Apple

Enhanced Podcasts in iTunes

/ Cole Camplese / 7 Comments

As things are heating up in the Podcasts at Penn State project more and more faculty are starting to create podcasts for the fall semester.  Chris Millet has been spending an hour with all the faculty who request a consultation and many times these meetings end with a trip to the Faculty Multimedia Center within ETS.  The FMC has already started working with a handful of faculty to create some great content … most of it so far has been created using ProfCast so the audio syncs with the slides from PowerPoint or Keynote.  The faculty are excited and other than a few very small issues with software and hardware the FMC team is happy with the results.

One thing we are really starting to notice as a major drawback to iTunes is its inability to play an enhanced podcast the way we think it should.  Everything plays great on screen, the chapters work, and you can watch the slides update in the tiny little album artwork window.  That last point is the kicker … first of all that window is so small it isn’t worth looking at slides on it … if you do resize it you end up altering the way most people really use iTunes the other 18 hours or so a day.  Apple lets you click the window and get a nice fullsize view … great, other than it does not refresh with the podcast.  This is putting us in a little bit of a bind.

One of our primary goals from the get go was cross platform playback (no iPod required) … we thought iTunes is a cross platform tool so we’d be in great shape … the fact that a student cannot sit down and listen and watch an enhanced podcast on their machine is crazy.  We need to have that artwork refresh.  Chris and I are even discussing what it would take to create our own player … sounds like a real pain.  Has anyone found a work around for this feature?

iTunes Refresh
Notice the little window has moved on …

Late to the QuickSilver Party

/ Cole Camplese / 1 Comment

I had tried several times to work with the unified interface app, QuickSilver. I was never quite able to make it work for me … about a year ago, it was just completely unstable on my PowerBook and I gave up. I went back at it today on my MacBook Pro and am finally seeing what all the excitement is really about. A little flick of the fingers and you can do just about anything right from the keyboard without touching the mouse, track pad, dock, or whatever.

Since I am a newbie with this stuff, it is probably best to point you around the web for the ins and outs related to QuickSilver. Just a fantastic application that is already saving me time and from taking my hands off the keyboard. I am starting to collect resources at del.icio.us under the tag, quicksilver. Might be worth a look for all the Mac users who are as late to the party as I am.

A quick keyboard combo makes a small interface appear that gives you access to applications, actions, and literally everything on you Mac. Amazing.

Bud Tribble at the Apple Digital Campus Institute at Harvard

/ Cole Camplese / 2 Comments

I am sitting in a nice classroom at Harvard Unviersity at the Apple Digital Campus Leadership Institute in Science Education listening to Bud Tribble. The focus of the event as you can guess is science education … not exactly my space, but still very interesting. I am here with Kyle Peck as we attempt to plan our own symposium in the ADC mode. Bud Tribble is a smart guy … he has both a Ph.D. and M.D. from the University of Washington and has been all over the computer industry for the last 20 some years — from the original Macintosh team, to NeXT, to SUN, and now back at Apple, Bud has been a real leader in the industry.

I was actually lucky enough to spend an hour with Bud about a year ago as I was working on a paper related to digital expression in the higer education space — really looking at how the Mac OS could play much better in existing infrstructure on our campuses. I was pushing Apple on the idea that students at places like Penn State shouldn’t have to have a .Mac account to play nicely with iLife. The conversation quickly moved into his areas of interest and it was a relatively terrifying experience. Did I mention the guy is smart? We ended up talking quite a bit about identity management and it was just a great hour.

Here he is going over the Apple advantage in science education … as with all things Apple in education at the moment, there is a lot of podcasting talk. The best point so far has been something in passing — that it isn’t important to focus on high production value, the point is to think about the pedagogical soundness of the approach … his example is the Electric Pickle video podcast. Talking iTunes U and how it all works … makes it sound so easy … not a person blinked at the “we host it for you” comment. Had a nice slide titled, “Click. Sync. Learn.” Interesting concept … I wonder if we could use something along the lines of “Create. Sync. Teach.” to get faculty engaged … does that work?  If the response I got to my podcasting talk the other day at the Web 2006 conference is any indication, we won’t need it.

Lots of product overviews, but the good thing is the comment that Apple delivers a complete solution — all the UNIX tools as well as the standard tools we need — like Office.  But as time when on, we returned to podcasting and how it can connect people to concepts that are difficult to teach.  All in all an interesting discussion.  Bud is a smart guy and I enjoy hearing him talk.

Finally, A Surprise From Apple

/ Cole Camplese / 5 Comments

Man, that felt good! You know, going to the Apple site and seeing something that wasn’t on every single rumor site around. The new Nike plus iPod hookup is interesting on a lot of levels. Obviously Nike working to extend the overall functionality of the iPod with their little iPod Sport Kit is interesting unto itself … these things empower you to actually use your (1) sneakers to record your work-out progress that then (2) auto syncs to your iPod to (3)your computer to the (4) Internet and merge your data with (5) everyone else’s. Man, other than the sneakers, it sounds a lot like a system I’d like to investigate in the education space.

If Nike can build something, probably with some help from Apple, that can interact at that level with an iPod Nano we can certainly do something. That’s we — the education technology community. Imagine how we can use the iPod to collect all sorts of data. With a custom dongle (or whatever that thing is connected to the bottom) and some data transfer the iPod could be used for a lot more. It shows everyone that the iPod is a very powerful, capable, and ubiquitous device that can act as a data collection bridge.

Its a bridge because with the right software it can be used to sync all sorts of interesting classroom interactions. We used to look at Palm Pilots this way … a small classroom data collection device that was easy to use. We grew very tired of it — and we never saw commercial innovation like the iPod plus Nike deal on the Palm. Will this signal a real move towards the recognition of the iPod Platform? We’ve seen lots of interesting things in the iPod space, but this seems to be a move that could convince people that the iPod is actually a computer with its own UI, expandability, and OS. It might be time to investigate the developer opportunities around the iPod. Just a thought …

New Features

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Now this is cool … for some reason I got the urge to open iWeb to look at the new features (comments and comment poster attachment in particular). When I fired up my newly updated copy of iWeb, I saw the alert below.

The page it points to is an excellent support site for the new features. I like it when things work together.

Trying the Ranchero Thing … and the Life of a One Computer Geek

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Now that I have made the jump to a single Mac setup — well not completely, but more on that later — I am doing things very differently. I recently got a new Apple MacBook Pro 15″ to replace my oldish 15″ PowerBook and my desktop G5 at work. I was getting sick and tired of the constant syncing issues between the machines and just wanted to simplify. My new MacBook is great other than a few annoyances. At any rate, I am slowly taking advantage of a single environment to migrate to a new set of tools to help me manage my digital life … here are three things I am trying to do differently:

  • RSS Feeds: My feeds are now (and once again) powered by NetNewsWire Pro. I did this once before after bloglines ate my subscription list, but went back because I was just on too many computers to make it work for me. I am now using NetNewsWire (I am even paying for it) as my primary RSS reader. I have it hooked up with Pukka to allow me to quickly post sites to my del.icio.us account (a critical piece to the puzzle for me). It syncs with my new NewsGator account every-time I quit so my feeds are updated if I am on a different machine. So far I am really liking it … a few issues, but those are for a separate post.
  • Blog Posting: Another Ranchero deal … this post is being created in MarsEdit. Again, I figure since I am on a single machine I can go this route. So far so good, but there are some formatting issues I am trying to figure out. Again, it is hooked up to my NetNewsWire app so I can blog any site instantly from within my NNW. Easy and sweet … oh and it has spell checking, is Intel native, and gives me a local view of my stuff (the image upload has never really worked for me in WP 2.0, so I really like that feature in MarsEdit).
  • Email: Not Ranchero … I use Apple’s Mail app … I like it, but it isn’t perfect. What is? But I do like the way it looks and feels. I have added MailTags to it and it is changing the way I get things done. Between keywords and projects I finally have an idea of where messages go. I get about 125-150 messages a day with at least 80% of those needing attention. So now I have folders that automatically move messages around based on tags. It is working so well!

So there it is. By going to one machine I am learning how to take advantage of software to do the work of the web. In the case of the Ranchero stuff I am very happy. Time will tell, but for today I am a happy camper.

BootCamp … Winderz on a Mac, for Real

/ Cole Camplese / 3 Comments

I was just pointed to BootCamp (code name) for a new technology Apple will release with 10.5 … this little utility/app/technology will allow you to install Windows XP on your Mac without running all over the Internets looking for stuff. Sort of makes me giggle that people worked so hard to do this the last several weeks. At any rate, think of how this can impact market share … the people who say they can’t get a Mac because of a handful apps, shouldn’t have any real excuse anymore. I wonder how it works … I guess we’ll just have to download it and see. From Apple’s BootCamp page:

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.(1) Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don’t have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.

The times they are a changin’ … I would tag this with interestingness. Now, will I run this? Nope, it goes on to say that you need to beware of the typical issues on Windows — you know viruses, trojans, and all the other ugly stuff my Windows using friends deal with. I have lived the last 22 years of my life with a Mac and I’ll stick to that for now. But, if in the future this becomes important, I now have an option that won’t make me feel all dirty. XP on a Mac … unreal.

Mac OS X is Five and I’m Pert Near 34

/ Cole Camplese / 4 Comments

I am finally catching up a bit here … traveling for a week — with most of it spent without dedicated access or time to act on items has pushed my ability to engage in anything but work and family to edges of my capabilities. Finally a weekend; an end to a week that beat me up hard — I am still recovering from the worst jet lag I have ever dealt with, dealing with a cold, pulling my schedule out of hell at work, and fighting my way through the start of a heavy duty allergy season. Sorry to bitch … I don’t mean to.

I just came across a great read over at Ars Technica titled, “Five years of Mac OS X.” Most of the four people who read this blog know I am a Mac nut from way back — to the beginning actually. If I had a scanner I’d post a flat out hilarious picture of myself sitting in my old room on East Street in Bloomsburg with my feet up on my desk wearing a cheesy thin “Huey Lewis and the News” style tie, and an even cheesier pre-teen mustache at my trusty Mac 128K that I had gotten for my 12th birthday … Fast forward and here I sit, feet up at my desk with a MacBook Pro on the verge of my 34th Birthday 22 years later still loving every second of it. When I got that Mac, my Dad told me it was a fad and I know he felt is was a waste of money at the time. Well, no judgments here, but I do have a good job that centers around the use of technology — and let me tell you that when I was growing up, the thought that I might actually amount to anything more than a trash guy was starting to look like a long shot.

At any rate, looking back at the article made me realize that I’ve been through one amazing journey being a part of the space I live and work in. When I first put my hands on technology up at Old Science Hall at Bloomsburg State College (now Bloomsburg University) I was in one of the rat labs in the Psych Department. I’d go up and bug my Dad while he was working and would roam around and use the computers — these were pre-Macintosh days, but just seeing those things do stuff amazed me. One of my Dad’s friends, Alex ran the lab and would let me use the machines … he showed me how to write a couple of lines of code … you know the whole goto 10 and print your name over and over again on the screen kind of stuff. I was hooked. I had no idea, even into High School, that there were fields like Computer Science but I was hooked.

As I sit here thinking about the technological milestones that have occurred in my life I can’t help but be amazed. The enabling concepts associated with the information society — always on access, amazing advances in health care, unparalleled access to information, and on and on — make me feel like we are part of a time that will be difficult to recreate. At any rate, Happy Birthday Mac OSX and a week and half, Apple … and I’ll say it, Happy Birthday to me! Oh, and thanks Mom and Dad for wasting all that money on a silly “toy” computer that created my career all the way back in 1984 … I sort of get that commercial now, “you’ll see why 1984, won’t be like 1984.”

How did it start for you?