06.30.04
Posted in Development, Macintosh, Conferences at 4:55 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Dori is unhappy about missing the Webloggers’ dinner. There wasn’t a special invite list; Buzz issued a general invitation back in April. I think I saw it on Brent’s site.I’m sorry Dori wasn’t there; I would have liked to have seen other women bloggers there, or, better still, more women at WWDC. I always have to make a bit of an adjustment when I switch from humanities to technology in terms of the male to female ratio, but this year at WWDC it seems like there are fewer women than there were in 2001 and 2002. There were 300 student scholarships this year, and 3500 attendees total. I never saw another female student; I heard that there was another. Usually there are three or four of us.
A lot of the women I did see work for Apple, so it’s not like there’s a conspiracy to avoid women. I suspect there just aren’t enough women applicants to Computer Science programs in schools, which of course affects the numbers of students applying for WWDC scholarships, and the number of women companies can hire. I’m not sure how to solve that—part of the problem in terms of women majoring in comp sci is that there aren’t enough role models for younger women trying to decide on majors and careers. I also suspect that, because of cultural assumptions, acculturation, and maybe even biological differences in neural structures, women think differently about programming than many men, and women may be drawn to or encouraged to pursue non-engineering roles in technology. Having said that, yes, of course I know brilliant engineers and programmers who are female—I’m just not sure current U.S. educational systems, cultures, and society encourage women to pursue technolgy as a career.
But I also think there are professions that are under represented at technical conferences like WWDC, some of which are more likely to have women engaging in them than others. Women with backgrounds in linguistics, and design, and UI, for instance. There’s more to shipping software than engineering and marketing departments. People always ask, at technical conferences, what I do if I don’t write code. I tell them that I’m a translator, translating between managers, administrators or content experts, and programmers, developers, and engineers. In some places, I’d be described as a “technical liaison.” I also have lots of experience with technical writing, and user-centric testing— I’ve been described as a user advocate. That means that even though I don’t write code (I don’t count scripting languages in this context, though I should probably count Perl) I need to understand the basic principles of writing and organizing and testing code, and I need to understand the underlying technologies and tools, in order to place them in context for others. People like us are at WWDC too, we’re just less noticeable.
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06.29.04
Posted in Blogging, Macintosh, Conferences at 10:36 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
I enjoyed the web bloggers’ dinner last night, and really appreciate Buzz Andersen arranging it. It was great to meet Brent, Eric Albert, Joe Heck, Jonas Luster, Wolf Rentzsch, Paul, and others whose names I either didn’t catch, or don’t remember (sorry!). People seemed really enthusiastic about the Keynote announcements, which is good, since most of these people actually make things to be used by us lesser mortals . I caught a glimpse of Bill Humphries, who I keep almost meeting at conferences, of an SF sort.
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06.28.04
Posted in Macintosh, Conferences at 10:00 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
I’ve been unable to get a DHCP connection, so haven’t really been ab le to blog the conference, not even the stuff I can talk about. I’ll post my WWDC entries retroactively, once I’m home. I tend to write posts in BBEdit anyway, so I can simply wait to post. I think they things that most caught my eye in the Keynote were announcements about Safari, Dashboard, and Automator, all mentioned in the Tiger preview.
The Steve Jobs keynote is available in QuickTime here. This keynote was a bit different than other keynotes. For one thing, Steve Jobs seemed more relaxed than I’ve seen him in other key notes. This is not meant as anything other than an observation; heaven knows, you’d have to pay me to get on that stage. But all the Apple employees seemed less tense than they were in 2001 and 2002. They were mostly wearing their own clothes rather than logo ware&emdash; maybe that’s one reason people were more at ease.
They were playing music over the sound system, while people filed in; some Johnny Cash, and some Beatles, but as usual I heard at least two songs I’d buy if I knew the name and artist. I keep hoping I’ll see a WWDC playlist on iTunes.
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06.27.04
Posted in Conferences, Pedagogy and Scholarship at 9:32 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
So, right after I, somewhat ruefully, point out that I don’t, quite, fit in at WWDC, I find a fellow attendee and blogger Joe Heck’s blog (and his domain) is called Rhonawby, after the twelfth century Arthurian text The Dream of Rhonabwy or in Welsh Breuddwyd Rhonabwy. Rhonawby is an interesting text for its Arthurian connections, as well as for it’s use of satire, and parody, and what appears to be a divination ritual with overtones of shamanism. Joe thoughtfully links to Lady Charlotte Guest’s version of The Dream of Rhonawby. I should tell him about Gantz’ translation; it’s much better&em;Gantz gets the jokes, and Lady Charlotte can be over delicate.
Still, it’s way cool.
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06.25.04
Posted in Blogging, Macintosh, Conferences at 1:56 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
On the strength of a student scholarship from Apple, I’ll be going to Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference. I can’t stay the whole time, the hotels cost too much, especially if, like me, you’re a navigationally impaired grad student and need to be fairly close to Moscone. But I will be blogging, when the NDA allows, like these bloggers Jonas Luster lists, and I’ll go to Buzz Andersen’s Weblogger Dinner. It should be a lot of fun, but I always feel like I’m being crammed with information at WWDC. Many of the presenters are extremely good teachers, which takes more than just a pretty Keynote presentation. I’m going to concentrate on the QuickTime track, and of course, interface stuff.
This is my third time to a WWDC. I think I puzzle a fair number of the developers—my resume is certainly different. And of course there aren’t that many women there, and there are even fewer female students. My chief skill, explaining technology to non-technical people, in person and in writing, and acting as a user advocate and representative, doesn’t seem to make sense to a large number of the people I meet at technical conferences. Last time, at the student reception, an HR person told me that “anyone can do technical writing” (not true!). I said “Yes, but can they do it in Old Irish?” I don’t think he got the joke.
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06.15.04
Posted in Macintosh, Books at 9:41 am by Lisa Spangenberg
Michael E. Cohen’s new book Teach Yourself Visually iLife 04 is out. You can even order it from Amazon. If you’re not familiar with the Teach Yourself series, you should take a look at the link for a sample. The principle is that people using software often prefer to have very clear specific step by step instructions needed to complete a specific task, like make an iPhoto slide show. Teach Yourself Visually books combine specific instructions with clearly labeled screen shots of the step, including call outs, presented in crystal clear prose and color. This particular book is especially good, not only because Michael Cohen wrote it, but because the graphic artists were unusually good. It’s actually fun to read and to use.
It’s also a bit of a family project. My brother in law, Dennis Cohen, was originally contracted to write the book, but ran out of time, so he invited Michael to pitch in. Then, unbeknownst to either of the Cohen brothers, I was hired separately to tech edit the book. This is the fifth iLife book I’ve worked on, and it’s the best for novice users or visual learners. If you’re a more advanced user, you can’t beat Dennis Cohen’s iLife Bible. Yes it’s a little outdated if you’re using iLife ‘04, but most of the information is still accurate, and there are techniques and useful information in it that isn’t anywhere else.
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06.07.04
Posted in Macintosh, Books at 12:51 pm by Lisa Spangenberg
Apple’s just announced Airport Express. It’s a tiny portable wireless base station designed specifically for music sharing; it has an audio out port so you can connect your stereo, and it (along with AirTunes and iTunes) lets you play music from your hard drive (or iPod) wirelessly transmitting to the AirPort Express, when then via the audio cable to your stereo, uses your stereo’s high quality speakers. As Apple says:
Whether your stereo or powered speakers are located in your living room, bedroom or basement, just plug it or them into the audio port on the AirPort Express Base Station using an audio cable. iTunes automatically detects the connection. When you open iTunes on your AirPort-equipped Mac or Wi-Fi-compliant PC, you’ll see a popup list at the bottom right of the iTunes window showing your remote speakers. Select it, click play and your stereo becomes the world’s greatest digital jukebox.
And, oh yeah, it’s cross platform with Windows. And it’s pocket-sized—which means all you need is a stereo or powered speakers, a Mac with iTunes and music files, and an AirPort Express to have your music where ever you want it..
I often connect my iPod to the stereo, but this way, we can use our extant AirPort network and connect to a central iTunes collection from anywhere in our apartment, since AirPort Express uses Rendezvous to detect the network. And you can daisy chain them, wirelessly, to an extant base station, extending the network without buying additional base stations. This would work really well for my parents, who are moving to a smaller home, and are going to be short of space for “stuff.” A couple of AirPort Exress units, powered speakers or a stereo, and they’re good to go—and they can share their music, and their printer, a real plus for them. And this is a really simple Apple solution, one that I can help them with over the phone.
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06.04.04
Posted in Pedagogy and Scholarship, Copyright at 9:41 am by Lisa Spangenberg
There’s an interesting discussion over at Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light regarding the University of Kent student dismissed for plagiarism. The comments from Teresa’s regular readers, including those in the UK, are especially good.
My university has recently subscribed to Turnitin, a database and searching service that compares instructor-submitted files of student papers to those in its database, and to data on the web, in an attempt to identify plagiarism. The instructor then receives an annotated color-coded version of the paper, that includes citations to “sources” from the database, or the web, and an indication of the percentage of the paper that “source” equals.
The school doesn’t require faculty to use the service, and they’ve done a good job of integrating TurnItIn into official web sites, (well, integrating TurnItIn into the site; the pedagogical and philosophical integration is missing) but I really loathe the idea and the service. I think Turnitin is a potential violation of student rights, and I think it could cause more problems than it eases.
UPDATE: 06/06/2004 10:59 AM: Teresa has posted an additional reflection “Not the case for the Defense” regarding her suggestion that Mr. Gunn repeat his entire university program. I actually think her suggestion has some merit. If, in fact, it is true that he plagiarized throughout his three years, then the university failed part of its mission in not catching and responding appropriately. Mr. Gunn’s transcript would indicate that he took six years to earn a three year degree, and the university will doubtlessly be paying much more attention to the quality of his work. The argument that Mr. Gunn would somehow “displace” a more deserving student doesn’t really seem realistic to me. Admit however many new students the univeristy would ordinarily admit. You aren’t so much readmitting Mr. Gunn as allowing him to repeat his coursework, legitimately.
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