By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jakob Nielsen[Edit][Delete]: Screen Resolution and Page Layout, Alertbox [Edit][Delete]AlertBox [Edit][Delete] August 10, 2006
In his first relevant post in quite a while, Jakob Nielson says we ought to optimize screen displays for monitors with a 1024x768 resolution, but that we should continue to employ liquid layout for users of other monitors. You'll notice that this is what I do on my website. What Nielsen doesn't tell us, though, is how to do this. Usually such sites use three column liquid layouts. You should also ensure that the columns have margins (called 'gutters') and that the centre column loads first. Columns should have 1-2-2 width ratios, with the narrow column used for navigation, or the classic 'Drupal' look of 1-3-1. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unattributed[Edit][Delete]: Virtual and Immersive Learning, Campus Technology [Edit][Delete] August 9, 2006
I really have mixed feelings about this. I remember looking at ActiveWorlds years ago, long before Second Life came to the fore. Neat, I thought, but rendering problems and a distinct lack of any applications spoke against further investigation. Now people are looking at these virtual environments in more detail, and even building life-sized virtual environments, as at Purdue, and though I still suppose they're a good idea, I am still hard-pressed to get excited about them. I mean - I have this image of a student rushing to school, rushing to her VR studio, opening the door - only to find herself in a (virtual) classroom. Yes, I like immersive environments - but the environments I've tried cost millions of dollars and are available only to the military and millionaire students. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. John Burton[Edit][Delete]: CMS: Sticking with the Tried and True, University Business [Edit][Delete] August 8, 2006
Contrary to reports, open source is not sweeping the educational community. "Its popularity may be broad, but it's not deep." So writes John Burton in this University Business article, arguing that university and college computer systems staff find open source too risky to deploy on campus systems. Also worth noting is the OSS Watch report which just came out in Britain. The report paints a very different story, showing that while proprietary software rules the univerity desktop (with the exception of the browser, which is 68 percent Firefox), open source rules on the server, with 56 percent using Moodle. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Simon Willison[Edit][Delete]: The YDN Python Developer Center, August 8, 2006
What I like about a resource like this is not simply that it is a useful guide to some Python trickery, but also that it speaks eloquently against those who believe you need hald-holding and direction in order to learn. Who knows how many people will learn from this resource? Good thing they didn't know it was impossible. In the same vein, Steve Lee writes about the InfoWorld review of FOSS Ajax toolkits. More...