The RoboCup Soccer Simulator – The RoboCup Soccer Simulator is a research and educational tool for multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence. It enables for two teams of 11 simulated autonomous robotic players to play soccer (football).

Brain workshop – Brain Workshop is a Python implementation of the Dual N-Back mental exercise. This exercise is the only mental activity that has been scientifically shown to improve your short-term memory (working memory) and fluid intelligence.

View your mind – is a tool to generate and manipulate maps which show your thoughts. Such maps can help you to improve your creativity and effectivity. You can use them for time management, to organize tasks, to get an overview over complex contexts

Sweet Home 3D – Sweet Home 3D is an interior design Java application for quickly choosing and placing furniture on a house 2D plan drawn by the end-user, with a 3D preview.
What are the ones that you find interesting?

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is something that I talk about at a high level when I deliver social media training. Here is the long version of this story.

• Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd)

This license is the most restrictive, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

• Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

• Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

• Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd)

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

• Attribution Share Alike (by-sa)

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

• Attribution (by)

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.

There is a lot more to CC than these six categories. There is an organization called CreativeCommons.org, it’s a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

They provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

They are based in the U.S.A therefore it’s unclear if all their licensing rules apply globally.

There is another category called CCO that applies to your own work that you can waive your rights and make it completely available to the public without restriction to copyright and database law. This category applies to scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content.

We all need to earn a living, so who would be crazy enough to use these licenses?

The best known example of course is Flickr, they have incorporated these licensing into their offerings.

Wikipedia, Google and Open course ware. The most interesting one is a band called Nine Inch Nails, who released some of their songs for FREE as well as a limited tired step version of other products, services etc…This had an amazing effect whereby they had a sold out tour and sold their other products as well.

If you are thinking of incorporating CC into your business or otherwise, there are great guidelines on how to go about this. Since we are here in Canada, then how do we know if all this is relevant to the laws here. I am happy to say that we do indeed have a CC Canada.

Here’s the scoop….

Back in 2008 here’s what Google Maps did to celebrate.. Google did not feel like celebrating today : (

Design for global learning conference.

Some iPhone and iPad apps e.g. Lucktricity and Leprechaun Beer Pong

Of course a survey via social networks, see results.

There must be more, what have I missed?

I had explored Barack Obama’s web strategy which was very well implemented and executed.  The success of his campaign was not only due to his website but his social media strategy which made his team connect with people and share information.

Barack Obama had some tough challenges to face as a candidate, he was relatively unknown and inexperienced in the political scene.  So how were voters going to pay attention to him?

He thought grassroots and made sure he appealed to the individual by establishing a connection with them.

The three major goals of the campaign that the social media strategy was build upon were

• Fifty State Strategy
• Targeted the dissaffected center
• Focused on small donations

These goals were tied into the web strategy, new media strategy, traditional media and all three were interlinked very well.

Barack Obama had a presence on many social networks, this way he was able to reach a wide range of individuals that participate in these spaces.

A common look and feel was maintained in these spaces that tied in with the branding of his website.

Each site was updated with the latest on where Barack was going to be, what his platform was and updates from the campaign trail, this went a long way to engage and motivate potential voters.

Videos of off line activities were posted instantly to YouTube, Facebook etc.. and cross linked on all these sites as well as back to the Blog.

This gave potential voters in these spaces the opportunity to communicate their views, issues and their personal campaign stories.

The best part was that communication from the campaign team was maintained consistently and constantly during the election especially on the voting day.

The team was also very open and encouraged people to take the logos and customize them towards their own causes and promoted their causes.  This openmindness was also part of their viral success.

The call to action buttons to link back to the website, raise funds and vote were easily accessible through each of these networks.

Here are some brief stats and facts from some of these social spaces.

Custom MyBarackObama.com social network

2 million profiles, 200000 offline events planned on this site.  4000000 blog posts, 35000 volunteer groups, 70000 people raised $30million on their personal fundraising pages.

The official facebook page had over 3 million supporters hence one update was easily accessible by this group.  These people were also able to comment and give their feedback.

There were more than 500 groups and more than 300 applications.

Barack Obama channel with the latest videos from speeches, meetings, rallys etc.

148304 subscribers, 25024 friends,

1827 official videos, 139,000 related clips.  The Yes We Can music video was viewed more than 14 million times.

Photos from every possible campaign office etc…

7127 contacts, testimonials from around the world

Following 167849 and had about 162425 followers.

Here are some special Barack Obama and Obama or McCain tweets

1088437 friends.

Linked in is a social network for professionals.

He had 500 connections here.

Connect, connect, connect

Having friends, fans, connections etc… with people in these spaces Barack Obama was able to connect with over 5million people online.  Inspire them to raise funds and finally vote.

Through this mesh of social networks there were over 1billion emails sent, 7000 different messages targeted to specific audiences.

The basis of a good social media strategy is to use on line tools to make real-world connections between people. That is exactly what was achieved by Barack Obama’s campaign.

As a social media consultant I am very excited to see the future developments on barackobama.com.  For now Change.gov has been launched and it’s g0al is to get the people of the US to share their stories and goals.

If you want to share in the inauguration ride then check out TripVerde-Obama.

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This post only covered a few of the many social networks that Barack Obama had a presence.  Here are a few more to explore on your own.

Enjoy.

Tips for better security with WordPress

• Update to new release
• Use popular plugin
• Add this code to wp config
• Good password – has to be criptic, use shift key, different password for different sites, no personal info.. Check out Passwordone. Wytopia
• Use Subversion
• wp_specialchars()
• CSRF
• wp_nonce_field()

Great news, WordPress is getting more secure with each new release.

Walking in …….

Who’s that?…

Mathieu ….

Another day of great presentations and discussions.

I don’t have a clear answer as of yet and hope to find the answer by the end of this weekend.

Any thoughts on this?