Notes from the Electronic Cottage 9/24/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Phone calls these days travel many different ways – through regular old land lines, through wireless connections using cell phones, and increasingly, over the Internet. But what will these new alternatives mean for people who don’t have cell phones or high speed internet connections? What will happen to “safety net” features in the old phone system such as universal access and even public pay phones? We don’t know yet but the day is coming fast when we’ll have to decide.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 9/17/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

When the Obama administration took office, the new Secretary of Homeland Security said she would review the regulations that allow a border agent to search anything you are carrying, including your laptop, cell phone, digital camera, etc. “absent individual suspicion,” i.e., for any reason or no reason at all. True to her word, she issued new policy directives in August of 2009. The sort version: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/27/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Thought you had cookies on your computer under control? Think again – here come Flash cookies. Here are links to information that tells you more about how they work and how to control them on your computer.

The paper by researchers at the University of California’s Berkeley School of Law (Note – to download the paper you may have to register for a free SSRN account.) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1446862

To get the new Firefox broswer “Better Privacy:”
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623

Site for “Ccleaner,” which works on Windows machines:
www.ccleaner.com/

Link to download “Flush,” which works on Macintoshes:

Flush.app – Flash Cookie Removal Tool For OS X

To find the Flash cookie files on your own hard drive:
Windows: Look for files with an ³.SOL² extension, within each user¹s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\FlashPlayer\#SharedObjects.
Mac OS X: ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/##SharedObjectgs and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/macromedia.com/Support/flashpla
yer/sys

For a more full report on Flash cookies, see www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/you-deleted-your-cookies-think-again/

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 8/20/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

These are the web sites mentioned in today¹s ³best of² sites program.

Best Free Reference Web Sites 2008 according to the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association:
www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestfreewe
bsites/MarsBestFree2008.cfm

From the same organization, combined lists from 1999-2008:
www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestindex.
cfm

From the Telegraph, a UK newspaer:
www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3356874/The-101-most-useful-websites.h
tml

101 websites for writers:
writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/30/09

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Here are addresses for sites mentioned in this week’s program that offer free college level course materials to anyone who would like to use them.
Open Courseware site at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (ocw.mit.edu).
Rice University’s Connexions courseware site (cnx.org).
University of California at Berkeley has put up videos of about 250 course segments and events on Google Video
(video.google.com/ucberkeley.html) and now also on youTube as well www.youtube.com/user/ucberkeley).
Other universities have also established youTube channels. Search for channels (not videos) using the keyword ³education.² The Open University in Great Britain has an open learning site (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php).
Open-of-Course (open-of-course.org/courses/). Courses contributed by anyone with some expertise, not necessarily college professors.
W3 Schools (www.w3schools.com/). The focus here is on courses relating to web development.

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