Learning2.0 : Journey to about2findout.com

Just upgraded my blog to the new 'blogger in beta'. It adds some features like categories (labels).

Next week I'll be in Berlin for the yearly Online Educa conference. My company (IBM) is gold sponsor, and I wanted to have a series of selected flash movies play continuously at the demo point we are setting up. Shouldn't be too difficult, I thought. I was wrong...

• The situation:
• I have a lot of flash movies, some in .exe format, and others in .swf format. Some of those run autonomously but go in a waiting loop at the end, and others are based on interaction where the user has to click a play or next button.
• The complication:
• I need to have a number of movies run one after another and then repeat the whole serie, without any interaction.
• The question:
• How can I do that?

Turns out that flash is not an open but a proprietary format of Macromedia (recently bought by Adobe). They don't let anyone just create tools or utilities for it like that. The only way is for others to reverse engineer. It explains why there are few free tools out there, a couple of expensive flash tools from Macromedia itself, and then hundreds of shareware tools. Flash movies are .swf files, and you need a flash player (or browser) to play them. But they can also be compiled in a standalone .exe program. The source files are .fla and are used by the editor tools such as Macromedia Flash. The programming language inside flash movies is called ActionScript.

Problem 1 : how can I play a bunch of movies in a playlist continuously?

Two solutions: either use a flash player with a playlist, or use a flash packager that packages a series of movies together in one executable file.

I tried a lot of shareware or freeware flash players : Captivate Player, FlowPlayer, Super Flash Player, Arty Flash Player but the best one is the free Flash Movie Player by Eolsoft. It still didn't solve my problem because the Flash Movie Players all seem either to have problems playing some of my files, or they stop/hang on a movie with an open ending and wait for you to push 'next movie'. So that didn't help.

As for flash packaging tool, I found Flash2X Exe Packager and Flash Packager by GozTun software. The first tool is a shareware that lets you make packages that run for 3 days unless you register. It also has problems with larger movies and larger lists. The one I finally selected was the free Flash Packager. It displays a popup at the start, and you can pay to get rid of the popup but otherwise it is free. (see screenshot) When a movie has finished it jumps automatically to the next one, and also loops back to the beginning. Just what I needed. Only problem is that some movies only show the first part and then jump to the next movie. I couldn't figure out how to solve this.

Problem 2 : how to make .swf files out of .exe flash movies?

I asked people at work and they told me it couldn't be done. So I googled and found some exe to swf convertors. I recommend the shareware Dream Flashsee by DreamSoft to to this, it has nice and easy wizards under the tools section. It runs a couple of times for free and requires registration afterwards.

Problem 3 : how to remove the interaction from movies?

Must admit I didn't quite get it to work for all movies I wanted to, but I did manage after a lot of experimentation to delete some 'stop()' functions in the .swf files and have them skip the introsection. I bought a shareware to accomplish this: Flash Digger Plus. This tools allows you to open an .swf file and change text, extract sound and images and delete some sections such as ActionScript. Another tool I used is the shareware SWF Quicker by SoThink. It is a light and extremely cheap version of Flash to open and edit flash movies. It's complicated for someone like me who doesn't know flash, but does allow you to see the scripts etc inside the file.

Problem 4 : how can you clip flash movies?

I don't think you can. If only it was as simple as video files where you can select the part you want with tools such as Windows Movie Maker and make a new movie... So I'm using the full movies, not parts of them.

So, in the end I have a list of 10+ movies packaged in an .exe file that will run continuously at our demopoint in Berlin. Phew.

Labels: dream flashsee, flash, flash digger, flash movie player, flash packager, online educa, swf quicker

I've updated the 6C Quotes and Statements application. Now there is a page that displays a random quote in a big font and that auto-refreshes every 20 seconds. The purpose it to display it in the background at an event or before a presentation to keep the audience entertained while waiting. I intend to use it for the first time next week thursday before a session on learning in the workplace that I'm chairing at Online Educa Berlin.

You can find it on : http://www.about2findout.com/6cquotes/eventbackground.aspx . It's free and open for all. Enjoy.

Labels: 6C Quotes

I've been searching for a proper name for a 'chunk' of learning. The result of a business intelligence process is a knowledge 'nugget'. In e-learning we talk about learning 'objects' or 'modules'. In academic circles we talk about 'programs' and 'courses'. In text books it's 'chapters' and 'lessons'.

I don't want to use any of that. In fact, I want to avoid the use of the word 'learning' on my site. For too many people the word learning is either associated with something negative or the mental image they have of what they suppose it is, is too strongly formed.

So, by lack of a better word for a chunk of learning and to avoid buying into an existing metaphore I'm going to make up my own equally meaningless word: square. (And it makes some graphical design choices easier :-) )

DECISION: about2findout.com will talk about a square as an entity of information/learning.

At work we have an innovation team, and they gave a presentation on web 2.0 some months ago. Their handout was this mindmap which I find excellent. With one look it covers key aspects. I'm publishing it here with kind permission of Michel, Simon and Ralph. Thanks guys!

(It's made with an evaluation version of MindManager - click on the picture to enlarge).

Labels: mindmaps, web2.0

A lot of web2.0 sites try to make some money from advertising. Flickr for example shows some advertisement to regular accounts, and not to their paying pro account members. Popular sites actually can make quite some money this way. Most web2.0 applications are loosing money.

I want to spend up to 1000 euro of my own money in this about2findout.com experiment, that's why I am largely using free tools. As an experiment, I've added Google adds on my blog and the 6C-learning.org site. It is actually a quite simple process and it works very well.

• Sign up online for a Google AdSense account for your site. You need to accept the conditions (for example you have to promise not to click on your own adds). It takes a few days for Google to review your application and then you can configure the adds. Reasons for declining your application might be an under construction site, not in a supported language, inappropriate, etc.
• On the Google Adsense pages, you can create the HTLM code you need for your site. There are some tutorials on how to select the best kind of adds (links, banners, search pages), where to place them on your pages and in what colors. The HTML code includes your AdSense key. I've chosen for the classical banner with text adds (AdSense for content)
• Copy the HTML code into your web pages on the appropriate place(s). The first days you might get 'public' adds that don't generate revenue. But soon your banners will show adds based on the content of your site.
• On the AdSense pages, you can see your revenue and various other reports on clickthroughts. You are payed for people clicking on the adds and per thousand impressions.
• If you generate more than 100$ of revenue, you can ask for payout. As a one-time setup I've configured my bank account information for payout. As a verification mechanism, Google will put a small amount on your account.

I'm not in it for the money, which is a good thing because in my first month I generated 5.25$ :-). It doesn't even come close to cover my monthly hosting fee for the site. So maybe at the end of next year I can have my first payout. For adds to generate substantial revenue obviously you need the necessary eyeballs for your site. But as an experiment I have to say the Google AdSense service works very well. (As it should being Google's main source of income.)

Similar services are available from Microsoft and Yahoo.

DECISION: about2findout.com will have a limited number of AdSense panels to (hopefully) cover basic costs such as hosting fees.

Labels: adsense, google

Flash is a very popular delivery medium for e-learning and increasing in popularity. The obvious reason is it makes content literally more 'flashy'. It gives a visually more attractive experience and can increase interaction. Another reason, enough on its own, is that flash is an excellent compression format and sound and video delivered over the internet in flash take less bandwidth than other popular formats such as .wav, .wmv or .mp3.

Big courseware makers such as NETg/KnowledgeNet make all their new courses in flash format. Of course, students are expected to have a flash player installed on their system, but that is an assumption that holds for most part of computers nowadays. There might be some security issues with older flash content and the newer, more restrictive flash players, but all in all flash is an excellent technology e-learning.

For me, the major drawbacks are 1) search engines cannot index it so it never shows up in search results and 2) you need to by expensive tools such as Adobe/Macromedia Flash to make it and it can be quite complex. I haven't ever tried to make a flash file, but if I am going to I will use a cheap tool called SWF Quicker (http://www.sothink.com/product/swfquicker/index.htm).

Some other resource I'd like to share are:

• http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~cczjrt/Editor/ : beta program for making flash-based courses
• http://www.bestflashanimationsite.com/archive/educational/ : best of flash for education (Especially the Chernobyl sample go to me. The Jeruzalem museum one is also nice.)

DECISION: I'm going to pass on Flash for the time being because I want the content on about2findout.com should be easily found by search engines, because I don't want to spend money on a flash tool and because I don't have the necessary skills to work with flash.

Labels: flash

Searching for instant information and instant learning is a key part of my daily activities, and likewise for many many people. So why do we (the learning industry) keep hiding our learning content in over-protected silo's like Learning Management Systems, portals or flash movies that are cannot be crawled by popular search engines? We really expect people to log on to the learning portal and search for a course when you can have better results using a search engine? Besides, today's search engines do a much better job at finding what you need than the embedded searches in those learning platforms.

In my humble opinion, any web-based learning that cannot be found by standard web-based searching is planning to make itself obsolete.

DECISION: all content on about2findout.com must be searchable by web crawlers one way or the other.

Yesterday I attended Microsoft's Belgian launch event for Windows Vista and some other products. It was somewhat overcrowded (6000+ participants), and I guess participants were 1/3 students, 1/3 customers and 1/3 partners/competitors. Keynote speaker was Mr. Bill Gates himself. For some people - including me - that's like going to a free Madonna concert :-) . Anyway, his speech was as 'always', relevant but nothing really new. But hey, I was in the same room as him...

For Windows Vista and the direction MS is taking, I would like to highlight 2 trends:

• More attention than ever for 'the eye': smooth graphics, professional layout, icons, buttons, glass interface etc. It will raise the bar for the visual experience people expect. It will be difficult for my website to even come close to the visual treat you get with the new products, specially since I really s*uck graphically speaking.
  
• Hugh effort on search capabilities (it might have to do with getting Google): integrated, fast, etc.

As a demo, try out one of MS latest research products, the beta site of Ms Dewey. She is the front end of a search engine, and has quite a character! Even when you hate MS, you have to admire what they have done here!

Viral marketing is nicer than it sounds :-) . It's a way to enhance brand awareness via social networks and mouth-to-mouth. I stumbled upon a viral marketing action to promote mindmanager, a tool I've been playing with to shape my thoughts on about2findout.com. Via other blogs I heard about an action to get a free version for bloggers, no strings attached, a campaign by Whizpr. All you had to do was send an e-mail to a certain address.

Unfortunately for me, the action was just finished and I was too late. I did get a personal (not automatic!) answer back with a link to a 60 day evaluation version. This was the note I got back:

Beste Bert,

Helaas, de actie liep gedurende de maand oktober. Dus je grijpt er net naast. maar omdat je wel over interessante zaken schrijft en ik denk dat MindManager zeker een belangrijke kan spelen in e-learning, wil ik je graag een uitgebreide test versie sturen. Deze werkt volledig en voor 60 dagen.
Ik lees (of hoor) graag wat je ervan vindt. Er wordt steeds meer gebruikgemaakt van mindmapping, en ook van MindManager in het onderwijs. Veel docenten geven les vanuit MindManager en studenten gebruiken het bij hun studie. Veel mindmap-plezier!Groeten,
Erik

For the unfortunate among us that do not speak Dutch, there is a good program to learn it here. :-) Must say, nice way to experience viral marketing!

Anyway, stay tuned for my draft mindmap on about2findout.com. It'll be a document to facilitate discussion.

Remember we talked about how these web2.0 sites seem to be in perpetual beta? There is even a blog http://momb.socio-kybernetics.net/ that lists over 2000 (!) of those beta sites, called the Museum of Modern Betas of MoMB.

At first glance you can find these interesting projects:

• http://www.netvibes.com/ : your own personal web desktop
• http://yotophoto.com/ : a search engine to find free pictures and photo's
• http://www.librarything.com/users.php : search books ; the zeitgeist sections shows you what people are reading these days
• http://www.gliffy.com/ : web-based diagramming tool
• http://browsershots.org/ : test your web design in diferent browsers
• http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ : online task list
• http://www.ajaxload.info/ : create your own AJAX load button like this one
• http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/ : wow, sketch an outline and this application looks for photo's on flickr that match the shape
• http://www.activecollab.com/ : project management tool
• http://www.buttonator.com/ : make nice looking buttons
• http://msig.info/web2.php : a joke site, to create web2.0 logo's (they all look alike)
• http://www.thumbstacks.com/ : online presentations
• http://www.jumpcut.com/ : online video editing
• http://flashface.ctapt.de/ : make an online face
• http://www.thinkfree.com/common/main.tfo : an online office
• http://www.websnapr.com/ : create snapshot images of websites

I'm sure to use some of those sites in the near future. For now, and because I s*ck graphically speaking, I created a temporary logo for about2findout.com on http://msig.info/web2.php.

Last week Blogger had some problems posting to FTP sites such as mine. And yesterday, I lost a post and a draft I prepared for today, so I'll need to redo the whole thing, due to database problems of some kind. Not funny!
Well, it learns me that when the web becomes the platform, it better be as reliable as my own computer...

Web 2.0 is the web's new evolution. Or it's technology. Or it's just a catchy buzz word. Or it's hype. I don't care if it's one or all of them, to me there is something different about the internet than when I got to know it back in university, and I like it, I want to find out what it is and I want to be part of it.

So what is it? You can find out on wikipedia. And Dion Hinchcliffe lists the year's best web 2.0 explanations on his blog. Some folks hate the term, others already speak of web 3.0. I'll give you one definition:

Web 2.0 is a term that captures the widespread sense that there's something
qualitatively different about today's web. - TIm O'Reilly

Some characteristcs (in my humble point of view):
xevolution is the use of collective intelligence (the wisdom of crowds)

• social factor is more imporant than the technology, it's about people this time ; one interesting
• continuous improvements leading to perpetual beta instead of release cycles
• open, sites expose their services through API's so that other sites can include them - these composite applications are called mashups
• richer browser experience (mainly because of AJAX technology)
• the web is the platform
• simple - lightweight programming, basic services, easy to use
• user controls the data, not the site owner
• mostly free or low cost, based on advertising revenue - many make losses

Popular web 2.0 sites include myspace, facebook, friendster, secondlife, flickr, google, blogger, del.icio.us, technorati, feedburner, wordpress, youtube, wikipedia, linkedin, craigslist, etc. I'll be reviewing a lot of them in the coming time. Stay tuned on my discoveries :-).

Labels: web2.0

Any decent web application needs a good, reliable and fast database behind. Because my chosen platform ASP.NET is so integrated with MS SQL Server, that will be the one. And I have two MS SQL databases included in my web hosting package.

But it's a steap learning curve. Oh, I long for the days of Paradox databases and Delphi where I just had to copy over a bunch of files. Yesterday, I lost hours to figure out how to migrate an exiting SQL 2000 database to a SQL 2005 server. (The database for Feedback Server, a commercial but affordable and excellent survey tool - there is also a limited free version available.)
I was using Microsoft's own SQL Management Studio tool, but for some reason only the structure of the table got copied over, not the data or indices, keys, constraints etc. I got it working eventually but boy...

One of the tools I would have liked discoved earlier was an add-on to SQL Management Studio that allows for scripting the table content (for some reason SQL Management Studio doesn't do that), like on codeproject: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/enisey.asp.

Another tool I stumbled accross was SQL Manager Lite, you can find it on http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/mssql/manager.
Be sure to download the lite, free version. It allows to script a database, so you can easily port it to another one.

Anyway, I'm done now. It works and that what's counting!

Google is rapidly expanding its empire (just today I heard it purchases jotspot.com, a wiki application). One of the previously acquired companies was writely.com, which is now available in the online word processor and spreadsheets application at http://docs.google.com. All you need is a free google account to start working.

The functionality of both the spreadsheet program and word processor are basic : text, formatting, images, etc. But the great benefit is you can access your documents from anywhere and don't need to worry about the right version of the document or where you stored it. The latest version is always on line, accessible via any browser. You can import/export to a variety of file formats such as MS Office and OpenOffice. I'm currently using it to store my blog preparations, the financials of the about2findout.com project and as a notepad for anything interesting I read or see in the field of learning.

But the advantages go beyond: online applications allow for easy collaboration. You can invite friends and collegues to co-author or view your online documents, leave their comments and even work in real-time on the same document while chatting or talking (Google talk) to eachother! I used this feature once to prepare a questionnaire. It also maintains a version history that you can rollback to.

Technically, the applications showcase some AJAX such as dialog boxes, popups, etc.
I haven't explored all possibilities yet of the tool, but I'm sold already. O yeah: another web2.0 thingy: it's in 'beta'. All web2.0 sites seem to be in perpetual beta. The other option is to keep delaying your products until the complete package is good enough I guess (yes MS, I'm talking about you!)

Labels: google

Today I (yes, proudly) announce my first web application's availability. As a warm-up to the real work for about2findout, Ive been trying out web programming and created a small application to show you a random learning quote and a form to suggest me other quotes. There is also an administration section to insert, update and delete quotes from the database. You can find the free application at http://www.about2findout.com/6Cquotes .

The application is written in ASP.NET 2.0 and retrieves the quotes from an MS Access database. (I cannot afford MS SQL databases for such small applications.) I've learned a lot writing this application, and these are the main points I wanted to share:

• ADO.NET : That's the name of the database access technology in ASP.NET. It's more difficult than I imagined on first sight. Or maybe I just need to get used to it. I've played around with datasets, gridviews, detailsviews and some more. Luckily there are many web sites with explanations and forums full of people that encountered the same problems.
  
• I recommend the learning video's that ship with Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions for free. They are a free sample of what is on learnvisualstudio.net, another site I recommend. It has many training video's that are well explained and a 'lifetime subscription' option. That's for the lifetime of their site, not you life :-) . I like the concept.
• The suggestion form works with a Persist ASPEMail component. Works fine IF the mail server at seekdotnet.com isn't down.
• Sometimes there is a difference between how Internet Explorer and Firefox or other browsers display the pages. The answer to that is browsercap definitions that can be included in the configuration of the machine (machine.config) or the web application (web.config). The problem is that Microsoft doesn't maintain those (why should they?) but outsources that to another company who doesn't do a great job of it either. So you can find back updated browsercap definitions on this site.
  
• Whenever I ran into a problem, I googled a solution rather than using the Visual Studio Help (which I don't like). Very often asp.net or the code project have answers. I recommend those sites.

Please check out the site and send me suggestions for other quotes. Future developments for the application will include:

• transforming it into a web service
• adding rating possibilities
• creating HTML code to insert in other pages to display a random quote

At the moment, there are 106 quotes in the database.