Learn By Doing

A Lifelong Learner Shares Thoughts About Education

  • Someone needs to sit you down and give you a good lecture:
    No extra credit, but if you’re a believer in lifelong learning, here’s some study material. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View has posted a treasure chest of videos from its lectures and events on YouTube. Here’s your chance to get Eric Schmidt’s perspective on tech leadership, or listen to computer pioneer Robert Kahn talk about the birth of Arpanet, or catch last week’s panel discussion on the impact of the Commodore 64.

    If that’s not enough, now you, too, can enjoy the lectures of an MIT
    cult favorite, 71-year-old physics professor Walter H. G. Lewin, who, according to the New York Times,
    delivers his lessons “with the panache of Julia Child bringing French
    cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest
    hits.” He has been known to swing on a giant pendulum, ride a fire-extinguisher-propelled tricycle, and shoot a cannon loaded with a golf ball at a stuffed monkey
    wearing a bulletproof vest. Lewin says that “what really counts is to
    make them love physics, to make them love science,” and now that some
    of his classes are available free on MIT’s OpenCourseWare,
    he’s able to spread the love much further. As a 62-year-old florist
    from San Diego wrote in fan mail, “I walk with a new spring in my step
    and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

    Powered by ScribeFire.

  • 24 ways: The Neverending (Background Image) Story
    The Neverending (Background Image) Story by Elliot Jay Stocks

    Everyone likes candy for Christmas, and there’s none better than eye candy. Well, that, and just more of the stuff. Today we’re going to combine both of those good points and look at how to create a beautiful background image that goes on and on… forever!

    Example of class work in 15 minutes. GREAT WORK!

    Example of Student Work for Neverending Image

  • First vehicle on the information superhighway was a rundown van: “A lot of people think the Internet just happened,” says Vint Cerf, one of its proud papas. “But it was a lot of hard work.” That’s why we need events like the one Wednesday at the Computer History Museum to mark the 30th anniversary of the first TCP-based transmission between three dissimilar networks — widely regarded as the first true Internet connection. Otherwise we’re in danger of losing historical nuggets like the story of SRI’s “Internet van.”

    In November 1977, the van, loaded with the latest technology (including two packet radios, each a cubic foot and costing about $50,000), started cruising up and down the Peninsula along Interstate 280, broadcasting data at 100 to 400 kilobits per second through multiple networks and on to the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute in Los Angeles. And to the delight and amazement of all concerned, after a half-second round trip, the data came through, intact. “I said, ‘Holy cow! That actually worked!’ ” Cerf recalls. After it served its purpose, the van sat neglected until someone from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers asked about it in 1996. Now it’s been restored, with much of the original technology intact, and sits parked outside the museum, to be remembered and admired. The van “represents what a Land Rover does in Africa,” said Cerf. “It helped us explore terrain that didn’t have any roads.”

     

  • 20+ Customer Management Tools
    20 Customer Management Tools
    November 7, 2007 — 12:48 AM PST — by Sean P. Aune

    After all the ways we’ve shown you how to set up a web business, now it’s time to actually manage all of your customers and clients. This list comprises 20 customer relations systems to help you provide everyone with better customer service.

    batchblue.com

    BatchBlue.com – Designed with small businesses in mind to keep track of customers, vendors and partners.

    bConnections.com – Focuses on small to medium sized businesses, allows collaboration of the sales force to share info.

    ConsideredSales.com – A goal and progress oriented customer management solution that tracks your customers through the entire sales process.

    CRMDesk.com – Offers a web-based, fully hosted solution for both small and large businesses.

    Entellium.com – Besides being a CRM solution, it also offers lesson on what exactly CRM can do for your business, and if they aren’t the right solution, they will suggest other companies.

    FreeCRM.com – Offers a small, hosted version of their software for companies just getting started, also has larger enterprise versions.

    Heap – Beyond just managing your customers, it can also automate the sales process telling you when it’s time to call the customer and follow up on information.

    helpspot.com

    HelpSpot – Made by UserScape, has a self service portal as well as an API for integration with your existing software.

    InsideSales.com – A CRM with built-in dialers so you can just click and call.

    MojoHelpDesk.com – Lets you keep track of customer issues with tickets and gives them a chance to give you feedback to see how you are doing.

    PushCRM.com – A CRM with the ability to pull up Google Maps so you can see just where your customer is if you need it.

    Queplix.com – Offers open source and enterprise versions, integrates with Google widgets.

    rb-apps.com

    RB-Apps.com – A customer management system that can be used as a stand-alone or integrated with other apps.

    Relationals.com – Offers two versions, can manage email and telemarketing campaigns as well as provide you with analytics.

    RightNow.com – Offers multiple customer management solutions from industry specific to automated self-service for the customers.

    SalesBoom.com – Includes hosting with the CRM and an accounting package.

    SalesForce.com – Automates your sales force as well as managing customers and partners.

    SalesJunction.com – Allows you to not only manage your customers, but manage email campaigns from it also.

    SfaFinity.com – Offers a range of deployment options and prides itself on ease of use and high customization.

    SugarCRM.com – Highly customizable CRM with AJAX functionality.

    Zoho CRM – Features an Outlook plugin and sales inventory management.

  • A sampling from a new collection of words and phrases from around the world for which English has no direct counterpart (e.g. Pesamenteiro
    — Portuguese: one who joins groups of mourners at the home of a dead
    person, apparently to offer condolences but in reality is just there
    for the refreshments, and Poronkusema — Finnish: the distance equal to how far a reindeer can travel without a comfort break.)

    Powered by ScribeFire.