Archive for January, 2010
iPad will revolutionize publishing – someday
Jan 29th
v1.0 shows platform still a work in progress
By now, even my disconnected mother sitting on a beach in Florida has heard about the iPad. And while geeks debate the name, whine about its lack of a memory card slot and USB port and slice Apple a new one for once again handing AT&T a golden egg, I find myself thinking about my mom, and whether her world changed a bit yesterday.
See, she reads books. Lots of them. She’s also a technophobe who views her laptop with a curious mixture of fear and indifference. 
Publishers tend to appreciate folks like my mom because she drives demand for their wares. Unfortunately, printing books is a complex, expensive and often messy business. As the record industry discovered in the 1990s, the Internet is changing the way we consume this content, and the industry would like – indeed needs – to transition my mom and everyone like her into an electronically distributed reality.
But in the absence of a realistically usable device or form factor – no, she’ll never read a book on her Byzantine-for-her laptop – that simply wasn’t going to happen. Amazon’s Kindle showed us the possibilities, but despite its pioneering success in defining the e-book reader market, it’s failed to break out beyond a niche product for cash-flush book lovers. It isn’t, and probably will never be, the reader for the rest of us. Read the rest of this entry »
iPad traces new direction for print media
Jan 28th
With all the hype and hoopla of yesterday’s unveiling of the much awaited Apple iPad, it was surprising to note that Steve Jobs had not uttered the word magazine. 
Yet this is the one industry where Apple’s take on the e-reader will have its largest impact. Long before its debut, tech pundits have already predicted that the iPad would take the publishing industry by storm just as the iPod had with the music industry. Read the rest of this entry »
Free anti-spam and malware tool for Facebook
Jan 22nd
Are you getting tired of clearing out all those spam messages from your blogsite’s comment section?
You’re not alone. A recent survey released by online security software company Websense Inc. says that nearly 95 per cent of user generated comments to blogs, chat rooms, message boards and other social net content are actually spam or links to malware.
If you’re engaged in any form of social networking activity to boost your professional or personal profile or if Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BlogSpot or other such sites part of your company’s marketing campaign, that’s bad news.
Websense, however, has recently released a beta version 2.0 of its Defensio social Web threat detection platform. Read the rest of this entry »
How are your users surfing?
Jan 21st
It is no secret that I believe that a company’s web presence is a direct reflection on the quality of their brand and by extension their products or service offerings. Is it fair that consumers judge a company by the quality of their web interaction? Probably not, but it happens millions of times a day all over the world. 
The difficulty in producing a good user experience on the web lies in the fact that there are so many components that go into making a “good” web site or web application. There are the content providers, the information architects, the graphic designers, the web developers and potentially many others. Sometimes, in small organizations, these roles are each fulfilled by the same person. Sometimes, in larger organizations, the people that fulfill these roles might never meet. Regardless of the development dynamic, a lot of effort is expended on many different levels in order to produce a web site or web app. Read the rest of this entry »
Star Trek Online provides beta execution lessons
Jan 20th
As a long-time fan of Star Trek, I was eager to get into the open beta test of Star Trek Online. This Massive-Multiplayer Online game developed by Cryptic Studios
has been in the making for years and offers nerds the chance to engage with this fictional Sci-Fi universe on a scale never before seen. Response to the open beta has been literally overwhelming – with the game’s pre-sales topping charts at retail outlets and through Steam’s online distribution platform.
21st Century learning competencies: What are they and how must public education adapt?
Jan 20th
In our opening article we asked “Is public education fading in relevance to today’s young learners?” And we invited readers to join and participate in the journey of the Anglophone sector of public education in New Brunswick as we developed a model of public education designed to meet the 21st Century learning needs of our students.
The obvious next question is: “What are these 21st Century learning needs?”
The OECD’s Centre for Education Research and Innovation has undertaken leading edge research on the new millennium learner, both in terms of the skills they will require and the learning environments needed to foster these skills (Innovating to Learn, Learning to Innovate, OECD, 2008).
Read the rest of this entry »
Scammers & fraudsters extend Holiday earnings at Haiti’s expense
Jan 19th
As much as consumers look forward to Christmas every year, retailers salivate at the boost in revenue and its positive impact on earnings. No one enjoys the holidays more than criminals however, from petty scammers to organized crime groups whose tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue make up for months of preparation. This year’s windfall stands to be supplemented by an unexpected bonus on account of the Haiti disaster.
There is no shortage to the amount of compassion that such a disaster can bring out in people and the Internet is a great place to reach many, many people. With dozens, perhaps hundreds of individual charities and independent efforts to help Haitian victims, it can be difficult to tell legitimate groups from opportunistic fraudsters. Read the rest of this entry »
They built in privacy…so can you
Jan 19th
Every year, my office hosts an annual event known as the Privacy by Design (PbD) Challenge where a distinguished group of speakers relate their personal success stories with PbD and the dividends they gained for their organizations.
Last year’s event was a great success, attended by over 250 public and private sector business leaders and academics. 
Since last year, the concept of PbD has grown dramatically and is now an established archetype in the field of privacy protection. For that reason, this year’s event – Privacy by Design: The Gold Standard – will focus on the implementation of new technologies, business practices, and infrastructure in a manner that can deliver tangible results on the promise of PbD.
My theme for this year is, “We did it … so can you,” and nothing demonstrates this theme better than Google’s recent announcement that it will be enabling HTTPS encryption for all Gmail users – by default. Last summer I issued a paper entitled, If You Want to Protect Your Privacy, Secure Your Gmail, to which we had a very positive response from Google. I consider this latest development a huge success for PbD. I applaud Google for their bold leadership in the field of privacy protection and I can only hope that other providers of online services follow their example. If a company with the size and stature of Google can adopt PbD, then anyone can. Read the rest of this entry »
Running your business successfully by The Book
Jan 18th
What kinds of skills and best practices can you learn by reading How to run your business by The Book – the recent offering from leadership guru Dave Anderson?
Chapter titles make that clear:
- Four mandates to maximize your time
- How to overcome the #1 cause of management failure
- Five steps to building rock-solid integrity
- How to manage your money by The Book
- Four steps to create life-work balance
- Four steps to build a team by The Book
So at first blush you’d categorize this as a “coaching” book for business managers and corporate leaders – and you wouldn’t be off track.
But the target audience seems a bit more focused – as the sub-title: A Biblical Blueprint to Bless Your Business suggests. Read the rest of this entry »
Text messages that count – mobile giving for Haiti
Jan 15th
Tap, tap, tap send.
Many younger mobile phone users just love to text. It’s fast, it’s cheap (free for some plans) and it’s fun. And lately it can be life saving. Several Canadian carriers and charitable organizations are using SMS technology to get much needed money and relief good to earthquake devastated Haiti.
The Seattle-based Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) reports that during the last two days, it has raised more than $7 million for victims of the killer earthquake.
It takes no more than 15 seconds to make a donation.
Make that text message count. Tap these numbers to make an instant donation:
