Category Archives: Tech Tips

Announcements, Tech Tips, Writing Tips

Tech Websites for Your Media Lit Review

NYTimes Bits Blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/

NYTimes Tech News http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/‎

Wired http://wired.com/

Slashdot http://slashdot.org/

Simply Statistics http://simplystatistics.org/

Tech Meetups in Maine http://technology.meetup.com/cities/us/me/

EnGadget http://www.engadget.com/

Digg http://digg.com

Mashable http://mashable.com

The Verge http://theverge.com

Ars Tecnnica http://arstechnica.com/

CNet http://www.cnet.com/

ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/

Readwrite http://readwrite.com/

Digital Trends http://www.digitaltrends.com/

DtPlus http://www.dtplus.in/

Pando Daily http://pando.com/

Hacker News http://hackernews.org/

Machine Happy http://machinehappy.com/

The Next Web http://thenextweb.com/#!snAsG

Tapscape http://www.tapscape.com/

GigaOM http://gigaom.com/

Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/

LifeHacker http://lifehacker.com

 

Links of Interest, Tech Tips

What Google has figured out about you?

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I have not been able to get around finishing this blogpost for a while but I had some free time today so here it is.

I was reading an article on The Verge couple weeks ago about internet privacy and algorithms. Readers were encouraged to visit their Google Ad profile to see how much Google had figured out about them based on everyday searches, locations and etc.

You can check how much Google knows about you by following this link. You have to be logged in with your Google account in order to view your profile.

Seeing how much Google knows about me really got me thinking about how advanced data collection algorithms can be; all this data can be used to try and figure out what we might need or want in the future. This is actually being done already. Google’s iPhone app offers routes (based on the time of the day), movies and even travel destinations.

We have talked a lot in class about how a single algorithm or system will never be able to run cities because they are so complex. But if the system can figure out what city needs in real time is it really that impossible?

Announcements, Tech Tips, Writing Tips

How to Write Your First Blog Post

Here are some tips for writing your first blog post:

  1. Learn the basics of adding posts here.
  2. Blog posts need titles. The title conveys the core argument or message of the post. Not too long or short; try to save yourself from the use of colons; and, most importantly, don’t just call it Post #1 or First Post.
  3. Tips for writing the content of the post can be found here.
  4. Make sure to categorize your post to fit the right assignment! You can find the categories to the right of the text box (Publish, Format, and then Categories).
  5. Click Publish.
Dataviz Tips, Tech Tips

What are Data Visualizations?

Data visualizations are visual representations of data, usually descriptive statistics. Dataviz, as they are often known, range from graphs to infographics, images to maps, social network analyses to scatterplots, and on and on. The .pdf below is a helpful 101 about how data visualizations work in terms of conveying and convincing. You will primarily be crafting spatial data visualizations, i.e. maps, in this course but it will be good for you to get a grasp on how data visualizations work more broadly.

[gview file=”http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-863940581-pdf/Data_Visualization_101_How_to_Design_Charts_and_Graphs.pdf”]