Electronic Communication

A discussion of the underpinnings of electronic communication, focusing primarily on email at RIT. We’ll look at your various email options, the RIT LDAP directory, and the IT department FirstClass conferencing system.

We’ll also have a brief discussion about other kinds of what’s being called “social software,” including weblogs, wikis, and other interactive environments.

In-Class Exercise: Communication

Today’s in-class exercise is being distributed in printed form. If you need a copy, please contact me directly.

Readings on Electronic Communication

• Pages 1-6 of the Unix book
• How Email Works - General introduction to e-mail mechanics.
• What is Social Software - An overview of various “social software” tools, from mailing lists to weblogs to wikis.
• Matt Webb’s “Slices of the Ongoing Conversation on Social Software” and “More Ramblings on Social Software“

Related Readings: Communication

• Michael Fraase claims that “RSS will replace email as Internet publishing medium.”
• Adam Curry also argues that RSS should replace current SMTP-based email, in “Email is Dead, Long Live Email.”
• Jon Udell of InfoWorld refutes some of these arguments in “E-mail’s special power.”
• Clay Shirky’s follow-up to Udell’s column.

Ernest Adams Talk on Friday

Oh no! A conflict with the BMG speaker! Despite my interest in the copyright issue, I’ll probably end up going to this talk, instead.

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This Friday (Sept 19th) from 10-12am in the auditorium Ernest Adams will be giving a lecture entitled ‘Bad Game Designer - No Twinkie’. This is through the honors program, but all are welcome to attend. There should be posters and such going out later today. He is coming all the way from England (by way of U of Toronto) so lets make him feel welcome!

Response: That’s great - but who is Ernest Adams ?

Funny you should ask! He…

• was the Designer and A/V Producer for Electronic Arts responsible for the John Madden Football series among several other titles
• was the Lead designer for John Madden Football for 3DO
• is the co-author of Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design
• is the Founder and President of the International Game Developer’s Association
• is the author of DesignersNotebook.com, which regularly features articles in Game Developer Magazine (and about a million other publications and credits - look at www.designersnotebook.com for a full resume)

About the talk itself:
Abstract: Based on my popular “Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!” columns, this is a lighthearted look at some common design errors in both current and older games. I divide them into bad conceptual design, bad game mechanics, bad user interface design, bad programming, bad level design, and bad content – and I include examples of games that contain these problems.

Verisign and DNS

Once you understand how DNS works, you can understand the the importance of changes just made to DNS operation by Verisign (here’s a /. article on the subject), and the humor of today’s UserFriendly cartoon.

Update, 4:24pm
Joey DeVilla (the “accordion guy” whose photo I showed you in Friendster) has an excellent blog entry describing the issues associated with this change.

CBS MarketWatch on Social Software

Again, the news provides me with a nice follow-up to class discussions.

From today’s CBS MarketWatch, “Friendster gets close to Benchmark: The next new thing in Silicon Valley is social networking.”