An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums and watches what happens. Based on the results, he talks about issues of digital divide, computer education and kids, the dynamics of the third world getting online.
Interesting story, found it on John's weblog, originally from Slashdot.
I think the story says a lot about how we all should be open and just jump into things, like we used to when we were kids. And also that we don't always have to guide the children in their learning process, sometimes its better to just nurture their curiosity and then stand back and see what happens.
John picked up on my note, and took the time to return with his thoughs about documentation (On Documentation). It is interesting to read the views of someone coming from the tech support part of a software house such as Macromedia - and the ways that their tasks have changed as they move more towards offering products that are made to create new applications/products, and less and less just "clean" applications like word processors. (Not that they ever did make word processors, but you hopefully understand where I am going).
I think Macromedia is on the right track when it comes to making available resources for their products, both in the ways of tutorials, articles, the Macromedia Exchange etc. But as a developer I find that most of the time what I am doing is coding, and what I am looking for from a vendor is not tutorials, components etc, but rather good structured documentation of functions etc. often needed when coding. And that is something I haven't been able to find a good resource for at Macromedia Online for any of their products. (They do offer books for reference to ActionScript etc, and also ship their products with documetnation on CD-rom, but it seems they have decided to skip making that available online).
I took some time to look through their site today, and I could find technotes, tutorials etc, but no well stuctured and well written documentation of their scripting languages. (Such as Flash MX, Coldfusion (CFML) etc.) I could not find any easy links to such content on the Macromedia site, but there are tons of tutorials, articles and other content. I must admit, I am kind of baffled at the lack of the part of the documetnation I would have thought was most important.
NB: David Burrows is also writing about documentation and commenting on the RTFM article. I like his metaphor: "Documentation as narrative? I'd prefer to think of it as building a house"
Interesting article in Wired: The Blogging Revolution
If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, using the back button could expose you to malicious code.
Microsofts reaction?
«because the proposed exploit scenario is dependent upon specific user interaction as a prerequisite, it does not meet our definition of a security vulnerability.»
Another Big MS Browser Hole Found
The security fix? Switch to Opera today.
