Knowledge Logging and E-Mail

Robb has a lot of excellent insights about knowledge management and I try to follow his posts pretty closely, but Robb also has a habit of ignoring or denigrating worthwhile tools that do not fit into Userland's plans

Like me, Brian thinks Conversant is the bee's knees. Brian's sites are a wonder to behold and illustrate just how powerful and flexible Conversant really is. My site OTOH just scratches the surface - a fact that I'm sure Seth would agree with.

Stopping Spambots: A Spambot Trap - by Neil Gunton

"This document describes my experiences with spambots on my websites, and the techniques I have developed to stop them dead."

Happy belated birthday to CamWorld:

"My very first post was June 11, 1997, in what seems a very long time ago. So much has happened over the years, I am proud to say I'm still around, still writing my weblog the way I want to write it. I want to take this opportunity to thank my loyal readers who have continued to tune in every day, even on days (or weeks!) that I have not posted. As I enter my sixth year of blogging, I have a lot to reflect on. I look back at my posts from a few years ago and see who much I have matured and how much my opinions have changed. I would be a different person without CamWorld; I know that for certain."

In a moment of weakness (madness!? ;-)) I was persuaded to become a member of the programme committee for the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2002. Not only that but I'm facilitating two of the parallel workshop sessions:

Weblogs and Blogs: What Are They? What Can They Be Used For?

Facilitator: Duncan Smeed, University of Strathclyde

Abstract:
This hands-on session will provide participants with an opportunity to make use of Weblog (also known as blogs or bloggers) technologies. The potential for use of such technologies within an institutional context will be discussed. The emphasis in the session will be on the use of weblogs as personal content management systems.

Computer Scientists - A Help Or A Hindrance ;-)!

Facilitator: Duncan Smeed, University of Strathclyde

Abstract:
This discussion group session will provide participants an opportunity to discuss the approaches taken by Computer Science departments. Are here lessons which can be learnt? Can computer scientists be of help to institutional Web managers - or are they more likely to be a hinderance? This session will be led by Duncan - a computer scientist himself!

I'm now in the JIT Compilation phase for the content of these sessions. Feel free to help ;-)

Jonathan Peterson's Way.Nu: Death to Blogs sums up what I believe will be the real theme/content of my 'weblog' session at IWMW-2002:

I'm getting more than a little ready to stop talking about blogs, by the way. Or at least do away with the term. I know blogs haven't even begun to hit the mass market; but the hype-engine is in full swing; forcing conversations about blogs to be about the formats, toolsets, how to write to attract attention, etc. The conversation that we should be having would be driven by what is really revolutionary; the rise of inexpensive, real-time, distributed cross-demographic/geographic/politic conversations that are not ephemeral, and thanks to Google's weighting mechanisms, inherently populist. Continuing to discuss "what is a blog" in technical terms makes the whole thing feel like CB radio.

Distributed conversations and the communities that they create/nurture are the killer app of the internet. Let's talk about why that is revolutionary...

Today I received 'thank-you' e-mails from several of my final project students both of whom have done extremely well in their Honours year. It was a pleasure supervising them. It was also very pleasing to receive their messages of thanks - it's nice to be appreciated.

Good luck to Stephen and Dougie - they'll both do well in their future careers I'm sure.

Xbox hackers preview movie player

Only weeks after Xbox mod chips hit the streets, allowing developers to run home-brew code on the device, reports of a working movie player have appeared on the internet...

[later on in the article]

...Last week, a MIT student cracked Microsoft's security systems on the Xbox, allowing him to write custom software that would run on the machine without the need for modification chips.

He plans to find a legal loophole allowing him to release instructions for the creation of custom code.

The Register | Anti-open source 'whitepaper' devastated

"Roaring Penguin's David Skoll has written a fine rebuttal to the ADTI whitepaper. With his permission we're reproducing it whole and unedited:..."

One of the opening paragraphs sets the scene perfectly:

"The AdTI's very weak and poorly-researched paper opens no debate. It simply confirms that Microsoft paid AdTI to come up with something -- anything -- to stem the growing adoption of open-source (especially GPL'd) software by business and government."

Now go read it the article ;-)

I've been so busy in the last week that I've been neglecting my regular site visits. Tonight I was catching up and was totally shocked to read in David Carter-Tod's SiT weblog the announcement he's about to be laid off! My heartfelt commiserations go out to David. What a terrible thing to find out when you return from vacation. If there's any justice in the world, David will be snapped up by another employer immediately. Good luck David.

I'm researching weblogging tools. Just found this list of weblog resources via Scripting News

"The following is a quick list of URLs to pertinent material for building and maintaining a weblog. The list below is preliminary and will expand into its own section of the site, complete with ratings and comments on resources and ways to submit new information to be included."

Lots more research tomorrow and Friday. Thanks goodness for SiT as it's also a mine of information, comments, and links.

Seth has been working on Conversant, Radio, Content Management, and OPML. I'm looking forward to reading more about this - and trying it out - once the workshop I'm involved in next week is over.