on Brains

Make Smarter - Ignite, ESRI TV, Free Linux Books

Slim pickings in the make smarter category this month, but I did run across a few items you might find useful.

First up is Ignite, a podcast series from O’Reilly Media. From their web site:

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
It's basically 5 minute talks with topics that range from Effective Information Visualization to Fighting Dirty in Scrabble. Kind of like TED Talks, only faster. I've seen some really good presentations on there, and being only 5 minutes a pop makes them very convenient for the time constrained. The one on Effective Information Visualization, always a topic of interest for cartographers, is very good:

Next up, Dana Nibby let the NCGIS listserv know about ESRI’s YouTube channel. It’s mainly short videos ranging from ESRI product demonstrations to user presentations. In case you’re like me and can never find the right RSS feed for YouTube Channels, they’re at http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/<the user>/videos.rss, which in this case is here. Some of the videos have an infomercial feel to them, but I did pick up some good nuggets here and there. And don’t forget to check out ESRI’s free online training options too.

Finally, there are no shortage of Linux books out there, many of which are worth plunking done 40+ bones at your local bookstore. But as is typical of most FOSS, you can find a lot of free Linux resources as well. MakeTechEasier.com has a great listing of free online Linux resources, from books to open courseware from such heavyweights as MIT and Cornell.