Paverian Ramblings

David Pogue, the tech writer for the New York Times, posted an interesting item detailing techniques for blocking text message spam. The techniques require visiting your cell phone carrier’s web site and setting some preferences.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/how-to-block-cellphone-spam/index.html

The final design for the new Southwestern University home page is now available via White Whale’s blog at www.whitewhale.net/southwestern/blog. Make sure that you read the design notes which illuminate the thinking and process behind this design which is, literally, out of the box.

The Southwestern Web Management Team and White Whale are eager to hear your comments about the new design. Your comments may be submitted via the blog. We’ll hope that you’ll identify yourself so that we can follow-up with you.

If you’d rather react via e-mail, you can send your thoughts to any member of the Web Management Team which is comprised of: Hal Haskell, John Kotarski, Cindy Locke, Tom Oliver, Bob Paver, Derek Timourian and Todd Watson.

MacHeist II a Smash Hit, Sets New Record for Shareware Sales: “The shareware promoters known as MacHeist made a splash in 2007 by running the most successful shareware sale ever. This year, the crew sold over 40,000 low-priced bundles of new Macintosh shareware, breaking last year’s record and raising half a million dollars for charity.
(Via Wired News.)

The Scout Report, a publication of the Internet Scout and sponsored by the University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries, is one of my favorite weekly e-mails. The Scout Report summarizes interesting useful web sites. These sites are of particular interest to educators.

Check it out!

Cell Phone Directory and Telemarketers: “E-mail claims you must sign up with the national Do Not Call list to prevent telemarketers from calling your cell phone.”

(Via 25 Hottest Urban Legends.)

No need to call or worry about this. Telemarketing to cell phones is prohibited by FCC regulations. Read more at the link above.

Time-Warner announced that it will experiment with usage-based pricing in Beaumont, Texas. T-W claims that 5% of its customer base uses 50% of the network bandwidth. No information on the pricing of the tiers or how much data one gets in a tier.

More of this will surely follow as other providers push for usage-based pricing. Say good-bye to the good old days!

What is Fair Use in the Digital Age?

(Via Slashdot:.)

“General counsel for NBC Rick Cotton and Tim Wu, professor at Columbia Law school, continue their debate about copyright issues and technology on Saul Hansell’s blog at the New York Times discussing Fair Use of commercial music and video as the raw materials for new creations.

Computer Literacy Doesn’t Mean Information Literacy, Report Says: “”

(Via Wired Campus.)

The next generation of college students, more wired than any other, might not be as good at Internet research as you may think.

A new report from the Joint Information Systems Committee, a British higher-education research institute, says the “Google Generation” (those born after 1993, who can’t remember a time when the Internet wasn’t widely available) may be computer literate. But that doesn’t make them information literate. Some of the key problems the study found include:

• Young people don’t develop good search strategies to find quality information.
• They might find information on the Internet quickly, but they don’t know how to evaluate the quality of what they find.
• They don’t understand what the Internet really is: a vast network with many different content providers.

The report details the implications of these problems for library professionals. It says library resources should be more unified with Internet tools like Google, and adapt to the changing ways younger generations gather information.

In the context of a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that says more 18- to 30-year-olds use libraries than other age groups (mostly to use computer resources), it seems there will be an even greater need in the future for librarians to teach information-gathering skills. —Hurley Goodall

Cell phone ownership is nearly 100%. While 79% of students own a laptop and 49% own a desktop, %30 have both. PDAs (Palm, Blackberry, etc) are not popular. Graphic courtesy of Eduventures.

Think that the information on your laptop hard drive is safe or protected from prying eyes? Not from the government.

From the New York Times

The search was not unusual: the government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase.

Read more here.