On Thursday, February 3rd, the internet ran out of IP addresses. Everyone has known this day was coming and the web guys solved the problem in 1995. You may have noticed it just because some of your favorite web sites were unavailable for a few hours while servers and hosts updated their software.
The old IP (v4) address format was 4 sets of 3 numbers (e.g.123.345.456.789) or 232 number of IP addresses. This means that at some instant on that Thursday, 4 trillion 295 million devices were on-line at the same time.
Just to reassure everyone, the new number sets kicked in automatically and there are now 2128 number of IP (v6) addresses available. A lot more.
Every browser, every social media network, every online developer has started making changes to accommodate and take advantage of this paradigm. Google, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all made significant changes in the last week.
This weekend Google, Facebook and Twitter were making new and exciting offerings. Even in the midst of downloading and mastering the newest stuff, Facebook and Twitter were adding more new features. In others words, even as you were working on learning the new features...”new” new features were being uploaded.
The primary beneficiary of all these changes is local small businesses. If a business knows how to take advantages of these changes, they will benefit greatly.
The Small Business Development Center at CSI is introducing a series of courses entitled “Capitalizing on the Web.” These courses are designed to provide hands-on training for small business. The courses are intensive, engaging, useful, flexible, timely and in a constant state of change. The courses will help small businesses, community agencies and non-profits catch up with the web’s fast paced changes and allow these same group to keep up.
These courses have the added important ingredient of on-going coaching and support.
For me, all this means changing my courses for the SBDC’s “Capitalizing on the Web.” It means the development of a new course covering “Preparing and Optimizing Content for the Web.” This class should be taken first and should be taken by anyone posting anything or making anything available on the web. Whether just posting a resume or adding photos to your album or profile in Facebook...anyone not preparing their content correctly will eventually have to go back and do it all again.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Time to Pay the Players
March Madness is coming as the NCAA begin it’s selection of the participants in the Men’s Division 1 2011 Basketball Tournament, which begins on March 15.
This annual event brings out my annual declaration that, “College Athletes Should be Paid.” I think what triggers my annual tirade is knowing that the NCAA will rake in somewhere around $400 million during the tournament.
Now, I’m not calling for a weekly paycheck, but a scholarship and tutors are just not enough. Here are the two things which should be required by all college, junior colleges and universities.
Student athletes must be insured. 65% of all high school athletes will leave high school with chronic injuries while only 2% will go on to any kind of athletic career. 65% of all college athletes will leave with chronic injuries while only 2% will go on to any kind of athletic career. The number of athletes that succeed is extraordinarily small while the numbers who are injured are conversely very high. Every college athlete should be insured by the university to guarantee that their college scholastic career is paid for if they become injured.
Student athletes need to be encouraged to graduate. An annuity should be set-up that accumulates while in school, is increased with every season they participate and is paid out upon graduation.
Most people don’t realize how much work, training and preparation a student athlete must go through for each event. Most people don’t realize the danger of this commitment. Most people don’t realize how much money is being made by the coaches, schools, administrators and the NCAA itself.
I think it’s time to take care of the student athletes too.
This annual event brings out my annual declaration that, “College Athletes Should be Paid.” I think what triggers my annual tirade is knowing that the NCAA will rake in somewhere around $400 million during the tournament.
Now, I’m not calling for a weekly paycheck, but a scholarship and tutors are just not enough. Here are the two things which should be required by all college, junior colleges and universities.
Student athletes must be insured. 65% of all high school athletes will leave high school with chronic injuries while only 2% will go on to any kind of athletic career. 65% of all college athletes will leave with chronic injuries while only 2% will go on to any kind of athletic career. The number of athletes that succeed is extraordinarily small while the numbers who are injured are conversely very high. Every college athlete should be insured by the university to guarantee that their college scholastic career is paid for if they become injured.
Student athletes need to be encouraged to graduate. An annuity should be set-up that accumulates while in school, is increased with every season they participate and is paid out upon graduation.
Most people don’t realize how much work, training and preparation a student athlete must go through for each event. Most people don’t realize the danger of this commitment. Most people don’t realize how much money is being made by the coaches, schools, administrators and the NCAA itself.
I think it’s time to take care of the student athletes too.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Analogies
When I'm teaching a class or trying to make a point, I try to use a sports analogy. I feel its a much easier way to convey what I'm talking about.
For example, when the state decides to conduct a survey of "best practices" to develop standardized instruction and standardized tests, I think a sports analogy is helpful.
It would be somewhat like Auburn winning the BCS resulting in securing the National Championship, followed by the NCAA declaring that all upper division schools must use Aburn's offense and defense. Everyone would immediately scoffs at the concept and rejects it out of hand...and yet we will subject every student and teacher in the state to this same illogical conclusion when it comes to curriculum.
I'm currently creating a course for the SBDC at CSI. It's called "SEO Basics" and covers three basic elements of optimizing content for the web. It doesn't matter if someone is building a website or just maintaining a Facebook Album, updating their LinkedIn account or just posting content in blog or images to Flickr or Picasa...these required are basic skills and processes to be follow...or it's like showing up to a baseball game in your shorts, t-hist and flip-flops...or like showing up to the any game without knowing how to play.
Hey, I think the analogy holds.
For example, when the state decides to conduct a survey of "best practices" to develop standardized instruction and standardized tests, I think a sports analogy is helpful.
It would be somewhat like Auburn winning the BCS resulting in securing the National Championship, followed by the NCAA declaring that all upper division schools must use Aburn's offense and defense. Everyone would immediately scoffs at the concept and rejects it out of hand...and yet we will subject every student and teacher in the state to this same illogical conclusion when it comes to curriculum.
I'm currently creating a course for the SBDC at CSI. It's called "SEO Basics" and covers three basic elements of optimizing content for the web. It doesn't matter if someone is building a website or just maintaining a Facebook Album, updating their LinkedIn account or just posting content in blog or images to Flickr or Picasa...these required are basic skills and processes to be follow...or it's like showing up to a baseball game in your shorts, t-hist and flip-flops...or like showing up to the any game without knowing how to play.
Hey, I think the analogy holds.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Immigration & Unemployment
Yesterday I received the latest e-newsletter from my state legislators. I was mostly about unemployment and the kindly asked for responses.
So I obliged with a few steps we could take to address unemployment, reduced wages, illegal immigration and the overcrowding of our city/county jail... all at the same time.
I sent the same suggestions to my state and federal legislative delegations.
1. A fine on hiring illegals. Here in Idaho, if a dairy is raided and illegals are hauled away, there is no penalty on the employer. A few day later, after using US citizens as temporary workers, they restaff with illegals.
I really like the British penalty for hiring illegals:
2. Require the Social Security Administration to notify people when someone else is using their SSN. It’s an “Identity Theft” issue.
New York Times story:
3. Deport any Illegal when arrested:
Tennessee’s 287-G Program
The only response I got was, "do you have any proof?"
About 10 years ago, I was an employer with about a dozen illegals working for me. I can tell you that I got a notice from Social Security that the names and SSNs did not match and the repercussions were non-existant.
I think it would be a good 60 Minutes report and following the dairies, or landscapers or roofing companies would be a good place to start.
Monday, February 7, 2011
What is 2 to the 128th power??
When a inquiry was made to Google about how large is 2 to the 128th, the answer was " a very large number."
Every browser on the planet (that's about 200 of 'em) are preparing to take advantage of this and make those advantages available to local businesses.
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