Discovered via Jim Groom as I follow his exceptionally ambitious ds106 open/resident course at the University of Mary Washington. I knew as soon as I saw it I wanted to participate, but I also knew there was no way I could give it the attention it will demand. Next time.

The thing that really prompted this post has been watching the Bava’s animated gif interest grow. It blows my mind that the animated gif is making such a huge comeback. Honestly I love the complexity and simplicity of the animated gif. Once the purveyor of website construction status is now becoming one of the more powerful ways to express feeling online — simply.

I remember actually learning how to do this as a Masters degree student back in 1995. Of course our animated gifs were really, really lame. But in hindsight they were actually really exceptional given the times. Makes me realize just how young the web really is … that makes me smile.

My Laptop. Credit ghbrett on Flickr.

For one reason or another we chilled on the tag stickers at this year’s Symposium and instead got a bunch made that were really designed to be a save the date. I have to say I missed not getting a brand new killer book of them, but seeing that I still have a bunch left over from the last several events I think I’ll live. Well, here is the really strange thing … and this is a little beyond odd. I was in the Men’s bathroom in our building on campus the other day and I noticed a tag sticker under the toilet seat. I’ll have to say it shocked me, but it is a hell of an advertising location — either that or someone is trying to tell us something. Either way, you can now save the date for March 27, 2010 for our next TLT Symposium. We just landed Michael Wesch as our opening keynote and I know the program and planning committees are already starting to do their work. Perhaps this new sticker location is the work of the marketing and communications committee?

Odd Placement

Anyway, I am working up my slides using PowerPoint instead of Keynote for the first time in four years or so just so I can load it into ACP and let it run the right way — I am even using the shiny new and very good looking PPT 2008 for my Mac. The software looks OK, but I have to admit it is slow and just doesn’t seem to work the way I want it to … not that solid usability starts and stops with my needs, it should at least not make me feel totally out on my own. At one point I was trying to use the new and improved transition feature and thanks to the perfect placement of the tooltip popup I couldn’t see what transitions were hiding beneath. Not a big deal, but an obvious opportunity for a screencap …

All I am going to say is that Alan, you owe me one … only b/c of the PPT lock in!

The rest of the Internets is fine, just Google … no calendar either. Never thought I’d see that one.

Speaking of real life, I came across perhaps one of the best sites I have seen in quite some time — Get a First Life. I have a Second Life account and I even play (is that what you do in SL?) it every now and then. At ETS we are offering an Engagement Award for faculty who want to something interesting with it and a colleague of mine, Brett Bixler maintains a blog for us related to it. At any rate the hype and almost ironic utilization of SL has always made me feel a little less than impressed with it as a real life simulator. I guess I’m not the only one … Darren Barefoot has built one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. It has to be worth a peek.

As we were standing in line, Madeline asked “do I really need to sit on that guy’s lap”  Let me remind you that she is turning 5 in a couple of days, so she could see right through this “Santa’s” makeup.  The thing that blew my mind was the poster shown below that offered not only the picture of the photo shoot, but the ability to purchase the copyright of said photo for a mere $22.00 dollars.  As my friend Brad asked today during the latest ETS Talk Podcast, “do we all need personal IP attorneys walking around with us?”  Something tells me that we are on the verge of a major societal collapse when Santa wants to own the images of children all over the World.