Monthly Archives: January 2010

Jan 16 2010

ReTweeting

It was with interest this morning when I went through my regular routine of checking out messages from my tweeting friends from the other side of the world.  I don’t get involved in the conversation much since I’m half awake but it’s fascinating to see what’s going on in other areas of the planet and there’s nothing like Twitter to make that happen.

This morning, there was an upgrade to Seesmic Desktop and so I accepted it.  It moves my version from 0.63 Beta to 0.7.  It’s always good to get away from Beta versions of anything so I did it, without really looking at the changes.

Upon loading, the sidebar looked nicer and cleaner.  I started to poke around and didn’t notice much else…until I decided to ReTweet a post.  Instead of putting the message in the editing line with a RT in front, I got a little window that said that Seesmic Desktop was creating a ReTweet.  OK, so where is it?  I didn’t see it until the next update cycle.  Normally, a ReTweet would allow for a little editing or editorializing before sending.

rt

Then, through my hazy eyes, I remembered that Twitter had implemented a scheme for retweeting a while back.  This time, I did check the release notes to find out that Seesmic had indeed changed their retweeting method to be consistent with Twitter itself.  The new method preserves the integrity of the original message.  Sure enough, that was what was up.

release

Since I have two Twitter accounts, it even checks to make sure that I’m retweeting from the correct account.

So, if that’s the case, then there must be a way to remove a retweet.  Sure enough, you can pull back a retweet.  This client now truly does emulate Twitter itself.

unrt

That does beg the question of why you’d want to pull back a retweet.

In my opinion, a retweet is the strongest commendation that you can give for someone who has posted a comment to the service.  Their message was so good that:

  • it got your attention;
  • you thought that it was so valuable that you decided to share it with your friends.

Above and beyond this, if you’re using Twitter as a research network, it may well be that someone else is doing the same work and they’ve found something worthy and now you’ve found it that way too and are prepared to share the learning.

I continue to be a big fan of Seesmic.  The resource is very professional in nature and provides me exactly the type of environment that I wish in order to harvest the best of the knowledge and intellect of those folks I learn with on a daily basis.

p.s. You can still ReTweet the old way – click the gears and select “Quote”!

Social Bookmarks:
Jan 16 2010

links for 2010-01-15

Jan 15 2010

Duct Tape

It’s great to be a Canadian.  We don’t have any shame using the most powerful of repair tools – duct tape.

2634734601_dcf06fa307[1]

As it happens, I pick up my MacBook Pro this morning (it resides on top of a printer overnight) and thunk, something falls on my foot.  There was intense pain and profound confusion on the part of this author.  It’s still dark but I know that my computer is still in my hands and the printer is immovable.

The intense pain is the thing that’s occupying my mind now so I do turn on the light and half of the battery is on the floor.
Has it been that dry of a winter that the glue that’s holding this together has dried out?  Weird, but true.  So, my morning routine of checking email and blogging has been severely hampered.  I decide to put it all together or just plug it in at work.
battery
Now, for the duct tape.  None to be found if my office so I ask our friendly caretaker.  She doesn’t have any either.  Sigh, and we call ourselves Canadian.  I know in my work area at home I have a roll of silver and of black.  That will be my permanent fix but, until then, masking tape will have to do.  I wonder if it would make sense to sell it at the drive-through at TIm Horton’s?  Talk about your Canadiana.
battery2
I just hope this isn’t an omen for today.
Social Bookmarks:
Jan 15 2010

links for 2010-01-14

  • Imagery Layer for Haiti Earthquake has been released | Google Earth Blog
    Google has been working with GeoEye over the last 24 hours to get fresh imagery from Haiti to help aid relief efforts. They've just released a KML file for it, which you're encouraged to download.
    (tags: haiti Google_Earth images Google)
  • 100 Incredible
    The following virtual tours bring opportunities to explore cities, famous landmarks and buildings, museums, college campuses, and even outer space. You can learn how things are made, explore the human body or that of a life-sized whale, and visit ball parks and theme parks. There is even a section of incredible virtual tours that Google Earth has compiled that shares the world in a whole new way.
    (tags: tours virtual graphic interactive explore)
  • Geo.me Solutions Showcase
    The data set represented in the map below was released by the UK Met Office in December 2009. It consists of a network of individual land stations designated by the World Meteorological Organization for use in climate monitoring. The data show monthly average temperature values for over 1,500 land stations.
    (tags: climate data warming science)
Jan 14 2010

Haiti

From the Google blog this morning, there is news that they have added imagery from the devastation in Haiti.  The images are available through the Google Earth world browser.  You can download the KML file from here.  At this point, you’ll be exploring raw imagery.  It will undoubtedly become more valuable as the world comes to bookmark.

image 

 

Google also is helping the cause to legitimately raise funds for relief and has set up a page where you can donate directly to UNICEF and CARE.

Another way to donate is to buy certain iPhone applications.  Twittelator is the application that I use on my iPhone and this tweet from Andrew Stone this morning invites all iPhone developers to send profits from sales of their products for the next couple of weeks to the relief efforts.

image

I would encourage all readers to find some way to help with the relief efforts there.  Buy an application for your iPhone or donate to any of the relief efforts.

There are also reports of people trying to take advantage at this point in time.  Don’t get taken with email scams looking for money.  There will be legitimate agencies in your community where you can safely make a donation.

Jan 14 2010

links for 2010-01-13

Jan 13 2010

Visit a Museum

Museums have always been incredible place to visit on the web.  The well crafted website typically features incredible imagery from the museum itself.  If you’re lucky, you’ll also find some interactivity and things that are just nice to play with.  There are so many available and they are fascinating web sites to visit.

It makes sense that the next step is to move to the portable platform.  The first that I downloaded was the Louvre application.  If you’re interested in the riches that are available to visitors but just can’t visit it yourself, the iPhone / iPod application is the next best thing to being there.

iPhone Image 734E46

Yesterday, I downloaded another free Museum application, this time with a Canadian slant.  The Canadian Museum of Civilization is another museum that I’ve yet to visit.  But, I spend some time taking a tour there.  Included in this application are audio tours of the exhibits.  This application would be wonderful to have on a real visit but if you’re not not in Gatineau, Quebec, take the tour in the application.

iPhone Image 734E78

If you ever do get a chance to tour the museum, the Maps section will be very valuable.

I am so impressed with the continued innovation that we see from developers of this technology as it matures.   Or, download it for your kids.  The design is so engaging, they’ll never think that they’re learning!

What museums have you visited online and would recommend to others?

Social Bookmarks:
Jan 13 2010

links for 2010-01-12

Jan 12 2010

Keep Asking Questions

I had a great lunch last week with @markwcarbone from Waterloo last week.  Whenever we get together, we solve all of the ills of the world and create others.

One of the topics that came up was the Mobile FirstClass application.  Both of our districts use this application and are extremely interested in finding the best mobile solution possible.  In the past, I had shared information about the calendaring feature and over lunch Mark asked about getting multiple recipients of an email address.  I puffed up because I knew the answer to that one and showed off.

But, I also expressed my concern about a limitation that I was having with embedded conferences.  Two relatively intelligent people started tapping on their iPhones to no avail and so we came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be done.  Move that action to the minus side of the plus/minus chart.

Mark wasn’t ready to give up though and so he must have had a conversation with one of his colleagues and, sure enough, there is a solution. 

Isn’t that the power of having good connections in action?  In some fields, asking questions is seen as a sign of weakness.  Isn’t the lesson here to keep asking questions to an abundance of people and eventually a solution shows up?  I’ve got to give a tip of my hat and profound thanks to Mark for taking my question and asking it elsewhere.  Now I know!

Mark blogged all about this today and you can read his entry from today where he explains it all.

Jan 12 2010

links for 2010-01-11