UMB opened the summer season of the Dissertation House on Monday with several students in the on-campus session, and others joining online.  The day opened with comments by Dr. Judith Pollack (PROMISE Coordinator at UMB), Dr. Renetta Tull, Dr. Erin Golembewski, and the Dissertation House’s own Dr. Wendy Carter. UMB’s Writing Center provided the afternoon mini-lectures on “Keeping it simple” and “Overcoming Writer’s Block.”Thanks to Gerry Lardner and Jane Sellman for their time.  Sellman also provided students with gifts from the Writing Center — good old-fashioned pens and paper … in various colors to stimulate the brain.

The UMB campus is preparing for it’s first Dissertation House.  We are looking forward to welcoming participants to the SMC Campus Center, Room 353 at 9 AM. The UMB Writing Center is co-sponsoring this event with PROMISE.

UMB Dissertation House announcement

Items to bring:

• Computer
• Power Strip  for your computer (there are never enough wall outlets for everyone’s computers.)
• Casual clothing for writing
• Hard copy of the draft that you will be working on.
• Jumpdrive to transfer your files when you need to print.
• CD player/iPOD if you like to listen to music while you work with earphones
• Books and articles necessary for your writing project
• Style sheet you will be using for your project–MLA, APA, etc.
• UMB’s guidelines/templates for writing dissertations (Reference UMB’s Writing page.)

Southern Management Corporation Campus Center, 621 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Everything from the way you describe the functionality of your app to the images you use for your screenshots will impact a customer's initial perception of your app. Here are a few tips that can help you create a great presence for your app on the App Store:

• Write your Application Description with a focus on what makes the functionality or design of your app unique.
• Use engaging screenshots that demonstrate the special capabilities of your application.
• Keep your application icons free of terms like "sale," "lite," or "free."
• Make sure your screenshots and application descriptions do not include objectionable material or irrelevant content.
• Leave out specific information about the price of your app in your Application Description.
• Have your application URL take the user to a functioning website with content about and support for your application.

Consider these tips the next time you upload metadata for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch applications.

Read more app submission tips

Everything from the way you describe the functionality of your app to the images you use for your screenshots will impact a customer's initial perception of your app. Here are a few tips that can help you create a great presence for your app on the App Store:

• Write your Application Description with a focus on what makes the functionality or design of your app unique.
• Use engaging screenshots that demonstrate the special capabilities of your application.
• Keep your application icons free of terms like "sale," "lite," or "free."
• Make sure your screenshots and application descriptions do not include objectionable material or irrelevant content.
• Leave out specific information about the price of your app in your Application Description.
• Have your application URL take the user to a functioning website with content about and support for your application.

Consider these tips the next time you upload metadata for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch applications.

Read more app submission tips

Semantic Overflow is a great way for the Semantic Web community to help one another with questions, problems and education. It was started in November 2009 using the Stack Overflow framework hosted by Stackexchange.

It’s still building, with 261 questions submitted and just over 450 registered users, about a third of which have enough reputation to vote. Here’s an example: Ian Davis of Talis asked What is a good elevator pitch for Linked Data? and got 17 answers.

Like the parent stack overflow system, semantic overflow is a blend of a forum, wiki and recommendation site. It lets user ask, tag and answer questions, but also allows those with a sufficient reputation score to vote on and even edit both the questions and community submitted answers.

The tradition way of asking technical questions of a community is the mailing list or a Web based forum. The stack overflow model offers many advantages, so I hope this site continues gain traction.

If you want to monitor the site for new questions, you’ll find the feed of the 30 most recently submitted questions useful.