Happy Halloween!

Well, if we're going to blog, let's blog. How did everyone in the class spend their Halloweens?

I just got back from Salem, where the best word to describe the situation would be "madhouse". There was a festival going on in the streets -- the roads were blocked off, people of every age and size were crammed into costumes of all descriptions, there was drinking, shouting, music blaring from several DJs, and -- no joke -- a Ferris wheel down by the docks.

I opted for something a little quieter, though -- a "Haunted Footsteps" walking tour of the city, led by a woman with a lantern who told spooky stories about the ghosts that haunt some of the older and more run-down buildings. The tour took us away from the party for the most part, which was a good thing, but I wish I had made time to go on it this past weekend, when there weren't drunken costumed revelers on every corner. It would have been much spookier with just the crowd, the lantern, and the darkness...

She told some great stories, including the one about the ghost of the police captain who put the "witches" to death back in 1692, a little girl who died in a fire almost 200 years ago but still searches for her mother, the ghost that tried to tell Nathaniel Hawthorne something five days in a row, the bodies that were discovered underneath Salem's abandoned prison in 1992, and the Curse of Giles Corey. It was a bit on the historical side, but good stuff nonetheless.

On the way out of town I saw the riot police marching up the street in formation, just letting the town know who was boss. Yikes.

Now I'm going to go curl up and watch some of my favorite Simpsons Halloween Specials. Hope everyone else had a great night -- I can't wait to hear your stories of mischief and hauntings!

Pritesh Dagur and the Fine Art of Social Networking

Here lies an Indian Rangoli, the impermanent sprinkling of pigmented dust, of various sources. Pritesh Dagur, the artist, is also a Chemist in Materials Sciences at The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. She has written a new entry for the rangoli section of Wikipedia, which you may find at

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/rangoli#description.

Pritesh and her associates at Wikipedia describe the Rangoli-making process and its cultural context far better than I. She has been spreading samples her joyful art and knowledge through Internet social networks and community websites for a few years. When I participated in her friends network, she amazed me, always quickly answering most of my rangoli questions thoughtfully, articulately and thoroughly. One might assume that she has developed a steady cast of followers this way.

To view this and other priceless works by Pritesh, please visit her Rangoli site and enjoy the back catalog of her beautiful work:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pritzd/RangolisIVeMade/photo#51

Links to Group Blogs

As the group blog presenter, I submit for your consideration a list of multi-author blogs. I annotated each with a purpose (at least its purpose in my mind). Add your favorites in the comments.

Amuse and impress friends with your knowledge of what's happening on the internet... boingboing

Troll for handcraft inspiration...
whipup

Increase your personal effectiveness and efficiency...
Lifehacker

Spy on the industrial product design world...
Core77 Design Blog

Check out the blog on which your instructor occasionally posts...
Huffington Post Blog

Be a greener consumer...
Treehugger

Be a more discerning consumer...
The Consumerist

My dilemma

Blogging to the class blog during the class on blogging:

Postmodern and ironic, or just rude?

Let the debate begin!

A List Apart: Writing

As a web designer, A List Apart (“for people who make websites”) is a godsend for me. It's an online magazine that's been around for years and is edited by some of the leaders of the web industry.

ALA covers all the topics that anyone building a website will encounter — design, code techniques, usability, business, and most importantly for our purposes, content. Technological breakthroughs get outdated, and design trends come and go, but good (web) writing is still good (web) writing.

So put the kettle on and find your favorite blanket to wrap up in. The Red Sox have won, and A List Apart’s archive of writing articles is your new reason to stay indoors and up into the night.

http://alistapart.com/topics/content/writing/

David Weinberger, discussing "Everything is Miscellaneous"

Here's A light-hearted look at the way the Web has changed how we access information.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DZEy_J694

The next seven wonders...

Hi all,

I'm wondering who else, if anyone, is doing a presentation on presidential candidate websites next week. I'm working on that topic, and I just wanted to make sure we don't have an overlap of sites. Thanks!

Also, here's a pretty cool tidbit I found on the Poynter Institute's site, about nominating the "Seven Wonders of the Journalism World": http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=117&aid=130568&utm_source=sevenwonders&utm_medium=web

I'm not suprised that the blog is up there at the top of the list!

Creating Passionate Users

I stumbled upon this article/blog this morning at work and it looks like it has some really good advice for web writers: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html. At work we are creating new online courses for http://www.educationtogo.com/ and they are making us take an online "Boot Camp" that will help our authors and DEs write effective courses online. They listed the above article in the Supplementary materials. I think it's helpful to think of all web viewers as "students" to some extent since everyone is gaining some kind of knowledge from whatever they are reading about.

Anyway, wish me luck in Boot Camp!

More Google

I saw this today and it reminded me of Katherine saying that "Google is taking over everything". Enjoy.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/what-gphone/

SEO link

Looks like in the reading's for this week, the 'SEO Beginner's Guide' link is not working.
I found this site instead, which is pretty good:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg1

First Post

Stay tuned for more...