I’m a little late for this… But early for next week.

Kicking off with this great post:

The goal of many of the Web 2.0 tools is to reduce the overhead. Think of it as a “flat tax” for interactions, in that many of the philosophies of Web 2.0 are around transparency and participation, in addition, everyone is equal.

If you look at MySpace, LinkedIn, Youtube or other social networks, there is no hierarchy and pretty much everyone is equal (yes there are administrators for such systems who have greater powers).

Who keeps the Internet going? No one really, there are some agreed upon standards so that one computer can talk to another, and information can be displayed in a common format, and that is about it.

By the way, my condolences for this writer’s situation; I was in similar circumstances just last year with my dad.

Web 2.0 for Collaboration and Learning - This should be titled Web 2.0 Collaboration 101. Part of a six-week course set up in order to encourage exploration of the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the way we use information.

Top Three Web 2.0 Tools for Online Education - A quick roundup which would get just about anyone started in basic collaboration online.

(8) Online Collaboration Tools - New Technologies and Web Services

9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift - Check out the principles for managing change. I think this applies across the spectrum and isn’t only limited to traditional schools.

Ten Trends: Educating Children for Tomorrow’s World - Specifically, Trend 3: Social and Intellectual Capital will become the Primary Economic Value in Society.

Death, Taxes, and Collaboration

Great roundup of Rich Internet Application authoring technologies from Emerging Technologies - Application Development - RIA War Is Brewing

There’s a war brewing on the Web today–a war to decide how Web applications and content will be developed and how users will consume the content of the future Web.

But this isn’t the latest round in the browser wars. No, the war I’m talking about is over the RIA (rich Internet application), a type of Web application that can run independently of browsers, can run on any operating system and, in many ways, works like a traditional desktop application.

Of course, RIAs aren’t new. They can be traced back to earlier efforts such as Macromedia’s Shockwave, Java applets and the ubiquitous Flash format.

Analysis of RIA and Wireless Data

When I was in the wireless data game, one of the main questions that people were trying to answer back in 2000 and 2001 was, how do we earn revenue streams from the broadband wireless market we’re about to implement?

The hierarchy for web and internet usage at the time was:

1) email

2) search

Since email and search were text-based, attracting rich internet users across the bandwidth was difficult to make a business case for.

As Yoram Baltinester, NVTL’s Business Development guru stated in a meeting back then, people look towards their desktops for the rich experience for a lot of reasons. They didn’t look at their mobile devices for the same rich content, primarily due to battery life and the form factor of the screen size.

As the Apple iPhone has demonstrated, there’s a good platform for display. Slingbox and other content middleware distribution hardware shows that there’s a need for content to be pushed out.

RIA Content Delivery

What’s known as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) plays a part in this as well.

One blogpost, Full-length shows, even movies, growing on cellular challenges the validity of providing multiple content for multiple viewing platforms:

The question I have is, are we ready to take it to this level? It doesn’t change what’s required much on the CDN side. In fact, it probably increases our capacity since we’re dealing with smaller files of lower resolution. Now we have to maintain separate environments though for HD and mobile.

So this is a valid point. Are we ready? I think the overall answer remains can profit be made on this? Here we are eight years later, and it’s not really a significant portion of the market. You’re stuck with obtaining either rich, HD-ready content or low-resolution mobile deliverable content.

The cellular carriers have now developed the bandwidth, but everyone’s not so sold on the money to be made. And the bandwidth is sketchy at best for full capacity voice and data. I could care less what the marketing people say, there’s a point of saturation that nobody likes to talk about, where you’re not going to be able to keep a call because there’s too many bits dropping off.

That means wireless data is scalable only to a certain point. Let’s face it, providers don’t make more money putting up more towers. They make more money by cutting operating costs. Whether it’s in powering down the towers during offpeak hours or through chopping bandwidth hogs who have all you can eat accounts (like yours truly) they have to save time and bandwidth on the digital phone networks. Who gets priority reads like a conspiracy theory since that’s a tightly guarded secret.

XBox Live customers can download HD content relatively easily from their home network, but it’s currently trapped in the device.

Analysis of RIA and Technical Communication

TechComm is not always tailored for instruction, however breaking down the modules of a device or software program can make instructional content which could be repurposed.

I would think that dropping in a spinning 3D picture of a component might help identify it conceptually, however the time and expense of placing that picture in from scratch is prohibitive. 

eLearning - tremendous advantages with a native RIA developed application. Here are a couple related articles, mainly about the Silverlight entry into RIA:

How to convert 60 million users to Silverlight quickly

My LMS / eLearning Disruptive Technology Concept

Halo 3, XBox and Technical Communication? (Part 5)

Microsoft Releases Silverlight, Extends Support to Linux

Technical Writing - Adobe has added Acrobat 3D to their Technical Communication Suite for a reason; a picture is worth a thousand words, as long as the picture is understood well enough.

However, it’s not been enough to impress industry power users: Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite Panned By TechComm Bloggers 

I’m still searching for where exactly RIA will fit within the future of Technical Communication. Adobe’s had some product evangelists segue into Technical Communication being rich media, less written word, more universally understood documentation.

I’m not so sure I’m buying that though.

Are we really going to want our instructions in podcast or YouTube format?

From Starting a Conversation: The Art of Comment Fetching:

Everyone measures the success of their blog in different ways - but when it comes to measuring engagement, comments and trackbacks are what really count.

Today’s Blogging Irony

It’s funny that the Technical Communication blog of Adobe, the market leader in just about everything written, spoken, filmed, or distributed - Well, their blog hasn’t had a comment from a user in two and a half months.

Oh, it’s got 1407 links to it in Technorati… But no comments.

Then again, I could be a bit sour because my comments on Adobe’s TechComm blog the three times I’ve made them, were either held for nine months (until I posted an image of the question on my own blog during a heated debate) and then posted like they’d always been there, or in the case of my comments last month, simply ignored.

Not very engaging. Sort of like Adobe’s current TechComm Technical Support. But that subject is so 2007.

The Adobe Captivate blog OTOH, is hot. Silke Fleischer’s got it going on, and by the metrics mentioned above, she is clearly engaging her audience. Maybe that’s why I link to it on my page and not to the TechComm.adobe.whatever.com blog.

Then again, Captivate is a very engaging product while the rest of the TCS doesn’t really push my buttons…

My blog? Oh, let’s not even go there. Every other month or so I literally get too busy to post anything. So enjoy it while it lasts…

Is it safe to go back into the water? Another San Diego surfer is suspected to have been eaten… We’ll find out more from the autopsy, but this occurred up near Ventura. 

Dead surfer found off Santa Cruz Island identified

The Associated Press | Article Launched: 05/04/2008 11:07:16 AM PDT

SAN DIEGO—Authorities have found the body of a 43-year-old San Diego man who disappeared while surfing with friends off Santa Cruz Island.

John M. Wagner was found dead in the water about 20 miles south of Ventura Harbor on Friday, the Ventura County coroner’s office said.

While surfing a break on the island with friends, Wagner went underwater for unknown reasons about 5 p.m., according to a Coast Guard official. The island is part of the Channel Islands National Park, and it was park rangers who found his body.

The autopsy will be conducted in Santa Barbara County where the death occurred.

Wagner’s death comes six days after a shark killed triathelete David Martin off Solana Beach.

Monday’s Update: According to the LA Times today, more details show this is not a shark… however there was another shark attack down in Mexico this weekend.

Wagner’s death comes just four days after a shark killed a 24-year-old San Francisco surfer in Mexico and a week after a triathlete was killed by a shark in San Diego County. Adrian Ruiz bled to death after being bitten on the thigh April 28 while surfing off Troncones beach west of Alcapulco.

It’s not clear what species was involved in the attack but Mexico’s Navy and maritime authorities had spotted two great white sharks nearby during helicopter overflights.

Beachgoers were being warned about the sharks’ presence near the largely undeveloped oceanfront.

And then there’s this account regarding the Ruiz attack…

Shark kills American: A shark killed San Francisco surfer Adrian Ruiz, 24, at Troncones beach north of Ixtapa on Monday. Mexicans then began slaughtering sharks.

“It is outrageous that the Mexican government is hunting sharks to protect tourists, when the biggest threat to tourists in Mexico is the crime wave that has engulfed the country,” said Serge Dedina of Wildcoast/ Costasalvaje, based in Imperial Beach and Tijuana.

From what I recall from the 1990s and NT, SP3’s the charm it seems… From Foul Writers World | Windows XP Service Pack 3 goes GOLD:

Earlier today Microsoft confirmed that the source code has been released to manufacturers for testing and implementation.

It has been almost 4 years in the making, and Microsoft has taken their time to ensure that end users don’t have the same problems as the previous SP.

Testing for the SP has revealed a streamlined and greatly reduced install process. A big improvement on the install process comes in the form that the actual download package is a lot smaller than the previous SP and installation took a measly 15 minutes.

I’ll be checking it out this week. It’s supposed to have some cool security updates.

As I mentioned in a previous post, while I was at eHelp my offsite time was focused on researching Energy, Internet Communication Technology (ICT), and beginning in 2004, Agriculture as emerging sectors.

After working intensely with supporting the then-new RoboDemo community, I decided that eLearning and Blended Learning were killer apps which couldn’t be ignored.

So my grand NorCal plan evolved. Take active duty, soon to retire military vets and train them in a California industry - vineyard management. Vets2Vines was born. And now Ag is the new hot trend. Like I could have planned it any better.

Here I am, positioned with both Renewable Energy and 40 acres of prime, irrigation subsidized Northern California property. The agriculture boom is still on - MarketWatch

As oil flirts with $120 a barrel and corn shoots up over $6 a bushel, it’s clear that demand is real for both commodities, and yet there’s also a bit of froth in those prices as well. How much of it is speculation?

…I have been hearing for three years that corn price couldn’t possibly go any higher. I heard that argument at $2.50, $3, $4.50 and $5. Now here at $6.20, the same bearish absolutes are being spouted from all over the place and my indicators tell me that it’s simply not true.

How much is that in real dollars?

The average bushel to acre breakdown is 183:1. Math says this year will be $7.50 per bushel. That’s a little under $50k for the property. Only half to a quarter what winegrapes would bring.

Then again I don’t have to string all those wires and posts for the vines. And wait 4 years with stranded costs while the vines grow. And do forward contracting to lock in the client. Lowers risk if you make money year 1 instead of year 4. 

Ethanol is what’s got farmers all excited. And the market’s guaranteed.

It doesn’t have to come from corn, either.

Sugar is the New Oil

Sugar beets were Solano County’s prime source of cash crops twenty years ago. According to a recent National Geographic I read, Brazil’s ethanol comes primarily from sugar cane. Sugar beets, sugar cane… Jimmy Smits says it best: Sugar is the New Oil.

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LB, this is for you… The clock started ticking when I SMS’d you so you realize how quickly someone can aggregate thoughts and collaborate with others.

I’m posting this real time to show an example of how quick and easy it is to update content. Below the fold, begin to realize how you can kill your email strings forever with a blog…

Web 2.0 The machine is using… us

Start with this… Best five minute summary around.

The single most important thing to remember is that once your content within XML is able to be repurposed virtually anywhere. 

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Props to Agent K

I just dropped Karsten Gerhardt off for his connecting rail to LAX. Karsten, one of the principals for 3si2 Corporation, is heading out on a client business tour of Europe. Back in the day, I called him K even before that Tommy Lee Jones character from Men In Black. K laughs a lot more than Jones’ character so it’s not exactly a fair comparison.

K reminded me that he’s never looked back at the salaried employee world or drawn a W2 since our launch back in 2001.

Memories of Startups

Karsten, Jim Nesbitt, and I started 3nW Corporation after NVTL’s dotbomb layoff cycle back seven years ago. The corporation’s founding date is April 20, a homage for Jim’s great Ultimate Frisbee counterculture sense of humor. You’d never think he used to work at the Pentagon for the Chief of Naval Operations.

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Thursday was A Very Bad Day. This week has been tough as well. Unfortunately I’m having to become an expert in virtually every single thing I’m doing because the ‘experts’ who I hire are completely incompetent in business. Welcome to construction / construction financing / engineering in California. Flakes run the show.

In fact, I’m catching up on my blogging is because since this April Fools Day I’ve been on hiatus while ‘other people’ decide to pull the trigger on my next round of financing.

Whatever.

April Fools Day. What a day to get the final sign-off from the county office for the project.

All of my issues seemed to gain perspective when I watched this guy’s story and listened to the Rich Dad - Poor Dad series creator talk about the resilience it takes in order to make it when, first you’ve made colossal mistakes and second, when everyone around you is criticizing you.

So at least I’m better off than this guy. In a lot of ways, but mainly because I didn’t make the colossal mistakes.

If all I have to do is weather this current storm of boredom and the potential of financial death by attrition, that’s doable. Bring it on…

Saving us from ourselves…

And then there’s this… Bailout backlash - Apr. 23, 2008

“There’s a huge segment of the country saying, ‘We don’t want our money used for a bailout,’” said Brandon.

“A third of the American public rents,” Brandon pointed out. “They’re saying ‘I’ve been saving for a mortgage for years. I could have jumped in on a subprime loan too. Now I’m going to have to pay for a government bailout.”

I happen to be one of those renters who saw this market correction coming, and I’ve been trying to position myself properly for the opportunity.

No, I didn’t go into flipping homes. Although one of my contractor advisors is a guy who did have three or four homes he was in the middle of flipping when the music stopped and everybody grabbed a chair in the California housing bomb.

I wanted to keep on renting when everyone else was buying homes higher and higher. As Kiyosaki said in the clip, the concept of buying in a high market is looking to make money on the ‘bigger fool’. After all, if all your friends are talking about it at the cocktail parties, you’ve just gotta get into it, right?!? Meh.

Thinking of it as a sabbatical from my software, training, and wireless background I decided to work on my strategic side of business in early 2005.

It started with a family project.

Back in 2004 when gas was $2 a gallon, I was researching the soon to be sudden Hubbert’s Peak which we now seem to have slam-danced into. The best part of this construction was that it would be energy efficient, and be an example of a rural wind farm done under $10k.

Below the fold I’ve just got more to say, so don’t go there unless you just have to have the real scoop on how tough the past 18 months have been.

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Continuing from eDMS Roshambo Part 4 | Feedback with the wiki versus the MadPak with Feedback Service.

Wikis clobber eDMS when it comes to collaboration. Wikis are great but getting the end result into a user manual format still requires an external tool.

Rock Paper Scissors (RoShamBo): Wiki vs the MadPak, Analyzer, and Feedback Service

There are strengths to not having a Wiki model introduced right away into a corporation. Dan Ortega mentions corporate policy holding back the anarchy, however it helps considerably when there is a gradual move towards the Wiki model. 

MadCap is halfway through the Wiki model already with just the MadPak. Add to that the Analyzer and Feedback Server/Service’s Web 2.0 features, you’ve got yourself a good step past Wiki as far as maintaining positive control over the content.

With Analyzer you’re looking at a Documentation Manager’s dream package.

I think the key element is… how much time would this all save each role a Technical Communicator has. Let alone the workflow’s editing search and correction time.

Cost - $1200 for the MadPak and $400/quarter for the Feedback Service ($1600/year) so you don’t even need to host a server and stress the IIS configuration. No pricing on Analyzer is yet available. I really should get some sort of Amazon Buy-now button for this stuff.

As far as the industry tools are currently set, MadCap Analyzer could save upwards of $50k - $80k a year in tech writer time and other software. That’s pretty hefty, although at the time I’m writing this MadCap hasn’t set a price for the Analyzer.

Note: Pricing for Analyzer is pretty cheap, as I edit this article I find that it’s only about $200 or so to upgrade.