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Microsoft Takes SharePoint and Exchange Servers Online

3/3/2008

Microsoft has announced a new step forward for one of its Software as a Service (SaaS) initiatives, Microsoft Online Services, with online betas of Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Old Dominion Launches YouTube Channel

2/27/2008

Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA has expanded its educational outreach with the creation of an ODU YouTube channel. The channel hosts videos featuring various aspects of the university, including academics and faculty, campus life, distance learning, and athletics. Among the current videos featured are faculty spotlights, an ONFilm Festival promo, virtual tours of forthcoming athletic facilities, and a helicopter tour of the campus.

The Future of Web 2.0

2/27/2008

Web 2.0 is changing the landscape of higher education IT and the application of learning technologies. Washington State University's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology Director Gary Brown explains why he thinks we're moving from collaborative learning environments (CLEs) and ePortfolios, to personal learning environments (PLEs) and worldware.

Blogs and Streams From Sun's WWERC Annual Conference

2/26/2008

This week in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems is bringing together thought leaders in education from more than 30 countries for its annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference, this year themed, "The Power of Communities." Conference organizers are maximizing the reach of the conference through live broadcasts and blogs...

Canadian University Offers Students Ability To Highlight Lecture Videos

2/26/2008

Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada has deployed an online video portal that lets students view, index, annotate, remix, search, and share class lectures. Although the school has been offering streaming video for three years, the new portal, run on the Gotuit platform, implements more interactive features.

Adobe Releases AIR Runtime for the Desktop, Opens Flex

2/25/2008

In a move that will let Web developers use their existing skills to build rich Internet applications for the desktop, smart clients and browsers, Adobe Systems Monday released the first version of its widely anticipated AIR cross-operating system runtime, along with updates to its Flex framework for Windows and Mac OS X platforms.

Automated RBAC Java Security Tool Released

2/22/2008

McLean, VA-based Advanced Modeling Concepts recently released a Java security tool designed to help developers add security to existing Java applications. The product adds role-based access control (RBAC) security via a tool called AfterthoughtSoft-Secure.

Silverlight 2.0: The Wait Is Almost Over

2/21/2008

The first public beta of Silverlight 2.0 is expected from Microsoft in the next few weeks. By all accounts, those that have seen the private beta report that the features outlined by the General Manager of Microsoft's Developer Division, Scott Guthrie, in a November blog posting are pretty much on track.

Cataloging the Fire Hose: Tagging

2/20/2008

Web 1.0 allowed us to replace mental hyperlinks with digital hyperlinks. Now, Web 2.0 helps us tag knowledge objects on the fly as a kind of personalized -- and variable -- cataloging. As we look ahead, the semantic Web, or "Web 3.0," is emerging and semantic Web sites help us do the tagging.

Predicting the Fire Hose? A Sampling of Predictions

2/20/2008

Is there hope for surviving the fire hose of Web 2.0? Will we reach a tipping point in 2008 or 2009 where the creative burst will be balanced by organizing and managing technologies? It's the tech award and prediction season, so let's check out what's going on.

Free Internet Filtering Service Launches

2/20/2008

Free DNS service provider OpenDNS has launched its new, free Web filtering solution targeted toward education. The service taps into the expertise of IT professionals to create categories of Web sites that can be blocked by administrators with the click of a button (or two).

IBM Partners with UCLA, NC State on Web Development

2/14/2008

In an effort to promote expertise in Web 2.0 application development among the next generation of IT professionals, IBM has teamed up with two universities--University of California, Los Angeles and North Carolina State University--to provide support for academic programs teaching programming using open technologies like Groovy and Java in conjunction with Eclipse and Ruby on Rails. IBM also said it will be providing its previously announced Lotus Mashups software free to the academic community later this year.

Lotus Mashups To Be Free for Academics

2/14/2008

IBM announced Thursday that its commercial mashup software Lotus Mashups will be made free for academic users when it's released later this year. The move is part of the company's plan to expand its Academic Initiative in 2008.

Denodo Enhances Data Mashup Platform

2/14/2008

Denodo Technologies this week released the latest version of its flagship platform to create enterprise "data mashups." The Palo Alto, CA-based enterprise software maker is billing the release as "the industry's only unified data integration platform."

Google, Microsoft, IBM, VeriSign, Yahoo Join OpenID Board

2/12/2008

In a move that could help deliver single sign-on to the masses, Google, Microsoft, IBM, VeriSign and Yahoo have joined a consortium that backs a common federated identity specification. The vendors jointly announced their membership to the OpenID Foundation's board Feb. 7. The OpenID spec allows individuals to create one user name, password, and other credentials for logging onto multiple Web sites that support the spec.

Mount Mercy College Bolsters Executive Management with ERP Solution

2/12/2008

Iowa's Mount Mercy College has selected an integrated suite from SunGard as its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. In a recent statement, the campus said it will deploy SunGard's PowerCAMPUS Unified Digital Campus (UDC) to help it achieve its vision of becoming a university by 2015.

PASSHE Rolls Out Distance Learning System-wide

2/11/2008

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) will be extending its distance learning and online collaborative efforts across all 14 universities in its system. The initiative includes a contract with Wimba to deploy its Wimba Collaboration Suite system-wide for collaboration between students and faculty outside of traditional settings.

OpenDNS To Launch Free Web Filtering for Education

2/8/2008

Just what is "people-powered security?" It's how OpenDNS describes its forthcoming Web filtering solution targeted toward education. The service, set to launch later this month, taps into the expertise of IT professionals in schools (and in the private sector) to create a sort of reverse social tagging, blocking potentially dangerous sites based on users' experiences. Like all of OpenDNS' services, this new one is free, including support for deployment and integration in existing campus infrastructures.

Flash Ads Serving up Malware on Popular Sites

2/7/2008

Malicious Flash banner ads have been surfacing on major web sites including Expedia.com, Rhapsody.com and MayoClinic.com in the last month, according to media reports. Users who click on the banners, which advertise a digital music service, a student dating service, and disk cleaning software, are redirected to Web sites that proceed to install malware on their PCs.

JumpBox Brings PmWiki to Virtual Environments

2/7/2008

JumpBox this week released JumpBox for PmWiki, a bundled software tool that combines support for virtual computing environments with open-source wiki functionality.

Apache Synapse Bumped to Top Project Status

2/6/2008

The Apache Software Foundation Tuesday ratcheted up the project status of its open source Apache Synapse enterprise service bus (ESB) technology. The Foundation established Apache Synapse as a Top-Level Project, boosting it from subproject status under Apache Web Services.

Blog Editor Adds Tagging Support

2/6/2008

Red Sweater Software has released an update to MarsEdit, a blog editing tool for Mac OS X. The new 2.1.1 release, posted Monday, includes several enhancements to tagging posts, previewing content, and managing blog entry drafts.

Which Technologies Will Shape Education in 2008?

2/1/2008

Mobile broadband, collaborative Web technologies, and mashups will all significantly impact education over the next five years, along with "grassroots" video, collective intelligence, and "social operating systems." This according to a new report released this week by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, the 2008 Horizon Report.

Hyperic Enhances Its Web App Diagnostic Tool

2/1/2008

Hyperic is offering a new version of its open source management solution for large-scale hosted Web applications. Hyperic HQ 3.2 incorporates improved monitoring and reporting features. It also supports migration options for those using popular open source management solutions such as Nagios.

Microsoft Makes Case for Blockbuster Yahoo Deal

2/1/2008

Microsoft today has made a surprise bid to acquire Yahoo Inc. for a $44.6 billion, a 62 percent premium over the company's closing share price Thursday.