Search, Learn, Share

A new idea from Dr. Mark Wagner (who I met at the GTA). Warning, this site is in a very early beta phase. The idea behind the site is as follows:

Brief Summary:

This project is a prototype for a learning focused metasearch tool. The product is unnamed, but the tagline is: Search, Learn, Share.

Phase 1: The user will be presented with the question “What do you want to learn?” and an empty search box. Entering something into the search box and hitting return will result in resources being returned from several sources, including books, scholarly articles, news, blogs, and the web in general - with each type of source in its own section of the page. Other sources might include images and videos. This saves the user from having to visit multiple sites for multiple types of information.

Phase 2: The user can then annotate and save their search - or their individual results. This way they can return to useful searches and results again in the future. Results can also be grouped into projects or “folders.” Naturally annotations include keywords or tags to allow organization via folksonomy.

Phase 3: In addition, if users choose to share their results (publicly or with their “friends” or “co-learners” in the system) then others will be able to benefit from their annotations. Users will also be connected with others who are learning about (and sharing) the same thing.

iAlertU 0.29b - MacUpdate

A couple of my students noticed me playing with this today in class (oops).  It's a cool little free app that works like a car alarm on your mac. 

iAlertU 0.29b - MacUpdate

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Code Monkey

Hillarious song from Jonathan Coulton

Code Monkey (DJ Shamelessly Self-Indulgent Mix) from http://eightysixfourhundred.vox.com/

Addictomatic: Inhale the Web

Addictomatic: Inhale the Web

New way to search Web 2.0.  Gives you search results in a multitude of formats.

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My Dashboard | Diigo

My Dashboard | Diigo

Diigo is a combination of two things that most everyone uses; a social network and web bookmarking.  Check it out the next time you want to save a Web site.

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Macworld | Yahoo adds video to Flickr

Macworld | Yahoo adds video to Flickr

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Macworld | Google brings offline access to Docs and Apps

Macworld | Google brings offline access to Docs and Apps
A big step to no longer having to use microsoft word

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The Flip - Products - Meet the Family

The Flip - Products - Meet the Family
It's hard to believe that people are going crazy over something that has almost no features.  The flip camcorder is the essence of point and capture.  All you have to do is press the button and you're recording.  I'll be getting at least one of these to use in the classroom during labs.  Take a look

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hulu

www.hulu.com is finally up.  Hulu is a Web site that allows you to watch movies, tv shows and clips of both.  The choices are somewhat limited and the movies have commercials in them (they're only 20 seconds long each) but they are FREE.  I watched part of Usual Suspects last night (great movie) on hulu. The quality is decent.  Try it out.

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Why would anyone use itunes?

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would use iTunes to buy their music?  A majority of the music in iTunes music has DRM (digital rights management) which causes a bit-loss in download quality (this means your music doesn't sound as good as it could) and it limits the play of the music to an apple device.  The DRM is in place to try to prevent piracy.  Amazon.com does not, however, have DRM on any of its content which means better music quality and a greater range of hardware playback options.  So, the moral of the story is, buy your music on Amazon.com

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New Macbook and Macbook Pro's

I saw a student and their parent at Barnes and Noble the other day and they were asking about how I felt about certain apple products.  As most of you know, I love all things Apple.  I think they have a direction for the future which I find unbelievably exciting (your whole world controlled by an iphone and a computer smaller than a macbook air).  But I'm not sure I'm in love with everything being produced now.  So, here is my quick list of reviews.  BTW, you can't go wrong in buying any of these!!!

  MACBOOK AIR - this is the beginning of something huge.  No ethernet port, no optical drive, smaller hard drive.  I wouldn't buy it simply because it has less capacity and is slower than my macbook pro, but if you need something extremely portable and aren't doing any video or audio editing go for it (and let me know how it turns out).  SSD exciting but still has a limit to how many read/write cycles you can complete.

APPLE TV - I own one and I LOVE it. I tried an experiment where I unplugged my cable box and just watched movies and tv shows I rented through my Apple TV.  Saved a ton of money, if I could just find a way to get ESPN on this thing I'd through out my cable for good.

I'll keep you updated as new things come up.  I appreciate all the geek questions you guys are e-mailing.  Hope my answers are helpful.

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Did I mention I love Flock

So I know I posted a blog entry several weeks ago about using Flock as a web browser but I didn't really get to take a good look at it until last week.  I'm converted.  While it is missing some of the customizations built into firefox, I love what I can do with the menu bar.  It allows me to make adjustments to my flickr account and easily make posts to my twitter account.  For those of you in love with Myspace and facebook, this is a way to network while continuing to do other things on the net.  It can be a bit distracting, however, when you are trying to get stuff done.  It is a tad bit slower than firefox from my experience but definately worth investigating.
www.flock.com

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Future of Podcasting

I read a very interesting bit of news on a mac blog lately that deals with a patent filed by apple.  The patent describes a bit of software that would allow users to collect bits of video RSS feeds and put them together as a single video show.  So imagine having a software that will take todays sportscenter highlights, cnn's top stories, maybe some entertainment news and anything else you're interested in and making a half hour tv show out of it.  This is how we will get our entertainment in the future.  No longer will you need to channel surf - it will all be programmed for you.

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Flock

So you spend most of your time on facebook and twitter and flickr. First of all, do your homework!!! OK, good, so now that you're done with your homework download Flock. It is a search engine built around most of the common social networks. It allows you to use the internet and keep up with your friends at the same time - it's pretty cool once you get used to it.

Tooble

Ok, so I've been pretty lax with talking about new apps I've used on my mac. So here's one I've just started using and think is pretty cool. Tooble allows you to take videos directly off of YouTube and put them on your iPod or iPhone. So now you can fill your iPod up with worthless videos. Nice

New YouTube Format

Lots of cool stuff has come out of MacWorld 2008 besides the Macbook Air. YouTube, for example, has announced a few new ways to view videos on their site. www.YouTube/testtube is a beta site where they are testing a lot of cool new ideas. Try out the Warp function, very nice.

Update

Sorry that I have not posted any new entries lately but with the holidays and craziness at school I have not had the time. Just thought I'd update you on where I am. I recently upgraded the RAM on my MacBook Pro to 4GB. To tell you the truth, the only time I see a marked difference is when I am moving around large files in my home (apple TV, for example). I also upgraded the hard drive to a new 250 GB version. The process was simple and the results have been noticeable. I am now looking forward to Jobs' keynote on Tuesday, Jan. 15th, noon eastern to see if any of the rumored new releases (go to www.macrumors.com) are coming soon. My next post, coming soon, will focus around more cool apps that I've played with.