Monthly Archive for August, 2010

Tweaking the D2L v9 Saved Successfully alert

Published on August 31, 2010 in Education and Technology. 0 Comments

In my day job as an instructional technology support guy I hear (and make) the occasional complaint about the technologies we use at our institution. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about the new “Saved Successfully” alert banner that appears in Desire2Learn (D2L) version 9.  Since it’s slowing people down (myself included), I thought it was worth putting together a user stylesheet to alter its display.

Note: this is a bit of a geeky hack.  It looks right on my screen but might not on yours. You’ve been warned!

Firefox or Chrome

Go to http://userstyles.org/ and install the extension for the browser you use most (you will need to restart your browser). You can then visit this page http://userstyles.org/styles/36309 and Install with Stylish. You will then need to edit the style to include your institutions address. On Firefox, this means making sure your status bar is displayed, clicking the icon to manage styles, and change “Your Domain” to be the right “d2l.address.edu” for your institution (this can also be done on install with the “Switch to edit” button. Chrome users can edit the domain under Window > Extensions > Stylish > Edit by adding the address under “Applies to.”

You may also alter the numbers here to fit your institutions Navigation better.

Safari

Go to http://code.grid.in.th/ to Download and Install the extension. You can then add the userstyle by right-clicking on any page and and selecting “Manage user CSS.” Enter your institution’s D2L address, being sure to include /* at the end. Add this bit under Styles and save.

.d_ma_s {width: 30% !important;margin:25px 0px 0px 400px !important;}

Internet Explorer

IE 7 Pro users may have some luck installing a user script from http://userstyles.org/styles/36309 (I couldn’t test this). Most IE users need to use a single custom stylesheet, which can be activated by using these directions.

I’m interested in feedback!

If there are tweaks that would make this more generalizable, please let me know in the comments.

Malamud’s list of 10 rules for radicals

Published on August 30, 2010 in Mass Communication Law and Technology. 0 Comments

10 Rules for Radicals: Lessons from rogue archivist Carl Malamud – Boing Boing

I can’t recommend this enough for anyone interested in Internet history, politics, hardware, or law.

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud’s 10 Rules for Radicals is the transcript of his keynote at the 19th World Wide Web Consortium conference in 2010. It’s a thrilling and often hilarious account of his adventures in liberating different kids of information and networks from various bureaucracies in his storied and exciting career. Malamud has instigated the liberation of American law, the Blue Book describing the workings of the telephone system, the EDGAR database, the video archives of the National Technical Information Service, and many others.

AT&T Weighs In

Published on August 16, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Mass Communication Law. 0 Comments

I couldn’t have said this any better myself.

Now that we’re going from wired to wireless, these same folks don’t want “the open Web” to happen to them again all over again. If they have to compete in an open marketplace, with the best applications and services on neutral ground, well, they’ll just be consigned, once again, to a commodity service layer with low margins. That’s their greatest nightmare.

Be sure to check out this short but insightful post: AT&T Weighs In: Trust Us, We Know What You Want – John Battelle’s Searchblog.

The skinny on Google + Verizon

Published on August 9, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Technology. 0 Comments

Google released the details of their talks with Verizon (Google Public Policy Blog: A joint policy proposal for an open Internet).  On the whole their proposal doesn’t sound all that bad. There is, however, one potentially dangerous point:

Fifth, we want the broadband infrastructure to be a platform for innovation. Therefore, our proposal would allow broadband providers to offer additional, differentiated online services, in addition to the Internet access and video services such as Verizon’s FIOS TV offered today.

At a glance, this sounds perfectly reasonable.  Yet, what this might effectively do is create a system of multiple networks–or multiple internets.  One of the greatest strengths of the Internet is the fact that it’s one big happy network (though admittedly less happy along the backbone where peering can be problematic).  Assuming that these innovative networks interconnect with the greater internet, we may end up right back where we started: with companies that run the wires in ways that are best for the bottom line. I’m not that convinced that’s the best way to run the network.

Edit: Looks as though I largely agree with Public Knowledge’s take on the situation.

Hopefully not as bad as it sounds

Published on August 5, 2010 in Internet Neutrality and Worth a Look. 0 Comments

Google and Verizon in Talks on Selling Internet Priority – NYTimes.com.

Google and Verizon are discussing an agreement where Google would pay for preferential treatment on Verizon’s network. I hope Google has some larger strategy that we aren’t seeing here, because this could set an extraordinarily bad precedent.

Gigi B. Sohn, president and a founder of Public Knowledge, makes a great point: “The fate of the Internet is too large a matter to be decided by negotiations involving two companies, even companies as big as Verizon and Google.”

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