Education: Free Online Training?

E-learning, an interesting advent of the 21st century and a very powerful tool for those who use it.  In the 1980's it was perceived by some as the wave of the future.  That all classrooms would be virtual.  They were not far off as we move closer and closer to virtualization of all levels of education.

On this note, here are a few links to sites that sponsor free online education, or also called e-Learning:

Academic Earth
Incredibly cool place with multiple free online classes for credit (1).  It is sponsored by Stanford and has a huge amount of knowledge.

http://academicearth.org/subjects/

Kahn Academy


For those of us with children (this is good for all ages as well), there is this very cool place.  Incredible help with subjects like math, banking, technology, biology, chemistry...the list is long.

http://www.khanacademy.org/#browse

An invaluable couple of resources for free education.  Just another example of the positive items you can find on the world wide web.

The Browser Wars: The Big Three

Firefox 6.0, Chrome 13, Internet Explorer 9

Like them or hate them...either way, there they are.  The newest releases from the 3 web browsers with the largest market share.  A discussion popped up in my web development class a few days ago about not all browsers are created equal.  Something that is the bane of all web developers existence.  Coding to cover all of the CSS rendering differences (among others) between these 3 can cause migraines.

Out of curiosity, I figured it would be important for my classmates to know who had the largest market shares as that is who I have always used to base my coding on in the past.  As a developer, for me that is, I decided I wasn't going to design sites in Firefox only to have them not render properly in IE (which is nearly always the case).  I code and check in IE first, if all is well, then check it in the other browsers before going live.  Checking along the way always makes it easier to change, especially if you know the code may be touchy or new to you.

Here are the latest figures on web browsers as pulled from Wikipedia  on September 13, 2011:

The interesting fact here is look how close Firefox is to IE.  And even more interesting is how close late comer Chrome is to Firefox!  In my heart of hearts, I do so hope that someday IE is knocked out of the race completely.  No offence IE but when it comes to web development, I really like it when browsers work to help us, not hinder progress.  To the right is a global perspective since the world is a fairly large place.


Interesting information, glad I looked again because IE has continually lost market share every month.  And look at how orange that map is!  See Dorothy, dreams really do come true!

Megamergers: Interesting look at Globalization

I recently read a quote by technology philosopher (who knew we had those) named Nicholas Negroponte that said the global market driven by electronic information

"...forces things to get bigger and smaller at the same time.  And that's so ironic, when things want to do both  but not stay in the middle.  There will be an increasing absense of things that aren't either very local or very global."

A very interesting idea and as I looked around at how things are shaping up here and abroad, it really made sense, in a very eerie sort of way.  This has been going on here in the U.S. for at least the past 15 years.  There have been more megamergers turning large corporations and organizations into behemoths like Walt Disney and Pixar, Kmart and Sears, Kraft and Cadbury...the list is long and growing consistently.

So what does this mean and how does it tie into my usual rants about technology?  It means beyond outsourcing, beyond international acquisitions, beyond even the assumed destabilizing effects of international economics is the growing globalization of this world.  It is more than business and technology, more than e-commerce and off-shoring, it is nearly 7 billion (6,852, 472, 823) humans thousands of miles apart but sharing the same electronics stores, retail shops, automotive industries and clothing boutiques.  And technology did this, it created our interconnectedness through cell phones, smart devices, satellites and the internet. 

Good, bad or indifferent, this is what appears to be our reality and staying ahead of the technology curve will not only keep you in the game but may make the difference between sitting on the sidelines and being the star quarterback.

Teaching Tools: Open Web Ware

Open source content management systems (CMS) are pretty prevalent.  Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress and a huge host of others are available to the masses with new ones popping up frequently.  Earlier this week in my web development class, I was introduced to a great introductory CMS called Open Web Ware.

It is super light, PHP/Javascript driven management system that is a great introduction to students about the concepts of content management.  More over, you can tear it down into pieces quickly and use those as a great instruction tool showing budding web builders how it was created and what drives it.

The beauty of CMS's are their WYSIWYG editors that give users immediate feedback on how their code is being rendered.

Over all, a great teaching tool for introductory CMS training.  Well done Open Web Ware!

Schema.org: The Big Three Search Engines Working Together

On June 2, 2011, Google announced on the official Google Webmaster Central blog a very interesting titbit:

"Today we’re announcing schema.org, a new initiative from Google, Bing and Yahoo! to create and support a common set of schemas for structured data markup on web pages. Schema.org aims to be a one stop resource for webmasters looking to add markup to their pages to help search engines better understand their websites."

Since that time, I've been reading and implementing the tools suggested on a dummy website that is simple HTML/CSS just to see what the results would be.  The concept is simple really.  You categorize your content with their "labels"(or categories) so each search engine can identify it.

It is definitely working with Google, my dummy site was picked up immediately and I was able to actually see where my site is categorized and how the search engine sees it.  The jury is still out on whether its a worthy tool but I plan to use it and see what happens.  As for Joomla sites (content management systems), I am not convinced.  I am testing the schema on a Joomla site and so far Google managed to find 3 of the 11 citations but has still missed authorship, a fairly large part of why I believe this will really work for Webmasters.  This is an interesting idea and if all three are really working towards a set of standards that assist developers, it is a great beginning.

I do have one question:  is this the death of organic SEO or is this their way of levelling the playing field?

Now if they everyone would give Microsoft a huge smack down so they would fix their browser to render all CSS equally....the world would be a blissful place for web developers.

Client Strategy: "The Hush Factor"

The Hush Factor simply means, when asked a question, tell only what is appropriate and necessary for the given situation and do not be afraid to admit you don't know how to do something.  Overuse of technical terminology will kill any budding relationship.  Using industry words only confuses most clients and makes them feel inferior.  Learn to express what you know in a way that doesn't offend but informs at a minimal level. 

Several of my colleagues and I were discussing different client relationship building skills  and how well they work in a global economy.  What we came up with was a resounding need for help regarding cultural sensitivities, not only globally but even in America, we have different subsets of cultures that warrant us remembering who we are speaking with.  And we also came up with something I like to call "The Hush Factor".


Also, know when to say "I don' t know but I will look into it and get back with you".  Then get back with them within 24 hours so that person begins to build faith in you resourcefulness and your reliability if nothing else.  Good customer skills are as much if not more important than good coding.

It also applies to the sensitive subjects, when clients step into the "Emotional Boxing Arena", take yourself out.  What I mean by "Emotional Boxing Arena" is don't engage clients in what I call the Big 3: race (culture), religion and politics.  Sensitive topics like this are best avoided, even if you think you know someone, you don't know the internal workings as well as your own.  Find a safe way to back out of it, switch subjects in a tactful way and save face.

In the long run, everyone will be more comfortable.

Facebook: Skillpages, another way to get yourself advertised on the web

A relatively new app for Facebook users has been out for a little while now and appears to be a way of continuing your professional "web face", similar to LinkedIn.  You can link your Facebook, LinkedIn and email users to this app that displays your skills , experience and education (again, similar to LinkedIn) for potential employers to see.

It doesn't allow you the depth of information and connections that LinkedIn does, nor is it as professional.  If I had to choose one, it would be clearly LinkedIn from a business stand point and that is what I tell my clients as well.   It's pretty early to tell, I've only been on it a few hours and it's still pretty young but the fact that your professional "web face" is being promoted in another place is always a good thing!  Positive linking plus positive exposure all add up to more traffic so I'm all for it!  Check me out at Melinda Ames @ skillpages.com

To learn more about Skillpages, check out this video:

Google +1 Silent Launch of Chrome Extension

The Google +1 Button extension allows you to “+1" a web page, but you already knew that.  Recently, they opened up browser wide so virtually anywhere you go on the web, you can plus pages. That’s important. 


You no longer have to rely on a site to implement the +1 Button, you can invoke the functionality through your browser. Imagine if Facebook partnered with Google and made an extension to “Like” any page on the web through it, it's kinda the same idea.

For now the +1 Button just shares content you "plus" on the web. But I have no doubt they will use this data as a way to affect Google Search itself and likely even more important, effect Google ratings. That’s huge. The button also is starting to play a role in how Google serves up advertising to you. But this concept may make people wary of such a button.


Google describes +1 as:

In addition to the practices described in the Google +1 Button Privacy Policy, by installing this extension, all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google in order to retrieve +1 information.

You read that correctly, “all of the pages and URLs you visit will be sent to Google”  and it doesn't matter if you don’t click the button. Hmmm.  


So, like it or not, here comes Google +1, another factor in driving sites up the Google search engine or a de facto way to monitor what people are reading on the web.  You decide.