Things I Learned This Week – #17
On a personal note, I learned that people really don’t know that their hacked email account is repeatedly spamming others unless you tell them, that customer service is still a completely alien concept to some businesses, and that before placing it in the washing machine it’s best to check pockets of running gear for MP3 players, headphones and the like… 😮
http://delicious.com/dajbelshaw/TILTW17
(29 bookmarks)
Tech.
- Lifehacker posted a guide on how to backup and play Nintendo Wii games from an external hard disk. Which may or may not have influenced my eBay purchases this week… 😉
- Why wouldn’t you want to run Android on an iPhone? (fast-forward to 1m 18secs)
- Google’s ‘satnav killer’, Google Maps Navigation, has been released in the UK. Shame you need to put on an American drawl to use it.
- I’ve been playing around with NoteSync, a cross-platform, Adobe Air application that syncs with Google Docs. Genius. I give it until the end of the year before Google actually buys it.
- The video below was the first ever video uploaded to YouTube (5 years ago this week). So now you know. :-p
Productivity & Inspiration
- Chris Guillebeau made a great point this week: your backup plan is your plan. Is that a good thing?
- There’s also a great interview by Chris with Thomas Hawk, a guy who wants to take one million (yes, 1,000,000) gallery-standard photographs before he dies. And he’s Creative Commons-licensing them all. Legend.
- I’m always interested in the workspaces of productive and/or generally brilliant people. Ever wondered what Einstein’s desk looked like? Here’s a photo taken a few hours after his death:
- Please don’t annoy Seth Godin. Do these 8 things to be more efficient/less annoying to him (and everyone else) when it comes to email.
- Scott Belsky’s got some grand plans about how to make meetings better. Here’s 7 of the best. 😀
Education & Academic
- Ning announced recently that they would no longer host social networks for free. Which was going to happen sooner or later and seemed to rock the education world a little more than it should. If you’re someone looking for an alternative, I suggest BuddyPress or Elgg (both are free and Open Source)
- Northumbria University is the host institution for JISC infoNet (my employer). I’ve been trying to get the university to allow Google Apps on the northumbria.ac.uk domain name this week. I came across this Fast Company article by Gina Trapani (of Lifehacker/Smarterware fame) on how the new version of Google Docs can speed-up teamwork in the process.
- Dave Cormier and George Siemens, two people in education for whom I have the utmost admiration and respect, are running an online course on education futures. Promises to be good! 🙂
- I include this somewhat under protest, but if you’re a teacher forced to use PowerPoint for whatever reason, and you’re being upgraded to the 2010 version, then I suppose you should probably read this.
- Will Richardson makes a great point in No, Actually, You’re Out of Balance. Those who use the term to condemn others are usually out of ‘balance’ themselves!
Data, Design & Infographics
0to255 is a simple colour picker. One of those things that makes you think “Why hasn’t someone done that before?”- Need to draw a quick picture and then send it to people via social media? Thought so. You need draw.to! 😉
- Wondering what’s most likely to make you happy? Well, as I keep coming back to in #uppingyourgame: an educator’s guide to productivity, it’s exercise and diet. Obviously.
- A USB flash drive that can dynamically display what it contains? Now there’s a plan…
- Revisit is a really nice-looking, flexible way to display tweets:
Misc.
- Several links took me to The Art of Manliness blog this week. I’m a subscriber and a fan now the old-schoolness. 🙂
- From the quasi-philosophical department comes the question ‘do movie stars exist in the words of the movies they star in?’ I think that’s a safe ‘no’.
- Looking for a list of e-book stores? So was I. Here you go!
- Wondering which UK political party is doing best in the social media before the upcoming general election? Check out Tweetlection (hint: the Conservatives)
- What’s your Wu-Tang Clan nickname? From now on I shall be know as Midnight Dominator. And that’s Mr Midnight Dominator to you, suckah.
Quotations
The wound that bleeds inwardly is the most dangerous. (Proverb)
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. (Buddha)
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. (Dalai Lama)
Oh yes, the past can hurt. But, you can either run from it or, learn from it. (The Lion King)
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. (Dale Carnegie)
Main image CC BY Prabhu_B
