The ending

First, the list of nuggets for the convinience of our dear squad...I mean, course leader, and then some closing remarks for you all.

I was unable to sort my various flogs into 10 specific milestones. During the period of the course I committed somewhat over 50 flog posts, ranging from flapers, through status updates on my Wiki project, to various digital nuggets ranging in size size from few sentences to, well, more :) I didn't really think in term of 10 things - I posted useful stuff as I stumbled upon it, instead of holding it over and mergining it into a larger milestone.

Here is the chronological list of what I consider to be my most useful flog posts - milestones for us all, if you will:

0911: Hyperlinks: how to use them
0926: Advanced Googling it's easy and it's so useful
1019: BitTorrent introduction to p2p, or how to download (legal) stuff from the net
1115: File managers: why not to use Windows Exploder
1119: OpenID how to log in with your special username into services you don't want to register with
1120: Wikipedia Governance about wiki policeman, judges and lawyers :)
1122: Gmail or why it isn't as cool as many think
1123: Skype or why your phone will soon be a museum piece
1128: Wikis other then Wikipedia believe it or not, the world doesn't end with Wikipedia (yet)
1130: Firefox the mythical beast the obligatory milestone to cross for all of us (see also the 1204 update)
1202: Creative Commons: license your blog (or chant: I love to be greedy, I love to be useless)
1215: Media alternatives or how to replace Windows Media Can'tplaye(r) with something that works

I'll close this list with the reference to the most useful thing I have learned this course: Bloglines, brought to us by Luke's 5th milestone. This tool has greatly revolutionised my news gathering habits. I think I am speaking for us all when I say: Luke, you have been the most oustanding member of our class. Power to the podcasts!

With our course ending, I will be migrating back to my main blog, Voice of the Prokonsul (which somehow I was able to update during this term as well). To me the Flog was not much diffferent from my Voice: here and there I posted various 'digital nuggets' about technology and governance. Although my Voice is and will be somewhat more diverse, with some posts on a wider range of topics, if you found my Flog useful, feel free to to check the Voice for all that was here and more. As a rule, though, I avoid blogging information related to my personal life, because 'who cares?' :> I will, however, keep the Voice updated with news on my Wikipedia project.

I hope you guys keep your flogs, or if you change to some other blogs - please let me know so I can sub your blogs with the awesome tool that Luke blogged us about, the Bloglines.

And among the last things connected with the course, I think we should correct the anti-Stu bias on RateMyProfessor.com page. So go ahead and rate Stu there :)

Last but not least: remember our discussion about the system of education being the relic of Industrial Revolution? Well, this course is an indicator how *to do* things. It was a privilege to be in the same class as every one of you. I think it was the best class I have ever taken - and that it should be obligatory class for all students. A list of my Instant Messangers can be found at my Wiki homepage (look at the boxes to the left, scroll down). Looking forward to meeting you again, online of offline - I hope to hear from you!

Signing off, Prokonsul

Last flog - the alternatives

All good things come to an end, and so does this flog (I will write a summary shortly). For now, the last digital nugget for the flog readers: the alternatives.

There are many alternatives for the popular software on the web. Everybody has heard about Linux being an alternative to Windows, and I have already blogged about Mozilla/Firefox being the alternative for IE, and Open Office being the alternative for M$ Office.

Inspired by what we have seen in class today, I'd like to tell you about small, user-friendly, add-free and open source alternatives for viewing RealMedia and QuickTime files (*ram, *qt, and such). Instead of downloading the large, cumbersome, ad-and-spyware-filled offical softs, go for the alternatives, appopriatly named Real Alternative and Quick Alternative. Instalation takes just a few seconds, and your computer will get the ability of playing those formats without the need to install/load the offical large monstrosities.

And of course if you are still using the deamoninc invention that is the Windows Media Player, do yourself a favour and get something that works. I personally use Winamp (which is not open source, but I still like it :p) for music and mplayer for video. Remember: the only reason so many people use the M$oft soft is beacuse 'it's there'. It doesn't mean that is the good choice, especially when you can get better alternatives completly free and legal. Go ahead and try them. Once you try them, you won't even think of going back to M$oft virus-friendly, user-antagonistic crapware.

To utilse the full potential of the web, you need the right tools!

Media gives, media takes away

Some good publicity for a change:

Wikipedia still just as effective as normal encyclopedia. "Nature" has run a formal comparison of the science coverage of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. From the article: 'The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three.'"

A little digging reveals the list of errors. And guess what: we are correcting the mistakes and should be done in a few days. Wanna guess how long it takes Britannica? ;p Btw, isn't this template nifty?

In related news, I was suprised to find out that Nature has not only a blog, but a podcast as well. My opnion of this magazine has now improved a lot.

Update: Nature's editorial actually "encourages readers to edit Wikipedia". Now that's a nice and positive attitude. They also call us the "grand experiment" and " free, high-quality global resource". :)

The forces of evil

Check my other blog for an interesting development on the Wikipedia front: will somebody sue Wikipedia out of existence? Here's hoping it won't happen...

And here is a pretty good summary of the whole Wiki bashing affair.

Wiki bashing - epilogue

NYT seems to be one of the first to have a story on how the prankster who entered the false entry was located, how he apologised to mr Seigenthaler and was forgiven. How nice. I just wonder: will the prankster apologise to Wiki? And will mr Seigenthaler comment on how quickly Wikipedia reacted to his request?

Btw, the entire affair has it's own Wiki article now :)

Wiki bashing - and look who threw the stone...

In case you wonder what this is about, just go to Google news, type Wikipedia and read some of the stories.

So this guy discovered his Wikipedia biografic article contained false (and offending) information, and decided its 'character assassination' which prives Wikipedia (or at least universe in general :>) is populated with 'populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects'.

Well, my first impression is - so what? Wikipedia has many errors. Nobody is denying this. In fact, we have a disclaimer, accessible from any page (look at the very, very bottom) which sais in the huge letters: WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY

By our very nature, we cannot make such guarantees. Still, it seems like the press is having a field day discovering America. Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar. A Wicked-pedia. And so on. Well, I wonder if they know that our disclaimer is no different from that of other encyclopedias or newsite:

• The britannica.com disclaimer (from the site hosting the Encyclopedia Britannica Online):

  "YOUR USE OF BRITANNICA.COM IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK."

• The MSN.com disclaimer (from the site hosting Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia)

  "...AND THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY, AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU."

• The bartleby.com disclaimer (from the site hosting the Columbia Encyclopedia)

  "YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK."

  New York Times (disclaimer) "Neither NYTD nor NYTimes.com represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other information displayed, uploaded, or distributed through the Service by any user, information provider or any other person or entity. You acknowledge that any reliance upon any such opinion, advice, statement, memorandum, or information shall be at your sole risk."

  CNN (disclaimer) "SUBSCRIBER EXPRESSLY AGREES THAT USE OF CNN INTERACTIVE IS AT SUBSCRIBER'S SOLE RISK. NEITHER CNN, ITS AFFILIATES NOR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, THIRD PARTY CONTENT PROVIDERS OR LICENSORS WARRANT THAT CNN INTERACTIVE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; NOR DO THEY MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF CNN INTERACTIVE, OR AS TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY OR CONTENT OF ANY INFORMATION, SERVICE, OR MERCHANDISE PROVIDED THROUGH CNN INTERACTIVE.

And similar. Yet once they fact is printed in their services, it's very hard to correct it. In print it's impossible. Online - you have to write a letter to the editor and hope they read it. But on Wiki you can simply correct the error by rewriting the page in one minute. This is why we have a page on errors in Britannica. They still haven't fixed some. Honestly, if a 12-year old can find errors in Britannica, can you honestly say it's a more trusted resource then Wiki? Sure, Britannica is peer reviewed, CNN or NYT employ professional journalists. So what? Many more professionals come to Wikipedia and write/correct relevant articles in their spare time.

It's promising that after a series of 'Wikipedia is evil' articles the journals, having apparently gotten their share of blood, are now taking a much more reasonable tone. And if some misguided souls, like the NYT staff, are now forbidden from using Wikipedia - well, pity them. The world is moving forward, whether all of their policy making guys understand it or not. They will have to retract this ban, if not tommorow, then in few weeks or months, as they came to understand what Wiki is (and see that everybody is doing it anyway).

Nonetheless this whole affair has some positive results. First, Wikipedia has finally put some restriction on anon users - they cannot create pages (they can still edit at will though). Since pages can be deleted only by admins, it is a good move, restoring some balance and making admin workload smaller. If you want to create a new article, really, is 15-second register process too much for you? Maybe - if you want to spam Wiki with a hundred pages about 'X sucks' :> Second, you know the saying about thriving on controversy. Wikipedia has now breached the Top 30 most popular Alexa ranking, and number of registering editors per day has more then doubled since last week :) Keep those controversies coming - more eyeballs for Wiki is just what we need.

The dark side of blogging

Do you know what a deathtrap we might have walked into with our f-blogs?

Marquette Dental Student Suspended For Blogging

Should we censor our blogs? What do you think?

Why are some of you still using IE?

Hardly a week goes by without another security flow discovered in this crap'o'ware. Now IE flaw lets intruders into Google Desktop. Now you can visit a Web page that--when viewed in IE on a computer with Google Desktop installed--uses the search tool and returns results for the query "password". And while IE is vulnerable, Firefox and Opera are not. For protection, Internet users could use one of those browsers. It has been a busy week on the Microsoft security front. Four examples of attack code were released for flaws in the Windows operating system, and a Trojan horse is finding its way onto PCs through another yet-unpatched flaw in IE.

But I guess some people will learn only the hard way. I just hope none of you, my fellow fluencly readers, belong to those people.

Meantime, in the news: the avalanche has started:

NASA ditches IE in favor of Firefox

License your blog!

The least we can do after reading Lessig is to licence our blogs under his Creative Commons license, wouldn't you agree?

Luke, can you tell me how to display code on the bloges, like you did with your Digital Citizen blogger? I cannot figure this out, even looking at the source code :/

<!-- Creative Commons License --><p align="center"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif" border="0" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0">Creative Commons License</a>.<br /><!-- /Creative Commons License --></p>

For this effect:

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.