Common Craft - Modern Tech Topics in Plain English
September 19, 2007 | 3 Comments
Common Craft has built a series of presentations explaining modern tech topics in “Plain English”. What’s most interesting about their presentations is that they use a classic method of stop motion animation to explain these things. This counterintuitive approach is done entertainingly with paper cut-outs.
I think the Google Docs video I included above is their best, but if you were entertained by that, check out the older ones:
RSS in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Tags: common craft, commoncraft, delicious, google docs, plain english, presentations, rss, social bookmarking, stop motion, video, wiki, wikis
Which Wiki? Marvel.com vs Wikipedia
April 25, 2007 | 4 Comments
In Casey’s recent post: “Please, Not Another Wiki”, I felt some serious resonance with an internal debate I’m having. In short, Casey states that in general new wikis are a bad idea. They require an entire community to be successful and why not leverage an existing wiki (like Wikipedia) to accomplish your task.
Specifically, when externally linking to details about a comic book character in the Marvel Universe I find myself unsure whether to link to Marvel.com’s Marvel Universe Wiki or to a specific article on Wikipedia. Marvel’s wiki has a much more structured format. There is always a consistent set of data about each and every hero.
However, it is limited in this structure as well. There are less pictures, no external links, and a lack of information tertiary topics. The tertiary topics I find lacking include publication history, video games, and television appearances, etc. Similarly, Wikipedia has great profiles on the various artists and authors. This can develop insight and detail not available on Marvel.com.
Also, Wikipedia has a larger community who can be more responsive. Yet, Marvel has the expertise in this area and in turn should be able to provide better editing. In the end I still find myself leaning towards Wikipedia, however, I remain torn as Marvel has develop a fairly competitive alternative. I’ve pulled a couple side-by side examples so you can compare yourself.
| Carol Danvers/Ms Marvel | Wikipedia | Marvel |
| Jessica Jones | Wikipedia | Marvel |
| Peter Parker/Spider-Man | Wikipedia | Marvel |
| Sandman/William Baker | Wikipedia | Marvel |
I am left wondering if Marvel had just invested their initial time and resources into working with Wikipedia, wouldn’t contributors, consumers, and fans have benefited more?
Tags: carol danvers, comics, jessica jones, marvel, marvel universe, ms marvel, peter parker, Sandman, spider-man, spiderman, wiki, wikipedia, wikis, william baker
Homestar Runner Video Podcast
April 11, 2006 | 3 Comments
With much joy I found that HomestarRunner.com is now offering Strong Bad emails as free video podcasts on the iTunes music store! Having Strong Bad pushed to my iPod on a regular basis is about as cool as it gets. So check it out. No, seriously, go check it out…
If you are looking for other Homestar Runner related goodness, I highly recommend the fan-run Homestar Runner Wiki. There is an absolutely excessive quantity of Homestar information, facts and transcripts from basically everything that’s ever been done on the site.
One other cool thing to check out is this great interview with the Homestar Runner creators, the “Brothers Chaps”.
Tags: brothers chaps, cartoon, flash, homestar, homestarrunner, hrwiki, interview, ipod, mike chapman, podcast, podcasts, strong bad, strong bad email, wiki
Scriptaculous
January 6, 2006 | 1 Comment
Matt recently came across and got very excited about Script.aculo.us for doing DHTML effects and AJAX.
From Matt’s post: Script.aculo.us Is My New Best Friend:
Script.aculo.us is a Javascript Effects and Control framework developed by Thomas Fuchs, a software architect living in Vienna, Austria who, like me, was disappointed by current web application frameworks that made no sense to him. His framework is 3 things: Easy to Use, Simple, and Easy to Use. His libraries - built off of the AJAX framework, Prototype - blow SAJAX out of the water!
One of the things that makes script.aculo.us especially great is the detailed and well written documentation/apis. Arguably, this is why I first loved Java and eventually became addicted to PHP. The Java API was great, but PHP.net is unmatched. Like PHP.net, the script.aculo.us wiki allows users to contribute back knowledge easily.
Tags: AJAX, api, apis, dhtml, java, php, programming, prototype, SAJAX, scriptaculous, web, web application, web development, wiki