Things I learned this week – #8

If you create a service that people actually find useful then I suppose you’ve got a right to charge for it. Still, it annoyed me that FeedMyInbox has gone paid-for. $5/month is $5 more than I expect to pay simply for the privilege of getting email updates from blogs that haven’t provided the feature themselves. For those in a similar situation, I’m trying out Blog Alert and Reblinks at the moment… 😀

Top 3

1. A stereotype was a printing plate case from movable type. A cliché was a phrase that, because it was used often, was cast as a single slug of metal. Thanks for that nugget, Seth!
2. Toward a grand theory of n00bs. Seriously, you couldn’t make up some of this stuff!
3. Why ‘serious games’ work (via OLDaily):

Lifehacker

I felt compelled to devote a section to Lifehacker this week, just because so many of their articles/posts were top-notch:

• What’s the easiest way to share large files and media with friends?
• Make sure you’re not de-motivating your team
• Why Google Apps users miss out on regular GMail features – and some solutions
• Choose Wisely lets you select your default browser on a per-link basis
• Set up a fully-automated Media Center
• Best Start Page? (I’m using Google Sites for my 3 year old son’s new domain: BenBelshaw.com!)
• TuneGlue helps you find new tunes you’d like by mapping music connections
• Sweet Home 3D models your home, rearranges your furniture without breaking a sweat
• How to blur out faces and other portions of video
• Five best netbook operating system (I’m still loving Jolicloud!)
• Air Video streams your videos to your iPhone with minimal effort, is incredible
• Use CoreAVC to enable HD playback on netbooks (Windows-only, unfortunately)

Tech.

• I auto-tweet from this blog when a new post is auto-published. It makes me smile that I could be asleep yet people think I’m active online. The Make Me Social WordPress plugin takes this one step further, auto-posting to services such as Delicious (via @durff)
• Google Docs now has a web clipboard that remains over sessions and between computers!
• RealPlayer SP allows you to trim videos ready for posting to YouTube, etc. I haven’t tried it (yet) but it looks like it could be a basic alternative to Windows Movie Maker. And it’s cross-platform!
• Published blog posts now appear instantly in Google Reader. Which is nice. 🙂
• How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple iPhone? About 2,380 slices apparently (via TechXAV)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_LLj4_3ZRA&w=425&h=344]

• Hoccer is a very futuristic way to share info from your iPhone or Android phone (via @iusher)
• You can now track your dog via Twitter with a tweeting dog collar
• HOWTO: make a Google Buzz-specific desktop app
• Intel and Nokia have collaborated to make a new Operating System called MeeGo. Failure imminent (well, as soon as Google Chrome OS is launched…)
• You CAN delete more than one photo at a time in your iPhone’s Camera Roll. Hurrah!
• PumaPhone is like Nike+ but for the whole phone! (via Mashable)



• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have produced a checklist to go through when you buy an ebook.
• TweetGuru allows you to send Direct Messages (DMs) to up to 12 Twitter users at once (via TechXAV)
• Some reasons to ‘drop Google’ (via @ginatrapani)
• URL shorteners are so 2008. ShadyURL makes your shared URL look sinister! (via BoingBoing)

Productivity & Inspiration

• Drowning in email? Zen Habits has some advice!
• Kairos is saying or doing something at the right time. Here’s how you can put it into practice!
• Some suggestions on how to achieve ‘creative flow’.
• Chris Guillebeau has some useful tips for stress-free travel. And let’s face it: he should know!

Education & Academic

• Fisher Price has started making e-readers for 3-6 year olds

• A school used laptop webcams to spy on students (Their statement after being found out can be found here)
• Some tips on how to create a live online learning event.
• We should cut teenage girls some slack. It ain’t easy – hence the sugar, fat and carbs!
• Academia.edu is a social network for academic researchers (via @ianrobsons)
• Building an e-learning course? You should probably read this then.
• How to write a 20-page research paper in under a day (slightly tongue-in-cheek) (via @simfin via @Documentally)
• Learning in Hand has some useful advice for deploying a class set of iPod Touches (via @WebGalPat)
• The Differentiator is a great tool for getting teachers where they’re pitching their lessons in relation to Bloom’s Taxonomy (via @lnewton)

• Some schools in the US are showing their true colours and are working in tandem with Wal-Mart, training students to be good workers (via OLDaily)
• Researchers have tracked 19,000 children born in the UK at the start of the 21st century. Lots of data and interesting reading (if somewhat depressing in places)
• Designing a school? Make sure teenagers get enough ‘blue’ light or they won’t sleep very well at night!
• The good people are Futurelab are crowdsourcing ideas for their conference later this year.
• Some recommended iPhone games for young children (via kottke.org)
• A ‘burbclave’ is a walled garden that segregates various people in society. Dean Groom doesn’t like them. Neither do I. Let’s not encourage them, eh? :-p
• Connexions is a site trying to move beyond the textbook. Richard Baraniuk, the brains behind it, has done a TED Talk (via Don’t Waste Your Time)
• By the time children from the poorest families get to school, their vocabulary can be a whole year behind their middle-class peers. (via @Darcy1968)

Data, Design & Infographics

• SlipCover produces icons that look like game/Blu-ray cases, etc. (via @jamesforcee)
• An amusing look at how to create big, important infographics.
• Facebook relationship status and happiness:

• How Open Source runs the world infographic (via @glassbeed)
• The ocean is very, very deep. This is how deep. Deep, eh?
• Some countries didn’t deliver on their promised Tsunami aid. Will the situation be the same for Haiti (I’m looking at you Austria and Germany!) (via @courosa):

• Awesome PhD brain development comic-style infographic (via @usablelearning)
• The Wall Street Journal has new guide to creating infographics (review at FlowingData)
• Fonts as landmasses. Quality.
• Ever wondered how memory works? Check out this National Geographic 3D guide! (via Chart Porn)
• I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusion, but this infographic about the difference between pirated and ‘legit’ DVDs makes a good point.
• This is a rarity. A well-presented argument with fantastic design! (via Scott McLeod):

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Misc.

• PleaseRobMe.com is a Twitter mashup that makes an important point – why are you telling everyone that you’re not at home?
• Bantu is just Japanese craziness taken the extreme. Oh. My. Goodness. (via @nickdennis)
• Birds ‘poop’ every 15 minutes (via @gardenglen)
• This Dilbert cartoon remind anyone of anything?
• Deforestation is affecting the evolutionary shape of birds’ wings.
• Holding a Realist epistemology can be dangerous for your career. Unbelievable.
• Don’t understand the economic theories of Keynes and Hayek? Perhaps this gangsta rap-style explanation will help! (via BoingBoing)
• Create your own comic/story with Spore (via @kukukukuku)

Quotations

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes (H. Downs)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. (Henry David Thoreau)

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it. (Edith Wharton)

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. (Anon.)

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Helen Keller

(image at top CC BY-NC Brandon Christopher Warren)