In April, I added my most important bookmarks to Beta 5 and installed the beta del.icio.us extension to get more organized. Everything worked great.

Firefox 3 RC1 wanted to install itself to my default Firefox folder, so I let it. It was smart enough to grab all of my settings from Beta 5. I figured there was some auto-importing involved, so I uninstalled the betas. There was a warning about keeping my settings in case I wanted to install Firefox again in the future, but I ignored it. I was a fool.

Everything was gone. I only had to re-add about 25 bookmarks, but in retrospect, I should have used the bookmark backup feature (Ctrl-Shift-B, Import and Backup). Stupid hindsight. On the bright side, re-installing the del.icio.us extension was a snap. Now I'm just waiting on a RC1 compatible Greasemonkey extension.

• Darren Rovell's SportsBiz: Headbands Help Boost NBA's Bottom Line - Sports Biz with Darren Rovell -
  05/17 22:38, 2008
  引述 :『I honestly couldn’t imagine many kids buying these, but because they are hot, I’ve now decided to come to work everyday now in a headband and a shooting sleeve.』

  (標籤: 20080518 nba sportsbusiness)

• YouTube Classic: '86 Boston Celtics' 'music video' - Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
  05/17 23:10, 2008
  引述 :『After much deliberation, I have decided that this 1986 Celtics' song entitled the "First Time Since '69" ranks just below the Hawks' "Nothing Can Stop Us" classic and the Lakers' "Just Say No To Drugs" anthem on the Greatest NBA Music Video of All-Time list.』

  (標籤: 20080518 nba video)

• Games to pay attention to: little things, for the win - Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
  05/17 23:12, 2008
  引述 :『I can't think of a single postseason victory in the Mike Brown era that saw the Cavs winning with James being double-teamed』

  (標籤: 20080518 nba)

• Deseret News | Time for a confession: I heart Kobe
  05/17 23:24, 2008
  引述 :『Why do so many people hate this man? He has excellent hygiene. Doesn't swear in public — much. Reportedly he's quick to pick up the lunch tab for teammates. He's polite, articulate and, yes, even humble.』

  (標籤: 20080518 nba)

• WNBA: On eve of 12th season, league is looking up | Philadelphia Inquirer | 05/16/2008
  05/18 00:11, 2008
  引述 :『Several years ago, when teams began falling by the wayside and attendance dropped, naysayers predicted the WNBA would soon join women's soccer and softball on the list of failed efforts.』

  (標籤: 20080518 wnba)

• WNBA.com:
  WNBA GMs Predict Los Angeles Sparks to Win Third WNBA Title in 2008 WNBA.com GM Survey
  05/18 00:14, 2008
  引述 :『WNBA general managers predict the Los Angeles Sparks to win their third WNBA title in franchise history during the 2008 season. Sparks center Lisa Leslie will win her league record fourth MVP, while teammate and first pick of the WNBA Draft Candace Parker will earn Rookie of the Year honors, according to respondents of the Sixth Annual WNBA.com GM Survey. 』

  (標籤: 20080518 wnba)

In one phrase: Building Engaging Learning Experiences through Instructional Design and E-Learning

I'm an instructional designer developing online learning, so that's primarily what I write about.

• Instructional Design: This is what I do all day, and I'm always trying to learn how to do it better.
• Higher Ed: The courses I create are graduate courses, so I'm interested in higher education.
• K-12 Education: The participants in those courses are mostly K-12 educators, so I'm interested in what's important to my audience too.
• Corporate E-Learning: Even though I'm in education, I know I can learn a lot from corporate e-learning. Besides, I'm employed by a for-profit company.
• Lifelong Learning: It didn't start out to be a goal for my blog, but I've discovered that these tools help my own lifelong learning. I write about my discoveries: what works, what doesn't, what I'm thinking.
• Technology: I write about technology, especially as it overlaps with any of the above areas.

On my Post Series and Recurring Themes page, I've collected some popular topics. This includes my liveblogged posts from the TCC 2008 conference and my series on instructional design careers. The top posts in the sidebar to the right are another great place to start reading.

If you want to learn more about me, check out my bio.

Talk to Me

One of the great things about blogging is how many wonderful people I have "met" and learned from through online connections. I don't want this to be one-way communication; I love the conversations. Please comment on any post if you would like to add to the conversation, disagree with what I wrote, or just ask a question. I read every comment, honest! In fact, you can start right now by commenting below this post.

Comment Policy

Fortunately, I have very few problems with comments here. I do delete spam comments and reserve the right to delete sales pitches. I don't like hard sells, so please don't use my blog for that. Vendors and businesses are welcome to comment if they contribute to the conversation.

You are welcome to respectfully disagree with anything I say; I won't delete or edit your comments. Some of the best discussions I've had here have resulted from differing opinions and perspectives. I don't have all the answers.

I do sometimes edit comments to fix broken links. Any other edits to comments will be clearly noted as my changes. (For example, I removed someone's email address and phone number from a comment because they requested it; he didn't realize it would be publicly visible.)

How To Comment

If you're the first one to comment on a post, you'll see "No Comments" at the bottom of a post. If the conversation has already started, you'll see how many comments there are. Click either "No Comments" or "[#] Comments" to open the comment form. If you are on the page for a specific post, rather than the main page for my blog, you'll already see the "Leave a Comment" form.

Enter your name, email address, and URL in the spaces provided. URL is optional, but if you have a blog, I'd love to have the address so I can learn more about you. That will be publicly visible. Your email address will be hidden to everyone but me. I promise not to share that email address with anyone. I may use it to let you know I've replied to your comment though.

If you're new to commenting, why don't you try it out at the bottom of this page and get some practice?

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If you like what you see here, consider a free subscription so you can receive automatic updates every time I post something new.

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• ESPN - One-and-dones have low academic requirements too - Men's College Basketball
  05/17 07:07, 2008
  引述 :『Maybe it's almost better if they didn't enroll at all, but I would also agree that having a student in college for a term or two is better than not at all,』
• NCAA panel recommends change in goaltending rule - NCAA Basketball - Yahoo! Sports
  05/17 07:08, 2008
  引述 :『An NCAA committee has recommended changing the goaltending rule so that a ball that is completely above the rim and has already hit the backboard could not be touched, regardless of whether it is on an upward or downward flight.』
• Big Apple could take big bite out of D'Antoni - NBA - Yahoo! Sports
  05/17 07:09, 2008
  引述 :『On his best day on the job, D’Antoni brings none of these elements to Madison Square Garden. Basketball doesn’t need to be fun in New York. It doesn’t need to be entertaining. Most of all, New York wants tough, relentless teams.』
• ESPN - When Chris Paul Plays Defense - TrueHoop By Henry Abbott
  05/17 07:09, 2008
  引述 :『CP3 is still not an MVP-caliber performer, due to his substantial negative impact on defense. Remember, during the 2007-2008 season, the Hornets gave up 6 more points per 100 possessions when he was on the court than when he was off, and this on-off differential on defense was by far the worst of any player on the team』
• ESPN - Pat Riley's Magical Defensive Statistics - TrueHoop By Henry Abbott
  05/17 07:10, 2008
  引述 :『They take, I think, 25 categories (closing out on shooters, sinking to help in the post, deflections, rotating correctly, deflections, etc.) and grade the players. They then combine that with more traditional defensive stats to get their "effort index,』
• Barkley Will Pay His $400K Gambling Debt - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog
  05/17 07:10, 2008
  引述 :『Charles Barkley acknowledged his $400,000 gambling debt to the Wynn Casino on Thursday, suggesting it was all a misunderstanding on his part:』
• Hoops Addict » NBA Mock Draft - May 2008
  05/17 07:12, 2008
  引述 :『1. Miami Heat- Michael Beasley 6′9″ Power Forward Kansas State 』
• SportingNews.com - The Sporting Blog - Deron's Twitter Feed Is Brilliant in Its Simplicity
  05/17 07:13, 2008
  引述 :『All that changed this morning, when a friend put me on to Deron Williams's Twitter lair.』
• MAIN - Welcome to EUROLEAGUE BASKETBALL
  05/17 07:13, 2008
• SLAM ONLINE | » 2008 Slam High School All-Americans
  05/17 07:14, 2008
  引述 :『Tyreke Evans, American Christian Academy, Aston, PA: A 6-5 combo guard from outside Philly who’s probably the best-known name on this list』

Please feel free to take a look.

The Firefox add-on Tags Everywhere uses del.icio.us and is very convenient when adding many new sites at once. I prefer using the Firefox browser outside of work. (There is no access to Firefox at work.)

Like other web 2.0 tools, del.icio.us bookmarks can be accessed from other places besides the del.icio.us website. I am using the del.icio.us application in Facebook and friends can access my bookmarks from my profile.   

I enjoy sharing bookmarks with friends and colleagues, too.  At the same time, I like the option to keep certain bookmarks private.

Recently I have set up several RSS feeds for different tags in del.icio.us.  I have found this to be a better way to keep tabs on a topic than by simply using the subscriptions feature.

http://www.contextfreeart.org (Generating images using grammar/rules)

http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/juce/ (C++ application framework for developing GUIs)

You can open any firefox bookmark using a simple keyword attached with it. The keyword needs to be stored as a property for the bookmark. This hack is pretty useful when trying to open long URL's.

For example, lets assume you wish to save www.technofriends.in into your bookmarks folder as one of the favorite item and would like www.technofriends.in to open up anytime you enter TF and press enter in your firefox browser tab/window.

1.) Drag and drop the link to the page www.technofriends.in into your Link toolbar or click on the menu link Bookmarks --> Organize Bookmarks.

2.) Click on the menu link File --> New Bookmark or select the icon which says " New Bookmark"

3.) Enter the details for the bookmark like " Name" for the name of the bookmark, " Location" stores the URL of the webpage you wish to bookmark, in our case, www.technofriends.in and " Keyword" for the keyword you wish to use, in our case "tf". Enter "Description" if you wish to.

4.) Click on OK and close the Organize Bookmarks window.

5.) Now open a new browser tab/ window and key in tf and hit enter in the browser. Keywords are case-insensitive. Entering TF or tf shall render the same results.

6.) www.technofriends.in opens up. You just finished setting up and testing the keyword hack for opening bookmarks in browsers. This hack is pretty useful when trying to open long URL's like banking websites login page, your wordpress.com dashboard page etc.

For already existing bookmarks, click on the properties tab of the bookmark and enter the keyword, save the details by clicking OK and you are done.

Also read: Some quick Firefox Tips and Tricks

Be the BOT: Fool websites by changing your Header

Do you store your passwords using Firefox?

How-To: Set multiple homepages in Firefox.

You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vaibhav1981

Do stay tuned to Technofriends for more, one of the best ways of doing so is by subscribing to our feeds. You can subscribe to Technofriends feed by clicking here.

Cheers

Vaibhav

Tickets Available For The Above Shows at
LasVegasBookmarks.com

The demise of Facebook?
In a short period of time, Facebook has established itself as one of the top social networks on the Internet, but this meteoric rise has hit a plateau. A self-implosion is inevitable if Facebook doesn’t act soon.

Good enough to eat
Here's a pic that's sure to get your mouth watering! A whole tray of delicious handmade chocs in a Milan confectioners, courtesy of Matt Mullenweg's photo gallery. Mmmmmm, chocolate (with Homer Simpson voice).

Field guide to testing Firefox 3
Although still in beta at the time of posting, Firefox 3 is chock full of new features that are reason enough to test-drive it now. This informative post from Lifehacker will help you make the transition to a better browsing experience. Thanks Gina!

We provide technology services to nonprofits in Michigan, ensuring that all organizations have access to the best technology resources and know-how and can apply these tools to help create healthy, vibrant, thriving communities

We talked for about 45 minutes. High level notes:

• Team up with Macatawa Media Center in Holland, they have a earn-a-laptop program (CARE) and would definitely be a good source of information

• Check out One Economy (I did, very interesting indeed)

• Make the Community Media Center in Grand Rapids a fiduciary parent

• Take a cue from the United Way, they work with many non-profit organizations, they are a good model

• Call NuSoft Solutions, they should be interested in teaming up in some way

• Engage college students with the project

• Work with job skill training centers

He was a great source of knowledge, and has been a very generous individual. He's also emailed be several reports, introduced me to Barb Pyle at Macatawa Media Center, and has been kind enough to allow me to write about him here in our blog.

Thank you for your contacts, advice and contributions Andy. I hope to talk to you again soon.