March 25, 10 by admin
iTunes University
I just had a chance to check out iTunes U (short for iTunes University) on the iTunes store. I checked out an introductory Computer Science course from Stanford. Actually, it is just the lectures that are placed online as far as I can tell. The lectures are well done and include many major universities. This information should be a great benefit to a large number of people if they are willing to devote time to it.
Lectures in the form of video podcasts seem to be the only content available through iTunes U. However, the lectures often mention the website for the class which can be used for downloading assignments and handouts from the class. This allows anyone to follow along with the class and perform all of the assignments. However, even though you can do the assignments and projects, you won’t be able to submit your assignments for grading. Therefore, there is no real way to measure your progress as you follow a class.
This is a major shortcoming of iTunes U and I think it is their biggest issue at the moment. Without some form of mentoring system to guage students feedback, the value of iTunes U is diminished somewhat. Doing some searching on Google, I did find that some universities have been addressing this issue. Brown University has a page on their Wiki which summarized their discussions on the issue.
Maybe a community of users should get together and do mentoring of students interested in learning online. This way people would be able to take courses online without official credit. It would provide a free means of getting an education for many people. Without any degree from an accredited university, the benefits may seem minor. For technical professions such as engineering, it may be a great way for people to keep their skills up to date.
July 13, 06 by kenrich
It’s hard to get any work done for my current employer. Our system is very complex and convoluted and doesn’t respond very fast when navigating our website. That’s one of the drawbacks of working for a smaller company. We don’t have the manpower nor the resources to build a responsive website.
A lot of it boils down to the large amount of data we are sorting through. We have thousands of users on our systems with gigabytes of data for our websites. Despite best programming and database practices, our relatively weak servers cannot keep up with client demands. It seems that we should improve our database server or put in extra effort to optimize our database layer.
The key to keeping your customers happy is to create a fast and responsive website. With a highly dynamic website, the best way to do that is to improve your database speed and use caching on your site to speed up your pages. We have managed to make general improvements in this regard, but more needs to be done if we are to be considered the major player in our field.
February 27, 06 by kenrich
Today, Google is allowing people to sell items on Google Base. This is a great threat to the long monopoly that E-bay has had over the years. While it’s true they don’t allow you to sell items at auction, the marketshare of Google ensures that any items posted there will reach a lot of eyeballs. This should make it much less painful to sell items without having to deal with all of the fees and charges that Google has.
With any luck, their new payment system will eliminate the exorbitent “final-value” fee that takes a cut of your sales. I am ecstatic to see Google take the lead in this. Our government and big corporations have been waging a war against consumers in America. Their profits are staggering and they needn’t be so. The same services can be offered by other companies for a small fraction of the cost we’re paying now.
It’s up to the consumers of America to respond: “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!” Hopefully, Google will expand their services to allow sellers to run auctions instead of just classified ads. Kudos to Google for giving consumers another choice. Let’s just hope they adhere to their motto: “Do no evil”.
