Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Month: July 2012

  • TED Talk: The riddle of experience vs. memory

    We tend to think of memory the same as an audio-visual recording of the events in our life. Unfortunately, it is not. Memory captures snapshots which influence what we recall later. So a relatively good experience with a particularly bad ending can bias memory to recall the whole as bad. If the below video does not […]

  • Twexports

    Data portability is good both for users and systems. But I like being able to export my data for another reason: search. Some times I want to build on an old conversation. It would be easier with an eidetic memory. Lacking that, knowing the terms I would have used, searching for it should yield that conversation. […]

  • Content Migration Progress Tracking

    When moving hundreds of thousands of courses between WebCT Vista and Desire2Learn, keeping track of what made it through which stage seems like an obvious hindsight thing to do. I added that last bit because we started to notice where things fell between the cracks starting to pile up. The basic process… Through Oracle SQL […]

  • New World

    Here is an attempt at a positive post with our new vendor, Desire2Learn. In the Old World, WebCT/Blackboard, my role was to develop install the application / databases, monitor for problems, automate systems to run without the need of humans, or to make it simple for humans to do. In the New World, Desire2Learn, my […]

  • Mail Delivery Background Jobs

    Only 8 years into running this product and I still learn something new about it. Monday there was an event. Two nodes became responsive at about the same time. The other ten nodes did their jobs and transferred session information to the nodes taking on the sessions. Most were so busy they did not respond […]

  • TED Talk: Advice to young scientists

    E.O. Wilson on inspiring people to get into science. If the below video does not display, then try E.O. Wilson: Advice to young scientists

  • Goodreads Context Menu Search

    At some point when I am not too lazy, I should empower my future laziness. I really need an easier way to look up books on Goodreads when I see them mentioned on other pages. For example, say I go to BBC’s Big Read and want to add some to my wish list. At present I […]

  • OrgCode Duplicate Filter

    I was asked to work my “Unix magic”. The problem? Duplicate courses were spooled and converted from the WebCT format to the Desire2Learn. The conversion process creates an import file using the WebCT SourcedId.Id as the OrgCode. The first time the OrgCode is used, it creates a course. The next and subsequent times, it duplicates […]

  • Scrambls

    Scrambls encrypts social media posts and lets users specify exactly who can see them, across all social media sites. The user can form groups from friends and family, going as broad as everyone with a Gmail account down to a specific colleague or even those who know a certain password. Everyone else (including the social […]

  • Happy Independence Day!

    Hope you have a great day!