While spending my time thinking about my thesis, it came to my attention …well a lot of things came to my attention. Not the least of which was that I am a geek. The point though was that a lot of people have trouble trying to channel their inner geek.
Given that stance, I think I have found my book topic.  How to channel your inner geek. The book will espouse all things great and technology. Mostly I will try to explore many of the technology based processes, items and things that improve our life, provide a simple explanation for them, and relate them in "plain English".  Note, I didn’t say simplify, because not all technology simplifies our life. To the contrary, some forms of tech make our lives increasingly difficult. I guess the key is to decide and weigh the benefits and thus choose accordingly.
My topics will be sure to include host of interesting software, especially since I am on a software kick lately. I plan to highlight most of these topics in this blog and take reader feedback, if there really is any.
Onward and upward!
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Ok today we are testing a new service to get our stuff posted via iPad.

Now that we’ve got it in there. Let’s puta picture.

A lot of time has passed since my last post (typically an indicator of how busy I am) but since then I have at least found out something interesting.
You might recall, I was trying to get a wiki created for my class that is starting this next quarter. Well I had some great examples from my profs, friends, and other awesome wikis. So I thought to start there. My advisor uses mediawiki and seems to move quietly through the process of adding information and running his various classes with it. Me I was not so lucky. Perhaps its due to my inability to identify with the way the open source software worked, or just my inability to easily articulate what I wanted where. In any case, mediawiki and I parted ways, and not so peacefully.
After a few weeks of colorful expletives, I decided to choose something that I didn’t need to install. Truth be told, I love to tinker with things, but I needed more production and less tinker to get accomplished than was possible at the time. So, instead through the suggestions of a another professor and his book (shameless plug to follow) "Build a website for free" by Bell – I decided to investigate, Google sites.
Much to my amazement, it is awesome. My site is up and working well (albeit not perfectly as of yet). GS manages to point to my lovely URL, it provided templates, it lowered my stress and it got the material up and online so I could concentrate on other matters.
My kudos goes out to Google yet again. Keep on taking over the world, one byte at time. I will submit and be assimilated, happily.
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Well its not like I been dreading it.. just postponing the inevitable. So yes, I use wikis, and a few of them. I have one at work. I have on for my research. I have one I share with colleagues. I have a few more for some of the smaller workshops I have conducted.
Up until now, simple wikis worked. Ning and PBworks were quite sufficient. After all, even though they were wiki’s the predominant user was, well me.
Now, I have to have a number of people that need to access my wiki -add documents, add comments, create blogs. AND it would be much better if it came with my domain name. I mean after all I am creating it and organizing it. Something like joyworks.pbworks.com sorta looses its zing. Instead, how about courses.joyrobinson.com/nm503 or the like. Now that sounds nice. But that means an install and some headache.
But, I guess I have postponed it for quite long enough and now I am ready to dive right in. I could do it with Drupal, if I just want to shoot myself in the foot multiple times a day. (And somedays I am up for that, but I am in a painless mood). Or I could tackle a software that wont need to be squeezed into a box like that. A wiki software makes more sense, even though Drupal would be more extensible. I think..wiki wins out.
And after not having really liked any, I might as well choose one I have used. Thus, wikkawiki wins out.
Everyone take a collective breath in, and then out, as I launch wikkawiki for my next class.

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Aside from the dissertation, I am also taking an online class this semester. The class called "Technology Tools for Online Learning" is aimed at a certificate that will permit me to be a virtual instructor. (And yes, in the future there will be avatars in the classroom).
As a part of the course, we are examining technology in educational environments. This last module includes  blogs, thus promoting me to remember I actually have one (or a few).
And today’s post was born…
Today Facebook lite was also born; Google enlarged its Google box;  09/09/09 came and went (tomorrow is 911); And I finally updated joyrobinson.com including my portfolio. Wooohoo!
My website in all its (supposed) ease has been a real pain. Perhaps had I followed my own advice (plan, storyboard, review, act) it would have gone better. Mostly, the problem is that I keep adding things, with no time to really get them done. And to top it all off, I needed it ready for my upcoming exam. So, 4 days later and a bit of headache, she is shiny new.
Normally, I do websites in iWeb to save time and drama. But my web provider was not playing nice with iWeb and posting was a real mess. But its done, take a peek. There will not be more to come any time soon. Well unless you count blogging of course.
www.joyrobinson.com

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