Idea Warehouse

Long hiatus ends

It's been so long since I wrote on this blog that the technology has probably already changed on me!! Well, with the spring sabbatical and my shoulder surgery and being unable to write for so long, it put a crimp in my blogging. Then all the changes with my parents occurring.....and then being soooo sick for ALL of April and then Dan's dad dying, it's been an unusual and emotion-packed year. Now I go back to teaching in a few weeks, but probably will go through even more transitions. We have no more children at home anymore, so that's something to get used to. It's nice at times, but often more just weird or overly quiet. Especially since Monk isn't around even to call. I will get back to putting pertinent things in here soon.This post will be my entry back.  

Court Decision regarding pivacy of emails

A federal appeals court today made a startling decision about the privacy of emails: they determined that 3rd part ISPs must consider their subscribers' message content private unless they notify them that it is not or allow them permission to read them, if I read this article right. That is a turnabout from what we've been expected to believe, essentially, as the writer of this article describes, making email more like a sealed letter than an open postcard.

Wearable Code

Julia Vallera has created these readable private/public t-shirts that have QR code on them that are readable by cell phones after you take a picture of the code that's on them. Incredible! Also loved the link she put on there-- textually.org--that features a "juice bag" at the top of the list, a tote bag that charges all of your electronic gadgets while they're in there.

Securexam

Technology does NOT solve every problem. I don't know what to make of Securexam.....

IPod Speaker/Case

With IPods connected so directly to personal listening, I always wonder why there isn't an easy just-as-small gadget or accessory to go with it to turn it into a personal stereo. Sure, there's IHome, and all these cool speaker setups, but this one gadget seems just right to fit the bill (not trying to sound like a commercial or anything...): the Sandbar Soundmate. Although I have to give up my regular-size 80GB IPod this week, this thing would be good to know about if/when I get another.

10 Types of Technology Users

Last month the Pew Internet and American Life Project posted a report called A Typology of Information and CommunicationTechnology Users in which they classified 10 types of tech users. Their survey began with 26016 random telelphone numbers, with 16,652 actual working numbers, and they received responses from 4001 people 18 or over, recording a 30 percent response rate. Here are their categories:

• Omnivores                          8%
• Connectors                          7%
• Lackluster Veterans             8%
• Productivity Enhancers         8%
• Mobile Centrics                   10%
• Connected but Hassled        10%
• Inexperienced Experimenters  8%
• Light but Satisfied              15%
• Indifferents                        11%
• Off the Network                  15%

I would say I'm either a "Connecter" or "Productivity Enhanncer" in terms of technology. The survey measured people and their technology use in terms of 1) assets, 2) actions, and 3) attitudes. The top 4 categories were referred to "Elite Technology Users" (which would be my category, I guess), which turned out to include 31% of American adults. Of course, reading the "Omnivores" category, I think a lot applies to me as well.

Unwanted Cell Phone /Laptop Baptism

I just saw an amusing article on how to resuscitate a cell phone that has fallen into water, as well as what to do when you spill a liquid onto your laptop. They came with these great iconic illustrations that say it all.  Since both my oldest boys have had their cell phones immersed in bodies of water in different circumstances, this interested me. Tom apparently forgot he had his in his pocket when he and his brother went into their grandparents' hot tub. Of course, when he came out and discovered it was still there, he was more than a little dismayed, and (no surprise) the phone no longer worked. I'm sure the high water temperature and sustained length of time did not help the circuitry. Nick's cellular experience was a little more tepid, but no less worth a chagrined chuckle. I guess when he was out one night partying or at a friends or something, the phone dropped into the toilet! He said it was a clean toilet, or maybe that was just for my benefit. I think he said he set it onto the top of the tank and it fell off into the bowl. He didn't leave his in there very long  (I don't think he did anyway; his report may have purposely sketchy for his mother's sake), and he did dry the phone out, but it took a week and a visit to the Verizon store to get it working again. When we went into the store, the rep asked him if he had taken the battery out and put it back in again. He had not, and when he did it, sure enough it began to work again! I haven't really experienced spilling coffee all over my laptop, but there are sure are a lot of miscellaneous crumbs lodged in between the keys, I would guess.

Anyway, I love those "stick figures in peril" icons, break me into hysterical laughter after I look at some of these in bulk. Here's a look at some.

Digital Voice Recorder

Spent a little time at the Sony Outlet store the other day, looking especially at their Digital Voice Recorders. There's one that I especially like that is described on the Sony web pages, but this one, of course, is refurbished and available at the outlets in white for 512 MB, I believe. It records files in .DVF format (digital voice file) which can then be converted to MP3 format through LAME or perhaps in iTunes. Having used Audacity which saves files in .aud and .wav format, and then using LAME to encode them or iTunes to encode, this process is swift and simple. The best things I like about this recorder are 1) the USB port on one end of it, so you can just stick your recorder into your machine and upload right away, no fuss, no muss, no extra cords; and 2) the wide hook-like piece on the end that would easily let you run a 1/2" or 3/4" ribbon or thick cord through the opening so you can create a lanyard that easily lies flat against your chest, instead of these little bitty openings that you can only run fishing wire through that would dangle and bang against your chest as you talk, probably creating a pecular thumping noise throughout every lecture as you move. The wide opening would keep this recorder more stable.

p.s. at the outlets, this baby is $70 or 80 for a refurbished white one while the others sell for more.

Kill Switch for Technology Use in Classroom

A recent Chronicle article reports that Bentley College has an on/off switch installed in their wired classrooms with 5 options:

• Turn Off Internet Access But Allow E-Mail Access
• Turn Off E-Mail Access But Allow Internet Access
• Disable Internet and E-Mail Access but Allow Computers to Reach Campus Web Pages
• Shut Off All Access
• Allow All Access

With wireless classrooms, you can also have a 6th option: Turn Off Wireless Access. (Or maybe it's part of the "Shut Off All Access" option; it's hard to tell the way the article reads, but it's not that important a difference). What I was interested in is this Kill Switch in general. Maybe it's SynchronEyes that they're talking about ....where we can monitor each of the the students' screens from the instructor's station and toggle settings there. I'll have to check that out.

More Schools in iTunesU Than It Shows

A few days ago, the iTunes Store opened up its iTunesU component to the public, and right now 16 universities are listed as participating. However, there are many more schools that actually participate than are listed there. James Welsh has posted a nicely updated list that contain links to their specific pages in iTunesU. At present, Edinboro is not included in either list, but they are firming up the legal aspects of their contract with Apple to become an iTunes University, so we will become one very soon. Now, you might think that I am a Mac person with all this attention recently on iTunes, iPhones, iPods, etc., but I'm actually more of a PC person. Anyway, I'm excited about this opening up of iTunesU to the public, and our becoming one of the schools.