Technology Update 2.0

We explored how our lives have become innundated with passwords. We have accounts for:

• email
• student information systems
• online course systems
• blogs
• photo sharing sites
• financial sites
• shopping sites
• social networking
• FTP servers
• and the list goes on.

Generating strong passwords for all of these sites can be tough. Remembering all of them can be even tougher. (we know you don’t use the same password for everything, right? Right? We didn’t think so)

We looked at what a password generator can do to create strong passwords that are not easily guessed or cracked. We also looked at some password management software systems (called keychains or password safes). These basically build an encoded database of your accounts and keeps it all under one MASTER PASSWORD (which should be very strong and very secret). It is much easier to remember one password.

For the “one password to rule them all” approach, we considered:
KeePass - open source, free, cross-platform but not as polished as commercial software
RoboForm - commercial (about $30) and very integrated with your browser. Portable version is available as well.

Check them out for yourselves and read more at our Technology Tuesday archive blog.

Image: ‘key‘ Share This

We covered Microblogging on September 12th for our first Web Wednesday of the semester. Microblogging is a low overhead and “quick and dirty” way to blog from a variety of locations other than just at your computer. There are different services and the right choice for you will depend on what you want to do with your microblogging activities. We focused on two very popular options:

Twitter: A way to share with friends and strangers the answer to a simple question – What are you doing right now? You can add “tweets” to your Twitter account from a web browser, cell phone, other computer application or Instant Messaging

Tumblr: An easy way to blog a stream or tumble log of links, videos, images, quotes, conversations or other media and text. You can tumble from a browser button as well as cell phone.

More information is on our Web Wednesday site: Technology Tuesday/Web Wednesday Archive blog

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Just knowing about this anniversary makes me

How much do you use this in your teaching online?? It is interesting that it’s “birth” came from a real thought about how hard it is to convey the context of something like sarcasm or kidding via a text only environment.

SMILEY:25 YEARS OLD AND NEVER LOOKED HAPPIER!

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Just knowing about this anniversary makes me

How much do you use this in your teaching online?? It is interesting that it’s “birth” came from a real thought about how hard it is to convey the context of something like sarcasm or kidding via a text only environment.

SMILEY:25 YEARS OLD AND NEVER LOOKED HAPPIER!

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Exactly! That is what I said to myself (well, maybe I said “Self, Exactly!”….when I read this article from Amy Gahran (which I got via Stephen Downes’ OLDaily)

Maybe it is because I am not a writer by profession, but I have been treating my blogging as just a part of the process. Sure, some of my blogs are information sharing devices and some are more “backup brain” postings but I have noticed that I have added the “Oh, I should blog this” thought to my process of developing training materials, finding useful resources and just generally thinking about stuff as I go through life.

Cool.

contentious.com – How to blog without the time sink

“A blog post is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be) a writing assignment you must prep for and deliver as a finished package. Let go of the idea that you must have everything nailed down, organized, and edited before you publish.”

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Exactly! That is what I said to myself (well, maybe I said “Self, Exactly!”….when I read this article from Amy Gahran (which I got via Stephen Downes’ OLDaily)

Maybe it is because I am not a writer by profession, but I have been treating my blogging as just a part of the process. Sure, some of my blogs are information sharing devices and some are more “backup brain” postings but I have noticed that I have added the “Oh, I should blog this” thought to my process of developing training materials, finding useful resources and just generally thinking about stuff as I go through life.

Cool.

contentious.com – How to blog without the time sink

“A blog post is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be) a writing assignment you must prep for and deliver as a finished package. Let go of the idea that you must have everything nailed down, organized, and edited before you publish.”

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A N I M O T O – a new site that creates professional looking videos from your photos. Nice stuff. Here is our first go at it with the Bagwell Center photos.

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sending it from GMail now.

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looking over the mypellissippi portal homepage

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from twitbin…again

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