General Technology – Page 2 – Random Connections

In Praise of Old Tech

December 5, 2011 Tom No Comments

This time of year I get lots of questions that go like this: “What’s the best [insert current popular tech device type here] to get for my [insert spouse, sibling, offspring, parent, or pet name here].” I know the reputation I have as a gadget guy, and more often than not I feel like a … Read More “In Praise of Old Tech” »

RIP Steve Jobs

October 6, 2011 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Miscellaneous

I’m a latecomer to the Apple world, but seem to have bought into it wholeheartedly with an iMac, iPad, and three different iPods (although I have an Android phone.) The world has lost a visionary.

iPad – First Impressions

May 28, 2011 Tom 9 Comments

Gear, General Technology

Our district purchased several iPads for special ed and for our ESOL teachers. I’ve had one for a week to put it through its paces and see how it might work, and how we might design some staff development. I can see the educational benefits of iPads in the classrooms, and I’ve seen some excellent results form kids working with them. However, from a personal standpoint I’m still conflicted as to whether I really like it, and how useful it might be compared to other options. Since I already have a netbook, Kindle, and iPod Touch, the device just seems redundant. Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy one, but if I didn’t already have these things, would it be a good choice? My very first thought was that it was just an overgrown Touch.

Coming from a laptop/netbook experience, my first impression was that the shortcomings of the iPad are numerous…

No USB connections
No easy way to transfer files
No real GPS functionality for maps
NO FLASH!!

…and lots of other pesky problems that prevent it from doing what I think it should be able to do. The lack of Flash is especially bothersome, because it prevents me from using slide shows on Flickr, and even using the admin screens of this blog effectively. Aviary.com won’t work at all on it, and Google Docs is a real bother.

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Research Tips with a Camera

March 7, 2011 Tom 6 Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

As I was doing the research for my post on South Carolina’s Tricentennial, one point was driven home – you just can’t find everything you need on the Internet. That’s a lesson our students often forget. Sometimes you just have to crack open a book or make a trip to the local library in order to get the information you need.

I have, however, found a couple of tricks to make library research much easier, especially if you’re working with reference materials and other items that have limited circulation, or that can’t be removed from the library. I’ve found these techniques especially helpful in places like the South Carolina Room of the Greenville County Library, where the items are often one of a kind, and need to be protected.

I always have an old-fashioned pencil and paper for taking notes, but my research tool of choice lately has been my trusty Nikon S70 point and shoot camera. Today’s cameras have such high resolution and memory is so cheap that it’s just as easy to snap a picture of a page in a book to review later. You can zoom into the photo to read the text clearly, and it saves a ton of money on photocopying. You can also snap photos of images and illustrations, as well as bibliographical information for proper citation later.

Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 4

February 23, 2011 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Internet, Photography

In the previous parts of this series I looked at ways of creating anaglyphs with Photoshop, both from old stereoscopic images and from a set of two images shot with a hand held camera. But what if you’ve already got a photograph and want to “fake” a 3D image? Well, I think I’ve worked out a method of doing that, too.

So far I haven’t found any tutorials online for creating fake anaglyphs in Photoshop. I did find Jim Long, who has done an excellent job of converting 2D images into 3D cyan-red anaglyphs. Jim as quite the gallery not just photographs, but also of classical art rendered both as stereoscopic images and as anaglyphs. Here’s his version of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa:

I don’t know what process Jim is using, but he manages to maintain color on the images very well. He also has a link to a supplier of 3D glasses with one of the most extensive inventories I’ve seen.

Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 2

February 23, 2011 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Photography

In my last post I talked about discovering that the South Carolina Digital Library has a new collection of 3D images. They have taken old stereographs from the Civil War era and have converted them to anaglyphs so that they can be viewed using 3D glasses. As I was thinking about how they did this, … Read More “Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 2” »

A Few Google Flaws

October 3, 2010 Tom No Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

The past several posts I’ve been singing the praises of Google. However, all is not perfect in Google Land. There have been the occasional really bad ideas – Google Wave, for example – and the abandonment of some really good ideas, such as Google Notebook. In this post I’m going to stay away from the more published flaws that Google has had to endure. Instead, I’ll cover just a few things that I’ve found to be a bother.

I’ve already mentioned that until only recently, group accounts could not be used for Google Maps, Picasa, or other many other Google products. That really limited the effectiveness of those accounts. Fortunately, that has been corrected. However, there are still a few things that are not quite right.

Google Docs Rundown

October 3, 2010 Tom 1 Comment

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m encouraging our teachers to use Google Docs with their classrooms through our new Spart5.info domain. Our district, like most in the state, has standardized on Microsoft Office. We have no intention of changing our basic productivity platform. I think of Google Docs as a complement to, rather than competitor to Microsoft Office.

Personal Use

I’ve been using Google Docs personally for a couple of years now. The convenience of cloud computing was just becoming apparent, and I liked the idea of having my work available on any computer I happened to use, as long as it was online. I first tried it in earnest with an online course I was taking for recertification. It just seemed like a good place to keep everything together.

I’m using Google Docs more and more now, but most often I use it for documents that I need to find quickly – reference documents such as my resume, circuit ID numbers, etc. I also use it for keeping notes at various meetings because it’s so easy to share the notes.

I’ve got a little Dell netbook that I use all the time (I’m using it to type this right now.) Unfortunately, it’s a first-generation netbook with limited processing power and only a 16 GB solid state hard drive. I just don’t have room for MS-Office, so I rely on Google Docs and the ability to be online just about anywhere.

Bring Your Own Bandwidth

August 11, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

EdTech, Gear, General Technology

While in Washington State last week I didn’t have good Internet access. Laura’s mom still uses AOL dial-up. Neighbor Duff offered access to his WiFi, but we were just out of range. So this was the perfect chance to try tethering my laptop to my HTC Android phone. It worked brilliantly!

I had explored several options for phone tethering. The current crop of broadband modems just seemed like an additional expense for something with limited capabilities. I had almost bought the Palm Pre, which can set itself as a WiFi hub, before settling on my HTC Incredible.

I knew I didn’t want to do anything crazy that involved root access to the phone. I needed something fairly simple, so I first tried PDANet. I’d had some success using the free version connecting to my netbook. However, it was very buggy and kept wanting to crash when I tried connecting it to my larger laptop.

I finally settled on EasyTether, and it worked like a charm. The phone connected to the laptop with no problem, and I was even able to access the drive space on the phone over the USB cable – something that I couldn’t do with PDANet. I wound up purchasing the full version of the program for under $10, which gave me access to https and secure sites. With that I was able to check GMail and remotely log into my district’s network to do some simple maintenance.

I’ve read that 3G speeds are nowhere near as fast as cable or DSL speeds. However, the speeds I got over my phone were pretty darn fast. I didn’t try watching lots of video, but I did see a couple of clips, and they played just fine. I also uploaded lots of high resolution images to Flickr, and those went without a hitch fairly quickly. As far as I could see, there was nothing I couldn’t access that I would normally access from my home Internet connection.

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Facebook and Professional Boundaries

June 11, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

I had an eye-opening discovery this week. One of our principals contacted me about an e-mail she was expecting that hadn’t arrived. I went into our district spam filter to see if it had been caught there. While looking for the e-mail, I noticed a lot of traffic from Facebook that had gotten caught in … Read More “Facebook and Professional Boundaries” »

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