Learning the World

Adobe has made the beta of Photoshop CS3 available for download to folks with CS2 licenses. It’s a universal app, so those with Intel Macs may want to give it a spin and see what sort of speed boost they get from it.

Ajax is becoming omnipresent on the web, but should developers assume that JavaScript is available when developing web-based applications? This blog post by Roger Johansson argues that for basic web apps, you can never assume that JS is there. It spawned a huge (and surprisingly civil) comment thread with a slight consensus agreeing with him.

I’m inclined to agree with those who say the only time that you can assume JavaScript is available is in an intranet environment, and even then someone will inevitably turn off JS so make sure things fail gracefully. For external users, your web page shouldn’t simply stop working because a user doesn’t have JavaScript enabled.

News about the iTunes U pilot program at Lafayette College during the Spring 2007 semester, a discussion of the LibWorm librarian search engine, and a look at how to use Del.icio.us to highlight stories for classroom discussion. Get the podcast from Soapbox.

Some how it always begins with “hello world”, doesn’t it? Welcome to my outpost on EduBlog. It’s a humble little blog and its primary reason for existence is to serve as a sandbox for me to evaluate WordPress MU for possible use at Lafayette College.

It may evolve beyond that over time, as I find myself greatly enjoying this implementation of WordPress, and it could be useful for me to have an education-oriented blog out there.

Yep, that's right, MySpace topped Yahoo in page views in November 2006 according to comScore Media Metrix (which admittedly, I hadn't heard of until this article, but I don't keep up with web ratings that much). Yahoo blames their second place finish on the adoption of Ajax, which reduced the number of page views on their site.

Concerned about folks trying to tease out your Amazon, eBay and other username and passwords via spoof e-mails? Then check out these web resources:

• Phish Tank: Report and track possible phishers via the web site or your browser.
• Anti-Phishing Working Group: Corporate alliance site for tracking and busting phishing attempts.
• OnlineGuard.gov: Security advice and news maintained by the U.S. government.

From CNN via AP:

“Hackers attacked the computer network at the Naval War College in Newport, taking down the school's network for more than two weeks, including some e-mail services and the college's Web site.”