15 minutes with IE 7 beta 2 and I am glad it’s still beta
Just thought I would take a look at the beta 2 version of IE 7, really looking forward to it as well. Well gosh golly gee:
I think I know what is going on there. IE 5.5 does the same thing as well as certain configurations of IE 6. Not sure whether I should be fixing my CSS for it or not, but I guess I need to pay close attention to it.
For those trying it out, be sure to go to the IE 7: Beta 2 checklist page. Loads of information. Don’t forget to fill out bugs for the IE team too.
update: Looks like the folks at Project VII have documented the bugs I see. The IE team have a post explaining the CSS changes in IE 7 beta 2 – and that is a nice list of fixes. Hopefully they will take care of the new ones that have come up 
More podcasting with the help of iTunes U
This is pretty cool. Apple has been working with a schools in the states and developed a customized iTunes music store for course content. This is brilliant. The Chronicle has the article Apple Releases Free ‘iTunes U’ Software to Colleges for Coursecasting—and when I read it I just though, geez, this makes it easy. Go check out iTunes U and let me know what you think. This makes that whole podcasting script a bit pointless for some uses
I would have loved podcasts of classes when I was student… loved it.
Update (01/26/06): There is a thread going on the uwebd mail list that is bringing up some interesting points. The first thing to note is that Apple is really busy getting in contact with schools in the US. No word on Canadian schools.
The other thing is how does this function? Does the music store have the mp3’s or is the site and its content hosted on the Universities servers, just viewed through iTunes? I will update this post if more information is made available. (or I find some links). Some links of note:
- The Stanford FAQ on iTunes U – PDF suggests that the podcasts stay in AAC.
- Learning & Innovation Blog has a post that suggests iTunes U can handle any file format, and there is a comment that backs that up.
- iTunes U. Critiques – it’s not as simple as that from a University of Calgary tech geek speaks on the subject.
Then of course there are the ethical issues of driving students to the iTunes music store as the only place to get their courses podcast. I would say it should only be one of many places to get the XML feed… I mean you just need the XML feed, once you have that you don’t need much else but something to play it on (not if its AAC only).
‘Wacky’ Web Site Causes Odd Response on a US campus
Really odd story being covered on the Wired Campus Blog over a staff member at Columbia College Chicago being fired for a satirical web site. Check out the post. What gets me is just how the college conducted itself. The site itself just seems to make fun of the president of the college and was done by some moderately talented people. Are they going to continue the witch hunt for the other students and alumni that help out on the site? I guess this is one way to draw attention to it.
Election night and Canadian news sites feel the pinch
This is slightly OT for this blog but I figure I will mention this observation anyway. At 10:20pm on election night I have looked at four Canadian news sites and to my surprise only two are running smoothly, The Toronto Star and the National Post.CBC was down at the time of this posting and the Globe and Mail is running as slow as ever… but it works.
The two that are up use a Flash like set up for what appears to be real-time updates of results. It is really nice to see actually and by the fact the sites are all acting a bit slower than normal suggests that Canadians are using these sites (maybe on wireless connections will they watch CSI—and its halarious blogging feature tonight, tv internet… goodness).
To bring this back on topic… As we look at how to present news to the UW community its fun to have a look how the ‘big news’ deals with information. Also interesting to see which technology they use and how traffic can slow that stuff down. Now back to CSI and its funny representation of blogs. I wonder how many blog posts will make fun of the amount of times they mention ‘blog’ in CSI—blogdays.com hahah? The CBC site is back up too. Oh look, no Flash based charts? Sheesh.
Moral of the story: Even media sites with their large dedicated web teams and budgets can’t deal with high load—I would love to know what the load was however.
Dreamweaver 8.01 update
There is an update for Dreamweaver 8 now available. It takes care of that relative link management issue and a few other bugs. Take a look at the release notes and grab the update. I have updated the post on the relative link management issue to reflect the fix in the update.
