education for the next decade

The company I work for, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, recently (ok, almost a month ago) launched the interactive website for the 2006-2016 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education. The map was developed in conjunction with Institute for the Future and examines the trends and impacts which are likely to affect education over the next decade. The content is very cool, but the technology behind the site is what really excites me.

The site utilizes ASP.NET, using C#, and SQL Server 2000 to serve as the foundation of the site. The front-end relies on a Flash movie and Flash Remoting to serve up everything in a very interactive way – think Google/Yahoo! maps. I am still amazed that we (with Barefoot’s help) were able to bring what started as a piece of paper to such a cool, usable, experience.

There’s a lot more to the back-end and if I understood Flash Remoting, I might get into it, but suffice it to say, this was very cool to watch from behind the scenes and I hope this can really help influence the future of education in our country – for the better.

bands you should be listening to

you may have heard of them, so this is your reminder. otherwise, what have you been waiting for?

• embassy – a columbus, oh band who just finished their first full-length album. it’s been a long time coming and i happen to be pretty good friends with them, so maybe i’m biased. they’ve had some coverage on mtv2 and maybe mtvu.
• the city drive – i saw them with firescape and they are one of my new favorite bands. they rock pretty hard in concert and you should check them out.
• firescape – as mentioned above. they’re not that new and one of them is a guitarist from something corporate. good piano rock music and they play a great acoustic set.
• sloan – also known as the greatest american rock band from canada. power-pop is their forte and they are spectacular. they’re about 10 or 11 albums deep at this point and may be one of, if not, the best band ever.

it’s a small world, sort of

my name is steve long – a guy named steve long (not me) wrote a book (Starfleet
Intelligence Handbook) with rick dakan some time ago – rick wrote a book g33k mafia (which incidentally is terrific) in which he mentions the weather underground – and that is also mentioned in the world is flat which i also just read. so…it’s not really that great of ‘6 degress of separation’, but it’s interesting to me at least. makes you wonder sometimes – doesn’t it?

new simpsons trailer!

I can’t freakin’ wait. found this via the movie blog

are you shure you can hear me?

I’ve been enjoying my new Shure E2C earphones today. Sound-isolating, check. Goofy-looking, check. Awesome – check (although, I’ve only used them a couple of hours so far, to be honest). I got a set of Grado SR-80s a few years ago from my brother, but they don’t travel very well, so I wanted something more compact. I’ve heard nothing but good things from people who do audio work professionally about Shure’s, so I hope they stand up to the test of time.

They came with a neat donut looking case that holds the earphones very nicely and also allows me to hang the cord out the side to leave my shuffle attached. There’s also a plethora of earbud attachments to create a snug fit, but I’m lazy and have just been using the ones that came installed.

I’m a blogging guy now

Even though I’m a web developer, I’m way too lazy to create my own site/portfolio. So…long story short, this will be my intarweb home for the time being. If you want to hear about things which have already been announced on the web – or boring things which happen to me during the typical day – this is the place to come. Oh, and in case you were wondering – that’s Cleveland in the header – not where I live, but where my heart (for sports teams) is.