I’ve been getting RSS feeds from WebbAlert for about two weeks now. WebbAlert is Morgan Webb’s website and daily videocast, covering the day’s developments in tech news, video gaming, gadgetry, and digital culture. It’s engineered to keep tech-interested people current on the news and trends that move the industry with a small investment of just a few minutes per day. She does a great job of delivering tech news in a small, highly entertaining videocast. Here is one of her funny episodes.This particular episode doesn’t represent what she covers in a normal day. Morgan produces these, “viral videos,” once a week, and they are often more laid back and full of hilarious clips of the week than here daily videocasts.

Take note of the Facebook Off trailer by CollegeHumor.

Highlights from Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University. Draw your own conclusions.

During a question-and-answer session, Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared tense and unsmiling, in contrast to more relaxed interviews and appearances earlier in the day. In response to one audience question, Mr. Ahmadinejad denied he was questioning the existence of the Holocaust: “Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?”

But then he said he was defending the rights of European scholars, an apparent reference to a small number who have been prosecuted under national laws for denying or minimizing the Holocaust. “There’s nothing known as absolute,” he said.

He reiterated his desire to visit Ground Zero to express sympathy with the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, but then appeared to question whether al Qaeda was responsible. “Why did this happen? What caused it? What conditions led to it?” he said. “Who truly was involved? Who was really involved and put it all together?”

Asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said the judiciary system executed violent criminals and high-level drug dealers, comparing them to microbes eliminated through medical treatment. Pressed specifically about punishment of homosexuals, he said: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: “In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

Thanks to the online Wall Street Journal I was able to get access to the transcript of this panel very quickly after it was done. There is no comparison in the resources and functionality that WSJ Online brings to the news industry. WSJ Online offers a very resourceful video center that has a great user-interface. With the evolution of Web 2.0, Dow Jows is making big strides to keep up.

“The most highly-respected newspaper in the country.”

After doing a little bit of searching, I found IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s employee blogging policy. All three of the companies had similar guidelines. Employee’s are required to identify themselves and their position in their company. They cannot break the news on any events or release confidential information about partners, suppliers, or third-party entities. IBM, Yahoo, and Microsoft require employees to respect others and most importantly speak for yourself. Yahoo and IBM enforce disclaimer rules. Employees must include a disclaimer in all of their posts stating that their individual views do not represent the companies.

Yahoo specifically has a portion in their blogging guidelines about the press and media.

Press Inquiries
1. Blog postings may generate media coverage. If a member of the media contacts you about a Yahoo!-related blog posting or requests Yahoo! information of any kind, contact PR (pr-corp@yahoo-inc.com or 415-318-4120) You should also reach out for PR for clarification on whether specific information has been publicly disclosed before you blog about it.

IBM doesn’t want their employee’s bickering with other bloggers.

Don’t pick fights. When you see misrepresentations made about IBM in the media, by analysts or by other bloggers, you may certainly use your blog — or join someone else’s — to point that out. Always do so with respect and with the facts. Also, if you speak about a competitor, you must make sure that what you say is factual and that it does not disparage the competitor. You should avoid arguments. Brawls may earn traffic, but nobody wins in the end. Don’t try to settle scores or goad competitors or others into inflammatory debates. Here and in other areas of public discussion, make sure that what you are saying is factually correct.

I found all three of these guidelines were posted on employee blogs. After digging more into the Microsoft blogging policy, I found out that for quite awhile Microsoft didn’t really have any set rules or guidelines for blogging. It wasn’t until 2005 that Microsoft created a semi-informal policy. On the blog that I found the IBM policy, some other bloggers commented and made some recommendations to make the policy better. Blogger security was one of the reoccurring issues.

One thing I might suggest improving is the emphasis on avoiding personal, especially family, details. Identity theft, phishing, stalking, pervert predators, etc. make the revelation of private data more risky than it’s portrayed here.

Posted by vasper on May 17 2005, 06:55:00 PM EDT

From what I have gathered, here is my own version of blogging policies for the corporate world.

1. Identity your name and your position in the company.
2. Pay dues to discloser agreements.
3. Protect the interests of your suppliers, customers, partners and most importantly employer.
4. Don’t put any personal information on blogs.
5. Use company disclaimers to avoid misrepresentation and PR issues.
6. Don’t allow blogging to interfere with commitments at work.

The type of information presented by Pallimed is knowledge that would be beneficial to surgeons written by surgeons who know their profession. There are discussions about different techniques, medicines available, treatments available and general surgical procedures focused on cancer. The terminology used by the surgeons is in a professional tone intended for fellow professionals to understand. There is no personal information included, however the tone is the writing is casual, as if to suggest nothing is out of the day-to-day routine for the author. The style of the blog is professional, but easy to comprehend and informational. The tags that are included link to similar articles within the website itself that deal with with similar topics.

The cosmetic surgery blog on Blogspot.com is written by a cosmetic surgeon, but is not a professional blog. It is more of a commentary type blog that focuses on plastic surgery. There are many links included to in depth articles written by authors (not plastic surgeons), and usually after each link listed, Dr. Sali comments on the subject. Popular topics for discussion are pop culture figures, well-known people and celebrities. The tone is very casual, but an attempt is made to make it seem as credible as possible. The implication suggests that the readers can read about topics within the field of cosmetic surgery written by a credible professional within the field.

The intended audiences of the blogs vary, Pallimed is written for professionals and Cosmetic Surgery (blog) is written for the average person. Pallimed’s language is rich in medical terms and Dr. Sali’s is rich in celebrity gossip and descriptions. The intentions of their blogs vary greatly as do their professions.

Three days ago, I woke up with a sore throat. I bought some Halls cough drops thinking that I’d be better in a couple days. I was so wrong. Last night I had a restless sleep. I woke up multiple times in a cold sweat and with a high fever. Early this morning I managed to get myself to the University Health Services clinic at Ritenour. I spent most of my morning and afternoon there. The Doctor decided to give me a Strep and Mono test. Both tests turned out negative, but I was still prescribed some antibiotics.

I feel a little better now, and I just wanted to take some time to explain why I was MIA yesterday. Hopefully, I’ll be well enough to make it to class tomorrow.

Thanks to online medical databases such as WebMD, I was able to find this diagram that portrays my illness:

Soon there will be no need for real doctors.

For the blogging evaluation, I went to Vox. After doing some random tag searching, I came across Colbalt_Blue’s Blog. The author of the blog is James Naismith. Other than his name, general location, and interests, James does not list any personal information. I found this information on his About Me page:

Currently living in SF. He likes it quite a bit, he enjoys the sense of anonomimity, the feeling of being an outsider yet, an insider at the same time. Sometimes though, he wishes he could leave almost all of it behind in a cloud of dust trailing behind the beat to shit jeep painted powder blue. From there he would travel most of the country, but never forgetting his true love - the american west. All the way from the Rocky Mountains and back to the Nevada Desert. He would take pictures. Lots.On black and white film. He would count miles on backroads by how many beers could be consumed between point A. and point B.Occasionally stopping along the way to blast a wild hog or two with an antiquated bolt action rifle that has the bluing rubbed off in all the appropriate places. He would visit the smallest towns, the ones that don’t even have schools and count dogs as members of the population as posted on the highway sign. He’d listen to people talk, and follow them about on their daily lives, have potluck dinner with near strangers at the trailer outside of town surrounded with early november snow. Laughter and cheap whiskey would run quite freely. He’d get to know the cowboy in west Texas, the one that kicked out his headlights in a drunken fight with his girlfriend and drove home by flashlight. The young waitress at the Waffle House in Amarillo. The anarchist who travels through the west coast by train hopping. All the while photographing it. Perhaps he’d learn something important about life that way. He would stop and camp in the evenings watching the trillions of stars make their way across the sky. Of course he would eventually tire of this life that had little structure and move back to SF. Downtown this time, and hopefully in an apartment that has a good view of the bay and chinatown. A suitable 2 bedroom of course, with plenty of room for darkroom and enlarger. In the late evenings he would sit in the big leather chair that his grandfather witnessed the Kennedy assasination in, which faced the bay window that overlooked the bay and chinatown and spent hours staring into the fog. Just staring.

James’s posts range from small one-liners to analysis of News videos that he embeds from Youtube. He posts pictures from places that he has been to. One of the more interesting black and white photos was from a protest that took place in San Fransisco just as war in Iraq broke out in 2003. He caught this image of two gangster looking guys that seemed indifferent to the protest that was going on around them. James was arrested shortly after by the police.

Jame’s uses his blog to post images, videos, and comments about his life. He tags all of his entries and archives all of his posts that range back to 2006. He has posted more than 300 times. His interests include skiing, film production, photography, fine art, cooking, hiking, hunting, etc. James has posted everyday for the past year.

This is the 2006-2007 teaser for the the Armada pro ski team.

Armada is a ski company created by a group of pro skiers who wanted to revolutionize freestyle skiing. They officially tied the knot in 2002 as a business and have been leading the ski industry in design and innovation ever since. Unlike other ski companies, Armada is athlete owned and driven.

They have a whole entire of skis especially developed for certain skiing environments and conditions. Whether you like surfing on pow in the backcountry or stomping rails in the park, Armada has a ski for you.

If anyone skis or would like to ski in the future, go Armada.

Armada uses information technology to promote their products and generate interest and hype in their skiing team. They have a very well-designed flash site that includes an online store and pro, amateur, and regional rider biographies. The interesting thing; the founding members of the company design and code the website. They serve as their own internal IT department.

I was still in elementary school. It was near the end of the school year and a couple weeks before the school’s Jazz band had to give a concert. I played the tenor saxophone and was really good friends with these two girls (Ella and Kathy) that were also in the band. Here is how my story plays out: Two girls like the same guy; He only likes one of them, and in the end makes both really upset. I’m sure everyone has heard this kind of story. What makes the story interesting and relates it to my Internet past is the fact that all of the drama occurred through AOL’s Instant Message program. It was a fight every night to commandeer the phone line for hours at a time to talk to my classmates after school. This especially got nasty when my brother discovered the joys of instant messaging a couple years after I did. During 6th grade AOL IM was my alter ego if not my second life. I would spend multiple hours each night free from the restrictions of communicating face to face. I was really shy and had some trouble talking to girls. It was easy for me to be someone else on AOL. I had more confidence in the safety of my own home. Conversation boxes would fill the entire screen on my computer monitor. How I kept so many concurrent conversations is still unbelievable to me to this day. Every night I talked to these two girls in my jazz band. Our discussions ranged from the simple, “wats up?” to in-depth discourses on the meaning of life (Yes, I seriously talked about the point of my existence in 6th grade). I eventually started to have feelings for Kathy, and one night, while chatting online, I decided to exclaim my feelings for her and ask her to be my Girlfriend. Ella got really angry, because it turned out that she had feelings for me, too. After a few intensely emotional messages from Ella, she signed off without warning. Soon after, I ripped my own modem cord out of the wall. Guilt hit me in the side of the face. I had never made anyone that upset through instant messaging to this day.