Great Isaiah Scroll.

As you mouse-over each line on the scroll, you can simultaneously view a short translation of that piece of text.

It's a beautifully designed and engineered digital user experience - one of the most satisfying "translations" of real world to digital that I've seen in a long time.  And it's addictive.  The more you play with it, the more you want to read the whole thing.

Intrigued?  You should be.  It is our collective heritage - and our digital future.

Can Anyone Borrow an EBook? (They can Try)

Digital rights management is not for the faint of heart.  And so it is with eBook borrowing rights. That's right, you heard me - you can borrow eBooks, just like regular books.  From libraries, and from friends.

Or so it would appear.

I must say I have yet to borrow an eBook, but the idea certainly is a sound one. Why not? Libraries can purchase the titles and then circulate them to members.

But not so fast - publishers are balking (yes, balking!) at the idea, and some are insisting on limits on the number of times an eBook can be circulated, effectively limiting the shelf life of Library eBooks. This would make sense if eBooks were SO much cheaper than regular books, but they're not any more - and in fact, some are now as expensive (or more!) as buying the book.  So, why expire the borrowing privileges?  It doesn't make any sense.

Publishers are, I suppose, the New Dinosaurs resisting technological change.  More recently, film studioes and recording labels have resisted digital innovations, but the publishing business is now doing better than ever before.  eBooks have effectively boosted publishing.

So why the resistance to eBorrowing?  Just the usual - fear.

Check with your local library to see if they have a list of eBook titles you can borrow.

Beware the Treacherous Territory Known as Facebook

I have to admit I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.  On the one hand, it is giving me tremendous access to friends near and far, from current neighborhood to long-ago-and-far-away.  Just this week, I've reconnected with three friends from various points in my past, with very little effort and a lot of fun.

However...I read this constant stream of stories about Facebook and wonder how long the gaiety will last.

Case in point #1:

ArsTechnica's article: ""No Opting out from Facebook turning your check-ins, likes into ads" points out that without our consent, Facebook has just blithely decided to start turning friends' posts into ads that appear in the right-hand column.  Well, I guess it's their business, but these recent changes they keep making are all so weird and none, I suspect, are for the good of the users.

Case in point #2:

I read in ComputerWorld today that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page was apparently hacked.  Well, obviously when you're at the top of the pyramid, there are always little guns pointed at you. But for goodness sake, how safe is Facebook if its founder's page isn't secure for the founder?  This is the kind of thing that makes me not want to make too big an investment in Facebook, because who knows when it will all go up in smoke?

Are These Technologies Really Dying?

After seeing Bloomberg Businesweek's 20 Dying Technologies recently, I was struck by how attached I am to some of these.

Are ALL these technologies REALLY going to be obsolete in a few year's time?  I guess you just really have to keep up.

Dying consumer electronics cited in the article include several devices soon to be replaced by multi-function mobile phone or mobile pad devices. What's going bye-bye?

• Consumer video cameras (not necessary if your phone has HD video?)
• Digital music players (ditto for music playback capabilities)
• eReaders (ditto for books that can be shown on phones or pads)

Additionally, home entertainment systems are likely to evolve to the point where DVDs and Blu-ray are no longer necessary (Shucks, we just got both last month!)

I guess I don't have to worry about being too far ahead of the curve if all this proves to be true. The question is, how soon will this happen? And of course, nobody knows the answer to that...yet.

Expanding Your Horizons (for Free) Online

I must admit I love the proposition of online learning. You sit in your own environment and participate (to varying degrees) with instructors and course materials and fellow students in a virtual way.  I just really think it's interesting.

What's even better, is when these educational opportunities are free.  I have previously written about a few of the prominent American universities offering free educational fare online, and how much the learning experience varies from school-to-school.

The organization that collates many of these offerings an International basis is known as Open Courseware Consortium. The Consortium is "a worldwide community of hundreds of universities and associated organizations committed to advancing OpenCourseWare and its impact on global education," according to the About Us page.

One of the best features of the consortium's site is the ability to find a variety of courses throughout the consortium, by topic, language, and source (school).

Here is an example of a simple search I did for "writing" courses...

 

There were 215 results to browse through, including  courses in the English language from these schools. The inclusion of courses from different schools makes this search feature a powerful tool for the online learner.

So, if you're looking to delve into higher educational course ware without impacting your pocketbook, check this site out now.

Do We Really Need the iPad?

I have been trying to figure out if I need an iPad.  I mean, it looks nice (from afar).  I haven't seen the actual model yet but I'm sure I will once April rolls around.

What I haven't wrapped my head around yet is the price.  Do I really need another $500 gadget?  I mean, sure, it may be a fine alternative to the other expensive gadgets I also haven't bought yet that are competing for my wallet share, namely: the Kindle and the Nook.  Butl, as I have mentioned before, I am reasonably happy reading books on my multi-purpose iPhone.

So really, Apple - is this techno push, or what? Let's design a cool product and then bet the farm that developers and consumers will flock to it because it is cool?  I do wish I could be sold on this concept, but I prefer (for now) to protect my hard-earned dollars.

Your Money on Your Phone?

My mobile app is waiting for me...and waiting for me...and waiting

Banking can be sooooooo complicated. I used to design software and customer service systems for a bank, I should know.  I slaved away in the days before user-friendly became a household term, hoping to make interactive banking products and services easier for our customers. (Hey, sometimes we even succeeded).

But now banking has come to almost everybody's mobile phone. There are small banking applications available from many major banks for different types of mobile phones - Blackberry, Android, iPhone.  The question is: Is it safe?

It's not that this is keeping me up at night, but I have not yet rushed to activate the banking application I have installed on my iPhone.  I just kind of look at it every now and then.  Is it really necessary to transfer funds while on the move?  Do I need to pay bills while having lunch in the cafe?  What's so urgent that it can't wait an hour or two until I get back to my desk?  I know in my heart of hearts this is coming down the pike to our collective Digital Future, and yet even I - a former banking software designer - still haven't moved on it.

Scary stories have also already occurred, although in far away places, like...Holland.  Check out this story from Wired.com about a nasty worm targeting the money of ING bank customers over there.

Now, granted, you'd have to be an ING bank customer in Holland to worry about it, and you would ALSO had to have "hacked" into your iPhone for the security breach to have worked (something very few people I know have done), but still...I wonder if the public at large is racing to pay its bills and transfer funds over a cup of coffee...and our good old, unreliable cellular networks.

Banks are pretty sure we'd feel this way, so they're offering guarantees.  Here's the one from Bank of America.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  It makes me want to be experimental and actually, well, bank online. It's the 21st Century, after all.

Uh, oh! We're about to lose free access to Times Online!

Oh, NO! - just when I think I have a routine that works, something always crops up to spoil it.  This time, it's the New York Times - they're going to start charging for access to the online version of the paper.  The first shoe to drop was this article from CNET: Report: New York Times to charge online readers

For months (years, maybe?) I have had a routine as comfortable as an old shoe - I sit down at my desk in the morning, review iGoogle for top stories, and almost always click through to a New York Times story in today's  paper - the online paper, that is.

There's always something of interesting to read in the Times. The journalism is top-drawer, the arts, cultural, and technology reviews are insightful, and the photography and multimedia are engaging.

The only problem?  They're not making any money on people like me! I don't give them a nickel for all the articles I read online.  Now, in my defense, I did try to order a paper-based New York Times subscription recently (honest, I did), but because of where I live (upstate New York), it was delivered a day late, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.  I suppose it would be alright if I had no other news sources, but a day late? And so I became a devotee of online access.

Having tried and failed in recent years to make a go of online subscriptions, the Times has a very tough road ahead.  The big question is: will online viewers convert to online purchasers?  Will they go the pay-per-article route?  If so, will this business move succeed?

I am routing for them, but honestly don't know if I want to take out my micro-wallet of digital dollars every time I want to read an article (and will such articles pop up in iGoogle anymore, or will they be behind a digital fortress?)

I - along with millions of online readers - wait for the second shoe to drop.

Who's Ready for All Online News, All the Time? (Not I)

One hears pretty dire things these days about the decline of the newspaper industry.  Time Magazine recently listed The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America. The list includes some major rags from major cities across the nation.  The financial facts are harsh.  The Boston Globe is losing $1 million/week.  The San Francisco Chronicle lost $70 million in 2008.  Obviously, they can't stay afloat forever.

I have to say, though, that it seems perfectly absurd to imagine the demise of ALL NEWSPAPERS.  Is this really possible? Will a day dawn that doesn't have a single newspaper in it?  It's sad and shocking, if so.  I just have a hard time believing it.  Part of me doesn't want to, and part of me thinks the public won't put up with getting ALL their news online.

For one thing, I don't think that reading news online is anything like the same experience as reading a paper newspaper.

I consume (er, "read") both kinds of news - online and offline.  In the morning, over coffee, after a quick glance at my e-mail inbox, I browse the stories aggragated on my iGoogle Home Page - from all four corners of the globe.  At lunch, I like to leaf through the New York Times.  And there's really no comparison.  The online news is straight to the point, but hardly a pleasurable experience.  The paper version of the New York Times, on the other hand, is a delightful, physical browsing experience.  I open sections up, I stretch them this way and that, I look at ads for things I can't afford, and I find little bits of news I would NEVER HAVE FOUND ONLINE.  That's the key, in my opinion.

By specifying "top news stories" in my iGoogle Home Page, I have put a filter on the news that the physical paper removes.  There is always a surprise waiting for me in the physical paper - not so much online.

So, although I have long been an advocate of doing things digitally for the sake of efficiency and speed, this is just one area where I have my fingers crossed for the old, traditional way of getting information.  I suppose I want to have my digital cake and eat it, too. Hang in there, publishers.

Be a Student Forever Online

I like bargains, and there are some great ones out there in the area of online courses. These days, you can get entire degrees online, but I like the idea of taking a class online for free. But how good are free online courses?  Can you really learn something?

To answer that, I first went looking first for free online offerings from English language universities. Three interesting schools with three very different approaches to "open learning" are:

• Carnie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative
• MITCourseWare
• Stanford on iTunes U

Next, I decided to actually sample their offerings, and see what they consisted of.

Carnie Mellon's OLI has a very appealing format. Their non-credit, interactive courses are offered in a number of different subject areas at for limited periods of time.  I happened upon French Level I, and decided to sign up for it, as it is being offered January - June 2009.

The self-paced lessons include lots of multimedia, and a highly structured approach that is well thought out and well produced.  This appears to be part of a larger educational research project on how people learn through interactive methods.

CMU's well-produced online French course even allows me to record myself speaking in French.

The MIT courses I looked at are more like compilations of course material previously offered MIT students in traditional classroom settings.  The main takeaways here are the syllabi and the recommended readings. The class assignments didn't seem terribly compelling to me, because there is no feedback from the instructor, although I suppose if you're really motivated you might try them out and grade yourself.  I tried out a course on Romantic Poetry originally offered in the Spring of 2005.

The recommended reading list has links to Amazon where you can buy your books. 10% of the proceeds from any book purchases go to the support of the OpenCoursWare project, which makes sense.  If you want a good reading list on a subject matter of interest, check out MIOpenCourseWare.

The last place I tried for courses was Stanford on iTunes U.  You basically can get - free of charge - a large number of recorded lectures produced by Stanford as MP3 files. I downloaded a few in the Fine Arts category.  The problem I had with this arrangement is I don't really want all these files on my hard drive - I'd rather just listen to it. But that's just me.  Some of these lectures might be good fare for a long car drive or a frequent commute. But 10 minutes into most audio lectures, I tend to space out, so for me it wasn't as compelling as I had hoped.

So far, the only learning experience that has held my attention is the Carnie Mellon OLI coursework.  But I plan to keep looking...there is a larger list of schools experimenting in this space at: EducationPortal