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Here are two web mashups that I really enjoy using.

Google has teamed up with The Bus to offer Google Transit at http://google.com/transit or http://snurl/.com/gbushnl. This is an “official” mashup,  as TheBus is providing data directly to Google for use in this web app.

Type in your starting point and final destination, and choose the time that you’d like to catch a bus or arrive. Google uses TheBus’ actual scheduling data along with Google Maps to offer several routes, along with walking directions, bus numbers, timetables, and a cost calculation. I discussed this app on my old blog at http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman/2006_9_26

Of course, it would be handy to know if it’s raining at your destination. Try Weatherbonk! This link will open a window that combines real-time weather data around Honolulu with a  Google Map.
This last link has nothing to do with Honolulu, but it is a nice example of an web app I mentioned in class last week. Wayfaring allows users to plot a route on a Google map, and associate text and photos with that map. It’s a great way to show someone a running or bicycling route that you like.

It’s also an excellent way to see where Jack Bauer has been during Season 6 of 24.
 http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/28904

I was a DJ at two college radio stations, WCWM-FM and WPRK-FM, and I’m still interested in music that isn’t in the mainstream. More and more songs on my iPod are mashups – combinations of two or more recordings that sometimes sound completely different when they are mixed together. bootiesf.com is one site where I’ve found some good music machups.
We’re seeing more web mashups, or combinations of Web data into new and interesting formats. Google has provided API support for these applications for a couple of years, and now Yahoo is trying to play catch-up.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/web-apis-web-mashups-and-accessibility.html

I found several sites when I searched for “google maps pedometer”. These sites let users draw a path on a map, and the app provides an estimate of the distance. This could be handy for bikers and walkers, although I like to use the Nike+ iPod accessory.

FireTree combines Google Maps’ data and interface with NASA climate data to forecasts the effects of global warming. For example, this map shows areas of downtown Honolulu that might flood if the ocean level rises one meter. It’s not the most dramatic demonstration. Try adjusting the flood level and zooming out to get a better view, or scroll over to your own neighborhood.

The maps of Europe and North America are interesting, and the results are easier to see on a continental basis. The creator of this map admits that the NASA data he’s using isn’t that accurate. He can always rewrite his app to use better data sets when they’re available. Because these apps are hosted on web sites, it’s easy to deploy an update on a web server.
One app that doesn’t use maps is RoboCal, a Web service that speaks Google Calendar appointments to the user through Skype or a telephone.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6157508.html

Yahoo Pipes can be used to combine RSS feeds into new applications. For example, the RSS feed from my blog, which is available in several formats including e-mail at http://rss.billso.com/billsocom/, could be compared against several RSS news feeds to suggest related stories.

Security and privacy are two areas where web mashups have problems, as discussed in this New Scientist article. Users can’t be sure where their personal data is used or saved in a mashup app. Most mashup apps don’t use encryption or certificates, so users might be sure they are using a “real” Google Maps site, for example.

Today I activated the discussion forums in my TurnItIn.com sections. That’s a good place for students to meet online and discuss course topics. I can moderate the posts, but our TurnItIn.com sections use a service provided by the university and they require a valid login and password.

Students can access the discussion forums through the horizontal menu in our TurnItIn.com section’s portfolio page. That’s the page that appears when you click on the course’s name in the screen after login. Click on the link called “discussion”. A screenshot is shown below. Of course, the image doesn’t work, but it should help users find the right menu in TurnItIn.com.

But why use TurnItIn.com when billso.com has its own comments feature? It’s time I discussed this issue.

Last month, when I rebuilt billso.com as my new course blog, I wanted to deal with several issues, and a big one involved student privacy.

I wanted to make the site easy to find and use with almost any modern web browser, even if it’s on a PDA or phone. I mentioned this in http://billso.com/2007/01/23/mobile-device-support/

I have students who don’t have easy access to the Internet. As long as they can get e-mail, they can use the subscription page at http://rss.billso.com/billsocom to get an e-mail version of every blog post that I make to this web site. It won’t support changes to the dedicated IS 6100 and IS 7010 pages. For now, I’ll announce changes to those pages in blog postings.

I hate making things harder than they have to be, especially with my web sites. But I also have to protect my students’ data, including their grades and assignments.

FERPA stands for the Federal Educational Records Privacy Act of 1974. It’s a big issue at US universities, as the US Department of Education has reinterpreted this law several times.  Kansas State University has a great discussion of FERPA issues, but it’s meant for faculty and staff. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has a FERPA page for students.

FERPA is one reason why HPU student ID cards use their own numbering system, instead of Social Security numbers (SSNs). US universities are no longer allowed to use SSNs to identify students.

I decided not to store student information at billso.com. It’s too much of a risk, given FERPA’s requirements. I’ll post assignments and course information on this site, but I will never post a graded paper or a student’s marks on this site. 

While I do have access to my web server’s logs, it’s difficult to use these records to identify how an individual user worked with billso.com because there are no logins or passwords required for users of this site.

So I had to disable blog comments in billso.com. If I allow students to set up accounts on my blog, then they could identify themselves in a public forum through a userid or their own comments.

At some point, I wil develop a way to allow direct blog comments, perhaps in a moderated format so that I can delete comments before they go on the blog. But for this term, my focus was to get content posted for my students.

The university does offer an alternative to WebCT, the official course management system (CMS). That alternative is TurnItIn.com. It’s got an excellent gradebook, solid security, and some features that students seem to like once they try them.

TurnItIn.com is also hosted off-site, on the mainland. If anything happens to HPU’s servers, TurnItIn.com’s services should still be available. This was very helpful on October 15, after the Hawaii earthquake. For the record, I host billso.com on a server in a separate mainland facility.

As a follow-up to one of yesterday’s posts, BoingBoing reports that FON is offering 10,000 free WiFi routers to US residents. It’s not a mesh network scheme, but it is a free way to share WiFi.

The New York Times reports that a recent Chinese test of a space weapons system has left several hundred pieces of shrapnel in orbit. Unfortunately, the Chinese test happened at 530 miles above the earth’s surface. It’s likely that many of these pieces will never fall to earth.

This isn’t the worst accident in terms of space junk. According to Space.com, a US rocket exploded in orbit in 1996, spreading over 300,000 objects in the same orbit as the Hubble Space Telescope. Sections of the International Space Station (ISS) are armored to protect the station against very small orbiting objects.

But China’s recent test was irresponsible and may have long-lasting effects. It was the country’s first test of a space weapons system, which by itself is alarming. The explosion was a significant addition to to the field of orbiting debris that can disable current satellites and prevent the launch of new satellites. That’s a serious threat to the value chain of any company that depends on this data.

It’s unlikely that that some of these pieces will strike commercial communications satellites. It’s becoming more likely that a satellite will be damaged or destroyed as it launches through the debris field in the lower orbits, on its way to its permanent place in the sky. That includes weather satellites, GPS satellites, and other systems.
A 20-year old paint chip smaller than a punctuation mark in this blog almost blew out a window during an early Space Shuttle flight. The United States can track larger pieces of space junk, so that the Space Shuttle and ISS can avoid the objects before they strike, but the smaller objects are harder to track and almost as dangerous.