Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
The M(oblie) Generation & The iPad Dad
Oct 19th
It used to be that you went to with your black and white marbled composition notebooks.
Then loose-leaf binders — those Trapper Keepers were the best!
These days it’s quite different, even for the littlest ones in our grade schools. . .
This month, I was interviewed as an iPad Dad for Forbes Magazine — they were looking to uncover what’s happening in our schoolhouses across the country. Originally, I thought I was at the forefront with my kids. But in reality, our kids aren’t as much of an outlier as I initially thought.
At this point, the iPad has taken the first steps for tablets in becoming the notebook killer in our schools.
According to Forbes, over 2,300 schools have brought in the iPad to the classroom. And in fact, over 600 schools have set-up a 1:1 ratio in classes.
The iPad is inspiring the sort of learning and creativity in Jahng’s kids that Heathkits, crystal radios and, let’s be frank, PCs, did for generations past.
Here’s the article that come out in Forbes:
Education no longer is just about the content, but also about the medium. That impacts creation, curation and consumption all together.
It’s refreshing to see our schools embracing the need to look at the curriculum from such a different approach. The final trajectory promises to certainly be quite different for this M(obile) Generation.
What do you think about all this tech in the classroom? Good for the kids? Bad? Share a comment below.
Steve Jobs.
Oct 6th
Steve Jobs was an icon, visionary, hero to many.
Pretty much anyone and everyone that is touched by tech understands what the loss of Steve Jobs is to the world today.
He was responsible for the first personal computer I used for hours on end in my bedroom from back when I was in 3rd grade.
I had the Apple II plus, IIe, IIgs, Mac TV, Mac. . . and iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch today.
Apple was the reason why I started programming in BASIC, C, COBAL, FORTRAN. . .ah, the memories.
The media is paying tribute with photo essays, interviews, blasts from the past, and more.
Here’s is one of Steve’s more memorable addresses from the stage. This time, it wasn’t at DevCon or other place where he was part of announcing revolutionary new products or technology.
It is just Steve, sharing his own life story and life plan with future leaders in the crowd.
Are You A Text-a-holic? Yeah, I’m Talking To YOU.
Sep 17th
A friend just sent me a link to a parody video and said I was the first person to cross the mind while watching it.
Are you one of those people that have the phone handset glued to your palm? You can’t put down because you’re doing one of a couple of things, over and over and over again, even if it’s not for texting alone:
- Checking your email since the last time you pressed check email 1 second ago
- Browsing your Facebook app
- Trying to take photos and tweet them to the world that isn’t really listening since you have only have 12 followers
- Checking your email in between tasks
- Texting a friend 2 C wuzup?
- Downloading totally useless apps and playing them whenever you get a chance.
- Checking your email just in case you missed an email that might have just came in.
IS THIS YOU?
Here’s the funny video — check it out for yourself:
What do you think?
It’s funny alright. . .
But is it true?!
How To Optimize Your YouTube Videos Online
Sep 16th
By the time you finish reading this post, over 48 hours of new video content has been uploaded to YouTube.com — that’s a lot of videos each and every minute, day after day.
So the question quickly becomes, how do you make your videos stand out from the crowd?
The first answer is the make sure each video you upload is nice to look at and good enough to pass along. The actual video quality matters.
YouTube has wised up and added one feature I’ve long said they need to give casual users like you and me who want to upload periodic videos to the site. They’ve finally added an EDIT capability. Yea!
Now, you can do some *very basic* video quality optimization so that your iPhone vids get a little polish before others see them online. The video stabilization feature is one of the most interesting options so that your shaky camera footage calms down a bit during playback.
I’d love for YouTube to add features like Animoto offers so that you can go to YouTube as a one-stop-shop for actually creating and editing your work and then publish online all in one spot. But till then, we’ll take whatever we can get that helps us share better quality videos…for at least some of that 48 hours of new content, minute after minute of the day.
7 Secrets of a Social Media Maverick for Creating Killer Content on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr
Jun 18th
Today we have a guest post from a social media manager colleague of mine, Tim Cox.
I asked him what are some of the fundamental approaches that he believes separates newbies and mavericks on the various social media platforms. Enjoy his 7 social media management tips!
___________________________________________________________________________
On my personal accounts, I hide a lot of Pages on my Facebook Newsfeed.
I even created a video documenting how to hide those annoying Mafia Wars and FarmVille updates on Facebook.
If you visit the actual video landing page on YouTube, you will find that the comments section makes it sound like I just cured malaria.
Getting such rich interactivity isn’t that hard if you have some key insights and intentionality in how you manage your social media presence.
This below, is the actual video example I wrote about above — you can hop over to the YouTube page if you want too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBxXetlR3x4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Being great at posting content just takes a little bit of extra effort. . .
Here are some tips to help you create exiting new content for your next post.
Can You Tell What’s Wrong With This Product From BedBathAndBeyond.com?
Jun 13th
So this week, I ordered a simple clock for the house from bedbathandbeyond.com — it was on sale and had a clock with a clean design.
We got it in the mail yesterday.
Popped in a battery and set the time.
Next, we went out for the day.
When we came back, this is what we found. . .
We were completely stunned that a brand new clock would do THIS!
Have you ever seen a clock built like this?
Work like this? Keep time like this? I haven’t. At first, I thought, is this for real?
Check the video out yourself below and then LEAVE A COMMENT below if you can figure out what’s going on.
Blogging On My iPad with Blogsy App
Jun 12th
One of the biggest challenges in becoming a successful blog author and publisher is to figure out ways of integrating that actual sitting down and writing a blog post into your daily workflow.
And usually, producing posts take longer than your really think it will take, at least when you’re first starting out – mostly for the little things that add up like formatting, making sure you have appropriate graphics or photos accompanying each posts, etc.
This is why with my coaching clients, we spend a lot of time upfront trying to reduce the friction in getting things out of the blogger’s head and into the computer. If you can solve that ongoing battle for your time and attention’ you are in a for a great blogging experience. The question is just how can you do that?
So I was very happy to hear about the Blogsy app for iPad the other week. The developer was kind enough to let me take the app for a spin for this review and so far I’m impressed.
This just might do the trick for my writing praxis while I am out and about with my iPad.
Out of the gate, there are a couple of things I really appreciate about the Blogsy app. Here are 3 of them:
- You can easily search for video/images on Flickr, Picassa, YouTube, or even search on the web for images — all right from inside the app. This is a huge time saver since on the iPad, you would normally have to jump out of the app, launch a new one, find the image or video, copy paste the copy for it and then go back to the writing application. You don’t understand the convenience until you do it yourself with Blogsy.
I do wish Blogsy supports Vimeo soon. It seems like it is on the to-do list to add for new capabilities by the developer. But at least you can use the in-app browser to go to vimeo.com and grab the HTML embed code.
- You can manipulate any inline embeded image and video size via pinch and zoom. Again, one less hassle which actually takes advantage of the iPad platform touch screen controls.
- Multiple blogs support. Anyone that is a serious bloger is more likely to have multiple blogs. Having access to all of them from one app is a treat. . .especially when I am on a trip, I won’t have to consider bringing my laptop or not. This makes my iPad just that more productive while I am traveling or out of the office for extended periods of time.
Blogsy just got updated to version 2.0 this week, and I have seen a couple of crashes, but I assume these will be addressed in the coming weeks by the developer.
I have written a couple of drafts already in Blogsy, but this is my first live blog posting by the actual Blogsy app itself.
I will be blogging more about Blogsy 2.0 and beyond as I continue to use it, especially on an upcoming international trip where I will certainly ditch my laptop for the iPad (actually, with TeamViewer, I will be able to use my laptop on my iPad remotely just in case, but that is another blog post).
Are you a blogger with an iPad? How do you write and publish blog posts on your iPad? Please leave a comment below!
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!