By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Forensic Science
Pete MacKay writes, "My friend, Carol Vaage, came across this site which looks to be very useful for all of the Gr. 6 classes doing Forensics." He might not know how odd this sounds to me - when I was in grade 6 we never did anything like forensics, couldn't even conceive of doing forensics. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. State Services Leads International Charge Against DRM
Quite rightly, New Zealand government officials are expressing concern about long-term access to data and documents created using DRM-enabled software. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Computer Geek's History of the Internet
Because you can never have enough history. "Not the complete history but just the cool stuff." Point form, not too long, many links to the origins of the technologies we know and love today. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The International Comparative Study of Higher Education: Lessons from the Contemplation of How Others Might See Us
Although a couple of years old, this was just posted in the EDUCAUSE reosurce library and is worth a quick read. The title, though, is a misnomer - my reading is that it has little to do with how others view the U.S. system and is rather a depiction of how Americans see themselves. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Yellow Arrow
If the inventors of CueCat had had 'public service' in mind, rather than 'advertising medium', this is what they might have come up with (and instead of being offline, they would have seen their technology attached to every mobile phone in the world and a wealth of site based resources proliferate - though it's not too late; there's still no reason why photo-phones can't double as scanners with the right (CueCat?) technology). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Getting Real, Step 1: No Functional Spec
I agree witht he main point, which is that applications should be designed from the interface perspective, and not a functional specification. More...