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February 28, 2008

Chat With Me

Google just recently released Google Talk Chatback. Chatback allows website owners and bloggers to embed Google Talk capabilities directly into their site, so their visitors and subscribers can get in touch with them and start chatting immediately. Talkback doesn't require that the chat guests have an existing Google Talk account, or even have an email address.

"When they visit your site, they'll see a badge like the one on the right showing your online status (available, busy, offline) and, if you're available, they can just click and start chatting. Chatback uses the web-based Google Talk Gadget so your visitors don't need to download anything. It opens in a new window so they can keep chatting with you even if they browse to other pages.

If I'm online and available, feel free to drop a note and say hi. ;)



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February 22, 2008

Semantic Wikis Review

I found a nifty PowerPoint presentation on a summary of Semantic Wikis (originally posted on ontoworld.org). I figured I'd share, and also give Scribd a whirl. With the recent release of their product called iPaper, Scribd offers an *Amazing* service that allows you to share and embed many different types of docs (namely PDF, PPT, DOC). I'm currently working on a way to use Scribd to embed PDFs directly into my Wiki. More on that later... for now, here is the embedded presentation:

Source: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/SWIM/SemanticWikiReview.ppt



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February 21, 2008

Turning Any Monitor Into a 3D VR Display

Simply amazing........ wow!

Nintento Wii Remote + Infared Goggles = Amazing 3D Experience

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=976



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February 19, 2008

Mind & Concept Mapping Software Interoperability

Vic Gee at mind-mapping.org has spent the last few months collecting information on various mindmap formats, and how to import/export between them.

Vic's site is:


... collection of information about how mind mapping software can communicate. Some packages have a built-in capability to import and export to other types of mind mapping software. Some software authors have kindly provided information about the format of their mind map or interchange files.

This is a starting point, from which this go-to source for interchange information, already substantial, will grow.

http://www.mind-mapping.org/interoperability-of-mind-mapping-software/

I personally think this is a great step forward, and will help mind mapping enthusiasts and developers work towards interoperability between mind mapping (and concept mapping) applications. Early last year I posted about the maturity of mind mapping products and the need for a common mindmap format. As Vic also noted in his blog post, quite a bit would need to happen in order to bring a common format to fruition. There needs to be a killer app or company that spearheads a common format, or a handful of major mind mapping vendors (hint: MindJet) that collaborate.

A few months I started taking another approach, and began prototyping a web-based(Flash/Java) mindmap viewer that allows you to embed mindmaps directly into your website/blog/wiki, and to also view mindmap links on other sites using a firefox plugin. Initially, the protoype only supports MindManager maps, however I would like to expand this to other formats, and ideally leverage some of the great work done by Vic.

Overall, I think the need for a common mindmap format and interoperability is a goal that both Vic and I (and I'm sure many others) share. Efforts to document and openly publish various mind map formats will ultimately lead to a wide-spread use and adoption of mapping software and applications. I hope in the next few months, Vic's site will continue to grow and gain attention from variety of enthusiasts and developers. Great work!



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February 18, 2008

Mind Mapping Articles and Videos from Tony Buzan

Tony Buzan, the creator of mind mapping, has recently published a number of new articles and videos on mind mapping. Some of these topics include: ‘How to Mind Map’, ‘Creating Your First Map’, ‘Mind Mapping for Dyslexics’, ‘Perfect Presentations’, ‘Problem Solving’, ‘Study Skills’, ‘Improving Memory’ and many more.

Articles
http://www.imindmap.com/articles/

Videos
http://www.imindmap.com/videos/



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February 17, 2008

Wiki Hunt: Wikis for Personal Knowledge Management

A few months ago I blogged about Personal Learning Environments and Knowledge Management. Since that time, I've been researching a number of open source applications and today, I've officially kicked-off my hunt for the perfect Wiki for personal knowledge management. What I'm ultimately looking for is a wiki for organizing my personal research, keeping track of journal entries, and consolidating all of my information into a single "trusted system". Ideally, this wiki will have some semantic capabilities so I can add metadata and structure to my content.

The choice of wiki software out there is pretty overwhelming. Sites like WikiMatrix do help quite a bit. And, thanks to Michael Berman's uber list of semantic web tools, I've been able to narrow down some wikis with semantic capabilities.

So far I've narrowed down my choice of Wikis to the following 3:

  1. SocialText
  2. DekiWiki
  3. Semantic Mediawiki

Although SocialText and DekiWiki don't offer full semantic web capabilities, they do offer some basic forms of tagging. And, overall, both projects look really impressive. I'm probably going to lean towards MediaWiki, but want to get a feel for the other 2 since they appear to have quite a bit of polish and features that MediaWiki doesn't have out of the box (although, I suppose you can get comparable features by installing some extenstions). I'll probably spend a couple weeks evaluating each wiki, and will post my feedback.



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February 13, 2008

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Just found a great set of links from OEDB:

If you think that iPods are used just for listening to music, you obviously haven't been keeping up with the latest technology. The Apple-developed music player now features all kinds of accessories to help you study better, and now other companies are in a rush to get their designs in sync with the iPod. Pre-teens, college kids and even adults are taking advantage of the educational benefits an iPod affords them. From downloadable podcasts to just-for-iPod study guides and applications, learning on the go has never been easier. To find out about the many different ways you can transform your iPod into a learning device, check out our list below.

Source: http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/100-ways-to-use-your-ipod-to-learn-and-study-better



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February 10, 2008

Social Media Information Flow - The Complexity of the Web 2.0 World

The other day, ReadWriteWeb posted an interesting article on Visualizing Social Media Fatigue.

"Our attention is stretched so thin these days that there are times when I have actually tried to register for what I thought was a new service only to realize later that I already had an account -- it just got lost in the shuffle. With so many new web sites and services vying for our attention it is easy to feel the effects of social media fatigue. Andrew Shuttleworth, a social media junky living in Japan, thought it might be helpful to try to map his social media usage. The result is a staggering view of how information we put on the web flows."

You can check out Andrew's original post here:
http://hq.andrewshuttleworth.com/hq/2008/02/social-media-on.html



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February 04, 2008

MicroHoo?

This is potentially the best analogy I've ever heard describing the possible Microsoft-Yahoo merger.

"Imagine a circus act in which two enormous, clumsy, awkward elephants that don't really like each other are supposed to mate while riding on skateboards. Now imagine that it is your job, you lucky bastard, to be one of the little circus clowns standing alongside trying to make this extremely unnatural and unholy act take place."

Source: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-out-of-ideas.html



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February 03, 2008

What's Going On?

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. In fact, this is the longest time I've gone without posting in the last 2 years! For all my regular readers, fret not, Eric has been busy and is doing well. I've been focused on work as of late, and my work/life balance has well.... been a bit unbalanced ;) My creative side has been taking a little snooze and is getting ready to wake up from a well-deserved cat nap. In fact, on a side note, I think I'll write a future post on the value of staying consistent with weekly GTD reviews and closing open loops. Sometimes you can wait for your creative side to kick in (ebb/flow), but more often than not, there is real value is priming your environment for fun, creative, and stress-free productivity.

Well, what's been going on lately? Aside from my 9-5 gig(I wish it was only 9-5), I've been catching up on some (non-techy) reading, traveling, and spending time outside hiking and getting back in touch with good ole' mother nature. As I'm writing this post, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Palm Springs. My wife is attending a veterinary conference at the Hilton Palm Springs Resort (Sun-Tue), and I decided to tag along, get some R &R, and refocus on my plans for 2008.

In retrospect, last year was a great year for self-reflection and setting direction for the next 5-10 years. In Sep '06 I blogged about the nature of change, plateauing, and the Ebb and Flow of Goals and Personal Growth. For the following 6 months, I spent a significant amount of time focusing on my purpose and long-term goals. Last Feb. I posted my Vision Statement
(Vision statements are a *fantastic* tool for finding your purpose and staying motivated to reach your goals). And, in March I posted about a technique for Using MindMaps to Achieve Your Goals. After completing these two exercises, I feel that I achieved a fairly high degree of clarity and sense of direction.

What's in store for 2008? Well, my key take away from last year was the need to focus my wide array of interests and blend my passion for technology, philosophy, and learning. On the non-techy side of things, my plan is to continue to focus on consciousness research. In particular, the Mayan calendar (2012), Integral Philosophy, and consciousness exploration (brainwave entrainment, meditation, and lucid dreaming).

For my technical pursuits, I have a number of pet projects lined up that focus on information visualization (mindmap viewer), video production, and music & social networking (Last.fm Java scrobbler). And, I do plan on featuring some posts that pertain to open source knowledge management and the semantic web. Stay tuned for a fun-packed 2008!



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