Who Killed Literary Reading?
There is a point here. On more than one occasion I've stood at the news stand in an airport or a bus terminal looking at the selection of books; nothing better than a good read while travelling. More...

Technology to widen Amber Alerts
Off topic but worth noting (with the hope that this will be forwarded to someone who can make this happen). What I want: a simple line of Javascript that I can insert into my webpage that displays nothing most of the time, but which will display the Amber Alert when it is invoked. More...

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Login
I have been one of those agitating on the Poynter Online News mailing list against those very annoying site registrations being adopted by newspapers. This article is a good overview, looking especially at the systems that have emerged that allow people to circumvent registration by providing fake user logins and passwords. More...

Mediathink Releases White Paper: 'Not Just for Nerds: RSS - The Next Big Thing Online'
Watch out for the hype train in this item, a press release that links ultimately to a useful White Paper on the market position of various RSS aggregators (which is the part worth reading). Also worth noting is the paper's take on the impact of RSS on email. In a sentence: unless email providers solve the spam problem within the next few months, they will lose their entire market to the world of RSS tools and aggregators. More...

Reading Online Text: A Comparison of Four White Space Layouts
I have always maintained that white space is an important element in web page design (the same dictum extends to things like email messages). While not the last word on the subject, this study lends empirical support to my belief, showing that while people read pages with margins a bit more slowly, they comprehend more. More...

User Satisfaction Survey
Sorry for the late newsletter - my wireless hub decided it was time to give up the ghost and stop sending signals, and I had to scrounge around the house for an ethernet card - but not before pulling out a spare computer with ethernet installed and installing Red Hat Linux. It was a beautiful install, no problems at all, but sadly my old computer just didn't have (at 64 meg) enough memory to run the software. More...

PHP in Contrast to Perl
Continuing the mini-theme of comparing computer languages started last week, this look at PHP and Perl is an eye opener. In two sentences: "Number of PHP core functions: 3079. Number of Perl core functions: 206." The author also looks at inconsistent function naming in PHP. An advantage PHP derives from this, it seems to me, is speed. More...

Welcome to the Rubric Machine
This site was mentioned in one of the discussion lists over the weekend, ITForum, I think, part of the discussion recently surrounding assessment in general. What this site provides is a step by step series of forms helping you build an assessment rubric. More...

Napster Expands University Program with the Addition of Six Schools
One wonders exactly what sort of deal was reached. "In establishing these agreements, the schools have been working closely with the Campus Action Network (CAN), an initiative dedicated to facilitating the introduction of safe, legitimate digital music services to the campus environment. More...