MonitorThis is a site that creates an OPML file of RSS feeds that track your search quarry. Tell MonitorThis your desired search terms, and it creates an OPML file that you can save and import into your favorite news reader… Currently it tracks 22 different search engine feeds.
by way of…. 43 Folders…
Technorati Tags: monitorthis, RSS
Tim Wilson points to Stellarium an open source desktop planetarium for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. I took his advice and downloaded the application. It is quite impressive. I’ve wanted to include an astronomy tool like this on our disk image at Lewis, but could not afford to pay the licensing fee for something like Starry Night. Thanks for the pointer Tim…
Technorati Tags: astronomy, planetarium, stellarium
Dave Winer points to a post by Mark Pilgrim which details how to use a program called Handbrake to rip a DVD to a video iPod. This and the recent announcement that TivoToGo will export content to the iPod and the PlayStation Portable makes a portable video player look more interesting. These announcements, and a recent visit to an electronics store have me thinking of devices such as the iPod and the Sony PSP and how I could be use them in my work at Lewis Elementary.
I have read that the new video iPod records audio at a much better rate than the older models. At Lewis we have been using an older iPod and a Griffin iTalk to record audio for use in movies, podcasts, slide shows and such, but the bit rate is not the best. Also I’ve been reading about programs such as iPresent It, which can convert your PowerPoint, PDF and Keynote presentations into slideshows that are synced with your iPod. Instead of lugging the laptop to the next PTA meeting, I could just plug in my iPod… The video features of the new iPod would allow me to have copies of student movies and such with me for those all important elevator pitches about the use of technology in education. Am thinking this and the audio recording should be enough to justify getting one…
I’ve also been looking closely at the Sony PSP as a tool for students and am impressed with it. The PSP has built in wi-fi and a web browser. I was playing around with one and thought that for $250, this was quite an impressive device. The screen is beautiful and the ability to browse the web makes it worthwhile even if you don’t play games or watch movies… but when you throw in both those features it is really impressive. Next time I get my hands on one, I’m gonna check out sites like Writely and see how they perform… There are also add on keyboards for the PSP, so am thinking that for a bit over $250 this is quite a device for education. Maybe I’ll order a few for school and we can start our own 1 to 1 initiative…
GMif is a set of Firefox scripts/extenstions that allows you to embed Google Maps into the Flickr interface. With GMiF, you can…
add geo-tags to your photos,
add geo-tags to others photos,
locate others geotagged photos,
or look up other photos taken nearby….
All within the Flickr web page.
Once installed, a Gmap button is added to the right most button above any Flickr image. If an image is already geotagged, Clicking the button redraws the page adding a map below the image with the image plotted on the map. If the image is not yet geotagged, a map appears which you can navigate to find the photo location, and once you have the image location, you can add geotags to the image… This works on your own images, and on other user pages that have allowed tags to be added to their images…
A slide show mode is also available which automatically pans your map to show additional geotagged images in the Flickr photo stream you are viewing…
This is a very impressive piece of work. The more I explore the interface the more I find and am impressed with. This is by far the easiest way to add geotags to Flickr images and the interface is very responsive and well conceived…
[by way of ... The Map Room]
Technorati Tags: flickr, GMiF, google maps, RSS, Yuan CC
Gizmo -Advanced Features - Call Recording:
Gizmo is a voice over IP application that is similar to Skype, but that has a few interesting features that look attractive… Including the ability to record conversations in .wav format… Handy for Podcasts and such…
Another nice feature is free access numbers from major cities. Callers can dial one of these access numbers from a conventional phone and connect to your Gizmo account free of charge…
Shoefiti: Shoes Hanging from Power Lines and Telephone Wires:
Another interesting use of Google Maps… 
Technorati Tags: google maps, shoes on wires
Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic…
Over at Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds writes about the two contrasting visual approaches employed by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs during presentations. The author compares the presentation styles and relates them to the Zen asthetic… This goes along with this post…
Technorati Tags: Garr Reynolds, Bad PowerPoint
