About Brandon

I consider myself a geek for hire. I am not a nerd. I am a geek because I fix, understand and create cool stuff not understand and collect cool stuff. I am an advocate of Free and Open Source Software. I love testing software. And I really enjoy helping others with their technology. Thanks for stopping by!

Barcamp Jonesboro 2010

Posted on 2010/07/21 by Brandon

I will be attending Barcamp Jonesboro 2010! I am very excited to participate in the many discussions about the web and social media.

What is Barcamp?

A BarCamp is an “unconference” – an open, participatory event where the attendees are the presenters. The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, Ca., in 2005. Since then more than 350 cities on six continents have hosted BarCamps. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, open-source technologies, and open data formats; but the format has been adapted to serve a variety of other industries and issues, including public transit, health care, real estate and political organizing.

If you are in the Jonesboro Arkansas area get registered and I will see you there!

Why tabs are on top in Firefox 4

Posted on 2010/07/04 by Brandon

In the Firefox 4 nightly builds, and in Firefox 4 Beta 1, we are changing the default tab position so that tabs are on top. This is a preference that users can change by right clicking on any of their toolbars. Moving the default tab position is obviously a significant and to some extent controversial change to the Firefox UI, which is why we made the video above to help explain our rationale.

Contributors who are active in the Mozilla community will know that this debate literally goes back for years. So in some respects this video will serve as quick summary of all of the different arguments both for an against the change. But the more interesting part isn’t about looking back, it’s about looking forward. Recently modern browsers have been transitioning to placing tops on top, and that decision isn’t arbitrary, it isn’t about fashion. The change to placing tabs on top isn’t about one browser versus another browser, it’s about the evolution of the Web as a platform. Read the rest at Alex Faaborg’s Blog.

Red Apple Inn located in Heber Springs Arkansas

Posted on 2010/06/18 by Brandon

I enjoyed my stay here during our Superintendent’s Retreat. The inn has free WiFi, nice rooms, beautiful scenery, and a golf course.
Red Apple Inn website is here.

The Future of News

Posted on 2010/05/16 by Brandon

A discussion of the future of news with Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, Steve Coll of the New America Foundation (ex of the Washington Post) and John Sturm of the Newspaper Association of America:

Read the full story on the BuzzMachine

This is Bullshit. (Lecture by Jeff Jarvis)

Posted on 2010/04/22 by Brandon

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine gave a lecture about how lectures are outmoded forms on education and news. Listening to his talk I remembered being in Junior High School feeling like I was getting the cookie cutter education that Jeff talks about in this video.

I like when he pointed out that in this age of information at our fingertips, learning memorisation is a waste. I believe Jeff is correct. If you can find the facts and conduct research on your own doesn’t that show you have truly learned something? Jeff also talks about how standardized tests are not needed. I will never forget the day when we stopped reading literary works in twelfth grade literature class to get ready for the test coming up at the end of the year. I often wonder what great stories I could have read.