• 
  Please support me in the 2010 Ride to Conquer Cancer - last year we were able to raise $6.9 million for the Alberta Cancer Foundation - hopefully we can raise even more in 2010!

  ---

• Search for:

• Pages

  • About
    • Colophon
    • Contact
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Presentations
  • Archives
    • Recent Comments
    • Shared Items
  • Asides
  • Photography
  • WordPress
    • Akismet Credit Inserter
    • Post Revision Display

• Categories

  • aside
  • digital photography sessions
  • fun
  • general
  • photography
  • work

• Blog under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
  

Our main Teaching & Learning Centre website runs on Drupal, with extensive use of CCK, Views, Events and Signup modules. The site had been running on the Drupal 4.7, with only security patches applied. But it was starting to act up (content was suddenly not showing up), so I decided to pull everything up to the current 5.2 line, with updated modules. It’s an easy enough upgrade. When it works.

The CCK update appears to have really botched things. As in, most of our custom content types are now missing data for several of their fields. The data’s safe – I can see it in the database – but it’s not showing up when viewing or editing the nodes. Annoying.

So, my task over the next couple of days (hopefully much shorter than that) is to debug wtf went wrong, and figure out how to manually upgrade the various CCK database tables from wherever they were to where they need to be for 5.2. Fun stuff.

Also, the embedded Views have decided to go TU, so I get to debug wtf is going on there, as well.

Thankfully, I have backups of the data, so can play a bit if needed, but I need to leave the main site up and live to support workshop registrations while I fix things. It’s taken much of today to get the site to the state it’s in now. Haven’t even had a chance to check all of my feeds yet. The horrors!

I may need to dig up one of those circa-1995 “Under Construction” animated GIF images for the site in the meantime…

Update: Thanks to a tip from Webchick, I got the CCK tables manually reconstructed. All I had to do was rename the tables as per the pattern described. It looks like the 4.7 – 5.x upgrade path for CCK got really complicated, and may have been overlooked. My Drupal 4.7.7 site was fully patched, all modules were up to date, as was core. Upgrading from a fully patched 4.7.7 to 5.2 just plain didn’t work, from the perspective of CCK. Turns out it was a pretty easy fix, but still, a bit annoying. Huge thanks to Webchick for the tip. It’s amazing just how active and helpful the Drupal community is.

My last big issue is wrt embedded Views in several nodes. They appear to be ignoring arguments (but not all of the views are misbehaving, making it a bit harder to diagnose). That’s my task for today, to get the rest of the site behaving properly. Then to fix some layout issues that are unrelated to the Drupal upgrade (the UCalgary theme we had been using was a 4.7 variety, and the 5.0 variety has subtly different css, and lacks our custom stuff).

I got an email saying there was something wrong with my feed, as it’s apparently borking in Sage. I can’t seem to reproduce the error here (Sage is borking in general for me, and the feed validates and renders in the aggregators I’ve tested).

Anyone else having problems? Something I should be worried about? Maybe just something intermittent? Something related to Feedburner?

Also, this is posted using the new ecto 3 alpha – I haven’t used a standalone blogging app in years, but if this works, it’s about as close to the perfect app as I can figure. Even offers searching and sorting of Categories, and resizing/uploading of images…

Update: Cool. It worked. I’ll be buying a license for ecto 3. Haven’t used it since back in the Kung Fu days (wasn’t the original version of the app called KungLog or something?)

I should preface this with a reminder that I am not a lawyer. I don’t play one on TV, nor the internets. But as someone who creates and publishes a fair amount of content under an unrestrictive Creative Commons license, I have some thoughts on the topic.

I read David’s post on the proposed new Open Education License, and I’ve been struggling to understand why a new license is needed. Here’s the comment I left on David’s post:

David, I’ve been struggling to understand why a new license is warranted. How would this benefit either the original creator, or the content “repurposer” beyond what a plain vanilla Creative Commons Attribution license provides? That license allows derivative works, doesn’t require share-alike (although that can be added), and requires attribution. It also allows commercial use (of the original and/or derivative works) – or not, if desired.

Would it be as effective to just recommend a particular combination of CC bit flags?

From the post, David mentions that the new license is strongly inspired by CreativeCommons, using the same language and terminology, right down to the compatible XML description of the license:

<rdf :RDF xmlns=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#”
xmlns:dc=”http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:rdf=”http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”>
<license rdf:about=”http://opencontent.org/licenses/oel/1.0/”>
<permits rdf:resource=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#Reproduction” />
<permits rdf:resource=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#Distribution” />
<permits rdf:resource=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#DerivativeWorks” />
</license>
</rdf>

But, if the license can be described using CreativeCommons clauses, why not just promote a particular flavour of CC license for Open Education content? It could be essentially a branding/marketing effort, to promote the Creative Commons Attribution license:

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

This flavour of CC is pretty open – it explicitly allows copying, modification, redistribution, and distribution of modifications. It also (optionally) allows commercial use of the content and derivatives. All it requires is attribution. (more on this below)

By building on CreativeCommons directly, it would take advantage of localized versions of the licenses, and wouldn’t “fork” the mindshare of “open” licenses. Under the proposed license, a contributor has to decide if they want to use the more common Creative Commons series of licenses, or try out the new OEL.

David mentions that one goal of the new OEL license is to do away with the Attribution clause, because that may cause friction when content from one culture is used in another. A Sunni-created work might be frowned upon in a Shia-created derivation, if it was obvious through attribution that the work originated from a Sunni group. I don’t buy that argument – if there is that level of cultural intolerance, it will go beyond the name mentioned in the credits of a derivative work. The cultural origin of a work is inherent in the work, not just in the attribution byline.

I firmly believe that the requirement of Attribution is essential in sharing content. It brings along the concepts of trust, responsibility, reputation, and even simple credit. I don’t believe that many people will willingly expend resources (time, energy, money, social capital) in the construction of valuable educational content, only to cast if off in an essentially Public Domain license. They will want to know that they will at least be given credit for creating the work. And consumers/reusers of these works should be able to follow the provenance of the derivatives, to go back to original sources. Removing Attribution as a requirement breaks that chain.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that these licenses are not exclusive. If Attribution is impossible,  contact the creator of the work and arrange a separate license. This could involve a fee, or just an agreement. This is already possible under Creative Commons.

My travel for the 2007 Open Education conference in Logan, Utah was approved. I’ve never been to Open Education, but it sounds like an amazing event. And, to top it off, I get to present with Jim, hang out with Brian and Scott, and meet David in person.

I still need to figure out the logistics – there aren’t any direct flights from Calgary to Logan, so I guess I’ll fly to Salt Lake City and hitchhike the rest of the way.

Unfortunately, I need to leave on the last day of the conference because of family obligations. I’m hoping I can find a flight that means I won’t miss much of the conference.

Of course, this means that I need to buckle down and do some actual writing and work on the material and presentation…

I was given the choice between 2007 Open Content and EDUCAUSE in Seattle. It was a hard choice. Maybe I’ll go to EDUCAUSE 2008? I’ve never been to one of those, either.

I’ve been experimenting with a copy of BlogBridge Feed Library, to test it out for possible deployment for use by students and faculty here at UCalgary. It’s not an official project, but I think it’s important enough to warrant investigation. What is BlogBridge Feed Library (BBFL)? From their website:

Feed Library (FL) creates a flexible web based structure to showcase Feeds, Reading Lists and Podcasts to employees in your company, or members of your organization. It will be the ’store’ where users can browse and search for recommendations of content to read with their Aggregators. And, here’s the important point: these are recommendations by people in your organization for people in your organization.

It’s a directory. Of feeds. That can be distributed across the internets, and organized in any fashion. It’s been running the Expert Guides section of Blogbridge’s website for several months, and has provided a pretty cool resource for finding and subscribing to feeds. It’s very cool, in that it doesn’t try to do too much. It doesn’t pretend to be an aggregator. It’s just a directory. It provides friendly ways to preview feeds right in the directory, and to subscribe to groups of feeds via OPML representing folders within the directory. Aggregation is left to the individual’s taste in applications. Any feed reader that groks OPML will play nicely with the great directory OPML features. And any app can, of course, subscribe to the individual feeds.

It’s a really great directory application, and has been running well in production on BlogBridge’s server for some time now. But it needs some love if it’s going to thrive in an academic environment.

Currently, there is a small group of trusted stewards, or “Experts” that are given folders of feeds to manage. That’s fine when there may be a dozen or two contributing “Experts” – but how does that scale to a class with 20, 60, or 300 students? How does that scale to an institutional level with 30,000 students and hundreds of faculty playing in the pool? How do you refine control so that a student can add their feeds to the appropriate places, without having to go through a central gatekeeper?

Read more

I just went to renew my long-expired .Mac account. It’s only $99.95, and with the new iLife’08 stuff, and syncing, I thought it might be time to re-up. Went to the .Mac website, where I was greeted by a “Welcome back! We missed you!” message. That’s sweet. I see the $99.95 subscription, and click through to the .Mac Currency Table to see what the Canadian rate is. And, surprisingly, they’re asking a $34 premium just because I’m in Canada.

I expect it to be slightly more expensive, due to the exchange rate, but at the current rate (1 CAD = 0.948227 USD) $99.95US works out to only $105.41CDN. Not $139.00 CDN. It’s not like they had to pre-purchase and stock a large quantity of some inventory at an older exchange rate – it’s a website. I could easily be charged the current exchange rate. But, they want a $34 Canadian Tax.

I’ll pass for now.

I’ve been completely addicted to the Sharkrunners game hosted by The Discovery Channel. It’s a promotional/educational tool, aligned with their “Shark Week” sweeps week ratings booster. It uses real shark data to position 6 sharks off the southwest coast of California. You are given a boat (not quite a ship) and a few crew members. You have to plot your course to meet up with the sharks, and decide how to collect data. You get dollars for collecting good research data, which can be used to improve the boat, acquire better gear, or to hire new crew members.

It’s quite well done, with a few very minor nits. I’m just about to finish collecting full sets of data on all 6 sharks, and have gathered over $300,000 US in the process. I’ve been reinvesting every penny back into the research team, and now have an improved boat and almost all the gear I can buy.

It’s not a very challenging game, but it’s extremely compelling because it forces you to think about the geospatial data as well as trajectories, fuel consumption, state of crew fatigue, and strategies for collecting data to minimize risk. It awards you with various “accomplishments” – like collecting a full set of data for a shark, or increasing the skill level of a crew member. Some awards come with hefty cash prizes, too.

The game is also addictive because of the constant feedback you get. It runs in “real” time – it doesn’t pause when you log out. So, you set a series of waypoints for your research vessel to travel, then come back to check in on things. When a shark is in range (detected by sonar) you’ll get an email, or SMS message. I guarantee you’ll respond to those. Very cool way to keep people coming back in. There are also rewards for responding quickly. Pavlov’s dogs are slobbering all over the place.

This is an excellent game, and one that I’d definitely be using if I was teaching biology.

I just got a note from Pito Salas over at Blogbridge, and it looks like my Edublogs Guide was the most popular guide on the service for the month of July! That Guide is the snapshot of my Edublogs reading list in BlogBridge, so it’s cool to see that it’s coming in handy for someone.

Or, is someone just using it as a starting point for some Pipes/GoogleMashup/OPML automated coolness? Either way, Edublogs kicked ass and took names in July.

I got tagged. I’m taking the easy way out and recycling my responses to the “5 things meme” of 2006 (aren’t blog archives handy? ) and adding 3 new ones.

1. I once “flew” a 747 when I was about 6 years old. The Captain invited me up to the cockpit, stuck some wings on me, and handed me the controls. He told me not to crash the plane, and the co-pilot was also on his controls, but to a 6 year old, that was pretty cool. Of course, now they’d have a sniper take me down if I got close to the cabin door, and TSA would accuse me of trying to bring the plane down with a BoogerBomb or something. The times, they are a’changin’.
2. I once shared a plane with an intoxicated Leslie Nielsen. Stop calling me Shirley!
3. I watched the Simpsons Movie, and laughed so hard I nearly sprayed coke all over the guy in front of me. My face hurt from laughing. OK, so I’m rather juvenile…

I’m not tagging anyone. This branch dies with me.

We went to the Zoo today, and I brought along the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM MK II lens. I wanted to try getting up close and personal with some of the animals, which is something I hadn’t really tried before. I’ve usually gone with the point-and-shoot, or just the kit 18-55mm lens on the XT. This was the first time I tried shooting animals at 300mm. I wound up taking 178 photographs. I kept 18, and I’m really quite happy with the shots that survived the cut.

The technique I was trying was to get as close as possible, then get even closer. Many of the shots I like the most from this visit are shots that would have been uncomfortably “close” if I wasn’t forcing myself to get closer. The second shot of the East African Crowned Crane, for example, might normally have been shot such that the entire crown was included. But by getting even closer, I think the shot is much more interesting.

I was shooting without a tripod or monopod, so wanted to force a fast shutter. I bumped the ISO to 800 (on a bright sunny day) and shot in Aperture Variance mode with the aperture cranked wide open. The theory being, if I force as much light as possible onto the sensor, I’ll compensate for hand-holding.

Except that I accidentally screwed up royally. Somehow, I’d inadvertently twiddled the buttons and knobs and wound up setting the exposure compensation to be 3 stops higher than normal. Meaning every single shot was terribly overexposed. Unbelievable, painfully overexposed.

Thank the gods I shoot in RAW, and use Aperture. Aperture freaking rocks. On most shots, all I had to do to rescue it was to drag the “Exposure” slider to the left. That’s it. On others, I had to futz with Highlights and Shadows, and Levels on a couple others. A few shots that had lots of light or white wound up with so much lost data that they were lost. But the vast majority were saved, and were actually acceptable.

Lesson learned – check all camera settings before starting a shoot or project. ISO. Exposure compensation. Maybe even image size and format (make sure it’s in RAW). Aperture may be an amazing tool, but it’s just plain silly and reckless to fall back on editing and manipulation to rescue images, if that could have been easily prevented by just properly setting the camera. But, it’s good to know that if Something Bad Happens, I can pull some useful images out of an otherwise garbage roll.

← Previous Page — Next Page →