New favourite tools - Evernote

Remember everything. | Evernote

Haven't been blogging much lately due to 'general being snowed under by life'-ness... but have recently been playing with the Evernote beta - and I have to say that it rocks!! Shaping up to be far better than Google Notebook and the online and offline synchronization is terrific. Though I might question whether an offline client isn't a slight backwards step, having lived with a dodgy internet connection for the past few months and also had my computer threaten to lose the operating system - I can see that a note-taking service which straddled both worlds has some major advantages.

You can take notes from any source either with a single click or via screenshot... you can tag, share, search. And... it's free! I used to use a version of Evernote when it was a paid for / free version only on offer via magazine kinda thing - and this is a real improvement on that. The flexibility of the formats it supports - from sound recorded via mobile, to ordinary notes and copied quotes - make it a little piece of web2.0-style genius.

If you're after a tool for research, work or study (for PC or Mac) which will help you keep your online and offline snippets together and organised, then this is really looking like a very useful addition.

Anyhoo, other articles about it at O'Reilly and Lifehacker if you want to read more about it.

Flickr - photos alone no more

What is video on Flickr?Video on Flickr is going to be defined by our incredible, diverse, far-flung and fabulously talented members. Some answers that we’ve come up with:
1. A long photo 2. Personal 3. Simple – not overproduced or slick 4. Possibly the best answer so far: The Great Unknown

Some ground rules to get started: 1. Only “safe” and “moderate” video content is permitted. Your “beautiful wife” should not be moving. (Read more about content filters.) 2. Only upload videos you have created yourself.

Flickr: Help: Video


Okay, so I can see the reasons why Flickr might have done this - but I do hope that people's photostreams aren't going to be overloaded with dross videos.  YouTube's nailed the market there!

Will be interesting to watch - I'd love to think that simple tutorials might be able to be uploaded to Flickr to explain what had been done to photos / give advice on image editing techniques.  Wouldn't it be great if someone else uploaded a photo critique of your images and showed you the end result?  I can see that a course like T189 could use something like this (it already has its own version of Flickr in OpenStudio).  But... but... I do have some reservations about it attempting to be all things multimedia when what it does really well is host photos and an online photographic community.

Wonder where this will head.  Will another YouTube explosion happen or will it sit in the background as the ugly best mate of pretty old Flickr?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

OUseful Info: To Comrades in Non-Programistan - A Message from Feedistan

OUseful Info: To Comrades in Non-Programistan - A Message from Feedistan: "To Comrades in Non-Programistan - A Message from Feedistan"

I fear Tony Hirst may have gone a little mad...

But the above is still a great blog post! Break free from the shackles of licensing and installation!!

My del.icio.us...

Links for 2008-03-22 [del.icio.us] Posted: 23 Mar 2008 12:00 AM CDT PIP_ICT_Typology.pdf Typology of ICT users

The power of marking as read

Bye bye to over 1000 items in Google Reader. I'm sure there was really worthwhile thought-provoking stuff there. I'm sure there was relevant material there. I'm sure there was lots of current affairs I missed out on.

But... I also know that if it was worth blogging about then it'll have been worth continuing for a few weeks. My RSS and blogging break is only a break for me. The world of writing and publishing continued quite happily without me.

Kind of reassuring - you can't ever be out of the loop, because there is no loop... just a stream of 'stuff'.

PS Have had flu hence marking everything else in my life 'as read'.

Magical Masters

New teachers to follow masters programme | Special Reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk: "Teachers in the first five years of their careers will be expected to take the new masters in teaching and learning qualification, the schools secretary announced today."

Good job holding a piece of paper will magically make every teacher a better teacher, huh? Good job teachers have lots of spare time to do this. Good job they're not already under pressure. Good job that achieving meaningless statistics like 'all teachers have got Masters' has been demonstrated to improve the experience of students within the education system. Good job it's been shown that no-one learned anything in thousands of years of evolution since 100% of teachers didn't have Masters degrees...

Right?

Why is learning not considered learning unless there's something with a fancy stamp on it being handed out??

Sigh...

My del.icio.us...

Links for 2008-03-05 [del.icio.us] Posted: 06 Mar 2008 12:00 AM CST Web 2.0 Applications in Learning : eLearning Technology Fairly lengthy blog entry, but covers a lot of issues connected with introducing web2.0 into education Students aren't passionate about their subjects any more, say lecturers | Students | EducationGuardian.co.uk Traditional academic publishers are ‘on the move’, new report suggests : JISC Free is Good: It's Delightful; It's del.icio.us Education World ® Technology Center: Doug Johnson: some good uses of del.icio.us in education. Worth noting. Online gamers play at swapping gender | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Internet Explorer 8 - is 'can't be bothered' an okay stance?

Internet Explorer 8 Beta Is Out: "You know you’re installing an important program when you need to reboot your computer to finish the setup. When you need to reboot twice, you know you’re installing something really important. Well, that was what happened when I just installed the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta on Vista."

I know I should give it a go. I know I should try it to see what new functionality it has. I know I like trying new applications and services. I know I should try it because invariably one of the students I work with will ask me about it. I know I've almost had a change of heart about all things Microsoft recently.

But... but... but... I don't want it on my machine.

IE7 already infested my version of Vista without me asking. Why would I want to 'upgrade' an experience I don't actually experience?

I guess that some people will like it and think it's better than IE7. But there's nothing that I can see which would tempt me away from Firefox and all of the lovely, lovely add-ons which make online life so much easier. Or Flock for its integration with Twitter, blogging and other web2.0 services.

I suppose that although this is me shying away from jumping in and giving it a go, it's worth thinking about the fact that learners generally can be and are equally apathetic when it comes to someone selling them the 'next big thing' that they need to install in order to be able to study 'more' effectively. Just because it's there, doesn't mean you need it. We're always busy looking to the future to see what else is out there and how it can be used. Why does everything need to be shiny and new anyway? Change is good. Change is interesting. But change can be a hassle and if all it's going to do is mean another learning curve and not produce anything you couldn't already do anyway... then... ermmm... let's just say... IE8... What's the point? It's okay not to care, isn't it?

Office Live Workspace vs Google Docs: Feature-by-Feature Comparison - ReadWriteWeb

Office Live Workspace vs Google Docs: Feature-by-Feature Comparison - ReadWriteWeb: "Today, Microsoft announced that the Office Live Workspace beta is publicly available for everyone to access. The site, a free web-based extension of Microsoft Office, lets you access your documents online and share your work with others. Some say that the service's launch is a direct response to Google's entry into the web office space with their Google Docs online service. If that's so, then the question now is: did Microsoft just trump Google Docs? Or does Google Docs still rule online office suites?"

ReadWriteWeb have done the comparison of Google Docs and Office Live... worth a read if you're tempted to try online services for your office app-type stuff. Me, I'm going to give it a go to make my own mind up. Well, until I get distracted by the next shiny new thing o'course. :o)

Reason the world has gone mad number 352

The latest street danger? Walking and texting | Technology | The Guardian: "There are those who believe that the pattern etched by humanity across the great book of world history is one of linear progression. Of improvement. Of advance. Of some nebulous but discernible form of betterment. Those are the people who have not yet heard the news that Brick Lane in east London has started padding its lampposts to prevent those who use its thoroughfare from suffering 'walk and text' injuries.

In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians."

Right. People. Here's a solution for you. It doesn't require padding the streets. It doesn't require the threat of litigation. It doesn't require a trip to casualty.

PUT YOUR BLOOMIN' PHONE DOWN!

68,000 people?! The Darwin Awards might have a tough job deciding on a winner this year...