Spotlight

Technology:

AnyDay

I always wanted a browser-based calendar. One that I could view and edit from any place, without worrying about proprietary clients or protocols. For over two years I have been a fairly satisfied user of Netscape Calendar, which, through its Calendar Express module, enables full access to one's schedules via a 4th generation browser. For that, however, I had to run my own NS Calendar server; that's probably akin to owning a gas station in order to fill up one's car. I could probably live with that, but I recently acquired a handheld organizer, so now I was on a lookout for a browser-accessible calendar that would offer a seamless integration with my Palm Pilot Vx. I found one in AnyDay.

After having downloaded and installed a little syncing application, I copied my schedule from the handheld to AnyDay with just a single, minor hiccup (one of my events had too long a title, so I was asked whether it would be OK to truncate it). Now, any time I sync my Palm with my desktop, my AnyDay schedule gets synchronized as well. (This, by the way, solves one of the biggest obstacles in using ASPs, whether for calendaring or anything else: the fear of losing access to one's data, once the ASP goes belly up. Now, with the master copy on my Palm, I can simply move to a different ASP.)

Painless synchronization is but one of many nice features of AnyDay. It is accessible with any browser, without the need for specialized plugins. Its interface is attractive and intuitive, offering multiple views of one's schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) and a row of tabs for easy access to features such as invitations, groups, personalization, etc. It allows keeping "To Do" lists as well as scheduling events and reminders; the latter can be displayed in a browser or sent via e-mail to specified addresses. Templates are available for creating invitations to business meetings, holiday and birthday parties, etc. Invitations (RSVPs in AnyDay parlance) solicit responses from invitees and help in figuring out who can and who can't attend.

AnyDay users can maintain multiple calendars, e.g. personal and work, and specify, at the time a new event is added, whether it will appear in one or more calendars. Groups can easily be created by any user, and outfitted with their own calendars. One can also publish one's calendar, making the schedule viewable, but not editable, by others. (Time ranges and events within those are selected individually for publishing and access can be restricted with a password.) Finally, AnyDay offers printable layouts of schedules (in various views), to-do lists, and address books. The service lacks certain features, such as the option to give designates full access to one's calendar, but it is user friendly, powerful, and robust enough to earn the rating of "Recommended" in the ACT's database.

AnyDay (click on a thumbnail):

Week view	Invitation templates

For more information please visit the AnyDay site or search the ACT database of Groupwork Tools.

Initiatives:

Blacksburg Electronic Village

Blacksburg Electronic Village, also known under the acronym BEV, is one of the oldest and most successful online communities in the US and, quite possibly, in the world. Developed as a joint effort of Virginia Tech, the Town of Blacksburg, and Bell Atlantic it offers community-wide, ubiquitous and inexpensive Internet access for all citizens of Blacksburg, VA. (Currently, more than 60% of them are online, and nearly half through high-speed connections, i.e. ISDN or Ethernet.)

The number and range of services provided by the BEV is truly impressive. They include:

Web sites for groups, non-profit organizations, and government agencies
E-mail accounts
Newsgroups and listservs
Chat rooms
Online advertising for local businesses
Customized courses and seminars
Research on the impact of community networking

For those outside of Blacksburg, who are interested in starting their own community networks, the BEV and Virginia Tech offer complete turnkey electronic village packages which include Web server space, design consultations, focused training, technical support, and site visits.

The evolution of this groundbreaking venture has been captured in a book entitled "Community Networks : Lessons from Blacksburg, Virginia", second edition of which was published last February. The book's editors are Andrew Michael Cohill (Director of the BEV) and Andrea L. Kavanaugh (Director of Research at the BEV).

Online reading:

Notes from the 9th International WWW Conference

These are my personal notes from the conference that took place May 15-19, 2000 in Amsterdam. They were taken on a Palm Pilot Vx, primarily for my own consumption and thus are subjective, very sketchy, and may even appear cryptic at times. I did edit them a bit to make them more readable to others, and added links to more resources wherever applicable. However, no assurance of accuracy or completeness is given or implied. Nonetheless, I hope that you'll find them informative.

Conference:

ICLS 2000

4th International Conference of the Learning Sciences
Held June 14-17, 2000 in Ann Arbor, MI
Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
The goal of this conference is to bring together a diverse group of researchers, practitioners, developers, and users in order to obtain a deeper understanding of cognitive, social, and practical issues underlying effective education and to share insights into the design of the next generation of educational environments. Individuals are invited to share their expertise in cognitive science, cognitive psychology, education, computer science, multimedia, and artificial intelligence to offer (and gain!) perspectives and insights into these problems.

She said, he said:

"Fast, professional, and cheap! (Pick any two)." -- Slogan reportedly displayed by an Internet company in California.