September's scheduled network outage and news about updates to the Skillman Mac Lab top ITS News in this edition of the ITS Coffee Break. In Tech News, Ken and Courtney discuss Facebook's pending transition from closed to open community, talk about a Wired reporter's recent experiment in community reporting and editing via a wiki, and delve into the war of ratings at Digg.com. Announcements about upcoming Word Basics and Podcasting 101 workshops round out the podcast.
Getting the Podcast
There are several ways to get the podcast:
- Download the MP3 directly
- Subscribe to the Soapbox podcast rss feed using an aggregator (you only need to do this once; subsequent shows should download automatically)
- Subscribe to the Soapbox feed via iTunes
Show Notes
ITS News
- Network Outage Scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 20
- Mac lab in Skillman
- The Macs are in the process of being re-imaged to include latest versions of iLife, Macromedia, Adobe and Final Cut Pro
Tech News
- Facebook Opens Up
- According to reports in AdAge, Facebook is about to open its doors to the world, abandoning its previous school-centric exclusivity.
- http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=111795
- The Wiki That Edited Me
- An article from a Wired reporter about having his article on wikis edited wiki-style by his readers.
- Said it allowed him to make contact with sources he hadn't been able to reach, and encouraged him to follow-up on additional leads, but the story grew longer and longer, and didn't have the consistent feel of a Wired story.
- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71737-0.html
- Digg Fights Top Users For Control
- After some users of the popular social linking site claim that top users were gaming the system by forming cadres and then promoting each other's posts. The creators made changes to make the site more democratic by giving greater weight to votes from people who don't know other people. Now the top 1% of posters on the site are leaving, saying that they've been unfairly attacked and sidelined.
- Meanwhile, over at Netscape.com (which is now a social linking site, who knew?) they argue that the proper way to reward your top posters is to pay them.
- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71750-0.html
Help News
- Upcoming Workshops
- Word I: The Basics — Monday, September 18, 2006 — 4:10-5:30 p.m.
- Podcasting 101 — Monday, September 25, 2006 — 4:10-5:30 p.m.