I just changed the entire look and feel of the admin side of my WordPress install by adding the very cool, WP Tiger Admin style. It makes the entire admin side look and feel like Apple’s Tiger Mac OSX. Really has me thinking about how easy it would be to create a custom WP for all sorts of stuff on the educational side of things. Sort of back to the future for me … I was really working towards building a new educational version of WP for content authoring and course collabortation a while back … just sort of fell off my radar screen as life got in the way, but the ease of changing this thing has me thinking again. At any rate, go get the look and feel here and see what a difference it makes!
Month: June 2005
Pert Near Crazy
I had a great dinner last night with some new and old friends. The word of the night had to have been pert near — as in ” those people are pert near crazy.” We took a vow of blog silence, so that’s all I have to say about that. Oh, dinner and the company was great!
Intel, Inside, Interesting
I just got off the plane here in San Fran using my free trial of T-Mobile at the Fog Bank bar at the airport. I had to stop before heading downtown to see what went on with Steve’s Keynote at WWDC … from what I can read, not much happened — unless of course the whole Mac on Intel thing is something big. I am not a processor guy and don’t pretend to be, so I have no idea if this is a really good thing. Seems to me, given the fact that Steve is smart, that this will be a good thing. It does make me feel a little weird though, but I am sure I’ll get it figured it out. I just hope they don’t put those disgusting “Intel Inside†stickers on the hardware.
I’m sure I’m like everyone else who is a MacHead and have been reading the rumors — I, like Apple, try hard not to comment on rumors … I won’t beat this one to death considering there are lots of others who are much more qualified to discuss this. I will say that I did have a feeling that something like this was going to happen — for a lot of reasons. But, this is a move I’ll be studying and trying to figure out on the next few weeks. Maybe I’ll be able to get to the bottom of it while I am here. I guess that means there won’t be any G5 PowerBooks — speaking of that, what hell are they going to call these machines? I know the Wintel industry does such a nice job naming their crap … advice, keep it simple!
I’m not in town for WWDC, although I am going to try like hell to hang out with a couple of friends who are in town for the event. I’m here to meet with Macromedia … I am trying to finally really get something meaningful going with them. Macromedia products power so much of the stuff we build at the Institute. Meeting with them tomorrow … I am waiting here at the Fog Bank for Keith and Chris to show up so we can head down to the hotel and get ready. I’ve been up in Medford, Oregon for my best friend’s wedding and have been without reliable access … great time, but I ended up in the ER without a voice yesterday and almost bagged this leg of the trip. But, I’m here and we’re going to make the best of it. More to come!
iTunes Music Store … More Opportunities
I think I’d seen this before, but the interface shown below has a very interesting feature to it for an iTMS entry. Notice the little “folder tabs” that allow you to move from “playlist to playlist” all under the same “album†heading? This is interesting to me because if we do get this iTMS customization thing going that I have been speculating about since the podcasting in iTunes announcement a few weeks ago, we’re in for a very interesting set of opportunities. Looks to me like this could be a powerful way to structure your podcasts on a lesson-by-lesson or week-by-week basis for your courses. I am just wondering if we’ll have these capabilities when the next version of iTunes rolls out. Take a look at the screen capture here:
If we can use tabs to build custom “pages” in the store, imagine how this could essentially become a syllabus for you and your students. The overall page is the course page and each tab is a lesson, week, or whatever organizational method you use. With the iTMS’s ability to handle PDF, video, and audio we can distribute some serious stuff from in here! Mix it up with audio books via audible.com (say goodbye to textbooks!), your own reflections, lectures, and feedback as podcasts, uploaded cases and assignments as PDFs, and video files of Keynote slides and lectures and you have one hell of an interesting LMS alternative!
With the access to the pre-built stuff in iTMS and your own creations the doors are opening to a rich class experience. I am very anxious to see how the iTMS really works … here’s to hoping this isn’t just wishful thinking!