The NY Times (select title for link) offers an interesting analysis of the challenge offered by netbooks to costlier laptops. Some of the very inexpensive netbook options require commitment to a data plan (similar to a smart phone data plan). I doubt this funding model would work in educational settings and I have heard that some netbook users have found themselves with huge bills because they did not understand the limits of the download cap assumed by their plans (via TWIT podcast).
LifeHacker indicates that OpenDNS offers protection against the Conficker worm. The idea is to prevent individuals for going to sites the OpenDNS database knows to be infected.
I have been experimenting with an online service called OpenDNS for some months now. I must give credit to a Leo Laporte’s podcast for bringing this service to my attention.
Most tech folks are probably familiar with the role played by a DNS server. As I understand the purpose of the DNS server, it functions to translate the web address we enter into the IP of the server. The IP number directs the query to the needed machine.
My understanding of how OpenDNS works is that the DNS server could perform functions between this translation. It could check the request against self selected filter options and tell you that you really don’t want to go to the site you have requested. It could also record information about your Internet use. It might seem that these are sinister functions, but you may want to impose well defined types of filtering on your own activity (e.g., don’t let me go to known phishing sites) and you may be interested in your patterns of Internet use. I am guessing my service provider (the University of North Dakota) at this moment has a record of the activity originating from the IP of the computer I am using anyway. Perhaps the issue is – who do you trust?
The filtering options in OpenDNS are quite specific (phishing is the only one I apply) and may be of interest to institutions/businesses who feel the need to apply filtering.
The process of making use of OpenDNS is fairly simple. You add the OpenDNS IP as your preferred DNS. You create an account on OpenDNS and set preferences regarding what type of filtering you prefer and whether or not you want to log your activity.
I am not concerned about Conficker because I use only Mac computers and I have been commenting this security risk because the problem interests me. If you intend to use OpenDNS as a way to deal with this particular threat, read the LifeHacker post carefully. I am not certain that the way I have the service configured would do the trick.
April 1 is drawing near and with it the supposed unleashing of Conficker. So many infected computers and the mystery of what will happen. Perhaps the clock on all computers will be reset to Dec. 31, 1999, and the millenium catastophe will finally play out. Perhaps most folks have forgetten the last computer doomsday scenario and have no idea what the previous sentence meant.
This is a follow-up to my previous post on the economics of the newspaper industry. The ReadWriteWeb post discusses changes in ad revenue over the past 15 or so years. The post promotes ad-based papers.
Academic Earth – BTW – this is a link post. The heading is active.
Become brilliant for free. No tuition, but no credits and no degree either. College courses from Yale, MIT, Berkeley, etc.
Another site springs to life attempting to offer the lectures of brilliant minds to the masses (that means you and me). I like the concept and I have tried several courses through iTunes U, but I have found little that keeps me interested. I can usually only find one or two things I want to try and I wonder why the area I follow the most (Education) is not represented. I did listen to the Tom Friedman presentation, but I had also heard it before. Now, if I wanted to learn about economics, computer programming, or physics I might have found the mother lode.
The presentations get graded. I find that kind of creepy. I am used to being evalauted by my students, but I am not certain what I would think of feedback from people who watched for free. I would probably be more interested in the number of times a presentation was viewed.
There are some Intro Psych resources (I think I have watched the course available here before). I was excited when I first encountered Intro Psych lectures from prestigious places and thought I would get some ideas. I gave it a try, but decided the folks I was watching seemed to cover about the same things I cover and had about the same things to say.
What makes the podcasts I follow more interesting than these academic courses? I probably spend 3-4 hours a week listening to podcasts. Perhaps it is the requirement that courses hang together over an extended period of time and accomplish a wide range of goals that makes them less interesting. Perhaps it is just the selection of courses that happen to be available. I wonder if most people have this same reaction.
