emlarson's posterous

emlarson's posterous

Eric Larson  //  Husband, father, podcaster at Ericast.com, Academic Technology Consultant at a big private university.

 
Feb 14 / 9:42am

Google's 2012 Valentine Video

(download)

As someone who has spent a career trying to emphasize the customer service concepts of “meet people where they’re at” and “understand and engage the ‘love language’ of the person you’re serving” I have a special place in my heart (no pun intended) for today’s Google.com homepage video.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of a fleet of attorneys who want to rile up trouble with DMCA take-down notices, I’m including it here for the simple reason that this post won’t make any sense tomorrow when Google changes its homepage back to the default.  No infringement intended, the video here is © 2012 Google, Inc., etc. etc. etc.

(The Washington Post has an interesting article on some related controversy and if I were to mention it I’d probably take it in a totally different direction than they and their site’s commenters do… so I’ll save that for another time…)
 
Feb 2 / 9:26am

The next tricky scam...

So now we have "likejacking" to deal with? And it's been more than a year since it was "discovered" -- it hasn't been blocked yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likejacking

Seems scary to me that one errant click can push who-knows-what out onto your Facebook page; what's to say that what you click on has anything to do with what you've "liked"? I'm surprised this isn't even more prevalent…

 
Jan 4 / 8:30am

Pondering GPS

Given my TeleNav GPS Plus fail (see my review at http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/reviews/56711 for details) I'm now debating between a TomTom and a Garmin.

The TomTom has audio speed alerts but they apparently don't trigger until you're violating the speed limit by several MPH; the Garmin has a display indicator at 1 MPH but no audio indicator.

I'd lean toward the TomTom since I don't want to be staring at a display while I drive, but the reviews say it takes a really long time to acquire a satellite signal.

Decisions, decisions!

 
Nov 15 / 2:55pm

Office Noise!

(download)

Every few minutes, the radiator in my office is making this sound – I flipped on a recording app in the background so I could capture how bad it is.  It starts with a flat tone like your usual “bars and tone” calibration audio, which gives warning to that you should plug your ears for the high-pitched buzz that’s coming.

It didn’t do this last year; here’s hoping it stops once the heating season is in full swing…

 
Nov 15 / 10:20am

Just what is a "college education"...?

At 38 minutes in or so there's an interestong discussion of "open universities" via an audience member...

Podcast Title: EDUCAUSE | Podcasts
Episode: EDU11: Chronicle Tech Trends
Media URL:

Podcast feed URL:
http://www.educause.edu/podcast/30579/feed

 
Nov 1 / 6:35pm

Is Geotoko a scam?

When I made a regular visit and checked in last month I saw a reference to the "Bruegger's Foursquare Promotion" through Geotoko. I carefully read the rules posted at:

http://geotoko.com/campaigns/brueggers0/brueggers-foursquare-promotion/terms

Those rules clearly say:

6. HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE: Contest Potential Winner(s) will be published on the Contest Winner(s) page, available at http://geotoko.com/campaigns/brueggers0/brueggers-foursquare-promotion. The Contest Potential Winner(s) will have to click on the “CLAIM PRIZE” button beside their name, authorize themselves using the Location Based Service used to enter, and then submit their contact details. The Contest Potential Winner will then be contacted (using the contact details provided during the prize claim) by the sponsor for details on how to redeem their prize...

But that promotion page still touts the contest, which ended October 19th. I've been checking daily, waiting for the results to be posted, but it went long enough that I finally emailed Geotoko support to ask what the situation was.

They said the contest had ended, they sent the winners to Bruegger's, and the prizes had already been awarded.

How can prizes have been awarded if there was no page to claim them and verify your identity with the "claim prize" button? Or was that simply not true and there really isn't any list of "winners" out there?

I suppose it's just another example of incompetence rather than secrecy or nefarious activity... But when a company like Geotoko doesn't abide by its own published terms, isn't that a bad sign? If you were a business looking to drum up customers with a contest, would you want to disappoint otherwise happy ones (like yours truly) by contracting with a company that misleads them?

 
Oct 23 / 4:00pm

Trebuchet vs. Washing Machine

(download)
 
Oct 23 / 3:48pm

Trebuchet!

(download)
 
Oct 6 / 9:22pm

Faith in a good future... or a bad one?

You do have "faith"; the question is, do you have faith that something good is going to happen, or that something bad is going to happen?  The latter is called "fear" and you can choose something different.  For my Christian friends. here's a good listen:

Podcast Title: Joel Osteen Audio Podcast
Episode: #512 - Meditate On What God Says About You
Media URL:

Podcast feed URL:
http://rss.streamos.com/streamos/rss/genfeed.php?feedid=111&groupname=lak...

(Yes, I listen to Joel Osteen and think he's a great motivational speaker.  Most Christians who differ with him question whether he's a good "evangelist" who leads people to the truth of salvation in Jesus.  That's a fair point... but when speaking with Christian audiences I think it makes a lot of sense to refer to Joel as a source of good Biblical reminders of our status before God.)