Broken Comments October 31, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , add a commentComments on Ultralab Movable Type blogs are broken again.
“Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: Oh “
Comment June 13, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , comments closedDerek Pulvino wrote to me on Jun 4 re my entry How to join photos to make a panorama
“Tried to post this to your blog, but it wouldn’t let me. Anyhow, appreciate the info, that is until I got the sexcams and other such frilliness.
Anyhow, I often use panorama photos in my job. I do property survey work and like to use a panorama from time to time. Notice the same problems with angles and exposures. Well, tried out this advice after finding you via google and looks quite a bit better. Now to figure out the feathering tool on my grafix program.
Thanks again,
Derek P”
The problem with comment posting on this blog has been reported and should be fixed after tomorrow sometime, hopefully.
See also Jonathan’s blog
my gmail address is over there ———–>
AndyRob May 26, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : hi res photos, meta-blog , add a comment
AndyRob
Originally uploaded by Happy Dave.
Photo by Happy Dave
Reasons to be cheerful - 1,2,3. December 3, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning, meta-blog, internet, Music , add a commentThree reasons to be cheerful this weekend
-
3 clear days off to get on with my Ultraversity work.
At last it feels like I can make some real headway towards getting module 1 finished. I’ve done the La3 ( double loop ) already using webnotes, which was satisfying.
- I’ve tamed my information overload - phew!.
I’ve been through a messy learning period of switching browsers, switching how I read webfeeds ( RSS ), expanding my use of new tools, and subscribing to the same groups in different ways - but now it’s finally all coming together. I’ve mainly shifted from client programs to web applications, alleviating platform dependent problems and allowing almost perfect synchronisation between locations. So, much less Opera, Safari, NetNewsWire, Agent and IE. The blog is at the centre now, with bloglines, Furl, Gmail, del.icio.us and Flickr etc all integrated and running reasonably smoothly together - nomatter where I am.
- Audioscrobbler and LastFM
My own personal radio station which (mostly) only plays the music I like - this is wonderful.
Incorporated Subversion November 4, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , add a commentJames Farmer’s blog has been of great interest since I first started subscribing to education blogs over a year ago. It’s one of the most useful sources about edu blogging, since he draws from far more more than just a tentative experimental experience. A short while ago James moved his blog to his own domain name (incsub.org) and began offering free consultation, hosting and open source tools to support teachers who want to incorporate blogging into their courses. Then a couple of days ago he posted a disclaimer, followed by an explanation that his employer had astonishingly sent him a memo “instructing me to cease supporting and promoting weblogging, wikis or any other technology not officially supported by the University.”
It’s not possible to comment on why and wherefore this has happened, and I reckon it will be resolved pretty quickly but it is well worth noting the way the great and the good of the International Education Blogging Community have rallied round to James’ suport. You didn’t know there was an Intnl Edu blog community? - well there is now.
Here is the RSS feed for comments on James Farmer’s blog entry “difficult” in which you will find at time of posting 64 comments including rallying calls from such as Stephen Downes and Alan Levine (CogDog). You may want to leave a message of support of your own.
blogroll November 2, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , add a commentHere is my ever-changing blogroll - as it comes, straight from bloglines.
Blogs vs Forums what’s the difference? October 21, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , add a commentNeville Hobson offers some clear explanations and a prediction on his NevOn blog
“I’d hazard a strong guess, though, that for inter-relating and developing online conversations, blogs will soon surpass structured discussion forums as the informal communication channel of choice for most people.”
One Hundred Eggs October 9, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , 1 comment so far( image depicts a vietnamese legend 100 eggs )
For this 100th entry in the blog I’m hoping to assess the progress made so far and think about future development. Frst then, a numerical analysis:100 entries
216 comments
4 trackbacksNumber of articles posted per Month:
Total articles per category:
So the blog seems quite varied in subject matter and style, the only real common factor linking all the articles being the author. That may suit some people who like a mixed diet, or people who know me but it’s unlikely to hold the interest of those who are only really interested in one specialism. I think it was Michael Feldstein who recommended that 80% of blog articles should be relevent to the core subject. I break that rule. The category count reveals few surprises. I”ve suceeded in keeping the meta-blog posts down within acceptable limits, video is intended to be a major category and it’s only natural for the blog to be situated in London where I live and work. The ones which worry me most are music and business. I discovered a way of making reasonable sound recordings using the DV camcorder but only got around to the one song - shifting sands. So the music project, which I claim to hold as a high priority, is proving to be really hard to push along in the present circumstances. Ultraversity work could feature more highly in future, although it does tend to get spread across multiple forums. Workplace issues get an occasional airing, but I am carefully aware these may be read by anybody.
Can I justify retaining the subtitle “have envelope, will push” ?
Well I feel I’ve expanded some aspects a fair way, the digital photography, video editing and blog itself have developed at a good pace over the past 8 months, together with some ideas about community and interaction. The fact that I spread my attention over many different endeavours at once these days, probably slows the pace of development of each one, so I have to ask myself if this is the best use o my efforts. Would I be better off ditching some projects and concentrating on one or two things which I could identify as most important to me? My inclination is not to go down that path right now, since the priorities are nowhere near clear enough and I’m beginning get better at coping with multitasking, which is a useful skill in itself.
Whither blog?
Which corner of the envelope gets a shove next, will depend more upon events than on planning, and there may be a shift over to other spaces as well. Larger video projects should find a home on the CuttySnark blog, local stuff on Manor Park. I may write a bit more autobiographical stuff like ‘Computer Operator’ and report more experiential incidents from the workplaces. Short link articles are less likely now that I have my latest Furl entries displayed in the side bar.
hosting
There are some issues to do with backup, scalability and ownership on the slartibartfast server but I’ll stay there for the time being. It’s nice being part of the ultralab blogfeed community.
meta-reflection
The 100th entry struggled to be born causing something of a blog-jam! For the 200th I might just post a picture of cake instead.
Requests October 6, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : meta-blog , 7commentsI’m coming up to my 100th blog entry, for which I shall be writing a short reflection on how the blog has developed and where it may be leading me. So I’d like to invite general feedback from any readers who may be out there. Which sort of articles do you prefer, what works and what doesn’t - what would you like me to post more of in the next 100? It would be great if you can take a couple of minutes to do that, please. Use comments, trackbacks or if you prefer email me at aroberts@gmail.com.
Trackbacks September 17, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : learning, meta-blog, internet , 5commentsThis blog has trackbacks enabled. For those who use blogger, blogdrive, and so on this may be an unfamiliar concept, and it’s fairly new to me so I shall attempt an explanation.
comments
Comments added to blog entries help to give the blog author a sense of audience, and motivation. They also build community links, because if I comment on your blog, you can usually click on my name in your comments list and that will redirect you to my blog and vice versa. But how can you follow which people’s blogs I may have left a comment on ? - you can’t. So If I spend a lot of my time writing comments on other people’s blogs, then my writing is dissipated all over the place with no easy way of tracking it.
blogs
So some people write blog entries which refer to other people’s blogs instead of writing comments. Nancy White’s blog, for example, has a lot of these type of blog entries, linking to a wide network of individuals and resources.
But how do you know if somebody has blogged about you?
trackbacks
This is where trackbacks come in, to complete the circuit and connect related blogs in both directions. It’s easiest to give an example: Two weeks ago, I finally published a little video and discussion starter about waste incineration. There are no comments on that entry, but if you look underneath the entry where it says “comments (0)” it also says “Trackback(2)” Click there, and you will see that two people have decided to write something related. Adam Timworth’s is just a quick comment and link really, but it’s quite likely that Cllr Andrew Brown came across my article as a result of reading “one man and his blog” and then decided to supply quite a lot of useful information on the subject, including a timely notice about the London open house event this Sunday.
pings
I lament the dilution of useful, precise technical jargon ( on Contentious Weblog ) and “ping” used to have a specific meaning on the Internet, to do with testing the connectivity time between nodes. The Blogging world has developed it’s own specific meaning, where a ‘ping’ is a notification to a blog server to let it know that a blog entry has been made on another. That’s how these two people managed to get my blog to link to their own articles, they ‘pinged’ my blog so they appear as trackback entries on it. This is done by scooping up the trackback URL for the entry, which appears underneath “Continuing the discussion…..” and in this case is http://slartibartfast.ultraIab.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/150 , and then pasting this into the ‘ping’ box in their own blog software when making their entries. In some cases I understand, the software can be set to automatically check all of the links within an entry and set up the appropriate pings.
Thanks for reading Andy Roberts articles about meta-blog
on Darnet
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
