Monthly Archives: December 2010

Dec 23 2010

Accuracy and Speed

These are two things that you typically give up when you move from a full sized keyboard to the smaller one in a portable device.  How many times, when typing (fingering?) do you pause before a send and realize that some editing is going to be needed before you send the message lest you appear to be only semi-literate?

Swype changes all that.

Access to Swype for my Smartphone was available in a Beta mode a while back and I missed the board.  So, I continued my hunting and pecking and mispelling until this week.

Swype is open again in Beta mode and this time I’m there. After a download and installation,  I couldn’t believe how I was immediately more accurate and faster at texting and typing.

Swype replaces the default keyboard entry method.  Instead of just poking at the keyboard, you place your finger on the portable keyboard and just move to the next letter, pausing for a second, before continuing to the next letter and repeating the process until your word is complete.  An image from the Swype website kind of describes the process but you really have to experience it to believe it.


Image from http://beta.swype.com

How often do we hear the term "game changer" to mean some trivial and incremental application or process?  This one, in my opinion, really is a changer.  Throw out everything that you think you know about keyboarding and the frustration of fat fingers hitting the wrong keys and swype your way to speed and accuracy.

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Dec 23 2010

links for 2010-12-22

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
1
Dec 22 2010

A Big Thank You…

…needs to be given to those folks with cameras and the desire to document the lunar eclipse yesterday.  I, on the other hand, mostly slept through it.  I know that friends of mine and folks around the world took the opportunity to take their cameras out and do it.  I found out that friends from Chatham grabbed a coffee and headed away from the city for a drive to witness the event.  The nice thing about people that take great pictures is that they have this overwhelming desire to share them!

In case you missed it, this was an opportunity for the sun and earth to “photoshop” the moon.

photoshop 206 up, 33 down

Something used to make ugly people average looking.

Girl: like omg i jus photoshop’d my acne covered, ranomd strangers online will think i’m pretty!

Yes, I’m quoting from the Urban Dictionary.

I did find a number of bookmarkable resources to tuck away to celebrate the event.  One of the nicer collections came from Universe Today where they amassed images of the eclipse from around the world.    The collection, and accompanying descriptions, document the event worldwide from Florida to the United Kingdom to Australia.  In the collection, you can see the slicing and colouring that were applied using the moon as a canvas.

But, you don’t have to go world-wide to great great pictures.  Now, I must confess that while I didn’t set the alarm clock, my internal clock did have me wake up in the middle of the night where I took a peek out the window.  At the time, it was a very cloudy night and I didn’t bother even looking for my camera.

My friend, @windsordi did though.  Now, she lives about 45 minutes north of me and somehow managed to get some great shots that she shared with the world and contributed to a number of photo groups.  The photo is a wonderful collage of images.


AttributionNoncommercial Some rights reserved by windsordi

The image was so well done that it was the lead picture on Windsoritedotca.  Congratulations, Diane.

An explanation about lunar eclipses can be found here.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to document and share this solstice, eclipsing event.  This end consumer really appreciated it.

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Dec 22 2010

links for 2010-12-21

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
1
Dec 21 2010

Not Feeling Like a Crook Anymore

There was great news for the Windows using community this week.  Microsoft has discontinued its Office Genuine Advantage program.

It was a program with good Microsoft intent.  It was a way to ensure that you were using legitimate software.  In an effort to stem software piracy, you had to prove that the software that you’re running was legitimate.  If not, you might see a message like this.

I suppose it is great in theory but it always bothered me.  I legitimately purchase a copy of the software and carefully type in the serial number after I installed it and then shortly thereafter, I’d have to authenticate that the software was actually legitimate.  It was too bad that I couldn’t just hold my receipt up to the web cam.

It was only an annoyance to those who actually purchased the product.  For those who pirate it, they’d just have to do a search and find what they wanted.

The worst thing is that the validation didn’t always work.  Messages would pop up at the most inopportune times informing me that there were problems and I would have to re-validate.  Hey, I’m in education – I can’t afford to do anything like software piracy.  We are supposed to lead by example.  I do remember an instance with Microsoft Powerpoint all of a sudden deciding that I needed to re-validate.  I can’t recall the specifics but I wasn’t alone and it was an embarrassing moment – haha, you have a pirated copy.  It made an OpenOffice user of me on the spot.

The whole premise really bothered me.  A copy of Microsoft Office isn’t cheap but then you have to go through this additional step?  I don’t blame Microsoft for protecting their product but it never seemed right to force legitimate owners to have to prove again and again that they were legitimate.

I’m all for keeping things on the up and up.  The net result should be lower prices for all of us.  But, let’s go after the pirates, not the legitimate users.  I won’t miss this program a bit.

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Dec 21 2010

links for 2010-12-20

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0
Dec 20 2010

Fascinating List of Blogs

I stumbled on this posting from Miguel Guhlin this morning.  He’s right; this is an amazing list of blogs.  As I replied on his blog, this list wouldn’t have been possible even three years ago.  A lot of things have happened – the sense of paranoia about public transparency seems to have subsided with many – and we’re all the beneficiaries of public sharing.  Folks are documenting thoughts, insights, and just the state of education as it applies to them.  It’s fascinating reading.  Imagine if everyone shared what was happening in their corner of the world.  Imagine how reflective the profession could become.

As per Miguel’s request, I am sharing this list with anyone who is interested.  There’s not a bad read among them.  Well, maybe there’s one.

The holiday break begins for many today and for others in a couple of day and then into the new year.  Why not make a resolution to add a blog or two to your regular reading habit?  The search for great reading stops below.  Pick a blog, any blog…  New readers are awards that are meaningful to all bloggers.

From Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org

What a fascinating list of blogs…will have to check to see how many aren’t on the Google Reader list…thanks to these folks for compiling the list, but forgive me if I don’t remove the “best” labels. If your blog isn’t on the list, I hope you’ll add it in the comments, then copy the list and share it with others.

Individual blogs

Group blogs

New blogs

Class blogs

Student blogs

Resource sharing blogs

Influential blog posts

Teacher blogs

Best librarian / library blog

Best school administrator blog

Best educational tech support blog

Best elearning / corporate education blog

Best educational use of audio

Best educational use of video / visual

Best educational wiki

Best educational podcast

Best educational webinar series

Best educational use of a social network

Best educational use of a virtual world

Best use of a PLN

Lifetime achievement

Dec 20 2010

RSS is Boring

Well, maybe I can change your mind about this.  As I was playing around with Google Chrome and trying to work solely in the browser, I started to think about RSS feeds.  It’s yet another way to gather all the news that’s fit to read.  I’ve actually moved away from my computer based RSS Readers in favour of picking up current reads from announcements from Twitter or by reading through Flipboard of Pulse on the iPad.

As I poked around inside Chrome though, I stumbled across a find that’s worthy of keeping and sharing with you.  The application is called NewsSquares.  Like many of the apps that I talked about yesterday, it’s available through the Chrome Store and installable with a click.

In order to use NewsSquares, you need to be logged in to your Google account.  On first launch, if you have items in Google Reader, NewsSquares uses that as a starting point.  Starting point for what?

It’s a little difficult to describe so here’s a visual.

Each of the items appear in your screen as a news square.  In the top right corner, you’ll see a count for unread messages.  In the bottom right corner, an arrow lets you browse through the stories.  The individual stories clips appear in boxes along the bottom of the screen.  You’ll scroll across the bottom with your mouse or trackpad until you find a story of interest.

Each story comes with a time stamp so that you’re not reading ancient history.  Find one that’s of interest to read to access it.

As you would expect with stories, it’s important to share the news and so there are buttons available to share on your favourite services.  Need more than just a clip?  Then, ask NewsSquares to take you to the original so that you can read it all.

On their FAQ, they do respond to the unfair question about being compared to Flipboard or Pulse.  I like the response that this is a project in HTML5 which distinguishes this from the other products.  If you like the Chrome version, you’ll also want to snag the Android version of this product.

If you need more than just what your RSS provides, you can search for and/or add your own content to feed the reader.  Configuration items include colours and frequency of updates.  I think that this is a real find and well worth the time to click once and get if you’re a fan of RSS.

Dec 20 2010

links for 2010-12-19

By dougpete • Posted in Uncategorized
0