Students who actually think!

Anne Bartlett-Bragg (one of the organisers of BlogTalk Downunder) was interviewed recently by Anna Salleh from ABC Science Online about her research in blogs and education that she has been conducting for her PhD. Her quote “I say, I’m sorry, I’m making you think. Isn’t that why we’re here?” made me laugh, so many people just don’t want to think as it is hard!

While only a short item it did raise several points about blogs, while the research is focused on students I suspect the findings would also hold true for general blogging (apologise to Anne if she has found they don’t).

  • They help people think more critically
  • They are interactive
  • They engage people in debate, even people how normally sit on the sidelines
  • They have to be responsible about what they post
  • Not all blogs are credible, and just cause it is published doesn’t mean it is true
  • They help you manage your ideas in a way never done before

links for 2005-09-06

links for 2005-09-04

Testing out AdSense

I am testing out Google’s AdSense on this site for a bit. Why? I wanted to get a feel for how it works for my other projects and needed somewhere to test. If you are offended, sorry but they will go away soon, unless of course I become rich from them, which I doubt :-).

On a serious note I would appreciate any feedback on the ads over the next couple of weeks as I hope to move them around a bit and see what happens.

More on GoDaddy

Still trying to upload files. Spoke to GoDaddy technical support again and according to them there is no issue with the service, in fact all ftp issues are my issue, not there’s. Which I can understand to a point. But when the servers are generating the errors I am not so sure. I have now tried CuteFTP from GlobalScape, Windows Command Line and WS_FTP on two different machines all with the same result, the server drops the connection on the second file and then does not allow the client to reconnect.

Setting up a new hosting provider

Over the last few days I have been trying to setup a new hosting provider, GoDaddy, for a new project of mine, it has been a bit of a learning experience for me. I am not an expert on the technical side of hosting, domain names and the underlying runnings of the internet.

Firstly I have learnt that I can register a domain with one registar and host it on another, something that is very cool. I suspected that this was the case but you never really know until you try. This has been the first and only easy part of the whole process.

GoDaddy seems to have a VERY slow ftp connection from it’s hosting environment for site owners to upload files, maybe that is just because I am DownUnder. Also they seem to only allow a single session to be connected to the ftp server at anyone time. I say seem as I keep getting errors saying there are 3 users connected from my IP address, and I only have one session open. I have also been trying out Ipswitch WS_FTP Home 2006 which seems to drop it’s connection quite regularly, or it might actually be GoDaddy’s servers. Everytime WS_FTP drops the connection I need to wait 10 mins to log in again until the FTP session times out, very frustrating! I am also very unhappy about GoDaddy’s server only allowing 1 concurrent FTP session. I just spent 1 hour using a command line ftp interface to delete all of the directories that had been created by WS_FTP when before it dropped the connection, everytime I tried to delete with WS_FTP the connection dropped.

I kind of have a bit of a concern, have I been taken for a ride. I only looked at GoDaddy because of the support they were now getting from Todd Cochrane from Geek News Central was now saying good things about them. I know Todd has had issues with them over the last year so when he began saying good things about them and allowing them to sponsor his podcast I thought “cool they must be ok now”. The sign up process with them is very confusing and they continually try to trick users into adding things to their service that they really do not need.

I spoke to GoDaddy tech support about the drop outs and limits on connection sessions, to my surprise the issue is “with my ISP” and “there are no limits”. Hmmm.
Tried again to upload an 18kb php file.
Disconnected, looked at the log file:-

[-1,3/09/2005 4:51:39 PM,4]Starting request
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.000] TYPE A
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.218] 200 Type okay.
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.218] PASV
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.453] 227 Entering Passive Mode (yy,yy.yy.yy,136,232)
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.453] connecting data channel to yy.yy.yy.yy:136,232(35048)
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.671] data channel connected to 64.yy.yy.yy:136,232(35048)
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.671] STOR index.php
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:51:40.890] 150 Data connection accepted from ww.ww.ww.ww:3486; transfer starting.
[2,3/09/2005 4:51:40 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:51:40.890] Send Buffer size: 65535
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:41 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:41.406] Error result 80042003 reading response line
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:41 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:41.406] # transferred 18884 bytes in 60.516 seconds, 2.438 Kbps ( 312.052 Bps), transfer failed.
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:41 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:41.406] It appears that the connection is dead. Attempting reconnect…
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:41 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:41.406] Connecting to yy.yy.yy.yy:21
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:41 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:41.640] Connected to 64.yy.yy.yy:21 in 0.234375 seconds, Waiting for Server Response
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:43 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:43.859] 421 Sorry, there are already 3 users from ww.ww.ww.ww logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:43 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:43.859] Failed to receive response after connect
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:43 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:43.859] Host type (1): Automatic Detect
[2,3/09/2005 4:52:43 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:43.859] Reconnect failed. The connection is dead.
[-1,3/09/2005 4:52:48 PM,4]Starting request
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:48 PM,1]Finding Host ftp.—–.org …
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:48 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:48.609] Connecting to 64.yy.yy.yy:21
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:48 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:48.843] Connected to 64.yy.yy.yy:21 in 0.234375 seconds, Waiting for Server Response
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:51 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:51.062] 421 Sorry, there are already 3 users from ww.ww.ww.ww logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:51 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:51.062] Failed to receive response after connect
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:51 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:51.062] Host type (1): Automatic Detect
[-1,3/09/2005 4:52:55 PM,4]Starting request
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:55 PM,1]Finding Host ftp.—–.org …
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:55 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:55.609] Connecting to 64.yy.yy.yy:21
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:55 PM,1][2005.09.03 16:52:55.828] Connected to 64.yy.yy.yy:21 in 0.218750 seconds, Waiting for Server Response
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:58 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:58.062] 421 Sorry, there are already 3 users from ww.ww.ww.ww logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:58 PM,3][2005.09.03 16:52:58.062] Failed to receive response after connect
[0,3/09/2005 4:52:58 PM,0][2005.09.03 16:52:58.062] Host type (1): Automatic Detect
[-1,3/09/2005 4:52:58 PM,4]Transfer request completed with status: Failed, 1 SubItem(s) failed

Then tried a command line prompt:-

ftp> open ftp.——-.org
Connected to ——-.org.
421 Sorry, there are already 3 users from YYY.YYY.YYY.YYY logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.
Connection closed by remote host.

Hmmm, not fun.

Voting on HR Issues

I received an interesting email yesterday from Human Resources Magazine here in Australia about a new service that they are offering. They have setup a voting service (via BigPulse) that allows members to vote on HR topics, you can get to the service at www.hrvote.com.au.

Right now to top 3 issues for HR professionals in Australia are:-

  1. Attraction/retention
  2. Talent management/succession planning
  3. Organisational change and development

There are 1155 registered members and at this stage only 45 votes have been placed so we don’t have a really valid representation but it will be interesting to what what happens. You can follow the voting without being a member.

I would love to be able to get a little banner on my site with the top 5, kind of like a buzz for HR.

Technorati worthless?

There has been a lot of noise in recent weeks over the performance of Technorati compared to other similar tools.

The Blog Herald is now reporting that Jason Calacanis feels Technorati is worthless! Personally I think that is a big call but I do agree that the service is really lacking.

I have moved most of my searching to Feedster and Pubsub as I receive errors more often than not when using Technorati. this is a pity cause I really like the new interface that combines a whole heap of tagged content into one screen.