Monthly Archives: October 2010

Oct 20 2010

Creating QR Codes

Quick – what’s this?

It’s a QR Code.  We’ve all become accustomed to seeing one dimensional bar codes on products in a grocery store, for example.  It’s a quick and effective way to track items for inventory purposes.  QR Codes are the same concept but are two dimensional.  They’re really handy to help with navigation if you have a smart phone.  Rather than hunting and pecking your way to a URL or other piece of information, your camera along with appropriate software can take a quick look at the code and decode it and help your device to navigate.

Pretty cool.  So, the QR Code above is a code that takes you directly to this blog.  On my phone, I an application that I downloaded from the Marketplace to do it for me.  Just open the application, point the camera at the image, and a couple of seconds later I’m ready to send it to my browser and away I go.

So, how do you create a code?  It’s actually very simple, once you know where to get the proper tool.

The easiest way is to just install an extension to your browser.  In Chrome, consider the QR-Code Tag Extension.  Just visit a website and click the button and you have your code, ready for use.

If you think that what you’re really doing is creating a shortcut to something, then it makes sense that traditional shorteners have you covered there as well.  Both Google’s and Bit.ly’s URL shortening service can create such a code for you.  Just use the service and then tack a ".qr" to the end of the link and it’s generated for you.  Bit.ly even throws in a bit of humour in its results.  Those balls look a lot like …

The codes aren’t necessarily just for websites.  How about creating your own business card complete with contact information?  In that case, the ZXing Project has a wonderful resource for generating QR Codes for all purposes.

Pick the type of code that you’d like, fill in the blank and a click later, your code is complete.

What could be easier?  QR Codes provide a great way to make your links very friendly to smart phone users.

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Oct 20 2010

links for 2010-10-19

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
1
Oct 19 2010

Connected to Delicious

Every day, I do a great deal of reading and find resources that I want to make sure that I don’t lose track. For me, Diigo and Delicious have been invaluable. One of the frustrating things about using iPad was the lack of direct connection that I have with a regular browser. The extensions that plug directly into Firefox or Chrome are awesome.

When I find something that’s useful for me on the iPad, I’d typically tuck it away to Instapaper and get back to it – eventually – when connected via a computer web browser.

But, there wasn’t something equivalent for iPad.  Until now.

Recently, I installed Delicious Bookmark Discovery and I now have my answer!  It’s a connection to Delicious like I’ve never experience on iPad.

Like many add-ons to iPad Safari, there is a Javascript script that lets you add a bookmark to the browser.  When I find a website that I’d like to tuck away to my Delicious account, I just have to click the bookmark and away it goes.  Unlike other bookmark utilities that I’ve tried, this one gives you the full bookmarking experience.

Add the URL, the description and tags like you would with any other bookmarking tool!  You can even mark the entry as private if you want to keep it just for yourself!

It gets even better though.  I have immediate access to the list of bookmarks that I’ve previously tucked away.  Click on one and you’ve got a browser view built right in to the utility.  I like the ability to see immediately who else has bookmarked the same thing.  When I’m bored, I’ll explore their collection to see what they’ve bookmarked.  Isn’t that the promise of networking – to make a connection to similarly minded folks?

At this point, I’ve got to conclude that this is the best Delicious experience for the iPad that I’ve run across.  It’s a great deal at $1.99 if you’re a big bookmarker and want to take your tool to that platform.  If you’re not using Safari as your iPad browser – I use the Atomic Web browser – the Javascript code works nicely there as well.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Oct 19 2010

links for 2010-10-18

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Oct 18 2010

Reading for Halloween

In today’s multi-media world, we and students are bombarded by incredible graphics, surround sound with things swishing here and there, digitally recorded and enhanced audio so that you feel like you’re there.  For all this technology, when it comes to horror, there still is something missing.

Watch the horror for Halloween to see zombies and facemasks and blood dripping and so much more.  It’s scary for a moment but really that’s all.  We’re so accustomed to waiting until the next scene when the visuals and audio change and so does the mood.  There isn’t a great deal of sustained horror.

True horror comes from the mind.  When the mind is engaged, locked and loaded, there’s no way to escape from it.  You’re there and a part of it.

There is no better content for this scenario than that from Edgar Allen Poe.  When you’re reading Poe, it’s an experience like no other.  It’s the suspense and the imagination that only your mind can visualize.

Coming into Halloween, “The Tell Tall Heart” is classic classroom material for the older grades.  When you can empathize with a mad man, the story comes into complete perspective.  The story isn’t set in a glamourous setting.  It’s one man with his imagination.  The story has been retold many times but no better than through the genius of Vincent Price.  He models expressive reading and acting and we’re so fortunate to be able to relive it through YouTube.

The Tell Tale Heart is a short story as you’ll see from Price’s work.  In fact, it’s the perfect product for YouTube.  But, I think it’s also a spectacular exemplar for any class studying this work.  Using any camera or cell phone, student interpretations of a mad man’s ravings would be a terrific culminating activity.  The story lies not in the props or the lighting or the graphics but in the interpretation of Poe’s work.

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum on the web provides additional information and resources for teachers and students studying this and other of Poe’s works like “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Raven”, or “The Masque of the Red Death”.

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Oct 18 2010

links for 2010-10-17

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Oct 17 2010

A Sunday Morning Diversion

It’s interesting to wake up and do a quick skim to see what the Twitter world was talking about while I was sleeping.  In this, it was a post from Alec Couros.  It’s a resource called “Guess the Google“.  And, it’s a great deal more difficult than it would seem.

The premise is pretty simple.  The website gives you 16 images in a collage.  Your task is to find the one keyword that would be common in all of the images.

It’s a Google image search – only in reverse.

It is difficult at times.  The keywords can seem fairly obscure but there is a great sense of satisfaction when you do get it.  If you’re good, send your results to the high score board.

If nothing else, it goes to explain the seemingly unrelated images that are returned when you do your own image searches!

Thanks, Alec.  My morning is pretty much shot as I get addicted to this.

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Oct 17 2010

links for 2010-10-16

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
1
Oct 16 2010

Infographic Yourself (or any topic)

They’re one of the hottest things on the internet right now.  Graphical representations of a topic to offer a visual look and usually deeper insight to a particular topic.  In a short viewing, you can see an overview of a topic, relationships, and usually inspiration to read more and dig deeper into the topic.

A few Fridays ago, I made my first attempt to create one of these things.  I called it simply “Ontario Educators”.  Pretty primitive, I must admit.

I still like the concept, despite my limited artist abilities. Here’s an interesting approach if you’re looking for a way to analyse Twitter information. It comes from a website called “The Archivist”.  There is a Windows application that permits a Twitter search on a topic that you can download in Excel format and then work your magic with the data.  Or, if you’re just looking for some quick data, check out the web version and let the website do the analysis and visualization for you.

You can send a Twitter message from your account at this time, if you must.  The link takes peoplere here.  Once you generate the big graphic, each of the smaller graphics serve as buttons to display more information.

The real fun comes in the analysis though.  In this case, I did a search for myself and got the results from some recent activity.  The results aren’t necessarily “from” me or “to” me, but rather analyse Twitter messages where the term “dougpete” appears.  Some of the messages are automatically generated – blog post announcements, paper.li, etc.

Looks like there’s a dip in activity on October 16.  Wait.  That’s today and I just woke up.  It’s bound to get more verbose!
It makes sense that my name is the number one username.  Alltop_Edu rebroadcasts my blog announcements so I’ll ignore that as well.  Looks like friends Cyndie and Alana are great conversationalists!
I like this analysis.  I think that originating messages is the most important thing that can be done by a community members.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt to retweet or be retweeted.
The danger of automatic posters is that they’re so regular that they can outweigh one’s regular content.  If I was analyzing this using the offline tool, I’d filter these terms and get to the real content.
At this point, the sites that are shortened provide very little useful information.  The site acknowledges this and the fact that sometimes these go to the wrong place.  But, I’m betting that the FourSquare link has coffee at the end of it.
I find this very insightful.  My primary browser is Seesmic Desktop for computer and Twittelator for portable.  Dlvr.it and Paper.li are services that post automatically for me.  Apparently, Tweetdeck is the browser of choice for others.

Some of the information is predictable but the rest I find to be very interesting.  I like the concept of downloading the data in Excel format where you can use analytical tools like Excel, LibreOffice, or Fathom to dig into the data in your own terms.  I also like the concept of using the information as real time search results.  I do see infographics as being a powerful and useful result from the research process and looking for great tools to facilitate their construction and data analysis remains a goal.

Oct 16 2010

links for 2010-10-15

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0