Digital Life – Page 6

2013050720131213

Don’t want to be replaced by video lecturers? Up your game.

Philosophy professors at a public California University have spurned an offer to be replaced by online courses which are part of the edX initiative to offer lectures from Harvard, MIT and other top-level colleges to students at other universities in the form of video clips delivered on line. The San Jose State University professors point out in a public letter that the drive to cut education costs by replacing hands-on teaching with film clips constitutes a gross degradation of the educational experience their students will receive; that video teaching isn’t half as good mind fodder as reading a textbook is; and that it would be crazy for them to passively agree that a video lecture can teach students better than themselves, as real life professors, can. read more

2013032520131213

Get notifications of Facebook friends & pages you like

Facebook doesn’t automatically show you notifications when a post is made by a friend or on a Page you like. You have to take action to see them. It’s a simple procedure, though:

Visit the Page you want to receive notifications from

Hover over the like button, and click on it. You must like a Page or person to get their notifications.

Continue hovering. A drop-down menu will pop up. Click on “Get Notifications”.

When the checkmark appears next to “Get Notifications”, you’ll receive that person’s – or Page’s – notifications.

This also works when you mouseover the name of a person or Page in a comment

2013031920131213

Dancing bikini man sings Call Me Maybe

This has to make you laugh. Bearded @SteveKardynal in bikini does a parody music video of Call Me Maybe.

Find dancing Steve Kardynal on Twitter YouTube or Facebook

2013031820131213

Stop telemarketers with 6 words

Do telemarketers bug you? Can’t get them off the phone? They’re not deterred by you hanging up, politely asking them not to call you anymore, and they don’t seem to care when you tell them your baby’s crying or your dinner is burning and you have to go.

There’s an answer to your woes so simple, you won’t believe it works until you try it out and see for yourself. I did it again just now and the results are always gratifying. This is what you do: next time a telemarketer calls, interrupt them with this phrase, “Take me off your call list.” read more

2013030820131213

How to configure Add Link to Facebook & Create a Facebook App

From within WordPress, do a new plugin search for the Add Link to Facebook plugin. Click to install it, and then click to activate it (from your plugins panel). These instructions are for independently hosted WordPress installations. If your blog is hosted on WordPress.com you may need other configuration instructions.

1 Configure the plug-in by clicking on the link “needs configuration”

2 Click on the link “Click here to create and navigate to ‘Apps’ and then to ‘Create New App’ read more

2013012820131213

Go to jail for unlocking your phone? Yep, you might.

First things first. You know that 1) if you buy a phone you should be able to hook it up with whatever service you want to use and 2) nobody should send you to jail or fine you up to half a million dollars just because you unlock your phone. What if you want to switch to the ATT network because you’re fed up with Verizon, or because you move out of Verizon’s service area? The Library of Congress says, “Tough luck.” If you unlock your phone after January 26 without a carrier’s permission, you could get in a lot of trouble and end up paying heavy fines – even jail time. So sign the White House petition asking Obama to add his voice to The People’s and ask the Library of Congress to make phone unlocking legal again. The petition is pretty close to getting the 100,000 signatures it needs to get an official White House response. read more

2012121020131213

Verizon pushes court to rule that “free speech” equals suppression

Verizon’s stunning challenge to the FCC rule that dictates that the internet should be open, is that its (Verizon’s) “free speech” rights will be violated if it is not allowed to,

“…suppress someone else’s ability to transmit or receive information.

…Here’s the twist: Verizon clearly knows better. Its joint statement with Google about the prospect of open-Internet rules in early 2010 stated: “The minute that anyone, whether from the government or the private sector, starts to control how people access and use the Internet would be the beginning of the end of the ‘net as we know it.” read more

2012072920131213

Social-media-users-should-leverage-our-own-power

I am beyond disturbed that much greater resources are being spent on finding ways to “leverage” the power of the internet to exploit users, than we users are investing to find how we can harness our own power to use for our own good. This makes no sense when you consider what leverage means: to use a small object and a small amount of force to control a more massive object. In this analogy, the small force are the exploiters, the small tool is social media and the massive object represents the vast base of social media users: us. read more

2012072320131213

Save the free internet hashtag #stfi

I couldn’t find a hashtag for “save the free internet” or “save the open internet” so I made one up: #stfi.

Take a look at
http://thewei.com/kimi/we-must-keep-the-internet-open/
http://thewei.com/kimi/fight-for-internet-freedom-and-the-open-web/
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Save the Internet, a Free Press initiative
epic.org
National Urban League supports the open internet
President Obama supports an open internet
Speed Matters (universal broadband support org)
Broadband Opportunity Coalition read more

2012071620131213

Verizon wants to control your internet. Keep them out.

Learn more about the organizations fighting to protect people’s rights to control our internet experience without interference, steering or editing, and how you can get involved. Also:
Sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom and
Sign the Digital Citizens’ Bill of Rights

Imagine if every small business website was blocked by these guys – that could happen any time if big service and content providers get their way. How would that affect your own business, your community, your family and friends? Then take action: sign petitions, talk about this issue, write your politicians and letters to newspaper editors. Blog and discuss via social media. Rip this wide open. Open internet access is one of the great freedom fights of our time. We have to use it so we don’t lose it. read more

2012053020131213

We must keep the internet open

Vincent Cerf, one of the recognized fathers of the internet, writes in this New York Times op-ed piece:

Several authoritarian regimes reportedly would ban anonymity from the Web, which would make it easier to find and arrest dissidents. Others have suggested moving the privately run system that manages domain names and Internet addresses to the United Nations. …

When I helped to develop the open standards that computers use to communicate with one another across the Net, I hoped for but could not predict how it would blossom and how much human ingenuity it would unleash. What secret sauce powered its success? The Net prospered precisely because governments — for the most part — allowed the Internet to grow organically, with civil society, academia, private sector and voluntary standards bodies collaborating on development, operation and governance. read more

2012021120131213

Columbia prof asks: “Where did the benefits of technology go?”

Sometimes people ask such good questions they blow me away. I know I’m going to be asking myself this one for quite few days and I’ll be reviewing in my mind snippets out of Columbia Professor Steve Unger’s Feb 10, 2012 article and other answers I think of myself. It’s a great question!

As a young engineer, a half century ago (Wow! Time does fly), I was fascinated by the ideas I was wrestling with, mainly dealing with various aspects of what is now called computer engineering. I greatly enjoyed my work in research and development. But I did have concerns over possible misuse of what we were developing, particularly about possible military applications. I dealt with this mainly by avoiding work on military projects. read more

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