April 2012
1 post
@ZeFrank with a message that every teacher and...
“Let me think about the people I care about the most… and how when they fail or disappoint me, I still love them, I still give them chances and I still see the best in them. Let me extend that generosity to myself.”
–Ze Frank, “An Invocation for Beginnings”
January 2012
4 posts
How to change iCal's default meeting duration -... →
3D printing in space... I told you so
Back in July, I wrote about how current 3D printing technology could be applied in long-distance travel -or even space travel- in exciting ways. And, now, it’s actually happening.
Told you so. ;)
Listen
December 2011
4 posts
To pin the Dock to the corner of your Mac's screen →
This one is really for me… I lose this Terminal command every couple of years and then, when I get a new Mac, I can’t find it again. So, here it is for posterity (I hope). :)
Seth Godin, with a truth all of my students need... →
An inspirational thought from Steve Jobs
The killer combination of insight and clarity is what made Jobs so inspirational. He knew what to say and how to say it so that people would listen. This is such a simple, obvious lesson… but nobody ever told it to me until Steve did.
When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is to just live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the...
November 2011
1 post
How the @PreyProject helped me recover my stolen...
I walked away from the table for about ten minutes and, when I came back, my computer was gone.
The idea that my laptop was stolen off of a table in the school cafeteria took me almost a week to absorb - I was that unwilling to believe that either a student or co-worker would be capable of theft. However, when the missing machine –Thin Lizzie, my 11” MacBook Air– hadn’t turned up for...
October 2011
2 posts
Musings on ibuprofen and ignorance
Musings on ibuprofen and ignorance (mp3)
#JEDchat kicks off tonight
I’ve been talking a lot lately about how educators can use Twitter as a learning tool, to grow their Personal Learning Network, discover new trends and techniques and connect with like-minded teachers all over the world. One of the main ways to dive in quickly is #EDchat, a twice-weekly, hour-long, online, live twitter-chat which brings together teachers from all over to discuss issues of...
August 2011
3 posts
Before we all get too excited about Screencasting...
I think that these tools are very cool. I’ve played around extensively with ScreenChomp and taken a look at a couple of others. They all basically do the same thing: they record audio and your draw-on-the-screen illustrations (usually over an image from your camera roll, if you want) and then export the result into video that you can share in a variety of ways.
That’s very cool…...
Funny little story from the Apple Store
Funny little story from the Apple Store (mp3)
Why I love my new #HobanPress business cards
I ordered myself a set of cards from Hoban Press about two weeks ago and they finally arrived a couple of days back. I am traveling to speak at a conference on Thursday and I’m going to be using these new cards for the first time… and I’m so excited about it that it’s silly. I mean, they’re just business cards, right?
Let me try to explain precisely why they are...
July 2011
10 posts
@TomWhitby on the Myth of the Digital Native
This entire essay is critical reading for any teacher who is less than a master-level user of technology. An excerpt:
These skills are not intuitive; they are learned. In order to be learned, they need to be taught. In order to be taught by educators, these skills need to be learned by educators. Again, to be better educators, we need to be better learners
Whitby says this stuff well but,...
“The most pressing problem, today’s Apple has decided, is not the...”
– @Siracusa, in his excellent review of Lion
#1Password is even more awesome than I thought!
I love 1Password.
There are other apps that do similar things but, to me at least, 1Password was the first and, as far as I can tell, it’s still the best. It’s a simple app that remembers all of your login names and passwords for you so that all you have to keep in your brain is… just 1 password. Once you purchase and install the app, you can put plug-ins into your browsers...
Real-life Star Trek Replicator (via #kottke)
I found this remarkable video at Jason Kottke’s weblog and the implications suggested have been bouncing around in the back of my head for a while. You should watch the whole thing but, if here’s the gist of it: 3D printers allow you to create any object, on-demand. I knew this already —I’ve seen them in action at trade shows— but the story this video tells puts things together in an...
Killer feature: send an "I'll call you back" text... →
If you are busy and can’t take an incoming call, or you are already in a call and can’t take the second call, you can press a shortcut to send an SMS with a preset ‘I’ll call you back’ message to the person calling you.
A great resource for web developers #finalsite →
onethingwell:
A handy collection of dummy HTML markup, pre-greeked for your convenience.
“…in fact, constraints are often your greatest asset…”
– Minimal Mac - He’s talking about photography, but it’s true about everything.
Why @DaisyDisk is awesome
I tweeted this morning about Daisy Disk, an excellent application for scanning hard disks on the Mac. It’s currenlty discounted 50% in the Mac App Store (link to store), down to $9.95. You should buy it.
I bought it about a year ago and it was useful… then I switched to a MacBook Air with a 128 GB hard disk… and it became invaluable. Once disk space is at a premium,...
Useless trivia about traffic circles
Useless trivia about traffic circles (mp3)
The result: cha-ching!
The result: cha-ching! (mp3)
June 2011
1 post
The #Finalsite U Twitter List explained
I just got back from Finalsite University, an annual software conference put on by Finalsite, the company that provides the CMS for my school’s website. Twitter played a big part at the conferece and, on the last day, I created a Twitter List comprising the tweeple who joined the fun at FSU.
In case you are unfamiliar with Twitter Lists, here’s a description from Twitter’s...
May 2011
1 post
The plan: tight aggressive
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“What if blockbusters are really something that can be built with repeatable...”
– @asymco
April 2011
5 posts
I discover Instacast… and a problem ensues
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Credit Scores explained... someone needs to do a... →
LendingTree.com:
“The good news, however, is that there are now more lenders offering sub-prime loans than ever before!”
Today's the day I unsubscribed from @LifeHacker's...
I love LifeHacker.
I have been reading the site for years and, for the last several, have done so through my RSS reader. But, for a while now, I’ve stopped reading it and today, I finally unsubscribed in NNW. It felt great. :)
There are a couple of reasons why I unsubscribed and, if anyone is interested, here they are:
First, and this is not really a bad thing, there are just too many...
March 2011
2 posts
Apple Customer Service
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Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free →
This is a great resource for teachers.
February 2011
4 posts
You need to buy one of these: my new love affair...
About a week ago, I read a post on @minimalmac about a wireless laser printer that Patrick bought on Amazon for $99. It seemed too good to be true but, when I checked, the printer was still there at that price. I hemmed and hawed of course, long enough for it to disappear but, a couple of days later, I bought the HL-2270DW which is, as far as I can tell, the same printer with a different name for...
Setting default browser and mail application in OS...
Because people ask me all the time:
You can set your default web browser (the one that automatically opens when you click a link in an email) on your Mac by opening Safari, even if it is not the browser you want to use, and opening Preferences… from the Safari menu. “Default web browser” is the first item you can change and it will let you select from all of the web browsers...
Quick reaction to Windows phone OS
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Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code →
January 2011
4 posts
Back to fiction... two short book reviews
As both readers of this blog know, I am an avid reader. But, I’ve been so busy with finishing up my graduate degree lately that I haven’t been able to get much reading done. Well, I finished the degree just before New Years and, as a reward, I’ve just finished chewing through new works by two of my favorite bubble-gum novelists, Under the Dome by Stephen King and Dead or Alive by...
My 2 responses to the Verizon iPhone
So the news hit today. Now we get to find out:
Does AT&T really suck (like everyone has been saying), or does the iPhone simply demand too much bandwidth (like AT&T has been saying)?
On Verizon, the iPhone ostensibly does more, because of the wireless hotspot feature. But, it also does less, because it can’t stay online while you’re on the phone. I figure that the hotspot...
“The downside is that [the iPad]… is not a classroom learning tool unless...”
– Pointed Response to NYT Article on iPads in Schools by Cathy Davidson
December 2010
10 posts
Define "upgrade"
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Thoughts on hosted vs roll-your-own weblogs
Big news in my life this week: I finally completed the written work for my masters degree in Educational Leadership. It’s been a long time coming and I was really up against the wire to get it done. Because time was so short, I “handed it in” via the internet. The final project was 43 different pieces of written work and I wrote them all in a weblog tool and the teacher will read...
Yes, people really are that stupid (shudder!)
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Comic Sans Criminal - There's help available for... →
Poker thief?
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I miss my wife
My day began at 4:30 this morning when my alarm went off. I had to wake up, you see, because I had to drive my wife to the airport for a 6 am departure. She left today to represent our family at the wedding of a close family friend, leaving me behind to mind the store.
I’m not saying I deserve a medal or anything, but it’s now exactly 5 pm and I spent today as the single father...
Great set of Terminal hacks for changing... →
Here’s how to change the destination and image format for screenshots. Solved a real pet peeve of mine.