I just attended a private meeting with a number of engineering training managers from large Fortune 500 companies. One of our laments was the fact that there are not any independent vendors who teach live scientific computing classes via the web (Labview, MatLab, ProE, etc). While most vendors teach their own virtual courses, unlike for advanced I.T. software topics, vendors have not come to the forefront to fill this niche.

With that though in mind, I invite you to review and subscribe to a very new education focused blog from Scientific Computing World Magazine. Although the blog is only a month old, and is still in the stages of defining itself … it could become a valuable virtual presence (after my blog, of course!!)

• Scientific Computing Education Blog

I decided I had to take the plunge and post a video to YouTube.  Years ago I attended a presentation by Guy Kawasaki during the early days of the net.  He challenged his audience … if you’ve never sold on eBay, how can you claim to understand eBusiness? At the time I went home, accepted Guy’s challenge, and sold two lots of accordion music for over $100!

Anyhow, I decided that if I wanted to truly understand YouTube (the social phenomenon), I needed to post a video … and see what happens. My video is a satire of box opening videos. Here is the YouTube link. If I learn anything of interest, I’ll update this post, and point back to it in the future.

• Rapala Box Opening Video
• Date Posted on YouTube: April 27
• Views as of July 26: 851
• One Five Star Rating
• Two Comments
• Now listed on first page of "Rapala" YouTube search results

As a fyi, watching my video via my earlier post will not drive up my YouTube stats.  My blog hosts a higher quality Flash version, which links directly from Typepad.
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There has been quite a bit of buzz about a screencast tutorial which teaches RSS concepts. Even if you understand and use RSS, you have to watch RSS in Plain English. The developers have taken a difficult concept, and explained it without the use of any computer screenshots, such that the non technical computer user will understand the concept … and just an importantly, who one should use RSS.

If you work for a training department, you must watch this video.  It demonstrates how one can simplify difficult ideas. I look forward to more tutorials from Commoncraft.

IBM announced today that their mainframes will now have a gaming chip. This has very interesting implications from the vantage point of simulations and virtual realities. Dr. Dobbs Software Journal has a good analysis of IBM’s announcement:

• PlayStation Meets Mainframe (In Second Life?)

You think I’m nuts?! Believe it or not, there is a new trend on the internet … box opening videos. The idea is that when you receive something cool, you have a friend video your experience as you "open the box"! Thus, I bring you two examples … one from c|Net (techie examples)… and one from me!

• The Northstar Nerd’s Rapala Box Opening Video
  (may take a moment to load … 2 minutes 45 seconds in length)

My thanks to my camera man … my son, Erik, who helped me create this satire. Finally, see my updated post which turns this video into a YouTube test.