Senuti

This week my nephew Aaron asked me how to get his iTunes music from his iPod onto his MacBook Pro (running Leopard). He had all of his music synced to his old PC.

We used Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards) which allows you to transfer songs from your iPod to your computer. It worked fairly well. I had used Senuti once before to move music from my daughter's iPod to her MacBook (running Tiger).

Tansferring songs on a Tiger machine was simple. We could select all the songs at once and click on transfer. But Leopard offered us a challenge. We could only transfer about 50 songs at once. When we tried more than that, the transfer did not work. I do not know if this is a Leopard bug or a Senuti bug. Nevertheless, the songs are transferred and Aaron is happy with the result.

Senuti has written explicit instructions on how to transfer music from your iPod to your computer, so be sure to read them before you use it.

Utah 6th Graders Tour the Globe

What an exciting day we had in the computer lab. Mrs. Robison's 6th grade class toured Google Earth, locating their favorite place on the planet. We turned an iPod into a recording studio by attaching a device called a MicroMemo, sold at XtremeMac.com.

Mrs. Robison and I interviewed students, asking the which place they chose as their favorite. The answers ranged from Pearl Harbor to the Roman Colosseum to Brighton, England. The students did a super job at responding to questions and recording a podcast.

We also had the class give a loud cheer on the podcast for their favorite football team: BYU or the U of U. Give it a listen and we will leave you to judge who the winner was.

Please notice a poll on the right hand side of this page. Please will you vote for your favorite place on earth---well, actually you only get to choose the continent upon which your favorite place is located--- but please vote. Inquiring minds in Mrs. Robison's class want to know.

Music to My Ears

Today I learned something new about music. Our team had a music Professor Alan Kaschub from the University of Southern Maine (School of Music) show us how to use USB keyboards along with an Apple application called Garageband.

We created a short song such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, added some percussion sound effects, and learned a bit about writing a music score in a free program called FinaleNotePad. You not only write the music in Finale, but you can listen to it as well. This is an amazing program!

The most fun I have ever had in my music lessons was to watch my sister Annie crawl across the piano teacher's living room floor to retrieve a penny that I had rolled across the floor. Having baited my poor sister to crawl after the penny, I was in an advantageous position to watch Mrs. Geiger's reaction.

With Garageband and FinaleNotePad, I can actually write a cool rap song about that scarring experience!

Mrs. Robison's Class Loves Google Earth

We traveled from Edgemont Elementary to Pyramids of Giza to Lagoon Amusement Park to a student's house to Mile High Stadium in Denver and we saw people walking around the Eiffel Tower.

We hope enjoy listening to a few comments from Mrs. Robison's class. Check back next week for more Google Earth fun.
Mrs. Robison's Cool Class

Bungee Jumping Anybody?

I figure if you can view a bungee jumping platform from space, it's got to be a doozie. This bungee jumper's delight is found near Victoria Falls in southern Africa. Can you see it in the bottom left quadrant of this image? For a visit to this area, check out Google Sightseeing.

Situated on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls is one of the most amazing sights on earth. The falls are, by some measures, the largest waterfalls in the world, as well as being among the most unusual in form, and having arguably the most diverse and easily-seen wildlife of any major waterfall site. (wikipedia.org)

People in the area call Victoria Falls “the smoke that thunders”. Looking at this image from Google Earth, we begin to understand why. I hope someday to travel to Victoria Falls, but I may have to work up the courage to strap on the bungee cords and take a dive from the bridge.

The students in Mrs. Robison's 6th grade class at Edgemont Elementary will go on a virtual tour of Victoria Falls with me this week. They are really nice students so I enjoy visiting their class. I hope they like the bungee platform, and maybe they know of some really cool places seen on Google Earth.

Special note: Happy birthday Jeannie!

The install, at last

Here it is! The install. Kelly Dumont was the first person on our team to receive the Leopard DVD. The install took about 45 minutes and he was off and running, trying out new features.

I wanted to install Leopard so badly, but I know from past experience that I should always backup my entire hard drive before installing a new operating system. That night (Halloween) I used Carbon Copy Cloner (thanks to Bombich Software) to do a complete backup of my laptop.

Nov 1st arrived, and I installed Leopard. I got the blue screen of death that I have been reading about. I waited about 25 minutes and finally said Ah Heck, restart. My laptop seemed OK and I began using this new cat. My first impressions of Leopard are as follows:

• QuickLook is visually stunning
  
• Mail and iCal work together so well
• Mail has beautiful templates
• Spaces are fun
• Time Machine is worth the upgrade to Leopard

• I am not fond of the reflection in the dock
• Not crazy about blue folders
  
• Transparent finder menu a bit of a nuisance
  
• Side dock a bit dark for my tastes
  

But I do give Leopard 2 thumbs up. Overall it is great. While I find certain visual aspects disconcerting, I am enjoying Leopard a lot. Thanks Apple.

Suede Wall? Cell Phone Helps Again.

I am trying another use of my cell phone. I took this picture of a sample paint color I am trying for my wall, sent it to go@blogger.com. Within a couple of minutes I received a confirmation message back containing a claim code. I went to go.blogger.com, entered that claim code and asked blogger.com to send all futher photos to this blog. So when I am at the Apple event in Lehi on Tuesday, I will take some photos and submit them to this blog.

If you are interested to give this a try, it is as easy as pie.

1. Snap a picture
2. Send it to go@blogger.com
3. When you receive the claim code, simply go to go.blogger.com, enter the code, and voilá, you will have your mobile blog.
4. If you wish to move future pictures to your regular blog, select that option when you see it.
   

Noise Canceling Headphones

I am not fond of airplane noises---the roar of the engine, the fussy babies, or the arguing couple that often ends up behind me. Thank goodness for noise canceling headphones.

How do they work? Active Noise-canceling headphones reduce unwanted ambient sounds by using a microphone placed near the ear piece of the headphone, and electronic circuitry which generates an "antinoise" sound wave with the opposite polarity of the sound wave arriving at the microphone. This results in destructive interference, which cancels out the noise within the enclosed volume of the headphone. You enjoy your music without listening to the ambient sound in the plane.

Before going To Europe this summer, I researched noise canceling headphones as I wanted to get a really nice pair for my sister. I watched an entertaining and extremely helpful videocast about noise canceling headphones by David Pogue who reviews products for the New York Times. He tested out several headphones and came up with a recommendation. Bose. Second on his list and at 1/2 the price, AudioTechnica. Pogue says these are almost equal to the Bose. He is right! They are amazing. On the long flight to London, I gave them a try, so did my dad and sister. We loved them. So I just bought myself a pair. Wowzer. I had already forgotten how fabulous they are.

You might begin to look at these type of headphones for a great gift idea. We all fly, ride trains, sit in noisy bus stations, or want to ignore the spouse. Just kidding, honey.

BTW: David Pogue is funny -- you gotta watch his iPhone Musical, sung to the tune of Frank Sinatra's "I did it My Way". He recorded it in New York the day the iPhone came out. It's got personality. He is well-known for his Missing Manual books.

Leopard is Here

Today is October 26th and Leopard has officially been released. I have watched the Apple website's guided tour and am so hyped about some of the amazing changes. The tour shows several of the major features, and they look awesome. I am particularly excited about Time Machine. I am going to back up my hard drive and then dump a small part of my iTunes library--then try to recover it using this new feature. Although I have a lot of faith in Leopard, I am going to have a backup before depending upon Time Machine.

On Tuesday, October 30th, I will be attending an Apple educational event at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah to take a closer look at Leopard. The event is called Education Rising and Hello, Tomorrow. A couple of my colleagues (Kelly Dumont and Margo Shirley) will be attending which will be great. Hope Darren Draper makes it, too. We can discuss some ways that we can raise student achievement by working with Apple.

For now, Mac lovers, check out the Leopard guided tour as well as some of the 300 new features in OS X, 10.5, It should be Grrrreat!

What is TinyURL? Why Should I Use it?

Have you ever received an e-mail with a long link to a website? Maybe the link was pretty long, something like this example that take you to the UEN Faculty Lounge: http://www.uen.org/development/pdevel.do;jsessionid=48C639F52E99275B39DDB6D5F07EBF72

That's pretty unwiedly looking, isn't it? Enter one of my favorite websites, TinyURL.com. At TinyURL you can paste a long url into the box provided..and voilá, Tiny URL will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires. Here is the Tiny URL that take your to the same page as above, the UEN FAculty Lounge: http://tinyurl.com/3xvgp6

Something even cooler than using the TinyURL website each time you want to create a TinyURL is the Firefox TinyURL addon.

When you have the TinyURL addon installed on your computer, you can simply right click on a link and choose to create a TinyURL for the link or even the page! Take a look at the screen shot to see what I mean.

OK, so how can you get that addon? Go to the Firefox (aka Mozilla) home page. Look for the link to Firefox addons. Search for TinyURL (created by by Jeremy Gillick) and install it onto your computer.

When you restart Firefox, you will have the functionality to create tinyURL's by right clicking on a link. There are many more Firefox addons, extensions, and themes.

I hope you will find TinyURL creator a useful tool for creating tinyURL's from those longer one we all find a bit unwieldy.

Google Earth Uncovers Swastika Building

"And what do we spy here? No, that's not the international headquarters of a white supremacy group -- but good guess. Believe it or not, this swastika-shaped building complex is a U.S. Naval barracks in Coronado, California. The buildings were built in the 1960s but, according to the Navy, their sinister configuration wasn't discovered until the construction project had already broken ground -- which was apparently too late to do the decent thing and modify the designs a bit. But that's beside the point, anyway. Are we to believe that not a single person involved in a construction project for the U.S. Navy ever looked at a set of blueprints? Is it also just a coincidence that the buildings sit at the intersection of Tulagi and Bougainville -- two streets named after famous WWII battles?

Whew. Let's reel in the paranoia a bit.

According to a report by CBS's San Diego affiliate, News 8, architect John Mock still stands behind the design of the buildings, which he insists were never meant to look like a swastika and for which he actually won an award. Nonetheless, change is on the way thanks in large part to Missouri-based radio host Dave vonKleist, who has been vocal about the structure since he first stumbled upon it in Google Earth in 2006. Today brings word that the Navy is finally relenting to vonKleist's calls to action and intends to spend upwards of $600,000 to camouflage the structure with landscaping, walkways and solar cells, all of which will hide the offending shape from aerial views."
Entire post comes from: http://tinyurl.com/yptswe

Mac Laptop Class Interview

Mac Laptop Teachers

Not intending to be too repetitious, I showed Gabcast to the teachers in my Mac Laptop. The participants were kind enough to be interview. I asked them what they liked or hated about their laptop, what frustrated them, what they found to make their time using a computer a bit easier.

Answers varied. Some teachers were frustrated with not being able to log onto the network. Our building has been experiencing some problems, and the class participants, unfortunately, had to share in that experience.

Other teachers relly liked knowing programs from the iLife series such as iPhoto and iTunes. No more Gabcast poscasts. But this one was fun. We all gathered in front of a computer and got a fairly good shot.

Two Jordan District Teachers and Cell Phones

Two Teachers Using Gabcast and PhotoBooth
Hi once again. I just met with a delightful 2nd grade teacher who wanted to learn a little about KidPix. We got to chatting about podcasts, the Mac laptop class (check out the Apple Mac101 Tour), and PhotoBooth. So, what the heck, time to try an interview using the cell phone. Sherri Peisley and I had a little fun with this new technology. Hope you can join in sometime in a 2-way or 3-way conversation or interview. (Maybe my sister Trudie or Jennie?)

Gabcast: Create & Publish a podcast w/your cell phone in 3 minutes

Gabcast! sample podcast #1

Just sitting here with Cleo the cat listening to the K12 Online Conference presentations. The one I am currently enjoying is Liz Kolb's presentation on using cell phones in the classroom. She talks about several different online sites that make it easy to create and post a podcast using your cell. so I went to Gabcast, created an account and posted a short podcast, all in about 3 minutes.

Cleo just sat here watching. I took her picture in PhotoBooth. Cats don't sit still for photos. I bet it looked funny me coaxing her to sit still for this picture. I wish she would meow, then I could call Gabcast, record her and post that so you could hear her. She is pretty cool. So is Gabcast.

If you are interested in educational technology, you might really enjoy watching some of the video podcasts at the K12 Online Conference site. I am amazed at what I am learning.

GIS, ArcView, and Teaching Plans

I really enoyed taking a two day GIS class at the U of U. First we spent a little time finding places on campus whose coordinates we had entered into our GPS units just to get a little experience with GPS units. Then we began working in a mapping program called ArcView 9.2. We are lucky to be in one of the few states that have purchased a state-wide educational license this software. I am really excited about learning this program and teaching it to students. A couple of 6th grade teachers and I plan to work on a GIS project this year with their classes.

I am working with a 6th grade teacher at Edgemont Elementary in Sandy. (I wonder if she can see her car in the parking lot in this photo).

We will teach a lesson to her class next week on map symbols. Then we will play a game called Topo Bingo. Ross from UEN gave me about 3 dozen U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps to use in our game. (Thanks, Ross!) It should be a lot of fun for the students, and we hope they learn a lot about maps, layers, and the coordinate system.

In the next few months we will be teaching the student ArcView and developing a GIS project with the help of some Sandy City GIS professionals. We want the students to think about a real world project that will have meaning to them and be relevant to them.

Danube River Lock Opening

I recently went on a trip down the Danube River. One new experience I had was passing through 13 locks. Near Bratislava, I decided to take a series of pictures so that I could later use them and learn how to make a movie out of still shots.

As the lock began opening, I situated myself comfortably at the bow and took a picture about every 30 seconds. Later I uploaded those pictures to my computer, learned how to manipulate them in iMovie, and created a short movie. The effects I used are black and white and aged film. I set the shots to last 16/100ths of a second, resulting in a 27 second movie. It was like watching an old silent movie. Here it is:

Tour de Kota

This June I plan to participate in the Tour de Kota, a bike tour through South Dakota. My sister and brother have done this for two years. Each time they have mentioned how fun it is. Well, I fianlly decided to give it a try. Having not been much of a bike rider in the past 10 years, I think it is going to be quite difficult. But I am going for it.

It begins in Vermillion and ends in Watertown. From the terrain and mileage maps available on the website, the ride appears to be on relatively rolling terrain. I have a feeling that I will feel like I am climbing Machu Picchu during the ride. At the end of the ride, I will return and report. Wish me luck.

Learning Spanish

In 1985 I went to Spain to study Spanish. I enjoyed my time touring a few countries in Europe before settling down to study in Salamanca, Spain. I loved walking to classes each morning, passing by Lladró shops, through the Plaza Mayor, past the cathedral, and ending up at the University of Salamanca. Nobody can forget the Plaza. The Plaza Mayor is a great place to sit and enjoy the sights, have a drink, chat with friends, read or whatever. The waiters never ask you to leave. What a great place to watch the world go by.

My Spanish was not very good at first, but over time I learned not to ask for jamón de polvo (powdered ham), but rather jabón de polvo (powdered soap). I wish I would have just learned how to say detergente (detergent). That would have saved me some embarrassment.

Lunch w/Team

After a dizzying morning at UEN learning more about Google, I had a nice lunch break with my team on campus. Between chatting and checking out the news on this awesome flat screen TV, I thought about how much fun it would be for principals and teachers to learn what I have learned today. Click here for the handouts on Google tools. If you love to learn like I do, you will find the handouts very helpful!

In addition to customizing my Google home page, I added some bookmarks to sites that I love such as Discovery News, NPR, CNN, and one almost everybody enjoys, National Geographic.