The web may be smart, but it’s also rather dumb! Like most bloggers I enjoy checking my stats. This blog is quite popular, and I am intrigued to learn whom is linking to eContent (this blog). Within the last several days these two blog posts have been picked up and linked by Google Trends and IBM ManyEyes:

• Mea Culpa: Indian Institute of Technology Courses
  (and)
• Data Visualization Tutorial: IBM Many Eyes

In the instance of the IBM Link, a real IBM employee saw my Northstar Nerd Tutorial on data visualization and thought it was well done (thank you). In the case of Google Trends, an intelligent (??) bot discovered my Indian Institute of Technology post because of the words Mea and India … and linked me on the Mea India page … uh … thanks also! I’ve been enjoying the referrals from both locations. Click upon either image for an expanded screenshot. As a post script, my post title is shamelessly playing upon how these bots work!

Some of you may have read my post back in May which had the title:

• Minnebar 2008: Geeks 1 Minnesota Fishing Opener 0

This post reviewed the concept of BarCamps and UnConferences. While you might not consider Minnesota a hot bed of technology (too cold up here!), our BarCamps get better attendance than even the Silicon Valley events.

Why should you care? Who cares what’s happening up in Frostbite Falls? The answer is simple, if you are trying to understand and keep pace with the changing pulse of the web … BarCamps are where it’s at.

Our latest effort will have a BarCamp focused around public radio. Thus, from the state that brings you Prarie Home Companion, our version of public radio moves to the forefront even further. I bring you Public Radio BarCamp.

You may also enjoy watching Googlezon. Thus, I invite you to pretend It’s 2014, and GoogleZon rules media, and the net. Take a trip back in time, and watch this Flash video.  It will take you on a tour of media, and the net, from it’s inception in 1989, right up to present day in the year 2014!

Late last week I posted that I was intrigued with a new IBM social networking application, Many Eyes. The field of data visualization is interesting, and the idea that one may share and visualize data sets via a social network appealed to me … so I created a tutorial. Now you may share my curiosity, and visualizations (or create your own).

• Northstar Nerd Tutorial: Data Visualization via IBM's Many Eyes
  • Tutorial Examples: DataSet | Visualization | Create Your Own
    (graduate engineering student enrollment trends)

… and more Many Eyes Links:

• IBM "Many Eyes" Tool – IBM AlphaWorks Web 2.0 visualization web site
• Many Eyes Innovation Podcast – Science and Technology Podcasts

Link back to my earlier post for engineering data visualization lecture links from Duke.

(Update on Oct. 27, 2008 … See Microsoft's new visualization tool, DataDepot)

Last Summer Second Life was all the rage in the popular media. In fact, one of the most linked (and found) pages on this blog are the Second Life Tutorials (more SL posts). However, as much as SL gathered media attention, the bigger interest for most of us was the discipline of engineering simulation and data visualization. While conducting some research recently, I became aware of an excellent visualization seminar series from Duke University. Like most research … one link led to another … which led to another, etc. Thus, here are the fruits of my labor with brief descriptions as to why each link is worth a click:

• Duke University Friday Forum – visualization engineering seminar series
  (and)
• IBM "Many Eyes" Tool – IBM AlphaWorks Web 2.0 visualization web site
• Georgia Tech Visualization Tutorials - learn by doing!
• Many Eyes Innovation Podcast – Science and Technology Podcasts
• Visualization Wikipedia Article

The Duke University Forum, and many of the other links have been added to the Engineering Learning Wiki. Please see these updated wiki sections:

• Software Engineering Learning
• Blogs and Pods

Update on June 23, 2008: I've now created my own Many Eyes Tutorial

Update on Oct. 27, 2008 … See Microsoft's new visualization tool, DataDepot

In my second blast to the past, I revisit one of my favorite social networking posts which is indicative of the explosive growth of social networks. I have personally worked on some neat social networking projects (Web 2.0 posts), but last Fall I was amazed to learn via the MIT Technology Review that dogs had joined the revolution. Here is an excerpt from that post:

Dog Tags for Virtual Sniffing: Believe it or not, dogs wearing a tag from Snif Labs, exchange ID codes when they meet.  When their owners get home, they can then download the data and learn information about the dogs, and the owner! View a Snif Labs Animated Demo.

Spot (my dog – already a techie) … meet Rover! In addition, in the spirit of this post, anyone who emails me a digital photo of their dog, I will post that photo here!