View the ZipLecture.com how-to demo (part 2) here

View the ZipLecture.com how-to demo (part 1) here

we have received many feedbacks among our alpha launch users. In general they like the idea of associating digg approaches to the training video. some mentioned they can use this site as a repository for finding interesting training topics, or store training video for personal use later.

Many expressed interests on the features we plan to release in the near future, especially the buddy group features. they like to be linked to persons who have similar mind-set. Some asked to add a feature to resume viewing a training from where they left over. this feature is actually high on our wish list and will be linked to the personalize page in our next release. we will also allow users to add notes to the training just like they would be able to do in a real classroom.

there are also some feedback on better catogorizing topics and use of tags in conjunction with the category and users to create a better search experience. we will definately consider this in our next milestone.

we thank our alpha users for participating in the launch and would appreciate users of our site to continue provide feedbacks to us.

This year the microsoft tech-ed will again be held in orlando, FL, from 6/3/08 - 6/6/08. ZipLecture.com will have representatives attend the conference. Please see the following link for more detail:

http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2008/developer/default.mspx

There are 16 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed 2008 Developers that span more than 600 learning opportunities. The tracks are designed as a navigational tool to assist you in finding the sessions or labs best suited to your needs.

The Session Scheduler (launching April 2008) can be utilized to help map out your personalized schedule which can include content across tracks from Breakout Sessions and Hands-on Labs to Interactive Theaters. Below is a list of the tracks. Check back soon for the track descriptions.

This week we launched the ziplecture.com alpha. The goal is to have a group of invited users use and test the site, experience the lectures offered and provide feedback. we are working on integrating these feedbacks along with enhancement. it’s like an infant right now but we will definately grow. so please stay tuned. we will be glad to hear any suggestions on how to make the portal more useful to users.

tagging is also called fulksonomy. according to wiki, fulksonomy is:

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Folksonomy (also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. In contrast to traditional subject indexing, metadata is generated not only by experts but also by creators and consumers of the content. Usually, freely chosen keyword are used instead of a controlled vocabulary. Folksonomy is modeled after the word taxonomy, hence a folksonomy is a user generated taxonomy.

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Now, when i view it, the taxonomy is usually used by site owner or publisher for categorical purpose, while folksonomy is how the viewers view the site. users add a set of tags to a content as they feel fit, and when the user base grows and more people are participating on tagging contents, these are tremendous information that not only will help users find contents they want quick, but also, these informaiton can serve as a connecting points among viewers to find like minded persons who you can interact with more and to mutually benefit each other.

the other day i visited Amazon.com. i have not visited the site for some time so i was just browsing through it. I quickly noticed that amazon actually make good recommendation on some products based on your previous browsing and shopping experience. the recommendation are quite useful to me and i was able to follow the suggested links and get what i wanted.

this brings out a popular question: can a web portal be more intelligent than just serving contents to users? my answer is yes and i am a firm believer of that. i remembered many years ago when the .com hypes were high, i went to a personalization summit in san francisco. i did not remember much of what happened in that conference (other than over 50% companies presented in the conference were out of biz now), but i do remembered a presentation by a speaker who he talked about finding soul mate - imaging you were asked to pick 6 movies of your interest. if you can find someone who picks exactly the same movies as you did (or something similar), the chance is very good that whatever the movie he or she picks, you may also be interested in viewing. and vice versa. this is a quite simple example of intelligence in predicting what users want and present them with the results.

this is something we at ziplecture wants to do. once we grow our user base, there will be a rich set of information we can use to build a prediction model that will link users of the same interests, find people who might help you to solve your question, provide recommended reads and training lectures to users, etc.

the next VSLive conference will be held in Orlando FL from may 12-16, 2008. this is a great event for visual studio .net developers. the conference link is:

 http://vslive.com/2008/orlando/

Conference Agenda

	WORKSHOP
9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m	VPR1WPF and Silverlight: A Pragmatic Introduction	VPR2Windows Workflow: A Gentle Introduction	VPR3Making the Tough Choices: Selecting the Right Techniques

	.NET DAY
8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.	Keynote: Visual Studio 2008 - Jay Roxe
	ALM and Development Process	Tools and Languages	Web
9:45 - 11:00 a.m.	VM1A Lap around Visual Studio Team System 2008	VM2Visual Studio 2008: RAD for Today’s Line of Business Application Developer	VM3Building a Real-World Web Application with Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5
11:15 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.	VM4Improving Team Development	VM5Visual Studio 2008: Leveraging the Office Platform and Visual Studio 2008 to Build Office Business Applications	VM6Introduction to the New ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) Framework
2:00 - 3:15p.m.	VM7Create Better Software	VM8Visual Studio 2008: LINQ Deep Dive and Best Practices	VM9Developing Data-Driven Applications Using ASP.NET Dynamic Data Controls
3:30 - 4:45 p.m.	VM10The Future of Application Lifecycle Management from Microsoft	VM11Building Service-Oriented Applications with WCF and Visual Studio 2008	VM12Developing Cross-Platform Silverlight 1.1 Applications with Visual Basic and C#

	ASP.NET Live!	Server System Live!	VSTS Live!	Core .NET Live!
8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.	Now That Longhorn’s Here… How Did They Do? Mark Minasi
9:45 - 11:00 a.m.	VA1 What’s New in Visual Studio 2008 for ASP.NET Developers?	VS2Useful Evolution: Programming the New Features in SQL Server 2008	VT3Mastering MSBuild	VC4Introduction to Silverlight Programming	VC5Using and Extending the Typed DataSet and TableAdapter
11:15 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.	VA6Working with Silverlight	VS7Top 10 T-SQL Features in SQL Server 2008	VT8Team Build 2008	VC9Lower Maintenance Costs While Increasing Productivity: LINQ Applied to an N-Tier World	VC10More Best Kept Secrets in .NET
12:30 - 2:30 p.m.	Lunch and Exhibit Hall Open
2:30 - 3:45 p.m.	VA11Securing User Identity Using Windows CardSpace	VS12Essential SharePoint Development	VT13De-Mystifying TFS Reporting	VC14Creating Custom WCF Behaviors	VC15VS Tools and Techniques for Distributed Data Access in VS 2008
4:00 - 5:15 p.m.	VA16Data-Driven ASP.NET AJAX	VS17SharePoint 2007 Forms and Workflow	VT18Load Testing Your ASP.NET Applications	VC19Investigating LINQ over XM	VC20Generics, Anonymous Methods, and Delegates
5:15 - 7:30 p.m.	Exhibit Hall Reception
7:45 p.m.	Midnight Madness

	ASP.NET Live!	Server System Live!	VSTS Live!	Core .NET Live!
8:30 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.	VA21Introducing the ASP.NET MVC Framework	VS22Developing Office Business Applications: From the Client to Server and Beyond	VT23Managing Software Releases with Visual Studio Team System	VC24C# 3.0 Under-the-Hood: a Better C# (or C++) than C#?	VC25Data Enhancements in Visual Studio 2008
10:00 - 11:15 a.m.	VA26Exploring the AJAX Control Toolkit	VS27Excel and Excel Services as a BI Platform	VT28Efficient SCM with TFS - Best Practices	VC29Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF): Build a WPF Application in an Hour	VC30Creating Advanced Custom Windows Forms Controls
11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.	VA31Win & Web App Installers with WiX	VS32Intro to PerformancePoint Server Monitoring and Analytics	VT33Build Better Applications with VSTS for Database Professionals	VC34LINQ to SQL (DLINQ) for ADO.NET Developers	VC35Embedding Presence in Your Applications
12:45 - 2:45 p.m.	Lunch and Exhibit Hall Open
2:45 - 4:00 p.m.	VA36Customizing the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC Framework	VS37SQL Server 2008 Reporting and Dashboards	VT38Serious Team Foundation Server Source Control	VC39Exposing Workflows as Services Through WCF	VC40Codeplex’s Greatest Hits
4:15 - 5:30 p.m.	VA41Silverlight, SOA and Objects	VS42Service Development and Intergration with BizTalk	VT43Beyond VSTS 2008: Rosario	VC44Have It Your Way – REST and SOAP in WCF Solutions	VC45Doing Something Useful with Enterprise Library 3.0

	WORKSHOP
9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m	VPO1SQL Server 2008 for Developers	VPO2Order from Chaos: Leveraging .NET 2.0 to 3.5	VPO3VSTS 2008 for the Busy Developer

first, what is ziplecture?
ziplecture is a place that contains online training videos/lectures for various topics. it follows the familar digg model where registered users can post lectures to be included in the ziplecture lecture collection.  the lectures will be viewed and zipped(voted) by users which will then determine whether they will be classified in the categories as “published” lectures. Another key feature of ziplecture is the social colaborating and networking among users of similar interests.

now, why ziplecture?
there are many video hosting sites and digg like sites exist nowadays. so why create ziplecture? our goal for creating ziplecture is to provide online video learning experience on specific topics, encourage and enable users of same interests to exchange information, to help each other, to colaborate. we have lots of great ideas that would further enhance these experiences. currently the ”computer - software” channel is active, we will be adding more channels to the portal soon.