CIW Community - Get caught in the Web!

Had a pretty good Webcast where we presented a stellar panel of experts:

• Sandy Cobb, Curriculum Manager, School of Information Systems & Technology, Kaplan University
• Suzanne Ricci, Director of Education, LaSalle Computer Learning Center
• Gay Bryant, Web Technology, Pellissippi State Technical Community College (PSTCC)
• Daniel Benjamin, IT Department Chair, American Public University System (APUS)

I'll be leading a few veteran CIW instructors in a Webinar later on today entitled Are You Teaching the Right Stuff? More details are available at:
http://www.ciwcertified.com/webinars/2009-01-21.htm.

See you there!

-- Tangent

Notice how www.badongo.com puts the link to the central service/product offered by the Web site right on the front page. Remember the canonical "3 clicks rule?"

Not anymore.

There's too much available on the Web to follow any sort of rule anymore; let the user get to the good stuff right away. Now that's direct design!

--Tangent

P.S. www.badongo.com is a great way to upload and backup files - up to 1GB; that's not bad!

Lately, folks have been talking about "cloud computing" as if it was the next cool term since "Web 2.0." Well, it is. But check out the following link on The Register about what happens when the Intertubes stop working:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/06/salesforce_outage.

I'm still a way, way big fan, but something has to be said for making sure that things work when the 'net ain't netting.

-- Tangent

Hey, everyone. I've been asked to blog on O'Reilly's site as an expert in Linux, open source and all things Web. If you want to follow me on O'Reilly's blogging page, go to the following URL:
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/james-stanger.

Or, check out my RSS/Atom feed:

Hey, everyone. Below is a message that I've sent out to a few of our most trusted partners. Everyone who's responded has thought the proposed revision loves the idea. Now I'd like you to know about the changes and get a chance to respond:

I'm a big Linux and open source advocate. I've been using a Linux as my main system on both a standard computer and on my notebook computer since 2000. I was tempted to write "since it was truly painful to use it on the desktop. I use Firefox, Firefox add-ons, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, xmms (the old-style MP3 player), vlc (a nice dvd/mp player), Audacity, Nessus, Nmap, wink (a screen capture and video tool), tsclient (to access Windows terminal servers), Samba, the Gimp, Kompozer, and any number of text editors. I've got years with these things.

Want to see some examples of Web design? Here's a pretty interesting URL that purports to do just that:

http://webdesignfromscratch.com/10-best-designed-web-sites.php.

What do you think?

- Tangent

I was asked to again to give a presentation about blogging at the ACTE's "Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo," which was held in Charlotte North Carolina. Had a great time. Mostly, I talked about how to create a blogging identity. Specifically, some strategies for exaggerating a few things about yourself to create an interesting persona. Here's the link for those who don't have an account:

http://www.ciwcommunity.org/drupal5/files/online_id_and_ego.ppt.

Had a great time at the conference - you should have been there. Maddog Hall told everyone that you can't be too rich or too thin with open source and thin clients, Eric Meyer blew everyone away with his "state of the Web" address, and Michael Boyink showed everyone how they need to focus on HTML, CSS, database design, and simple programming in order to give students what they need to excel in these tough economic times.

Here are some early pictures:
http://www.gknu.com/ciw.